Overcoming the need for self harm / punishment

[Supermum]

Hello all, 

I am just wondering if anyone has advice re the overwhelming need for self punishment driven by guilt and past abuse/ trauma in the form

Of excess medication, inflicting pain on oneself, sexual punishment and risk taking ? I do see a psychologist weekly and have input from a psychiatrist who have given me tools to try and help but I haven’t elaborated on the whole extent of my thoughts.
It makes me feel absolutely disgusting at times and I am truly ashamed. 
I try to visualize it just as a thought and not to give it the time and to let it pass but it’s just not that easy at all. 
 
I hope it doesn’t offend or upset anyone 

L 

[Supermum]

I agree I am not a diagnosis but a work in progress .  I hope I can heal and not be in the mindset I am and the thought processes I default to all to easily . If you don’t mind talking about your dark space and what caused it and what enabled you to crawl out? 

I want to get better , I want to think about these moments in my life without the emotional distress it causes … one day .. . 

How am I feeling today ? I’m annoyed . I don’t like the tag they have given me although I can’t deny some of the similarities.  I also handed over my stockpile of drugs to my psychologist. To reduce the risk of harm I guess .. a positive move on my part . 

I just wish I wasn’t so alone in all this . Those around me don’t understand … I wish the people on this forum were here with me . To share time with . 

[Eagle Ray]

A few different things have caused dark spaces for me. The most recent was processing early childhood experiences of being alone with parents who had their own trauma. I had exposure to some verbal and physical abuse and quite a bit of uncontrolled rage, but also my parents just being psychically absent from me. With my Mum this absence started at birth. I found I was able to understand the survival personality I developed in order to survive which was based on perseverance for me. I’ve always been trying really hard at everything. I became a carer for my Mum when I was very small. It was like I thought this was my role and she encouraged it, viewing me as her parent when I was just a kid. From babyhood I had no one to orient to, which babies naturally do looking for a parent. It’s like the isolation of that really hit me this week and it made me realise how outside the human world I felt growing up. It’s why I’ve so closely connected with nature which has been like a parent to me.

So I kind of went into an isolated state this past week as I felt the isolation from my childhood. A few things brought me out of it. One was recalling situations where I’ve stood up for myself, including more recently. This got me in touch with healthy anger and assertiveness, and somehow this helped me energetically heal some of the powerlessness I felt as a child and got me out of the shame that I felt. I was shamed a lot as a child. I’ve done things such as throwing a cushion into the couch and yelling in the car (where it’s safe to do so without freaking out others).

Also I’ve gone to a favourite place by the ocean that helps me to feel safe. Sometimes it’s the only place I can calm down. I feel held there by the rocks, plants etc on the hill I go to, as weird as that may sound. I also listened to some favourite songs that expressed the kind of pain I’ve been in that connected to my personal experience. I’ve called helplines to co-regulate with another human being and feel safe.

I’ve experienced some abuse as an adult as well. I recently processed a couple of instances of sexual and physical assault with the psychologist that I had not previously discussed with anyone. She helped me move through these memories and somatically process them. I’d compartmentalised these things off from the rest of my life and experience up until the last few weeks.

[Eagle Ray]

Hi again L

 I just thought I’d mention what I’ve been learning about today in case it helps in relation to crawling out of a dark place. I’m still learning this process myself, so the most qualified person to help is your psychologist. But just sharing what I’m learning.

Today I‘ve been learning about structural dissociation which can occur in PTSD, Complex PTSD and BPD. It’s when parts of ourselves made adaptations to stressful or traumatic situations in the past, often in childhood but sometimes later. These adaptations made sense at the time because it’s how we protected ourselves but actually are not helpful in the present. So to take just one example - the inner critic - we might have developed this because of things said or done to us, but also felt if we are hard on ourselves we might meet the standards we think others have of us and they might be then less likely to harm us. So we do this behaviour to cope, but later in life it’s actually harmful. If we feel shame we might collapse into this and become self-punishing. This is often unconscious (structurally dissociated) so we find ourselves doing it before we are conscious of it. But by bringing it back into consciousness and integrating it with our core, wiser, adult self, we can take the power out of the unconscious impulse.

