Managing loneliness
For all human beings, social relationships are important. A healthy relationship gives us a sense of security, support, consolation, friendship, body contact, pleasure and a sense of belonging. It is part of the basic needs of man.
John Bowlby, a pioneer psychiatrist in attachment research says: "We have discovered that people of all ages are the happiest and their talents best used, if they are certain that if they have difficulties, the one or more people would be there to help them "(1973, p. 359)
Our relationships with others arouse very strong emotions (negatively or positively) because no one is perfect and our desires do not necessarily correspond to the needs of others at time T. We do not read thoughts, there can be misunderstandings between us, and sometimes unintentionally we can hurt each other.
"The ideas we have of an adult relationship between people are based on the way we have bonded with others in the past . We learn how to function in relationships, but also and above all what should not Each relational model has certain basic beliefs that persist . " Managing the dissociation of traumatic origin (Boon, Steele & Van der Hart, 2014).
The trauma destroys the bond between the individual and his community .
Growing up in the sect, I quickly learned that the bonds of friendship do not last (we often moved and I lost my friends), that human relationships were fake. In the sect we were all "brothers" and "sisters", so we called each other, sisters in Christ or brothers in Christ, we loved each other, at least that's what we said constantly, we kissed each other (the brotherly kiss), we prayed for each other ... But the inner suffering of the other had to remain hidden, his needs denied and his thought should always remain consistent with that of the guru . The emotional relationship between my father and my mother was nonexistent, my father insulted her, threatened her, howled at her and on us, I saw her cry, implore each day, they had no intimate relationships (they were forbidden by the sect), no signs of affection in front of us, I saw them grow back ...
We all played a role, a beautiful smile on our lips every day, we sang our joy and our faith in the corridors, demonstrative friendships and gestures of affection openly ... It was said of us that we were radiant, happy, that our faith illuminated us ... The tears had to be repentance or conversion to faith, in these cases they were public. If they had another purpose, to express our suffering, they were denigrated and had to be hidden! Doubt, questioning ... all this was prohibited and punished. My family and parents were seen by others as "the ideal family model".
There was a feigned compassion in order to know the inner wounds and better use it to manipulate and pressure ... And if it was another member of the sect and not the guru who obtained the "confessions of weakness ", this member could use it to" go up in rank ", to obtain a higher station, advantages, by bursting the scandal. The guru also used it to establish his domination. We were the pieces of a chessboard of which only he knew the rules, we were all his puppets. There was general distrust ...
I grew up in the midst of hundreds of people and paradoxically we were all desperately alone, I always felt alone and abandoned. And I always felt like a puppet, a rag doll, an actress who plays a role. No matter what happened to me, no matter where I was, no one saw me, no one was worried about who I was, how I was, what I was doing or what was being done to me ... I was a ghost, I was transparent, I did not exist.
The one and only person who asked me how I was was the guru during his sessions of "confessions", in order to establish his grip on me, my addiction to him, my attachment to him. My rapist, just after his rapes, asked me how I was, what I thought, who I was ... My rapist was the only one who gave me the feeling of existing for someone, of interesting someone one, to be important to someone ...
For people traumatized in childhood, two sides of the same coin come into play and fight internally constantly: the phobia of attachment and the phobia of loss of attachment . And each of our parts will have its own idea, its own conceptions on the notion of attachment and on the fear or the need to tie it, based on its lived experience .
The attachment phobia :
We avoid relationships as much as possible, solving our problems alone, and are ashamed of being in a situation of dependence. We feel a lot of anger against ourselves at the expression of this need which is perceived as a sign of weakness and puts us at the mercy of the other. The fear of being injured predominates and the fear of being threatened will make us act by:
the leak (I go out or I don't talk about it anymore),
the frost (we don't move anymore, we don't think anything anymore),
the struggle (argument, anger),
collapse (depression and broken bond).
I can thus hear in my head parts that will either warn me that this relationship will hurt me, that this person is bad, that it will hurt me ... Or a part will highlight all my faults and me to say that I don't deserve to be loved and appreciated by this person, that if they do it it is for a very precise Machiavellian purpose, that they want to get something from me ... I feel a lot of shame , sadness and anger at myself, all the moments when I felt alone and abandoned come back to my memory and all hope becomes vain ...
The phobia of loss of attachment :
We also have parties who are desperately hoping to bond with other people. We bore our suffering alone throughout our childhood, our loneliness and our abandonment were immense, and we constantly sought a parent, a caring person who loves us and helps us. Everyone needs to feel that we care about him and that he is someone special.
"The dissociative parties with a loss of attachment phobia would like other people to reassure them and regulate their emotions . To do this, they have developed different strategies to increase the opportunities to be with other people and avoid to be alone. However, they pay the price: other people get tired of them and step back, which creates exactly the scenario so feared by these parties and the beliefs of the parties, phobic of attachment, that relationships can only be accompanied by pain . " Managing the dissociation of traumatic origin (Boon, Steele & Van der Hart, 2014).
