this is so cute
I realize this is an animal crossing meme but as an astrophysicist I was really excited for a second that someone was finally seeing the light on how fricking difficult and a huge waste of time it would be to try to terraform Mars
May you receive a sign this week that puts your mind at ease and fills your heart with hope. 🤍🕊
Wow.... so you’re telling me you took an action that resulted in the death of one person...... to save the lives of many people.... who would have died if you did nothing??? that sounds so familiar
A lot of people with childhood trauma (and, from my experience, especially attachment trauma) find themselves yearning for a parent figure. A mother, a savior - someone to hold you and love you in all the ways you needed when you were a child. Someone to hold you while you break into a million pieces.
At some point in recovery/therapy you will have to face the harsh reality: there will never be anyone. Not like that, not anymore. And mourning that? That’s too much, that feels like a pain that cannot be survived. A pain that will swallow you whole, a pain that will drown you.
Therapists can offer a lot of support, but not like that. So maybe you want to switch therapists in hopes of finding someone who can (even though, if they are a good therapist, they can’t), or you would rather be without therapists because then at least they won’t have to suffer the pain of “someone’s here but they’re not enough”.
Getting a little support, a little of everything we missed, a little of everything we want… Getting a little is worse, in some ways. Because getting a little bit activates the pain; it triggers the feelings of what we miss. Dripping a couple drops of water in an empty bucket makes you feel how devastatingly empty that bucket is.
Getting nothing and being absolutely alone is dull. It’s a drag of depression and darkness. But getting a little bit but not everything? That’s sharp and flashing pain, it’s dry heaving from the heavy crying. It’s intrusive thoughts and self-destructive thoughts. It’s breaking apart again and again and again.
liSTEN my therapist warned me about this and then she told me THERE IS A SOLUTION
you DO NOT HAVE TO FEEL THIS WAY FOREVER
the solution is reparenting yourself
YOU be the parent you wish you’d had.
YOU give yourself comfort and love and acceptance (and ice cream and stuffed animals).
YOU talk to yourself the way a good parent would – tell yourself “it’s okay” and “everybody makes mistakes” and “you will feel better soon”.
YOU can change the voices in your head. listen to those thoughts and hear whose voice they’re speaking with. your parents programmed those intrusive thoughts. and then ARGUE with them the way you were never allowed to before. tell yourself “YOU DESERVE NICE THINGS” and “YOU DESERVE TO BE HAPPY” until someday someday someday with enough time you CHANGE your programming into something BETTER.
It’s a process. it’s a looooooooooong process. I’m still going at it. BUT. it can really really help to know that the way you feel right now is not forever, and that you can re-parent yourself and start to feel better. that you have power now that you didn’t have before, and you can use that power to reinforce your programming and you can use that power to change that programming, and it’s all up to you.
OP is right that no one else can do it for you. you can’t get adopted by a new perfect family. your therapist / partner / BFF can’t do it.
but YOU CAN.
(p.s. https://www.outofthestorm.website/ is a really really great resource from anyone suffering from complex ptsd due to relational trauma, A++ highly recommend)
waterloggedsoliloquy
