Lens

Thank you for answering that you feel disconnected from my example. I am surprised though by your lack of expressing empathy towards me a small child.

What a courageous post! I used to have these fantasies myself and it brought me kind of shame until I exposed it in my therapy and talked about it at length. I will try to explain what I came to understand (with feelings especially fear, shame and also with intellect). The setup of the cuckold scene is 3 protagonists. Usually 2 men and a woman. One man is the active sexual partner, the woman the passive partner and another man acting a submissive witness and it is all about shame and humiliation. The one really in charge is the woman ordering abuse from the active man and herself abusing and verbally (also physically) the passive man (sissy boy). I found out that is the active man could be the father (big penis), the woman is the mother and the sissy boy is the child usually is a small boy maybe around the age of 2 (small penis) since the passive boy naturally has a small penis like a child has and the father has a bigger penis due to his age just like in the cuckold scene. It is rather painful just to write about it...I continue Again in my mind I would even go to picture in real life the parents kissing each other having fun while the toddler is in the crib alone and ignored and when he expresses his needs he is scorn and even beaten by the mother mainly as she sees her husband as a trophy to make the child jealous and also to castrate her son and show him how insignificant he can be it is extremely sadistic and one cannot believe a young mother doing such a thing but everything is possible. It is a painful painful so painful situation beyond belief for a toddler. Later as every trauma we repeat it to not to feel its pain. Watching cuckold porn could be that escape in repetition compulsion. If you wanna know more about the origin of this trauma even the memory, one thing that someone can do is when the urge to masturbate and watch cuckold porn arises try to not to act out on it and stay on chair and feel the fear. It is mainly pain and fear also a lot of shame. Masturbation is great tool to dissipate this fear. If it is too scary for you to feel these feelings in your body you may wanna talk about it with your psychologist and overcome that shame to get into the anger and sadness. I believe it is a great loss for a child there is a lot of sadness in there, feeling those things is worth it. it takes time though. Please let me know if what I said about my experience rings true to you. There was too much pain involved into recovering these memories. Btw in my case it was my pedophile older brother (18 years older than me) and my sick bitch mother it is just sick and I couldn't do anything about it I was too small! Lens

I found sometimes ago an answer of Alice Miller which I quote here hope it will help you : AM: Panic attacks are always connected to traumatic childhood experiences. If we have access to our history we can sometimes easily find the memory and the triggers in the presence that explain the fear so that the fear disappears. In your example the woman feels panic after a happy experience. It CAN be that one of her parents or both envied her for her gifts and her success in school, in sport etc and critisised or ridiculed her after each achievement. Then, instead of being happy she felt bad, ashamed, guilty, and in her brain pleasure became connected with pain. The adult can later suffer from panic attacks after having been successful. The introjected parent repeats then what the real parent did to the child by destroying her pleasure out of pure envy. Is this understandable to you?

Social anxiety = strong feelings of fear. There must be something that happened to you when you were small that traumatized you. You maybe disconnected from the event (memory) but the feeling of fear is still with you try to work on that. Journaling about your fear and the situations that trigger it is a good idea in my point of view. The best and most beautiful relationship that you may seek is the one you can have with yourself because no one can really make you happy as long as you do not love yourself and accept your feelings as they present themselves (empathy). The fear when you ask someone to go out with you is not your enemy but a signal that the situation you are in is familiar to your body memory. Sometimes the fear may signal you to leave that situation to not to betray yourself it may also be a trigger to an old and early rejection from your mother (caretaker) when you were a toddler for example left alone in the crib or as a needy small child that couldn't please his mother (perfectionism), a therapist can help you get in touch with those feelings of shame and rejection. Getting in a relationship without therapy may put you in a codependent pattern, repeating your past and choosing a parental figure as replacement for the original mother (or who ever rejected you in your early life) it is a self defeating strategy in order for you to bring a fix to the past that can never be fixed but acknowledged and mourned. Good luck Lens

