Showing posts with label childhood trauma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label childhood trauma. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Day 203: Experiencing Trauma Part 3 | Death

Continuation from:



"Looking back at that whole situation now I again cannot fathom why these people did not send me to a child psychologist. I remember for months I was still traumatised by the 'weather' and I remember I would over the weekends refuse to leave the house if the weather looked unstable. If I was sitting in class towards the end of the school day I would simply stare out the window at the clouds. Just watch the clouds like a monster that was slowly, painfully turning from its dark corner to pounce. I would just sit there 'praying' to the skies, to please not storm on my way home. I was petrified that a storm might break out as I was leaving the school and I had to go 'out there' where I had minimal cover while I waited for my buss. "

Note: in relation to this previous comment where I said ' I again cannot fathom why these people did not send me to a child psychologist' - in a conversation with my mother yesterday -I was telling her that I was writing blogs about these 'childhood traumas' and asked her why they did not send me to a psychologist. She replied that they did send me to a school councilor for a few sessions and that in the end it was the councilor that said 'in time it will sort itself out' and therefore they sent me to school where the incident with the headmaster happened. So this does not instill me with a lot of confidence when it comes to child psychologists/councilors. Any way moving on -

A few weeks before my eleventh birthday I was sitting in my bedroom one afternoon doing homework and my mom walks into my room. She tells me that my father had a heart attack and is in hospital. We were planning on visiting him that evening but I found myself just getting angry instead of feeling upset or sad. By the time we got to the hospital and my sisters and mother were hugging him and crying I was like a fuming demon lol. I refused to give him a hug and I simply stood just inside the door glaring at him. I was pissed.

The next morning at 3 am my sisters wake me up to tell me that our father had died. He had 2 big heart attacks. So from there on out my experience shifted in various ways. The trauma of knowing my father was going to die had obviously taken an immense toll on my young mind. Now after my fathers death I started considering into my teenage years the reason for his death or at least contributing factors. It turned out that my father (who's heart was obviously quite weak) was under a lot of pressure at work because that morning that he had his heart attack the bank that he worked at - a whole bunch of bank employees were going to be retrenched. My father was the bank manager but did not know himself who would be retrenched and whether his own job was secure (his bank was merging with another bank). By the time he was preparing to go to work he was already having the first heart attack. My sister noticed that he was looking very pale and sweaty and asked him what was wrong, to which he replied 'nothing' and that she must please not say anything to my mother or sisters because they would just get worried. By the time he got to the bank he collapsed.

The reason why I shared this whole story with you is because this information created immense guilt within me towards my father. When I found out that he had the heart attack probably from worrying over potentially losing his job I realized that he was probably concerned for his family - to be able to provide for his wife and 4 daughters. From this I created immense guilt for being the reason why he died. Over the years I also considered that if it was not for our existing money system a man (or woman) would not have to die out of fear that they cannot provide for their family.

So, from there what developed in me was my father's depression - where I basically made the decision to 'take on' my fathers depression in 'honour of him' - yes I know it sounds weird - it so often does when we look back at the things we do and you're like 'what??' But yes I was pining myself to death in his honour - feeling his sadness from his life and my sadness for losing him. A few months after my father's death I started having strange dreams about him. The one was where I would see his coffin inside the crematory. The flames would start up and I would be trapped inside this dream watching at first the coffin then his body starting to burn. I remember inside the dream I would feel the trauma within my mind pulsing inside my mind, something which I consciously knew at all times was there but would never speak about. I was also to embarrassed to speak about it because we all tend to know that death is something that happens and it is something that you are supposed to 'get over'. Therefore, I knew that something was 'off' so to speak about the fact that I had never dealt with my fathers death and that this sadness constantly stayed with me. In the dream it would switch from him in the coffin to me - where for a few second I would be lying in the coffin feeling the heat of the flames increasing around me...

