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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 2 of 2. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by trouble on February 20, 2002, at 8:25:07
I've been reading your posts the last 90 minutes. One of them, which I responded to before (about our Bette Davis mothers) I read again twice thru to absorb it all. There are traumas in there that I don't think the human mind can accept, a couple experiences were like that for me, so unbelievable I could feel my brain ripping in two as one part tried to comprehend the experience while the other side was deseprately trying to negate it.
I met a woman in trauma recovery group who was treated similarly by her mother and she went on to split into several different personalities. It wasn't her special way of getting attention, it was genuine, she "lost time" and acted out in those modes and it really distressed her. She wasn't intellectual or jaded, she was really distressed about all this. Sometimes we didn't know what she was talking about, but we all felt honored when sitting next to her, like we were in a sacred space, her space, and that was her strength and beauty and willingness to love.
I mention this, b/c next to me hers is the most horrific childhood I've come across. I think your mom making you eat your own vomit qualifies you for the pantheon. I hope you have a chance to be in a group like the one I'm talking about, it was just the best ever group I'd ever been in, and there was no manual on fixing the crazies, the facilitators treated us w/ awe, they did a media blitz where they talked about us w/ complete respect. They were humbled by what we'd been thru, that we were trying to clear away the wreckage of our childhoods, and they picked up on our altruism, everyone in the group was putting their healing out, into the world. It was remarkable.
The support group was created by an international organization called PARENTS ANONYMOUS, for parents who beat their kids. The group I was in was for adults who were seriously abused and it was free. They called it PAST for (I kid you not) PEOPLE AGAINST STAYING TRAUMATIZED. Isn't that sweet?
But all this was in the early 1980s, and things were different then. I'm not impressed w/ the Zeitgist arouond here, lots of Cognitive and personality disorder groups...just made me feel bad. But that book you mentioned, The Inner Child, also from the early 80's? I read that too, and I loved it. And you're right, it is "unsophisticated" and all, but it was more healing to me than I can say, it really did speak to the child in me, w/out patronizing or being silly. To this day I remember him saying when you feel sad about the past feel as much as you can, feel all of it, don't leave anything behind, unplug the phone, feel, get it out...
Pretty powerful stuff.
Anyway, your thoughts on anhedonia really grabbed me too. I forgot that I'm not supposed to feel that way. But like you I do, and probably always will. But it wasn't suppossed to be this way and I don't want to forget that.
Whew!
I was actuallly looking in the archives for something Dinah hinted at about your having been victimized by the psychiatric establishment? Maybe that was on PB Open or a private conversation, anyway I couldn't find it.
But I'm interested in seeing any accounts of that sort of thing, if you know of a thread and want to pass it along.
take care, trouble
Posted by Anna Laura on February 21, 2002, at 8:39:20
In reply to To Anna Laura, posted by trouble on February 20, 2002, at 8:25:07
> I've been reading your posts the last 90 minutes. One of them, which I responded to before (about our Bette Davis mothers) I read again twice thru to absorb it all. There are traumas in there that I don't think the human mind can accept, a couple experiences were like that for me, so unbelievable I could feel my brain ripping in two as one part tried to comprehend the experience while the other side was deseprately trying to negate it.
Yes i can relate to that also.The only way i've managed to go through that was by totally denying my mother's good part, since i couldn't get the two pieces together (the good mum and the bad one).
As a consequence, my basic mental equations throughout all my childhood and teen years have been roughly something like:the total mum= the good mum+the bad mum. But the total mum is umbereable, thereby i'll rip her in two parts by totally denying she's any good. How can i manage to do that in order to preserve my mental sanity?
Let's see....I might argue that she's crazy. Since she's crazy and deranged she's uncapable of love and good feelings so that when she's good to me she's just faking it : may be she doesn't even realize she's lying, playing a role being essentially unaware of it.
> I met a woman in trauma recovery group who was treated similarly by her mother and she went on to split into several different personalities.
Thanks god i experienced it just once when i was about eleven and i was suffering from depression. I had an entire afternoon blackout. That was weird man! I was told i have been taking care of my little sister: i washed her, dressed her and played with her.
Needless to say, i didn't remember a goddam thing. Last thing i remember i was sitting next to my bed-room's window , drawing; it was righ after lunch: and then i turn my head, take a look at the window and it was night, pitch black!The group I was in was for adults who were seriously abused and it was free. They called it PAST for (I kid you not) PEOPLE AGAINST STAYING TRAUMATIZED. Isn't that sweet?
Yes it is. We don't have such things in my country unfortunately. There's nothing in between pure Freudian (or Kleinian, you know, Melanie Klein) orthodoxy and cognitive-behavioural or silly new age stuff.
It's like "Freud rules!", pretty much tough. Since Freud has been vigorously rejecting past memories of child abuse, constructing his theoretical building on the notion of "phantasy" (i'm refering to the subsconscious phantasies, like the "primary scene" and so forth) no wonder orthodox therapists tend to deny your past experiences, invalidating any memory of abuse.
Everything is just a plain phantasy, present and past abuse mainly being a pure projection of your supposedly untolerable "death instincts".
Everything emanates form the "internal" world, and all the events, no matter how dramatic they can be, are filtered throughout our internal "sieve" (the latter being determined "genetically", not being shaped nor influenced by external events whatsoever).
These theories might sound appealing or annoying on a printed book, but they have dangerous practical repercussions and implications .
That's why i put so much emphasis on the abuse site: we don't have such a thing in Italy: therapists are worshipped as gods, being compared to luminaries of the medical field. No one can ever dare to sue one of them.
Their words cannot be discussed whatsoever.
They're deciding what is "normal" and what is not, what is ethical and what is not, influencing and re-shaping our culture at last.
This is already happening: Happiness and joy are childlish: "manic-defenses", basically an illness.These concepts are pouring in to our everyday's culture and common sense, and i don't want that. As long as an analyst is being obnoxious to me, i don't care, but when they enter in the cultural arena, speaking on tv, writing books for the masses and so forth, i start to worry. It's like they're founding a kind of cultural oligarchy, working behind the scenes, influencing political lobbies and so forth.
I know, i sound paranoid. May be i'm exaggerating a bit, but it's partly true.
You know, when i was a little girl i loved Freud (it was back in the early eighties same period you wnt to group therapy. It was 1982 i think). I approached his theories when i was about twelve (i'm no genius: i was reading his books in a naive manner, considering them as diagnostic manuals, trying to find a "cure" for my illness).
Actually i believe they're masterpieces of rethoric and pseudo-scientific investigation literature rather then genuine scientific books: (as a matter of fact Freud won the nobel prize for literature, not for science).
Sorry for the digression, i just realized it's quite long. Hope i didn't bother you.
I was actuallly looking in the archives for something Dinah hinted at about your having been victimized by the psychiatric establishment? Maybe that was on PB Open or a private conversation, anyway I couldn't find it.
It's a long story (don't remember of having mentioned it, actually). To cut it short, i suffered from a serious form of CFS with neurological symptoms that has been misdiagnosed as a psychosis.
My relatives (especially my father's girlfriend) wanted to put me in a private clinic (oh, god, they lock you in and throw away the key down there!): well, i literally crawled (could barely walk and move my limbs) to the airport, caught a plane and flied away.
Don't like to recall those events, cause even if they took place something like four years ago, they're still vivid and unpleasant; i want to forget that as a matter of fact (i wish i could).
This is the end of the thread.
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