It must have been almost unbearable for you as a child. Why don't you give the 3 year old child within you some empathy he is crying out for attention from the adult you. Your past has passed already the things that happened to you will not happen again unless you wanna put yourself in a helpless situation. You are safe but you do not feel safe YET. To feel safe you must love that child that you were and imagine yourself telling him that he is safe with you now that you have become adult and you can protect him. The anxiety will decrease and then you can cry. I suffered from severe panic attacks and high anxiety even when I was alone I came close to kill myself. One thing that helped a lot is to decipher what was I telling myself at that moment. I was able to reduce the self attack and feel more safe and accept myself even when I was going thru panic attacks. Also feeling guilty will not lead you anywhere only empathy I mean by understanding that as a child you couldn't change things and make them for the better and it was never your fault NEVER. Now as an adult you are still having those feelings of hurt and anger frozen within you attacking yourself for having feelings of fear and guilt will just cement even more your self hatred and anxiety. If they hated you you do not need to hate yourself like they did. You can make a difference. Slowly but surely. Last but not least Libertarianism and Freedom will not free you but your suppressed feelings will. Once you can overcome your fear of your parents you will live free and you will not need to read about freedom in books to understand what it is. I wish you the best for this long and necessary journey Lens p.s. Here is a PDF document titled Fear and Panic it is in french the english version in only available in a book. I hope this documentation will help you a lot. Emotional_fitness_frVersionChap10_.pdf

I think what it is scary to most us is when we open our eyes and see the truth because it is most of the time overwhelming we wanna close them back but then it is too late we have seen enough and we are not able to go back to the old system but yet we still have to advance and continue the journey to see more and more of these truths and feel our real self our childhood suffering then we leave the old and unsatisfying rules, habits and defenses and see the world for the first time for its beauty but sometimes as it is, raw, ugly and dysfunctional everywhere but this time we are not afraid neither alone we have ourselves and that is the best gift someone can give to oneself. It is not possible to see this without feeling the feelings of the child we once were to be able see things with no idealizations and no makeups. Could it be that some still are on the fine line between repression and awareness, in an in and out movement because of fear of seeing the unthinkable and keeping childhood feelings of pain and anger at bay? I think there is a lot to learn about ourselves when repression is lifted or partially lifted so we realize that our scariest feelings and emotions actually didn't kill us but opened our eyes. I hope more people in the near future will have the necessary courage and remember their past and see it and feel it. I am committed to myself to just doing that no matter what. Here I quote a passage that I love from the book "The Drama of The Gifted Child" by Alice Miller Thank you Thomas, I enjoyed reading your answers very much and good luck to you Marc. Lens

Marc, Thanks for your message. It shows that you understand intellectually what I meant by looking for what is the need (or unmet need) behind a compulsive action in the present. Since you have children it is impossible for you to not to abuse them emotionally and/or physically because you still protect your parents by not feeling deeply the hurt you have gone through in your early life and having children around you while you are in this state is like turning gold (your children) into lead. There is still a chance that you can save yourself and save your children from denial and the cycle of abuse. I think that what saddens people here the most is that you have children which they are dependent on you not by choice but by the nature of things. That is why I urge you to do something valuable for you and for them. You still can save them and save yourself by going into therapy that promotes deep feelings and choosing a therapist that doesn't protect your/his/her parents. Concerning your parents, I feel that you are still looking for excuses for them and trying to understand why they did what they did to you. Send your parents to theirs and look for the pain inside of you and work on that, your parents are not your responsibility by any mean and stand by your inner child and your real children those are your responsibility. You have the chance to have children that can show you what feelings of a child are and you can see what you lacked in your childhood and you can grieve your losses. Stef or others may not like you, and that in my view is irrelevant because it is only your self-love and self-worth that is the most important thing to you that your children can be inspired by it. Only you can meet your unmet needs for respect and love. You may also project your unmet needs on your children to meet them. For example you want them to love you because of your unmet need of love that lacked in your childhood. So do not waste your time in looking who loves and who loves you not. It is a childish game that leads to a bigger void and the loss of the real self. If you do not heal you will raise narcissistic, psychopathic and codependent children and I am sure you do not want that stain on your hands. Because you know it is crime to destroy someone else's life. Forget the guilt and take responsibility so you and your family can move on with a happier and more fulfilling life. About empathy I wanted to add something here. When you allow your true feelings to emerge whatever their intensity is, you become a feeling person and true empathy may show up. Now what I think you are doing is to learn empathy. It's like learning and reading about sadness but you will truly know it only when you feel it instead of reading about it in books. Learning and experiencing are two different things. Overcome your fear of your parents and start to feel you'll see everything will change around you. It will take time and it is worth it. There are books in French that you may benefit from I can give you some titles here. La Féssée - Oliver Maurel Oui, La Nature Humaine Est Bonne - Olivier Maurel Le Drame de l'Enfant Doué - Alice Miller Ta Vie Sauvée Enfin - Alice Miller Good luck Lens

