The only way we have learned to deal with our difficulties is to dissociate. The idea of their being any other option is foreign to us. We even trained our children to deal with their difficult emotions by dissociating. When our children are very young and having trouble managing their emotions, We would tell them, “Go into the next room and do not come out until you have changed.” We have learned to become very obedient; we leave the room in a tantrum state, but soon will emerge, smiling, pleasant, and happy. Any vestige of a problem is gone without a trace.
Having dissociative parents, you learn dissociation from them – both by being taught it directly, and by example. Parents who dissociate are unable to help a child go through their emotions. They are to help the child learn that an emotion is nothing to fear, but something that is very valuable and precious, helpful in living life. We sincerely believe that switching off an emotion is the best way to
deal with it. We had never heard of the concept of self-soothing, it was pleasant to do some so-called ‘self-soothing ‘ activities, and we feel mildly better when we use them. But the concepts of staying with an emotion, sitting with it until it changes, and using a self soothing technique instead of switching, are all foreign to us. We are too terrified of our emotions to ever do this. We are afraid of fear itself, and will go to immense means not to experience the emotion of fear, or any other emotion, without ever realising that we are doing this. We have control of ourself. We feel we can handle anything.
We have to become careful with organised groups of people, and with individuals who might not be safe. We learn what to look for, how to tell whether or not something is safe, how to tell whether or not we are accessed. Eventually, we realise we are safe, our children are safe and well on their way to healing, we all have our safeguards in place.
We have no reason not to live in the present, We are relatively free from harm from external sources, so there was no longer a need to dissociate, so we are DONE with dissociation, right? we lived ever after, end of story?
Obviously WRONG!
Long ago, decades ago, IN EARLY CHILDHOOD We have made the decision that life was not worth living – it was something to ‘get through’ as smoothly and mindlessly as possible until we could die. The rule had been to imperceptibly stay as non-present as possible, while going about the business of doing what we had to do to ‘survive’, to pass as human. That was a rule we learned deep, deep down and stored with our child within.
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