Posted by noa on April 13, 2004, at 11:09:06
In reply to Infant abuse (ramble)...may trigger (?), posted by KindGirl on April 13, 2004, at 1:27:42
KG, you should definitely talk to her about the feelings. That is what is going to help you heal. Yes, the hugs feel therapeutic, etc. but in the long run, being able to talk about the feelings toward her I think will be what you have to do to process all of this.
I can relate. My situation was not anywhere near as awful as yours, but my mother also always liked to tell me I had been such a "good baby" because I never cried. That's a myth if I ever heard one. My mother was probably an adequate mom to me as a baby, but throughout my childhood, she had a limited ability to really see me as I am and empathize with my feelings. And I think that there were certain events in my very early life that exacerbated things.
When I was a baby, I had some medical problems and was hospitalized as a young infant and again at around 2 yrs. of age, and at 4 y.o., and again at age 7. I remember the 4 y.o. time--just bits and pieces of it, like when my father came to pick me up and I remember feeling so resentful because I didn't know I was going home then, so it was unexpected and I remember feeling angry at him, and thinkin something like, "You leave me here all this time alone and now you just show up without my expecting it and say I'm going home?!?" I have clearer memories of when I was 7 and put up a fight on the operating table so that I remember a bunch of nurses and doctors having to hold me down for the anasthesia. And again, I remember that my father bought me a radio to keep me company and that I resented it because I didn't want a radio, I wanted my parents.
The earlier times I don't remember but I have feeling memories of it that are so hard to access in words--these deep down longings and impotent rage and feeling so lost and bad at the core of me, and feeling like if I let myself feel anger, it will be this unlimited intense rage that is inconsolable and that with the crying and rage I would destroy myself and the whole world with me. The feeling that I cannot let myself feel feelings because they will be totally inconsolable.
And one time, my mother's friend was relating this story about when I was in the hospital as a baby. She told me that my parents were too busy to visit me for a couple of days (!!!!) so she and her husband went instead and that her husband couldn't bring himself to come into the room because he heard me crying and it broke his heart!
Well, you can imagine what kind of effect this story had on me--it opened up a flood of feelings. Feelings with no words attached to them.
My transference toward my therapist has been based on these feelings. I went through a time when I pined for him like a baby, or would feel like I wanted him to hold me like a baby, or even for me to be in his 'womb'. Sounds crazy, I know. But these kinds of feelings are very deep and primitive and not easy to verbalize.
My therapist doesn't use touch, and I wouldn't want him to, so it has all been talking, but the talking has helped tremendously. I think at some point when all of these feelings were surfacing for me. we increased therapy to twice a week, which helped a lot.
It is important for you to also talk to your therapist about strategies for self-soothing when these feelings come up.
Take care.
poster:noa
thread:335814
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040409/msgs/335932.html