Hi Marc, My answer will be long sorry for that in advance I do not have a low esteem of NVC at the contrary I love NVC and I find it a good way to satisfy our needs in the present. The problem resides with the childhood unmet needs that have not been emotionally acknowledged and recognized and also fully grieved. One of the unmet need that is important in my view is the need to be loved by our caretakers for who we really are and that didn't happen. Most of our caretakers loved the mask that we put on so we can please them and to avoid their punishment, that mask is our false self it is a way to survive childhood adversities but consumes us in the present as adults. I am glad that your compulsion toward hygiene has lessened it is a relief in itself In the quote of Alice Miller and from my understanding of her she wanted to say that those advice are valuable and good but they would be inefficient to uncover and heal our childhood trauma. In my view we may benefit from NVC in achieving healing but NVC itself doesn't heal but bring a certain relief (substitute for childhood pain). We need a deep investigation and deeply feeling our childhood pain and only us we can heal ourselves. Nathaniel Branden said that no one will come to save you and I can tell you that Marshall Rosenberg will not save you either or any other teacher or author only you can save yourself. Personally I use whatever means and information to achieve this self knowledge including NVC which I used several months ago and tried it in real life. Marc, in my view all compulsions emanate from a childhood unmet needs (emotional pain) therapy can help you to recognize and name those unmet needs. I think the first need we have in the present is the need to feel our deepest feelings as an example is when you have a compulsive action that you want to do and you feel you cannot hold yourself from doing it like compulsive eating or gardening or anything that you feel you have to do is a sign that your inner child is calling for attention and at that moment step back and try to feel what is behind that action what is the root of that action with feelings not with thinking, meditate and ask yourself what would happen if I do not do that action and go back to check your feelings and body sensations and also check the anxiety (fear) and try to feel it and still ask yourself what is the need behind that action what is that you want to satisfy by doing the same thing over and over. The more you do this the more you will get close to the inner child and his pain and less you will have to do compulsive acting out. As humans we do not like pain whether emotional pain or physical pain our nature as humans tend to dissociate ourselves from it and we did that as specie for thousands of years we passed it on from a generation to generation. We learnt to not to feel pain or express it with emotions and we've gone further by using medication and science to cement the collective denial of childhood abuse. Healing is at the opposite of denial and dissociation, healing is welcoming the pain and expressing it with tears and anger like John Bradshaw said once "the only way out is through" through the pain. Here I quote an anonymous person that I found his post on Internet Je te souhaite bonne chance Lens

Joelle, You are such a courageous person! In your horror story I found myself as well. Your guilt feelings show how much you suffered from these people. The more they are abusive the more the child feels guilt in order to not to feel this overwhelming sadness and rage towards criminals like your parents that do not deserve the word parents. I myself had to endure sexual and extreme physical abuse from my uncle under my mom's watch (who she was abusive herself to me) and I too felt a lot of guilt towards her all my life and had to "love" her. Joelle, Violence kills love. We simply cannot love people we distrust, and this "love" you have for your mother is a poisonous cocktail of guilt that hides feelings of shame, fear and above all RAGE. I hope you can see and feel that. I was very sick in my childhood because of the extreme abuse. Were you sick as well in your childhood ? and did you have any body symptoms you wish to mention ? Trauma is stored in the body. There is a book that helped me tremendously on this path to heal from sexual abuse. The book is called "The Obsidian Mirror" by Louise M. Wisechild This book is difficult and true. Louise (the author) was abused by pretty much by everyone male in her family until late teenager and she healed herself not without pain and rage. She shows how in her book. Here a review of the book by Alice Mille to give you an idea. You may want to continue to read the article here Please continue to speak out your story there are many here who want to listen to you and want to help you. Thank you so much for sharing your story and you are not alone in this. I too was sexually abused by family members. I hope that this will bring some hope in you that we can heal by doing it step by step. Take good care. Lens

I agree with Thomas. You are escaping your childhood horrors. Your OCD shows exactly the extreme fear of your childhood. Clearly each time your feelings (pain) arise you act out on them by doing your compulsive behaviour. Welcoming and understanding your pain will undoubtedly help your children to understand theirs and relieve them from their own suffering. One question though that crosses my mind. Were you beaten as a baby to teach you how to be clean ? You may have no conscious memory of that but your body may show you the answer, you may ask your caregivers about it and how you were raised about hygiene and about their point of view around children's hygiene. Don't waste your time with NVC and concentrate your efforts in uncovering the traumas of your childhood. When you do that you'll become empathic with yourself and your children. It is a long journey so don't procrastinate, at least do it for those children that they depend on you. Here I quote Alice Miller about the NVC thing http://www.alice-miller.com/articles_en.php?lang=en&nid=56&grp=11 Good luck Lens

