Control

[Dreaming]

This may become self pitying. Feel free to ignore.

A therapist once told me I didn?t suffer from anxiety. She believed I suffered from a lack of control. Her advice was simply to reclaim control and the symptoms I mistook for anxiety would go. I?m sat in my well (it?s a disused well, as soon as there?s water that?s when I know I?m truly ****ed), I?m trying to make sense of everything. I think I?m realising that I failed to take this advice. I?m feeling that my life has never been my own, I?ve never been in control of it. People took things from me without my permission and people made choices for me without any consultation. Abusive, raping, spiteful and neglectful people. People who knew better. 

 I  thought I had created a new world for myself with Liz. Now I feel that maybe I exchanged one form of control for another. Maybe part of me is still a child, back in the world of ?home?, letting, maybe even wanting, people to take over and make decisions for me. Since this whole rubbish breakup b******s I?ve been totally unable to make any kind of decision, looking desperately to others to make them for me. How can I get control back if I can?t even decide where I should sleep? I chose our bed in the end. I am feeling like Liz assumed all control, she chose when this ended without any regard as to whether or not I was ready to let it go.

I feel like I?m losing all sense of who I am, I?ve lost my essence and I?m scared I?ll never find it. In fact I?m more scared that I never had it in the first place, that it was stolen from me.

I?m trying to hold onto the fact I?ve accomplished a lot since I?ve moved to Brighton, from creating a world I wanted to be part of, to my career. It would never have happened if I hadn?t taken a chance with Liz, and this wont all go away just because she has. I have a whole world here that matters to me and where I matter. I can?t let her make me believe that I am anything less than brave and wanted and loved.

[cyclegirl]

Don't disregard your feelings as  not valid enough because it may be 'self pity'. They have value. So I therefore won't 'ignore' your post.

Sometimes we need to lose ourselves a bit to actually find out who we are and what we need longer term. Things will become clearer and it seems that you have already recognised and looked at what has happened in the past and where you are now. The control is what you now choose to do with it. I know that it can be very frightening. But take it as it belongs to you. Start small and hold yourself tenderly.

You have achieved so much and built that for yourself. You did that. You have people who care about you and will stand side by side with you as you find your way. I think that says a great deal about you.

I am now officially giving you my sheriff's badge. It has great power and you can keep it for as long as necessary. Please remember to give it a polish now and then, as it needs to shimmer. Be careful with it as it has been on many journeys with me and has many stories to tell. Now its your turn.

Keep warm x

[stresspuppy]

Hi Dreaming, like your post - it sounds very insightful and know you've been doing a lot of that recently!!

I don't think it's self pity at all and I'm not sure if lack of control and anxiety are two entirely different things - surely a sense of lack of control is anxiety provoking in itself and anxiety often makes us feel out of control/not in control?

Other people can be very dissapointing - and especially so when we hold them in some regard and feel they should know better. It's a difficult balance, to trust is to risk and yet if we don't risk we risk a life half lived  I know at the moment with everything as it currently is that there's a need to seek out some fault, something you could have done better, a mistake not to make again? instead perhaps you did do everything right, took those risks we need to take when embarking on relationships and were let down much later by someone who perhaps needs some of their own growing to do?

Sounds like this has kicked up a lot of past issues that you've started to explore, and sounds like they need exploring for you to move on and up to the next chapter of your life - your already doing it, I think you're doing so well already - so more power to that shiny badge of yours ;-D

[zigzag]

Your pain is real and valid.  It may have been ignored in the past, but things are different now. 

I have found there are therapists who can?t handle the profound impact the experience of being raped and abused has on every aspect of one?s life.  There is no such thing as being ?simply? able to regain control after being raped/abused and to say so shows ignorance or an inability to go there with you and imagine the full horror and terror of control being taken away brutally, callously, indifferently, and the dehumanising nature of it. 

I feel it is important to honour the reality of the lack of control that you have had in your life, alongside strengthening your sense of yourself as having control now.  Lack of control is inherent in the experiences of rape and abuse, and is a consequence of them, not something you are simply choosing.  These are deeply traumatic experiences and life then becomes about trying to process these experiences and ensuring they do not happen again.  In this way life does not feel your own; decisions are motivated by something much more urgent ? to regain the sense of safety that has been lost ? and there can be a pull towards what feels familiar.  It can take a while to work out who and what really makes you feel truly safe and supported. 

What I see is that you are strong and brave, that you have made decisions in the past that you have felt would best help you to feel safe (the relationship with Liz), and that now circumstances have changed, you are figuring out anew what you need to feel safe.  Change is scary and it plunges you back into a space of uncertainty, fragility and sense of loss.  It is difficult for anyone to make decisions in such a place of disorientation and emotional turmoil.  Right now, being in a well may seem the safest place to be.  But it seems to me you are also considering what else could be safe for you than being dependent on another person, and thinking beyond safety to what else you might want in your life. 

When we have had control taken away in a brutal way, it can be scary to have control again, knowing it could be taken away again.  It can feel safer not to have control so the same thing can?t happen again.  Letting other people make decisions for you can be a fundamentally self protective decision about how best to keep yourself safe.  It can also express powerlessness you have felt and a wish for other people to make better decisions in relation to you, to look after you after having missed out on this in the past, and to prove themselves trustworthy.

Although you feel you haven?t made decisions in the past, in fact you have put in place things for yourself that support you now, that haven?t been taken away by Liz?s decision.  You made the decision to join the forum, to develop friendships and a support network, to pursue a challenging career you can grow in.  Whilst consciously you may not have seen the relationship ending coming, your instincts served you well to put in place other things for yourself to meet your needs.  You can believe in and trust yourself.

I think yes, we do carry that child part of ourselves into adulthood, and it takes time for our adult self to be able to understand and meet the needs of our child part.  When your child self has been violated, this is a so much more difficult task because you have taken in experiences of your needs having been so totally ignored and overridden, and of things not making sense, of being beyond comprehension.  Abuse is a head**** too.

In my experience of you, the essential parts of you ? your desire and ability to connect to and trust other people, and your wish to feel secure, loved and loving ? are very much alive.   In saying that, I don?t mean to minimise the sense of loss that you feel but seek to honour your evident humanity.  When we are violated, we lose the life we would otherwise have lived and a sense of ourselves unshaped by abuse.  It can leave us feeling very much lost in our lives and having lost a crucial part of ourselves.  But when people abuse you, I don?t think they do take away all of you, even though it feels like they do.  I think instead parts of ourselves and our potentials go underground and just need the right conditions to reappear and grow again.  You have already started to put these conditions in place for yourself and I believe you will continue to make positive choices for yourself. 

I feel deeply privileged to have read your post.  Thank you for your bravery in sharing. 

x

[Dreaming]

Goodbye control.