Lens

I think that psychopaths and narcissists lack empathy at their "normal" state. They may display empathy to lure their victims to see them as good and empathic as possible while the goal here is to get emotional supply or narcissistic supply and as much as they can get. I have been in a relationship with a narcissitic person who displays a high trait of psychopathy and whenever he feels weak and needing nurturance he would come back and display all kind of good stuff meaning by that empathy, compassion and even servitude so I can take care of him and give what he lacked from his mom. In my own opinion that switch is used to grant access to codependent people, people pleaser and so on. And when questioned about their distructive behaviour these people (psychopaths and narcissists) can become very mean and destructive Lens

Good for you !

I personally find it dangerous to say that we need drugs to unlock the unconscious mind. Most of drug addicts use these drugs to escape from the pain of their childhood, a knowledge that is stored in the cells of their bodies. Using such treatment will only alleviate the symptoms rather than knowing exactly what the body is trying tell us by these "illnesses". From my experience like Stefan Molyneux loves to say "Empirical" point of view I listened to my own body messages and pain and got many memories that I had no awareness of their existence before. The way I did it is to take seriously my body and the feeling attached to this illness and started to feel. Someone can do this only in safety and love once we are not afraid of our feelings. So after I did that myself I can hardly say that I needed meds or drugs to help me to get into the message by manipulating my brain with an external substance and then dive into space. Actually I am asking myself what if a parent gave some of that kind of drugs (natural or artificial) to his toddler to make him sleep because the baby doesn't stop crying. Don't you think that same toddler once grown up wouldn't tell people to use drugs (any type) to heal or to sleep ? Maybe he had to learn that very early in life and has no memory of it. Lens Here is a text that also helped me not only to avoid drugs of any kind but also to advance in self-knowledge. It is quote from the Book by Alice Miller, "Free From Lies" page 161. I quote: Mental Blockades Today there are so few people who do not take pills, smoke cigarettes, or drink alcohol. Most of them resort to these things to achieve an artificial state of well-being that can divert their attention from unpleasant thoughts, rather than prompting them to try to understand them. So how can they appreciate their true meaning or even try to? How can they realize that these feelings are their true best friends, attempting to put them on the right track that would lead to self-knowledge? Experience is the only thing that can bring this home to them. You have had this experience, and now, to your astonishment, you find that the quality of your life had definitely changed to the better. But you will not be able to explain this to someone in the grip of the products manufactured by the pharmaceutical industry. They will not be able to listen to you. They will carry on "loving" their parents until they run into a crisis and suffer from depression or attacks of panic or both. But there are allegedly "effective" remedies for that as well. Extreme intelligence is no safeguard. These people will use those remedies as a drug to help them deny their own truth. Why do they do this? Because they are driven by the panic fear felt by the children they once were at the prospects of some more beatings if they should dare to see the truth or speak out about it. So all I can say in response to your question about why so few people want to uncover their own histories is that the overwhelming majority of people in this world were beaten in early childhood. (22 june 2006)

Pepin: Thank you so much for your answer I read it and reread it again to process emotionally the content of your message. I makes a lot of sens that when one represses these emotions he continues to endure the suffering. Through time I learnt that when we feel we do not suffer but we feel the suffering of the child we once were. The suffering is only when we try to repress or suppress the emotions arising to the surface which creates a lot of anxiety. I remember asking my therapist not long ago if my emotions will kill me and empathically he said no. I knew the answer but needed reassurance. I think my deficiency in feeling comes from being afraid of being overwhelmed by my emotions. As if my emotions want to kill me somehow which is totally not true and I experienced deep feelings in the past and it actually brought some relief. The self talk part how I see it is the empathy that someone can give to himself (inner child) in order to go into the feeling and understand its origins so we may understand why do we feel that way in the present moment and the pain, fear and the symptoms may leave after that feeling has been accepted, fully felt and integrated. The main obstacle is the fear or maybe the fear of the fear feeling. The mind is saying the fear is present each time it arises from the sub conscience the work then is talk to the mind with love and patience that this fear is not real but the danger from the parent was real in the past, so the repression and suppression both may stop to let the information pass through. I hope what I said made sense to you. Thank you again for your advice and sharing your experience.