Hi Jester, I downloaded the podcast from the link you posted and listened to it and it was helpful to me too. I liked it a lot. I find it very courageous from you to talk about your issues in public. The fear when those feelings arise is frightening in itself. The pain may be sometimes overwhelming but it fades away once you begin to learn to not to be afraid of your fear. Your therapist can provide with a safe environment and help you to get in touch with those feelings and little by little. I hope everything will go well for you and good luck in making your own choices and living your own life it is not easy but it brings peace at the end. In a way the war inside of us will end. We will no longer fight ourselves for survival. Lens

Over a year ago I read this letter at my therapist office and I cried my guts out. I realized what I missed all my life, what my parents didn't give me: Love. This letter helped me to realize that good parents and happy (normal) childhood do exist even if they possibly are 1% of the population but knowing that their numbers will increase in the future brings me joy. With a forum like this one, Stefan Molyneux and many authors who encourage people to know their histories and take their childhood dramas seriously so each one of us can stop the cycle of violence on the self and on others and especially stop violating kids. The letter is in French titled "Une belle enfance" I translated it and tried to keep its essence. Enjoy! The letter hello mrs alice MILLER, I'm very happy to write to you, now I finished reading your book "open your eyes to our own history" The Truth Will Se You Free, that I was advised by my neighbor, who read you and at one of our great discussions on children he insisted that I read your book. I am a facilitator in prevention in the field of addiction, legal or illegal drugs, this is the first time I read a book of my life and have no regrets because you encouraged me to continue to read what you write is so true. I am fortunate to have had an uncommon education , my parents raised me like you advise in your writings and I recognized myself in the history of President Gorbachev, I am very happy I did never experienced violence and yet I guess with the stupid things I was doing, other parents would have been extremely violent, I have the proof around me, you're right we must communicate to educate children, never hit them. I'll give you a concrete example. when I was 6 years old my parents one day went to a family party which was 6 km from our suburban neighborhood (Paris) seine saint denis 93, I knew where my parents were gone and knew the way because we often went to this family with my parents, I recorded in my head the way out of habit, so I proposed to my eldest sister of two years to reach both my parents at the party by foot. My sister told me okay, we took the path and went through the main streets, many cars driving fast, a very dangerous road, we arrived safely. Our parents watching us stunned believing that we had arrived to them through someone in my family who have accompanied us. my mother asked us very quietly not to traumatize us and with a smile, how did you come? we answered her by walking! my parents looked at each other and told us you are very smart! I felt myself at that moment, a big boy and they never blamed me or my sister, now I know their heart was pounding for fear of losing us, I can tell you hundreds of stories like this, or the times they feared for me, they had a patient behavior and full of love even in unspoken words, when in the street I was attracted to bad things it always came to my mind a oral agreement unconsciously my parents and I had taken, I would have never broken that oral agreement for anything in the world., I should write a book in tribute to my parents. All my life I've wanted to work in an office near doctors, I like the atmosphere of waiting rooms, I love the humankind because my parents gave me a lot of love, I say easily I LOVE YOU I know what love is I have always received it since my birth July 21, 1969 the day Neil Amstrong put his foot on the moon planet, my parents taught me to wish well to the other person and not the contrary to teach us to not to be racist, my parents told us when you meet a black person know that you have met luck. today in my humanitarian work I everyday meet stakeholders, psychiatrists, or social workers and can even tell you mrs Miller, what you are talking about in your book is true I see it with my own eyes and I detected for a very long time, you have reassured me I felt alone in the world realizing this, stakeholders are sometimes very sick, they only think of their name at the top of the poster or to have the largest lineup to have additional money from specialized agencies they want to make patients addicted to their institution, it is too easy to play with people who have problems and manipulate them stakeholders do not want to care for them and prefer to stay in power. I have no degree and got out of school after two years of training in mechanics at 16, I got a passion for music, at 15 I was attracted by the dj mixes, I trained myself to become dj alone by myself, fortunately for me because my friends at the same time were plunging their noses into heroin, I am 39 years old I'm happy in my own skin. in my work as a facilitator of prevention I bring my knowledge that is not found in the books of Freud and Lacan, autodidact I drew from great thinkers of psychiatry, with time and thinking I created a another form of approach, gentleness, patience, empathy and listening allows me for over 20 years as a professional humanitarian, to help people in trouble, and have never known except if amnesia, any violence from the people that I meet every day. My school is the street because the school of the republic (France) I tried to forget it since the kindergarten after a spanking pants down in public, I did not do anything I was calm and respectful Fortunately I met helping witnesses throughout my life the first ones were my parents. I thank you and support you until the last breath in your fight ... fraternally MRS MILLER. alice Source http://www.alice-miller.com/courrier_fr.php?lang=fr&nid=2362&grp=1108 I hope you enjoyed this beautiful letter Lens

