Childhood Trauma Personalities:
Watched YouTube video by Patrick Teahan LICSW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiGbgKICNEU For me I feel like the "Hostile" personality was the main one with a little "Are we good", with both of them still popping up with certain triggers.
My childhood, teen years and early adulthood were filled with yelling. If something happened, broke or went missing it was my fault. Mom came home in a bad mood it was my fault. My grades were not perfect straight A's it was my fault, not the fact I wasn't getting help with lessons from all my teachers or from my parents when I didn't understand something. My family is highly religious, Puritan Baptists, if I thought something that did not align with their thinking then it was the devil that put those thoughts into my mind. If I questioned them or asked why something didn't make sense logically then I was breaking the 5th Commandment to Honor (Obey) Thy Father and Mother. Learning to use scientific proof only made them angrier and I couldn't finish sentences, it would always turn into a yelling match. Most of the time I wasn't picking a fight, I simply wanted to ask a theoretical question and somehow it would turn into them shaming me and me trying to defend myself.
My situation could definitely be described as my parents being immature and I had to stand up to be the adult in many cases. Father was an only child Mama's boy that only wanted to work on the family farm and be left alone. He was forced to get a job outside of the family farm business and pressured to get married. Mother grew up as the only female with four brothers and was beaten so bad she would have to be taken to the hospital at times. She protected her younger brothers as best she could but wanted out of the situation. Neither one of them wanted children and somehow found escape in each other's company. After some years of over the road truck driving my father contracted a very rare bone disease in his right wrist so he could no longer work. With growing up on a farm herself my mom took on multiple jobs to keep things going and then I came along. Things were always tough but my mom gave up her hobbies and free time to work, keeping us reasonably comfortable.
In early relationships I wanted the guy to be the one that made the decisions. Raised like a Baptist woman, it was required that I obey my husband and he would make all the calls (a husband that my parent's picked for me). When I came into my current relationship, my man really walked me through being myself and having my own opinions. Took some time but I learned to communicate without yelling in defense cause he actually listened to me and we talked things out like two human beings should. We don't agree on everything but most times we can create a compromise that makes us both happy.
For the second part "Are we good", I always felt like I was tiptoeing around my parents and my classmates at school. If I said one wrong thing or tried for a hug at the wrong time, constantly analyzing the situation to see if it was safe. Being myself wasn't an option since at home I would be screamed at or punished for thinking wrong. I am better at not checking if everything is ok with my partner but I know I still have a ways to go. Especially in understanding that most times if someone is in a bad mood or upset that it wasn't my fault. Goes back to me always being the scapegoat, everything was my fault. That's no a switch that can be turned off, it's a slow re-programing process that requires a lot of patience from others and patience with myself.
Helpful Therapy Ideas:
Another YouTube video from Patrick Teahan LICSW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn71G2JG-bY An interesting concept of "re-parenting the inner child".
1. "Don't sweat those who are not in your inner circle": Don't use mental energy thinking and worrying about what the non important people in your life think or say. They are not worth the extra stress and anxiety, we already give ourselves enough of that as it is.
2. "Pronia": Think of ways in which the world is conspiring FOR YOU instead of against you. I am in a place that is safe for me emotionally, mentally and physically. There are resources around me that I utilize to acquire food to keep me healthy. With owning my car I have the ability to travel to where I need to with no questions and have a safe refuge where ever I go.
3. "Is it Kind? Is it Necessary? Is it True?": I have definitely done better with this over the years but I still need to incorporate this one more. Before responding, especially towards people that I don't know as well, I need to run through these. Am I phrasing this in a kind manner or does it sound like I am being confrontational? Is it necessary that I type or say this thing, does it really matter that much to me? Is what I am conveying completely true or accurate? If the answer is no for any of these then I need to rethink how to word it or if i should use my voice with it at all.
4. "Let people feel whatever.": This rings loudly true for me since, growing up, everything was made to be my fault. Whether that was one of my parent's moods or something went missing or something else happening. Being highly empathetic didn't help. So even though I knew something wasn't my fault I was trained to feel like it was my fault and that there was something wrong with me. This is one of my largest hurdles to this day. Though in the last four years I have begun to identify, with the help of my fiance and sister, why certain things trigger me to react or feel like it is my fault. Someone felt this way or this happened so I re-actively felt like it was my fault. But I know it wasn't my fault because I had no control over the situation and neither did the other person. This is a long slow process but I can feel like progress is being made within me.
5. "The 3 C's. I didn't Cause it. I can't Cure it. I can't Control it.": This is something I tried to teach myself as a teenager but couldn't quite fully accomplish because of my situation. My mom would be stressed and exhausted coming home from working three jobs and she would find fault with something in the house. Nine times out of ten she would get on to me for it, other one she would get mad at my dad. Though I knew I was not the cause of her stress and screaming reaction, that thing she was upset about was not the true cause of her reaction (most likely had to do with a boss or a coworker), I was meant to feel like it was. She could not yell at the person at work so she picked something to gripe about at home so she could yell at someone. But that knowledge wasn't enough. I still wanted to fix the problem to calm her down and do anything to prevent a similar outburst in the future. It never worked no matter how hard I tried because I wasn't the problem and it wasn't for me to fix.
6. "Know your audience.": Those who are trying to give us advise about ourselves or others don't know the real situation. His example of "you're breaking your mother's heart by not talking to her" has come out of my dad and my grandma. My parents definitely have a codependency problem with me cause I am one of the things that holds them together still, that and their toxic version of "Christianity" (Puritan Baptist) saying they can not get a divorce. They would all tell me of who I was suppose to be according to the King James Bible and to keep control over me (mentally, emotionally, physically). They told me what I could and could not think, that I could not question anything they said due to the 5th Commandment, I could not have close friends cause everyone is out for themselves, etc.
7. "Don't bring your inner child.": When we have to do something or be firm with someone we need to channel the "adult" portion of our mind. A good amount of the time, especially lately with my anxiety, my "inner child" is following around the "inner adult" by the shirt strings. So it is very difficult to flip a switch from regular innocent self to being in charge of a situation, especially optional situations. Perhaps I should mentally sit down with my inner child and put some boundaries. The problem is my inner adult portion is mentally exhausted and my inner child ate all the cookies in the cookie jar.
8. "Can you be a Diplomat?": Even though something is really difficult and triggers your fight/flight/freeze response, convince yourself to do it anyway for your own good. You are doing it for no one else but to better yourself and take care of your needs better. Unfortunately I have had to do this on a few occasions. None of them were pleasant and it was mentally or physically torture but I got the job done in order to preserve my peace of mind. I feel like it is similar to "Don't bring your inner child" due to having to switch into inner adult manager mode.
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