Posted by Larry Hoover on May 27, 2006, at 11:31:15
In reply to **Trigger** I think I figured out what cracked me, posted by Larry Hoover on May 26, 2006, at 9:50:59
Still triggers flowing, by the way. I again posted this elsewhere. The muse hit me there. I haven't come back here, yet. I will. I'm deeper, here, and I need more time, here. Before I can speak again, here. Just for the update sense of it, I wrote this.....
And thank you for all the validation. It means so much to me.
Here goes....
I appreciate very much the empathy and support. It feels a little unsettling to receive this much attention, when once upon a time, attention is the last thing I wanted. But, I'll manage. [that was actually said with twinkly eyes]
I'm just going to randomly speak to thoughts that arose from this all, rather than answer anybody directly.
It means a lot to know that I am like you, even if the similarity is itself tragic. I was a normal little boy, in a very unusual place. I did what I had to do, to endure it. If I was asked to use one word to define my childhood, in the context of her, it is terror.
Putting words to my memories is crucial, by the way. It unblocks the next thought, to finish forming the one in front.
I realize the central theme of what she did to me.
She would hit me until I had stuffed a similar amount of emotion as she had stuffed, herself. You see, one of the Rules was that if He was home, only He had rage. Not that he was home a lot. I remember her saying once, "I thought I was protecting you kids from him." The thing is, I believe her. Not that it helps me in any way. But I believe she was sincere when she said that.
Also, the pieces are already healed. Not yet grieved, though. But the context is restored. I'm remembering now, not because I'm ready. I'm remembering now because I re-integrated. "Ready" doesn't really describe the situation. I've been ready for a long time. I just couldn't access the memories, because they were mostly stored "off-site", in the memory of the broken off piece.
I think anybody can stuff emotions in a crisis. It's natural to do it. I'm sure I employed that human attribute for many many years before I could have even understood the words for it. But the idea that there were no Rules was too big, when laid on me at a moment when I had been stuffing the biggest hugest stuffer yet. The fabric of my ego tore apart. Whenever it was that it happened, from that point onwards, that fragmented bit had no access to the main me.
Given sufficient emotional stimulation, like a spark between two conductors, I could leap into the expert stuffer ego state, which was in the broken off piece. From the outside, I'm triggered. Just in case anybody didn't know I ever got really triggered, I think some of my triggered episodes are infamous. Until I had the Internet archives, I really wasn't aware of how big they were.
From inside, though, all I had was lost time. I had no idea what really happened during one. I have no memory of it. Like I was carjacked, knocked out, and I 'came to' in some really dangerous neighbourhood. I'd have all the physiological stimulation appropriate for the state of arousal, and I'd certainly note that people around me weren't too happy with me, but I wouldn't really understand what had happened.
The transitions were seamless. Trust me, I looked very hard. For years and years, I looked intently, but I couldn't figure out what was even wrong. Finally, somebody on another board suggested the concept of ego state disorder. I didn't even fit that, really, because of the sense of lost time. I'm one step removed from DID/MPD, I think. Maybe not. Depends on your definitions. I know there's at least one more entity inside me, and it isn't me. I just figured that out, too. I think it might be an internalized version of my mom. Only I'm better at it than even she was. The verbal abuse, I mean. The abuse wasn't merely physical. Maybe it's a hybrid of me and my mom. It'll come to me, some time. It takes time to look at everything.
A piece broke off my ego, somewhere back around 7? years of age, and only interacted with the world when I was triggered sufficiently. It grew up some, along the way. Ya know? It was no more frozen in time than we are. And the re-integration event was the most horrific experience of my life, by at least an order of magnitude. It felt something like a zipper closing. Except the zipper started out all twisted up, so there was a whole lot of spinning and stretching and squeezing and....I was so disoriented, so un-grounded, that I thought that it was the end of sanity itself. I thought, "so this is what it is like to lose your mind". But being so ungrounded, it was also my personal hell. My ultimate worst emotional state. My personal hell. But it ended after only a few hours. I slept, and woke up with a sense of personal competency I have never known. Humpty Dumpty shook off the clumsy work of the king's men, and fixed hisself. The piece knew precisely where it ought to have been. All it needed was the first point of contact, a reference point. And it went out from there, in four dimensions. Three of space, and one more for time. Like a crystal forming out of a super-saturated solution.
I think I am correct in linking another memory to that fragmentation event, when my ego broke apart. I'm pretty sure she left bruises, that time. She wasn't careful enough where she hit me, that time. And I wore a long-sleeve shirt to school in summer? And maybe a social worker came to our apartment? In those days, they wouldn't often apprehend a child. I'm not sure I have a clear enough recollection to sort that out. I think she got warned? Of course, all that did was drive it further underground. Anyway.
It feels good to have my piece/peace back.
And it feels good to have y'all around me.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:648797
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060526/msgs/649334.html