There is fear to see them as they are. When you were a small child the risk by seeing the truth could have cost you severe punishment so you kept that fear in your soul until adulthood. Now there is no danger to see your parents as truly and precisely as possible. You may pity them and feel guilt to protect you from their aggressiveness and not because you love them it is because as a child you most likely hated them but you kept that feeling hidden from yourself and this feeling of hatred wants to be acknowledged by the adult you. Try to write letters to your parents that you never send where you express your true feelings you'll see that hatred and contempt will show up quite soon. You may want to read them in your therapy as well and having a witness by your side. I hope that your therapist doesn't protect your parents (and his) and ask you to manage them or some sort. In my experience fear always hides another feeling it is like a layer that hides a more important layer. Like fear to express anger or hatred (normal human feelings). If we do not express those feelings we may end up with extreme anxiety, panic attacks or dissociation. My advice is to give yourself and your feelings more room especially in your therapy and the less you'll feel guilty. Give yourself sometime. It is a path that requires a lot of patience and self-compassion. Here is an article I found that could be very helpful http://www.sharischreiber.com/anxiety.html Warm wishes and good luck Lens

Self-knoweldge cannot be taught. But people can show you how they got to better know themselves. One very precious place to get self-knowledge is childhood. When we are born we came with a true self parents education taught us to hide it because being who we are is not acceptable to them so we developed a false self in order to please them but also out of fear of punishment and rejection. So we buried our true Self from us and from the world. When you know your truth (your childhood history) and your feelings little by little you come to know yourself better. Good luck in better knowing yourself! Lens

To understand not only intellectually but also emotionally it is by uncovering your own truth (history & trauma). When you uncover an early trauma with the associated painful feeling you'll know how painful it was for you and also for your parents when they were small kids and what that parent did inflict upon you, was in fact to avoid his/her own pain and to keep his own trauma stuffed and to keep the idealization of a happy childhood intact. Many books and literatures are stuck in trying to give an intellectual understanding something like: most of abusers have ben themselves abused in their childhood. There is logic in there but there is no emotional understanding (feelings and pain). It's like talking about sadness versus feeling the sadness. Several months ago I wrote to a friend of mine who is a mother to help her understand a bit the dynamic of her repression Further more. a former abused child can later understand his abuser only by getting back his repressed memories/emotions and the pain that comes with it only then the abused will know (emotionally) the price that he or she paid so the abuser can keep the idealized version of his/her childhood and his repression intact. It will bring a full understanding, the whys and the hows. I quote a parent who did some work on himself Lens

Hi Wesley, You bring up a rare question and also touchy question. I will bring my own experience and my own thoughts about it. Sympathizing with an abuser = not sympathizing with the abused Let me explain it. A child is being abused by someone (parent, care taker or even someone on the street) My old first reaction as a former abused child is to side by the abuser and blame the child for being undisciplined (see Stockholm Syndrome). In the Stockholm Syndrome women sympathized and had pity and understanding for the gangster and even married them after they got out of the prison that how the brain is impaired since we learnt it so early to side with our parents when they wronged us to not to feel the pain which saved our lives as children. I think we all have a choice and not to give sympathy for anyone because they look miserable and they need to be comforted. My mother presented to me excuses and regrets for what she did but I cannot sympathize with her just because she said sorry sometimes it is unfathomable and also for the sake of my inner child she needed me to re-accept her because she feels guilt but she doesn't want to take responsibility of her actions and respect my choice obviously she doesn't want to face her own repressed feelings she needs me as quick fix like all narcissists do. In my case I believe that others (who haven't been abused by her) can give her this empathy or sympathy. But not me. I cannot be siding with the child (true self) and his abuser at the same time it doesn't work the body can get sick for this self betrayal. I quote Alice Miller on this subject when a reader asked her the difference about the mother of childhood and the mother of today I translated from french to english http://www.alice-miller.com/courrier_fr.php?lang=fr&nid=1913&grp=0408 This is my view and I hope it will help you to not to fall in the trap of guilt and pity because it is a trap not a trip. Also Wesley if this abuser is not linked to you in anyways and doesn't trigger in you the helpless feelings of the child you may try to let him talk about his childhood and if he is refuses you can't do anything for him/her. Lens

