when was YOU born?

[dsayers]

No, that's not a grammatical error

 

While wrestling with trying to integrate post-self-knowledge me into healthy, personal relationships, I've found that it's been helpful to think and speak in terms of old me and new me. To acknowledge the dysfunction in my past to help qualify concerns I might experience in the present about ways I could behave dysfunctionally. Earlier tonight though, it occurred to me that there is one way in which this approach is not only NOT helpful, but in fact damaging.

 

Namely that there was no old me. Prior to self-knowledge, that wasn't me at all. That was the echo of my parents, and every other abuser they had exposed me to. I was born when I began to confront my abusers in my mind, call their words and behaviors by their proper names, sort through the way this misinformation skewed my thoughts and behaviors, and correct for them.

 

Just like with my physical birth, the experience was mostly interior and I didn't talk about it outwardly at first because I wasn't fully aware of how to put the words together in a sensible way. Then as I got a grip on the words, I had to watch other healthy people interact to get ideas on how it's done. Empathize with them and emulate them so that I could fully realize who I was.

 

This was a bit of a breakthrough for me. So I wanted to share it with others because I think it's very important to not take credit for that which was inflicted upon me. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Let me know what your thoughts are. I'm sorry if this seems kind of obvious; It was apparently a bit of a blind spot for me.

[Kurtis]

Well said.

 

I too used to think of old me and new me. The new me has changed many times on this self knowledge journey, but I never liked the old me. This began to bother me but I think you just explained why, which is that it wasn't me that I didn't like, it was the echoes of my parents and others that I didn't like.

 

This came full circle for me in a powerful therapy session a while back, which was my last major milestone of trauma processing. In the session I connected with a very young me, about 1 or 2 years old. The new me went back to the oldest me I can remember and swooped in to become my own competent caretaker, to remove the old me from danger and provide the love I never received.

 

There was much detail to that experience that I left out, but the experience was of keeping the old (original) and new me, but also of merging them into a whole me. This was only possible after, like you said "sorting through the misinformation" of my parents/childhood.

 

Thankyou for your post. I, and I'm sure many others, have experienced things in much the same way. Thankyou for your clarity of thought in this, it was not an obvious distinction to me, but it is useful.

[regevdl]

No, that's not a grammatical error

 

While wrestling with trying to integrate post-self-knowledge me into healthy, personal relationships, I've found that it's been helpful to think and speak in terms of old me and new me. To acknowledge the dysfunction in my past to help qualify concerns I might experience in the present about ways I could behave dysfunctionally. Earlier tonight though, it occurred to me that there is one way in which this approach is not only NOT helpful, but in fact damaging.

 

Namely that there was no old me. Prior to self-knowledge, that wasn't me at all. That was the echo of my parents, and every other abuser they had exposed me to. I was born when I began to confront my abusers in my mind, call their words and behaviors by their proper names, sort through the way this misinformation skewed my thoughts and behaviors, and correct for them.

 

Just like with my physical birth, the experience was mostly interior and I didn't talk about it outwardly at first because I wasn't fully aware of how to put the words together in a sensible way. Then as I got a grip on the words, I had to watch other healthy people interact to get ideas on how it's done. Empathize with them and emulate them so that I could fully realize who I was.

 

This was a bit of a breakthrough for me. So I wanted to share it with others because I think it's very important to not take credit for that which was inflicted upon me. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Let me know what your thoughts are. I'm sorry if this seems kind of obvious; It was apparently a bit of a blind spot for me.

 

 

Thank you for sharing.  Hey, I know when we become aware of our blindspots, it takes courage to admit there was a blindspot to begin with so..kudos! and, we look back like, 'how in the world did I not see that?! and for me, sometimes it brings self-shame or embarassment but, don't dwell on that, that just shows how crafty those around us or raising us were at keeping that blind spot hidden.  But you found it or it found you.  Very well done. 

 

Coincidentally I too hit a blind spot last night.  I'll briefly run through the domino effect that brought me to this.

 

Our dog literally ate my son's homework.  lol  My son was terrified to go to school with a shredded book.

So the following days of vacation before they returned to school, we talked about it and did more role playing.  I then asked him, what do you think she will do?  What's the worst case scenario.  He kept responding, 'i don't know, I don't know'.  I told him it's natural to fear what we dont' know but, she isn't a stranger and I am sure other kids have come to her with problems and she must have a few but predictable ways that she responds to problems.  My son wouldn't budge.  He was sure this was the end of the world.  So, I posed some options from exaggerated to more reasonable outcomes.  

 

I asked him if he thinks she will make him sit outside.  He said no.  Then I went to the other extreme,

I asked him if he thinks she will hit him.  He immediately said no.  I told him, correct.  Not only is she not a violent or aggressive person but she would get into a lot of trouble doing that and she is smart.  I don't think she would want to go to jail for hitting you just because of a torn up book.  He agreed and there were a few moments of silence.  Then he says, "Mommy, your mommy hit you, why didn't she go to jail."  THUD!  