Thank you Pepin and TDB TDB: It is life long process I think, but in the beginning it seems almost impossible to overcome and with time and self-compassion it eases through time and the fear decreases. Pepin: Actually it is much less painful now since I am learning to relax my body at least to not to fear the fear itself when it presents itself and calm down my inner critic. I learnt how to get myself out of the guilt for feeling that way generally it takes me about one hour to get myself out of the crippling guilt and the self-attack compared to days, some months ago. I try to make my environment the most safe possible by removing bad people around me and only surrounding myself with helpful and safe persons. And also started something new called Focusing technics which is to relax the body and focus on certain areas without judgement when the body try to draw attention to itself, I often get asleep in the middle of it which I think it is a mind trick to avoid the pain. Something I gained from all this work is sleeping which was an issue. I sleep very well despite all the problems. I think I came a long way from where I was before months ago which I felt helpless about my future. Kinda seeing my future with my past. Now I try to not to and name my feelings and try to see if they are linked to the present, the past or to both. I hope you don't mind me asking you few questions. What did help you the most to get yourself out of the fear of your feelings ? What was the tool you used to decrease your anxiety when feelings arose in public or even at home? Is there a practical self-help book that helped more than others and speeded up your recovery ? Thank you again for your message full of support and hope for a better future. Because I believe I am not the only one doing this self-knowledge work I hope it will help others here on the board Lens

I am sorry that you had to live such a horrible event in your childhood. It is not your mistake for being left alone in the hospital. It was up to the people who were in charge of you to never leave alone since you were a little girl dependent on them. That situation creates much despair and anger in the child's soul. From my own experience I understood that panic attacks and social anxiety are flashbacks of traumatic events that happened in my first years. Maybe talking about your anxiety to someone close to you that doesn't judge you can help you in getting out of your bedroom and slowly enjoy some outside activities. A therapist also can help you to understand your strong feelings and express them in a healthy way. Panic attacks and anxiety bring a lot of vulnerability and also shame for being "exposed" to the outside world maybe that is why you do not want to go outside and prefer staying in your room. I can tell you there is no shame for being anxious. Try to give yourself more self compassion, self-acceptance and love yourself unconditionally. Get close to that lonely little girl inside of you who still needs for your love and empathy. Sometime ago I found this article about managing Flashbacks and Anxiety it helped me a lot I hope it will be helpful for you too. http://www.pete-walker.com/flashbackManagement.htm Take good care Lens

Thank you TBD for your warm reply. I meant by body language is to decipher the body symptoms like, fear, anger, sadness and how to know the reason of that body feeling. I can relate to your feelings in the stomach myself I have tightened stomach at times and it feels really very incomfrortable. What if I dig into it ? That is the kind of advice I am looking for. I guess there is a reason to that feeling to be there. Thank you again Lens

Hello everyone, I have been reading the board for sometimes and a year of listening to Stefan podcasts which saved me a lot of time in my long and painful journey. Thanks to many books and my therapy I came in touch with many strong feelings and some very early memories about my childhood physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Originally I am from north africa, arabic and muslim background though I decided to be atheist 4 years ago. I live in Québec, Canada now and have no communications with my family of origin anymore. I have been journaling since the age of 13 and I think that saved my sanity and wanted to suicide since I was 11 years old. The only person who really understood me is my borther who died some time ago and felt the world just emptied I decided to immigrate to Canada months after his death. I have been seriously and horribly abused by my mother in every way. My father was extremly violent with my mom and I had to watch her being beaten by him many times. Although my father didn't beat me much but his look was sufficient to me to earase myself from existance. He is an alcoholic and my mom partices Islam. During the last year much of my childhood pain surfaced with a lot of body pain and anxiety even panic attacks. I medicated myself throughout dysfunctional relationships. Usually with emotionally abusive and unavailable men. I am more gay than bisexual. my last relationship lasted about 7 years. I am what I consider to be extremly codependent. Thanks to a lot of reading. Alice Miller's books helped me a lot in my pursuit of self knowledge and authors like John Bradshaw, Louise Wisechild, Pete Walker also helped me to connect to my inner child through feeling the body pain and understand the reasons of this emotional pain. What I find challenging is the dissociation after which I feel numb, no reason to live and also difficult to align myself back to my feelings. My therapist is on vacation right now and I profit of this occasion to feel on my own and to have more courage to face my emotions. Between yesterday and today it was really horrible. I became so much out of my body and thinking about my ex which I see from time to time. I was screening him in my mind as him being happy with another guy and he is independent from me etc..that I am no use anymore etc.. It is a state of a horrible amount of suffering and self-neglect. I takes me hours and hours to come back to my feelings and I am tired, so much tired of this state. Self-attack flourish in a state of dissociation. I am curious if anyone among you faced deeply his/her childhood injuries through the body dialogue. Like facing the mortal fear such memories bring when they arise to the surface. And how to manage them and get the memories that explain the compulsion repetition of now. I found sometime ago this letter sent to Alice Miller which was very much inspiring and important to me. Here is the link: http://www.alice-miller.com/readersmail_en.php?lang=en&nid=1346&grp=0707 I really want to heal I don't want to depend on people who are deeply dysfunctional. I find myself idealizing really crap people who hurt me so much when I am good to them. I would appreciate a lot your insights about my entry on the board. I also found Stefan podcasts very very very helpful and they resonnate in me so much I feel the truth in what he says. Thank you for reading. Lens