Jester, Thanks for the reply. I think the situation is serious actually very serious in order to keep your sanity. I am gonna tell you my experience and think about it maybe it can help you. I learnt that checking out on close people to me was to check if they can do well without me or not. Like if my ex is miserable (which actually he is) then I'd feel ok and there is no need to control him (illusion of control) but when he is happy then there is a problem meaning I am useless in his life which means he can be happy without me (again control) which makes me feel unworthy. I don't know if this makes sense to you or if it is your situation. I have a deep feeling that you and I have this issue in common to a certain extent but then you tell me if it is the case. This mechanism (it is actually a mechanism or a symptom but looks like it is real and it is not) is hard wired to the need of a very small child the need to be seen and touched. In general around 8 months to 14 months preverbal age (it is my case) where the baby is being left alone in the crib or the playpen and the mother is very busy and she doesn't want to take care of the baby and actually she consider him a nuisance rather than a normal needy child, the child then he is battling with fear of abandonment (fear of death) because his brain still not formed and doesn't know things like kitchen or mom is doing laundry or any of that stuff he has only his "primal" needs. In that case that is trauma and also a development of the codependency and fear of rejection the child will please his mom, he will start to smile (false self) while his true feelings are despair, terror and anger (true self). This happens a lot when the mother is borderline and narcissistic meaning that everything is about her. It is very difficult for a child to thrive in that environment. The toddler suppresses his true feelings and needs again his true self which protects him from being hurt by overwhelming feelings of the trauma of fear of death and also from really dying. But these feelings arise from the deep when they get triggered even 50 years after the original trauma. I quote Stefan from his book On Truth the Tyranny of Illusion Page 51 Now in your case there is a decision to make if you want to continue to stay with this person because in my point of view she a symptom to a deeper problem and maybe all your past relationships are based on fear of abandonment and rejection (shame based feelings). Do what you can to save your life and your future and get out of this prison. Because the compulsion to sneak on your girlfriend is to avoid the feelings of your childhood pain which I understand they are overwhelming that possibly why you self medicate them each time the pain arises so you do not have to feel it and you do what you have to do to push them down. There absolutely no shame in doing that but it is not something that makes you happy and free. I quote Stefan Molyneux RTR page 84 I think therapy is urgent for you and ask your therapist about his childhood if he also suffered from abandonment and how did he fix his issues and does he understand childhood trauma. Because if your therapist didn't face his own childhood he will not let you do it because you trigger his own repressed feelings and he can become mean to you and can even guilt you. I empathize with you to a very high level and If my message triggers fear in you it is normal and you do not need to be afraid of that feeling. When you are afraid say to yourself "I feel fear" instead of I am afraid so you can stay present to your feelings without judging them and you can distance yourself to look at them in a better way. I hope what I said is useful for you and like Stefan says it is my point of view and also my experience. Sorry for the length of my message. Useful article that helped me a lot : http://www.findingstone.com/professionals/monographs/rageshameandthedeathoflove.htm Lens

I am really glad I read your post! Thank you for sharing these incidents and I can tell you how much your childhood looked like my childhood. I remember myself being supervised by my mom (school teacher herself) when doing my homework and each time I became thirsty the minute she sits down next to me. She would bring a bottles of water and I am still thirsty and she would scream at me for being too thirsty each time she sits to supervise me. It's like my body knows that she is not the good person for me by making me thirsty. I am so sorry that you had to go through this stuff. It is simply horrible and it is not your fault but theirs! I had myself a period of time where I couldn't sleep and I would wake up screaming etc.. The way I got myself to sleep is to believe in what had happened to me as a child and take it seriously and to not to be afraid of my feelings. Kind of I abandoned myself to myself. The inner child would feel safe that I believe in him and his memories and feelings and not trying to find excuses for them. I think that is fantastic that you have kept these memories intact. What I would recommend is you try to connect to the feelings of each event and write about how you felt then (or how you feel now) about each and every event. Generally there are feelings of fear, shame, anger, contempt and hatred but they are repressed or suppressed out of fear of being shamed and punished again. Which will never happen and you have to believe that all this is the past and now you have the right to express your rage and hatred for having being treated this way. There is no danger in that now. Give yourself a lot of love and empathy. Take hot baths if you can and listen to some relaxing music it will bring you comfort and safety. There are good people out there and not everyone is like your mother and your father. Try to distance yourself from people that use you for their own needs or people that shame you. The more you do this the more you will feel grounded in your body (yourself) and in your life. You have my sympathy for what you have endured in your childhood it was everything but love and respect. Your parents are horrible and you didn't choose them they chose you but now you have a choice. The choice of leaving and never forgetting. Take good care. Lens