 

I have spoken to my kids about how I was raised but my 'blindspot' never put punishment on my mom.  It was more of a 'it happened like this, I don't agree with it, this is how I choose to raise you , these are the principles, etc"  

 

I simply told him, 'I don't know. I have no idea why or how she didn't go to jail for hitting me."  AFter I said it, it threw me back into a painful moment and I couldn't stay present in the conversation.  Now that I had time to reflect, I will revisit that conversation with him and explain exactly why she didn't go to jail, because society doesn't interfere and children had no power in my household, etc.  

 

It seems so obvious to me now on approaching it with this angle and feel so silly for missing it but I guess it just took my son to connect the dots himself, which is pretty damn amazing.  

 

So enjoy having one less blindspot in your life.  We always discover more and more and it's painful that they are revealed it's also VERY liberating.    

[kathryn]

Yes! Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this topic.

 

A few days ago, I was talking with a friend of mine about what I'm doing in therapy, and she a made comment about, "Getting back to who I am." I thought about it and corrected her because what I'm doing in therapy is generative in nature. I feel like I'm creating a sense of self from scratch because it’s not something I’ve ever had before. As you mention, the internalized abuse has colored my thinking my entire life.

 

It’s very helpful to hear fresh thoughts on this, as it’s been on my mind this week. Thank you!

[Des]

I am reflecting on the idea of being a new person, as an ancient observation, incorporated into religions in the past, indoctrinated into me as the christian doctrine of salvation. I was supposedly a new person after my father ceremonially baptised me at age 16 (in the community swimming pool at a rural hospital [founded by a Swedish mission society], here in South Africa).  I heard many stories, at christian camps and such, by other teens or young adults who had tried drugs or something, and the story would go that they were saved by Jesus and now a new person. I just did not really feel different, though, I felt as I had always felt.

Both before that, and after that, I had tension between my desire for sexual pleasure and what I understood to be god's restrictions on that.

I remember fear of hell, in childhood.

I remember my father explaining that a man should be celibate, but if he can't manage that, he should marry one wife (this his advice in response to the tension I have just mentioned).

I remember being angry, when I was a father of two young children, angry at my wife for not participating in creating an image of a perfect christian family (I only wanted the image, for social coinage, actually I still refused to accept the sexual restrictions [my wife and I had that refusal-to-accept, in common]).

I remember suddenly realising that I am atheist. I had made marriage vows addressed to a non-existent being (I faced an [Anglican] priest, who asked me on behalf of the non-existent deity, and my answer was to the deity]), and now I comprehended what I had done, saying that I had a deity inside me, inspiring my decisions, when I had always had doubt about that, had allowed my doubt to be overridden by parents who were very attentive, and poured their beliefs into me with their attention.

Before that point, I had felt suicidal at one time, over my wife's disregard of my reasonably valuable social image. I actually faked a suicide attempt, to make my point.

At the point, a year or two later, with my children aged 7 and 8, when I realised I am atheist, I had a crisis, and at first found no support for my position of unbelief.

At that point I felt different. I had been doing what I understood I ought to do, and adding my preferences on top of that. At that point I realised that the whole family life thing was not my choice by my free preference, but by the assumptions that people around me had made, which I had absorbed, and by my father's advice on sex, and my mother's talking about male children and the family name.

Within a year or two, I had processed the divorce, and understood that I was most angry with myself, and that the resolution of my anger was to identify my error that helped lead to the angry emotion, accept that it was my error, and go back to "counting my blessings"(god-free version).

I felt different again, when I practiced resolving my feelings of anger. Since then, anger has felt much more like mild annoyance.

 

Many years and a number of girlfriends later, when I read about Julian Assange, and I searched for a book he mentioned (The God that failed), and found instead Hans Herman Hoppe's book of similar title, I read Hoppe's work, and understood why we need to retire all governments.

At that point I did feel really new.

I was never again going to do fundraising for a political party, as I had, some years earlier.

 

Some years and another few girlfriends later, I started watching Stefan's videos, and some time after that, I realised the role of my childhood of being dominated by the hierarchy of god, father, mother and older sisters - in my anger - and I realised I had done wrong to my own children, and to those of more than one ex-gf, by dominating them like that. Again, I am different. I play with the child of one of my ex-gf's, regularly about twice a week, either swimming or cycling, and I have no desire to dominate her (the child) (or the ex-gf, for that matter  ).

 

[ResidingOnEarth]

dsayers: very interesting post.  It has left me thinking about lots of things.  Particularly: I'm thinking about how this prior state of yours where you were an "echo of [your] parents", affects your responsibility, and moral culpability for your prior actions.  I'm trying to think about this from the perspective of my own life. 