In the sect, I was a very appreciated and loved child. I fully complied with the rules and behaviors expected of a "perfect" child of the sect. I was always smiling, I almost never complained (unlike some other teens), I helped without being asked, I participated in religious and daily life (cleaning, tasks ...) without complaining, I was gentle and kind, welcoming with everyone. I gave my all in everything I was asked and I said yes to everything without asking questions. I was put forward a lot, I was congratulated, admired. It was a way for me to exist. In addition, the guru maintained his grip on me by granting me "privileges and a special status". I was thus a privileged child who benefited in the same way as the children of the guru of drawing, music and singing lessons, participation in camps ... I often had a special role in ceremonies. He distinguished me from the other children of the sect (my brother also). I was no longer lost among hundreds of others, I was no longer invisible.
Emotionally, I was very demonstrative, I told people that they were beautiful, good, that I admired them, I made many compliments, I jumped in their arms, on their knees, I took their hand ... I reacted like this as soon as I felt that someone was ready to give me a little affection, whether male or female. Three of my rapists, the guru and the priests told me that I was "their adopted daughter, their daughter at heart or the child they had never had". I was desperately trying to create a bond, a bond strong enough with someone to save me and help me, to protect me, to love me. My vision of the link was damaged, soiled by all the grips that my rapists had with me and by the example of the sect's truncated human relationship. From the age of 2, I ran in the corridors to jump in the arms of the guru, he told me that I was his adopted daughter, his daughter at heart in front of my parents, openly showed me affection, so even that he raped me at that time, drugged me and locked me in cages guarded by dogs ... That was my model: to be loved, to receive affection, to exist for someone we had to accept a share of suffering and violence.
I quickly learned to conceal my needs, to submit myself, to analyze the needs and desires of the other and to respond to them like a slave or a servant. My dissociation made that I had no capacity to analyze the true intentions of the other, if a man of the sect showed me the interest or the affection, I trusted him completely, I was grateful to him , he then very easily had sufficient control over me to trap and rape me. I couldn't figure out what healthy limits I should and could put. I had learned on the one hand that I had to love my next (authorization of mark of affection, of friendship openly), but not too much (not too much intimacy nor knowledge), I had to remain virgin and pure. On the other hand, I was raped and my rapists were the ones who decreed the rules and prohibited, the limits of my body were nonexistent and I had to shut up this aspect of my life under penalty of death. My right to speak was prohibited.
I was therefore isolated personally but also isolated internally due to the amnesic barriers between the parts of me which had formed to survive and I also relived constantly internally my isolation by my staging of the past while growing up.
It is very difficult for me to bond with a person for all these reasons. I suffer and I constantly fight internally between my need to be loved, to exist and to be important in the eyes of someone and my fear of reliving other betrayals, other failures, other injuries and traumas .
Living alone is a vital need for me at times, it allows me to breathe and feel safe. When I am alone, I can simply be myself without having to control myself, manage my games and my "switches". The fear of being discovered, of someone noticing my dissociation and using it to harm me or punish me disappears, that of being judged negatively, also labeled mad. No longer needing to have friends, a companion, a family is a relief. I will not have to give myself sexually, I will not have to sacrifice myself for the other, I will not have to play a role. I am finally free after a lifetime of constraints and rules imposed by others.
But when I'm alone, when I finally feel safe, everything explodes inside me .
I find myself confronted with myself :
Who am I ? I have so many games that a simple choice of how to dress, what my favorite color is, what I like to eat, what music I like ... is a real headache!
Making a decision is an insurmountable task since I have hundreds of ideas, opinions that are jostling and fighting inside me!
What to do ? There are also endless battles ...
I find myself confronted with my parts :
They all want to be heard, scream their suffering, their loneliness, tell me what they went through so that someone finally hears them ... My traumatic memory explodes: physical pain, emotional pain, I am in thousands of pieces and each of these pieces is pierced with needles.
I find myself confronted with my fears :
My phobia of my dissociative parts fiercely fights my traumatic emergence. My parties who oppose the internal dialogue make me feel their terror, their anguish ... I have the impression that I am going to die. This titanic fight plunges me into a deep depressive state and I come to think that only suicide is the solution to no longer suffer, no longer feel.
And I often end up running away from this fight by turning to a bond with a perverse person. I find a known functioning, something that I have already experienced whose rules I know. It reassures and relieves me and temporarily stops this fight.
But this link is "perverse". Parts of me are fighting again to get back to safety, to run away and protect myself ... My life is only a succession of "I am safe - I run away I put myself in danger".
Fortunately, for some time now, I have started to modify these diagrams.
I learn to assert myself, to express my needs, to point out my limits and take them into account, I learn to give and receive without it being unhealthy. I am also beginning to integrate indulgence and understanding in my relationship with the other. The other is not that good or that bad, I am less looking for an idol. I learn to modify my instinctive reactions and my inner thoughts and pessimistic predictions. I more easily perceive the needs of my very small parts which desperately seek in all my relations a papa or a substitute mom and I manage to dialogue internally and unless "cling desperately" to a person. I can adapt my reaction and step back if someone hurts me or seems to reject me. I talk much more internally and I understand and perceive better the different points of view that fight, so I feel less misunderstanding and less suffering. I am much more oriented in the present and I can perceive the differences between what I live in the present and what I have experienced in the past. I experience healthier friendships with adequate distance and proximity ...
In short I relearn the basics of human relationships ...