I have been to Costa Rica and loved so much It is a good place to live in Lens

Jester, I think there is something to learn about all this which is the unhappiness you are living that seems obvious to me.I had the same experience which I was checking out on my ex's messages because like Pepin said it is lack of trust. But I'd go beyond that and say it is also to control what is out of your control. Sometimes we just cannot let go in a way. From my experience it seems to me you want to make yourself happy out of illusion of control. By checking messages you need to know or at least confirm that she will not leave you but each time there is this urge of checking again and again. And even she gave you all the passwords of all her accounts you will still feel helpless and doubtful. It is like a drug that you need more of it each time. Each time you inhale it, it brings relief until the next craving. I believe and certain that this relationship you are in right now is taking from you what is the most precious in your life which is YOU your true self. You cannot live someone else's life you can only live yours. And it is hard really hard when we are addicted to a person and that same person knows that well. I have been through that episode myself and it is hell on earth. You need to acknowledge to yourself the truth what ever hard it is and you start from there. I only did what I did when I said to myself "I have a problem and I need to fix this as soon as possible" it is an addiction and not love at least it was that for me. I will paste a youtube video here that may help you it is about codependency. Part 1https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEstVPYOARA Part 2 You may wanna listen to this podcast of Stefan that may help you a lot. I helped me a lot http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_1137_Shame_Addiction_Convo.mp3 You need courage and I think you got it. Good luck Lens

Hello Jester, I am sorry you feel that way, my god I used to feel that way whenever my ex discussed stuff with old relationships and it is painful!!! What it triggered in me was feelings of rejection and shame. I think it is all about the feeling of self worth. You may feel threatened by this discussion, maybe it triggers in you fear of abandonment or something like that. In my opinion try to see what is the feeling hiding behind jealousy. It may be Fear, Rejection, Shame etc.. and if you are idealizing these people meaning you see them worthwhile while you may see yourself not that much etc... If it is the case, it is usually an illusion of worth. If you feel safe enough try to discuss it with your GF. I wish you the best. Lens