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Day 176: Living by the principle of self honesty Part 2

The rest of the 'Principled Living' series:




Continuing from:

"Therefore, using self honesty allows oneself to set yourself back to zero so to speak where you give yourself the opportunity to see ones mis-takes, to align them to how you see you would like to speak/live/act, and this allows one next time to speak/live the correction. For example sticking to 'I spoke and then realized I did so out of fear'. Once I use self honesty to initially see that this was my starting point, then I either use writings (will explore more later) to open up the design of how I got to 'speaking out of fear' and all of its various dimensions - which if un-cleared/undirected will keep the point existent in the mind, which will simply mutate itself into new patterns/behaviours. Therefore self honesty does not merely stop at the point where one goes 'oh I spoke there out of fear' - it allows one as I mentioned to look deeper into all the 'puzzle pieces' so to speak of this one design. For example 'speaking out of fear' - if I use writing or immediate investigation within myself (method 2) I will find the design aspects such as childhood memories/experiences, emotions, people involved, reasons, excuses, justifications, wants, desires etc…"


As an example - lets say with 'talking from fear', I realized that this habit came from a childhood memory where I was in class and the teacher started yelling at me accusing me of cheating on my homework and that I wrote down the answers from a piece of paper on her table etc etc. In that moment I knew that I did not cheat and did not write the answers down and experience bewilderment, embarrassment because all the kids now believed I am a chat, I experience anger and mistrust that a teacher would do this and so forth. All of these experiences as 'puzzle pieces' imprinted into my mind as a fear of communication , -where in the mind this experience was now used as a reference point as I started growing up. Therefore in similar situations where someone would ask me about the validity of what I have done, I immediately go into fear and access all of those points of anger and resentment, which throughout my life cause secondary consequences.

For example lets say further in my life I created conflict situations because now I from fear and resentment at being questions, attack people verbally or try and cut them short without explanation etc. This in itself as time goes by, as I am sure we are all able to relate - will compound into secondary patterns, where the conflict now grows further into fear around communicating with people. Eventually the mind builds coping mechanisms such as lying when confronted or avoiding jobs with greater responsibility because of the fear behind being held accountable or fear of confrontation. This furthermore creates consequences where to avoid having to communicate about certain points to people I see as authority, I will lie and then if I get caught in the lie, I will blame my actions on another person, which then leads to an authoritative personality to avoid people questioning why I think I can blame others. Therefore my personalities get louder and more abrasive and I find myself becoming a 'harder person' who others will 'fear' confronting or questioning. So here fr example the mind will build a fear creating personality to not have to face the fear within self….

So you see how one childhood experience can expand in the mind over the years into adult patterns/behaviours. And as time goes by we contribute new layers to the original pattern - all because of the minds inherent nature to protect itself - and therefore it adapts. So if one did not pick up on this behaviour - then think how differently conversations would turn out - the outcome would be a very different story then the truth behind what is really going on. And this is why we as humanity are habitually acting constantly out of self interest in the way we speak, act and think - because we have never really been taught the ability to be self honest about who we are and are never effectively taught methods of how to direct experiences, this mostly being due to the fact that nobody has actually assessed whether these experiences we call 'being human' or normal human behaviours is actually what is best. Therefore, in our child-programming platforms such as classrooms, childhood social setups, home environments, the effects of media, television, music on the development of children etc - all of these experience shaping platforms are all seen as 'normal' and 'acceptable' where we don’t trace the problems to these institutions.

Artwork: https://www.facebook.com/andrewgableart
Self honesty though, is also a choice and not a choice lol let me explain. Self honesty always exists - you are always what you are. I would say that 2 forms of self-honesty exist. If I have nasty thoughts about myself then I can tell you 'I have ugly thoughts about myself' - this is me being self honest. But then there is being honest about who self really is - the best self can be - and therefore by saying 'I have ugly thoughts about myself is not self honest - it is in fact self dishonesty - I am not honouring myself. So initially - when one starts to walk the process of 'self honesty - what I have found is that one goes through the initial phase of revealing to self everything that exist inside of self, ones true thoughts, feelings, emotions, behaviours, feelings, possessions etc. Then one starts looking at what is it that I would like to live as 'my utmost potential', as that which is best for me, which is what is best for all - and this is where one becomes 'self honest'.

I could continue to live blissfully unaware of my words, thoughts and deeds and create a life for myself where I seek out in every moment to be the best, feel the best, live my utmost potential - in the world system, where the emphasis is on personal self-interest, or in self honesty I know that I cannot say the world is 'messed up' if I don’t start addressing me in the global soup of messed upness lol...

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