 

I too was abused.  I have -- throughout my teenage and adult life -- had a very strong sense of not being me. 

 

I have slowly found ways of being and feeling more like me and less like the jagged shadow of my harsh parents.  Some questions I am asking myself:

* Is a child raised under an abusive parent more likely to not be themselves than if they are raised under a non-abusive parent?  So: does a respectful, empathetic, consistent and peaceful parenting approach allow a child to be who they really are? 

* How do you separate who you are from how you behave?  Much of the behaviour of an abused child is surely performed to keep the child as safe as possible from the abuser.  Because the goal of the behaviour is to keep the child safe, does that mean the behaviour is false?  If a peaceful parent loves the outdoors and often takes their child out with them into the mountains for hiking, then that child will learn lots of behaviours that serve the child well when hiking.  Are those behaviours false because they are learned as a result of the peaceful parents desire to go hiking?

 

I have no conclusions yet.  I'm actually feeling a little bit confused.

 

He agreed and there were a few moments of silence.  Then he says, "Mommy, your mommy hit you, why didn't she go to jail."  THUD!  

 

...

 

 I will revisit that conversation with him and explain exactly why she didn't go to jail, because society doesn't interfere and children had no power in my household, etc. 

 

Loved your post!  Your child is so lucky to have you.

[brucethecollie]

I think this is a very helpful way of referring to ourselves.  I have always looked at it like getting back to the real me or my true self.  My parents have described what I was like when I was under age 5 and I have used that (as well as audio recordings of myself from those years) as a way of guiding myself back.  For example, I had crippling shyness from age 6 to about 13.  I was shocked to discover later that I wasn't like that prior to age 6.  It was liberating for me to find out because it made me feel like I could change back because I had already changed to begin with.  Of course, our full personalities and potential aren't done at age 3, 4, or 5 so I really like thinking in terms of old and new me.  In just the past few years my new me has shed to old me several times over.  Or maybe I've just not finished the changing process, yet.  Maybe we are never done changing?  

[dsayers]

I think this is a very helpful way of referring to ourselves.  I have always looked at it like getting back to the real me or my true self.  My parents have described what I was like when I was under age 5 and I have used that (as well as audio recordings of myself from those years) as a way of guiding myself back.  For example, I had crippling shyness from age 6 to about 13.  I was shocked to discover later that I wasn't like that prior to age 6.  It was liberating for me to find out because it made me feel like I could change back because I had already changed to begin with.  Of course, our full personalities and potential aren't done at age 3, 4, or 5 so I really like thinking in terms of old and new me.  In just the past few years my new me has shed to old me several times over.  Or maybe I've just not finished the changing process, yet.  Maybe we are never done changing?  

This actually has helped me to take the breakthrough one step further.

 

When I first began my self-knowledge journey, I had learned that empathy is a complexity that if you don't develop it as a child, you can't really get it later. This terrified me. As luck would have it, in my first few years of life, my mother was stay at home. She spent a lot of time with me. I am told I was able to walk, talk, read, and do math at a very early age. Being on the couch with her, reading a book together is one of the few childhood memories I actually have, and it was a very pleasing one.

 

My mother was one of the biggest abusers in my life. Once I learned that I did have empathy (if rusty from lack of practice), it took me awhile to realize that this time my mother spent with me is likely the reason why. So I think you might be right that it's more about getting back to the real you than it is just about recreating yourself. Thank you for helping me with that.

 

I think the never done changing is a fair assessment. A lot of self-knowledge work is revisiting things you've taken for granted and applying new ideas and standards to. For me, I was old me a lot longer than I've been new me. So it would be impossible to think of all the ways our abusers damaged us or made us think incorrectly about things for their benefit. As time goes on, you encounter more of those, so more opportunities to improve

[dsayers]

Maybe we are never done changing?  

Too true!

[dsayers]

I wanted to bump this. A couple of people have told me recently that it was a very impactful thing for them to read. So I thought maybe it might bring value to people who weren't active when it was fresh.

[Jaeger]

Thanks for bumping this.  

 

I have looked at my process of gaining self-knowledge as waking up or becoming more aware.  Now that I'm awake, when I notice that I'm making the same mistakes my parents did,  I can stop it right then and there and fix it in the moment.  Where as before I was oblivious to the fact I was even making a mistake let alone I was mirroring my parents.  I have noticed that during therapy when I get to do re-parenting I always feel so very happy at the end.  I feel like the old child me and I are very good friends and the new adult me get to give each other what we are missing.  The child me gets the unconditional love I deserved as a child and the adult me get to feel what it's like to be young again, playful and so full of life.  I imagine my older self fishing with my younger self  and enjoying popsicles or ice cold sodas together.  Now I need to be the best parent I can so when my kids become awake there are not nearly as many of my mistakes that they will need to work through.