 We have a wise, stable part which shows up as us seeking help through therapy, recognising we are struggling and working to do something about it. It’s like we can re-integrate parts of ourselves that became fragmented, have compassion for our younger self and move towards becoming whole. This is what I’m working on anyway. Each person will have their own parts for their own reasons that might need integrating, so it will be different for you, me and the next person. So it’s often identifying the emotion and need under an impulse that fits your situation and that understanding can help extinguish the impulse. Just wanted to share that in case it helps.

[Supermum]

Im

sorry for the delayed response . Im

just in a very crappy headspace and anything and everything feels just too much … too overwhelming .y psychologist has said I have a working diagnosis of BPD . This has made me hyper fixate on everything negative and I just feel so bloody overwhelmed . I feel low and not in a good headspace . I just want to switch off crawl away and never come out again. I just don’t know how to move forward . Help … 

[therising]

Hi Supermum

A state of overwhelm is brutal. Not sure whether you can relate but I find when I'm in such a state, I'm not always entirely conscious of it. What I mean is when I'm in that state I tend to think 'I can't handle this. What's wrong with me? Everything just feels too much'. In hindsight, when I come out of it, I realise I was in a state of overwhelm where If it's anxiety or what I like to call 'unwelcome super hyper activity' my brain and mind are almost completely overwhelmed and my nervous system and vascular system on occasion, amongst other parts of me. It can be a seriously exhausting state to be in. If it's overwhelming levels of depression it can still be about hyper activity. The inner dialogue becomes brutal to work with, the frequency and volume.

Sometimes picking which parts of our self are overwhelming us can be tricky. When the analyst in me comes to life and manages to work full time, I'm overwhelmed by analysis (trying to analyse the hell out of everything). If the feeler in me has taken up that full time position, I'm overwhelmed by feeling absolutely everything. When the 2 are working together, I'm overwhelmed by how I feel about what I'm analysing. If the critic in me is there full time, I'm overwhelmed by calculating everything that's 'wrong' with me. If my intolerant sense of self is present full time, the part of me that refuses to tolerate any form of neglect or injustice from anyone, I'm typically overwhelmed with anger.

I've finally realised overwhelm is the point I reach just before a constructive 'breakdown'. It's a period of time in the lead up to me being forced to break everything down, so that I can make sense of what's led me to such unbearable states. Overwhelm has always led me to recognise each individual piece of the puzzle I face. Identifying each one allows me to put it together, gaining the overall picture. Same end result every time, me thinking in amazement 'My god, no wonder I was so overwhelmed!'.

While it can seem like we're working with a 10 piece puzzle that should be easy to solve, in reality we can be trying to make sense of 100 different issues (a 100 piece puzzle). Don't underestimate the number of factors that have led you to this point. There will be more than you realise.

[Eagle Ray]

Hi Supermum

I just thought I’d echo The Rising in saying that I’ve also often found a period of turbulence happens before some new growth or clarity. It can feel like there’s no way out sometimes, but just be as gentle with yourself as you can. It can be like the storm before the calm.

As for the working BPD diagnosis, I’ve been listening to some interviews with psychologist Janina Fisher and she has some really constructive approaches to complex trauma and BPD in particular. She’d prefer it’s name was changed as she doesn’t view it as a personality disorder but as a trauma-related attachment disorder. She helps clients to identify and heal parts of themselves traumatised in childhood and has had some good success with it. I just thought I’d mention her as her approach is positive and encouraging.

 I get the crawling away and never wanting to come out again. Many times I’ve felt like crawling under a rock. If it makes you feel any better, I hid under my hoodie and covered my face with my hands when my psychologist was trying to hold space for me today. She is the nicest, safest person so it’s nothing to do with her. It’s my feelings of non-safety that stem from my childhood. She let me stay there until I was ready to come out. It’s ok to feel vulnerable and you can even let yourself rest in that place for a while, imagining it like a safe burrow (or whatever works for you) where you can feel protected and comforted. Then you can come out a bit stronger and rested.

Take care xx