Hi Alex, I will copy paste Alice Miller how to find the right therapist which helped a lot to save money and time. I know how difficult it is to find the right therapist but I still believe that it is possible if you know what you need. So I try to answer here some questions that may encourage you to check the attitude of the candidate for your therapist; but please take this text as a draft and don't hesitate to make comments or additions. (I decided to speak of the therapist as a "she," but of course both genders are meant.) What do I need to overcome my plight? You need an empathic, honest person who would help you to take seriously the knowledge of your body, a person who already succeeded to do the same for herself because she had the chance to have found this kind of help that you are looking for. How can I know if a therapist is this kind of person? By asking many questions. This idea scares me. Why don't I dare to ask questions? As a child you were probably punished for asking questions because they might have shaken your parents' position of power. Your questions were often ignored or you were given lies instead of true answers. This was very painful. Now, you are afraid that this might happen again. It CAN happen that you will not be understood or that your questions trigger the fears and defenses of a therapist but you are no longer the helpless child without any options. You can leave and look for another therapist. The child could not leave, so he tried to change his parents, some people do it (symbolically) their whole life. But as an adult you have options. You can, with the support of the forum, recognize the lies, the poisonous pedagogy and the defenses. You must only take seriously what you hear, not deny your uneasiness, and not hope that you will be able to change this person (the parent) later. You will not. She will need therapy herself, and this shouldn't be your job as long as YOU pay the honorary. I feel guilty because of my mistrust. If I can't trust I will never find what is good for me. Your mistrust has a history and your need for SPECIAL understanding too. Your caregiver didn't deserve your trust and the child felt this very strongly because his body knew the truth. It couldn't develop trust. Now, trust your body signals, it is the silenced child who is speaking, who starts to talk and needs your truthfulness. If you don't feel good with a person, take your feelings seriously, don't push them away, try to understand these feelings. Once you feel truly and deeply understood by someone, your body will let you know this immediately and very clearly, it will be relaxed without any special exercises. What do I risk by asking questions from the beginning? Nothing. You can only win. If the answer is hostile or very incomplete or defensive, you can gain much money and time by leaving. On the other hand, if the answer you got is satisfying, you will feel encouraged to ask more. And this is what you should do. Which kind of questions am I allowed to ask? Whatever you need to know. But above all don't forget to ask the candidate for your therapist about her childhood and her experiences during her training. Where did she get her training, what was helpful to her, what was not? How does she feel about the defeats, does she have the freedom to see what was wrong or does she protect people who damaged her? Does she minimize the damage? Was she beaten as a child? How does she value this experience? Is she really aware of its consequences for her later life, or is she denying its importance? Does she avoid the confrontation with her own pain? In the last case she will do everything to silence you, not always visibly. Is it a good sign if she tells me that she has read Alice Miller's "Drama?" It doesn't say anything. Ask you how she FELT about "For Your Own Good" and the other books, also ask about her criticisms. What helped her personally, what didn't? What is in her opinion the main healing factor? Is she capable of deep feelings or does she prefer an intellectual analysis to keep distance? This you may even find with primal therapists who makes you feel the helpless child for years and years so that they can "help" you, but without being themselves able to feel on a deeper level. Then you may end up in a dependence on them and on your feelings of a helpless, unchangeable rage against your parents without being able to free yourself for what YOU really need. A good therapist must help you to find and fulfill YOUR OWN needs, neglected for such a long time, needs for free expression, for being understood, respected and taken seriously. When you begin to look for fulfillment and to protect the child, the rage and hatred will leave you, they will fade. They are alarm signals of your repetition of parental neglect and contempt; they do not have the therapeutic quality we are so often told they have. Am I not intrusive when I ask so many questions? Not at all. You have the right to be sufficiently informed and she must have the courage, the awareness and the honesty to answer you in a proper way. Otherwise she is not the right person for you. With this position, am I then looking for an ideal that doesn't exist? I don't think so. You see on the forum ourchildhood.int that honesty, awareness, compassion, courage, and openness DO EXIST. Why should these qualities not be expected from your therapist? Source: http://www.alice-miller.com/articles_en.php?force=faq Good luck in your research! Lens

Hello carlip, Ask the 8 year old boy you once were if with that painful memory he would have gone to that funeral. It is there where your true feelings are. As adults we tend to guilt ourselves for not feeling sad or not conforming and especially when we try to be good to ourselves. I hope you'll make the right decisions based on your best interest and surely not out of the best interest of others. I can feel your childhood pain Best luck Lens

Hello Marco, Congratulations for this breakthrough. It is amazing that we really can know feelings only by experiencing them and the same thing for dreams. I am also very grateful we had this talk all together and thank you for sharing your thoughts and your feelings with us. Your dream is really powerful and moving because in it you can see the type of relationship as a kid you had with your father. It looks to me that this relationship is based on fear, deceit and a mix of guilt and shame. It also shows that you got very very wise inner child and smart. You didn't lose a second, we had the talk in the evening and in the night you got this gift. Bravo! In the dream you wanted to get away from your father but he didn't let you so he grabbed you and controlled you. When he sensed that you insisted to go he was afraid that you'd see the truth that he is using you he started to victimize himself to trigger in you the feeling of fear of abandonment. Kinda if you do not do what I want you to do I will die and you'll be left alone and you'll be responsible. This situation brings a lot of confusion in the mind of a child and terror. Most of the time children are afraid to say the truth because they are afraid to lose the "love" that their parents have for them. In the case of your dream I think that possibly your father could have said to you when you were very small child something like "You gonna kill me if you insist, I'm gonna have a heart attack now, stop talking" That is a horrible threat for children the child literally thinks that he is responsible each time his parent has a health issue. So the child will never speak to not to kill his dad or mom. The child within you felt loved and understood in the morning. I think you took a step in the right direction in my opinion. Keep that dream in mind if feelings of guilt come back and when they come back stand up for them and fight them. It is a battle that will make you strong. You will know more about yourself and you will know yourself and true feelings and the false feelings that your parents induced upon you when you were small without your consent because you were naturally depend on them. Those were my thoughts Thank you for sharing this dream with us :-) Good Luck Lens

Dave thanks so much about pointing out this marvellous person. He is so cool and good. I wish I had friends like him. I found out he read some A. Miller stuff which makes me feel more comfortable and safe listening to him. Thank you for this tip !! Lens