"Yet a time is coming
and has now come when the true worshipers will worship
the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the
kind of worshipers the Father seeks." - John 4:23

My Heavenly Daddy is healing
me from the inside out.

Transparency is Real.
Many times painful.

Daddy let me be secure in You only!

Sunday, September 06, 2009

POSITIVE FEELINGS CAN BE SCARY TOO


Even though this book mainly deals with women survivors of child sexual abuse, individuals who were not sexually abused, but brought up in an environment of neglect, verbal, physical abuse etc. can also relate to what is written here. Below, I am sure is something within these pages you can see in yourself.

There is one line, which is in "bold," that blew me away after reading it that the author’s used, as the exact words perfectly described what went on with me.


“Over time, as you heal, your positive feelings will increase. Happiness, excitement, satisfaction, love, security, and hope will appear more frequently. Although these are “good” feelings, you may not be comfortable with them at first.

For many survivors, positive feelings are scary. As a child, happiness often signaled a disaster about to occur. If you were playing with your friends when your brother called you over and molested you, if you were sleeping peacefully when your mother abused you, if you were having Sunday dinner at your grandparents’ when you were taken by surprise and humiliated, you learned that happiness was not to be trusted. Or if you pretended to be happy when you were suffering inside, happiness may feel like a sham to you still.

Even the idea that you might, someday, feel good can be threatening. One woman said she dared not hope. As a child she hoped day after day that her father might come home cheerful, might be nice to her, might stop abusing her. And day after day, she was disappointed. Finally, out of self-preservation, she gave up hope.

Sometimes peace and contentment are the most disconcerting feelings of all. Calm may be so totally unfamiliar that you don’t know how to relax and enjoy it. Unexpected good feelings can be hard to come to terms with:

I’d been unhappy all my life. When I remembered the incest, I finally knew why, but I was still unhappy. Healing was terrifying and painful experience and my life was as full of struggle and heartache as it had always been. Several years after I started therapy, I began to feel happy. I was stunned. I hadn’t realized that the point of all this work on myself was to feel good. I thought it was just one more struggle in a long line of struggles. It took a while before I got used to the idea that my life had changed, that I felt happy, that I was actually content.” (The Courage to Heal)

I too have often wondered how I would handle positive feelings. I know it will take time, as this is one area that was not always prevalent in my life. I can so relate to what the author shared that healing can be terrifying and painful. That is a given. The times I can truly remember being happy is when I was a kid playing with my friends. My brother was four years older than I and he had his own set of friends so we really did not have interaction between us when it came to “fun.” Unfortunately one interaction we did have between us was the bad kind.

At the same time I also lived a life of fear growing up. As most of you know in my writings that my mother is a fearful woman. I would succumbed so easily to her fears that I am just now realizing what a fearful based woman she really is and I want NO part of this anymore! Still she tries every time I speak with her on the phone or see her filling my head with some kind of fear, dread and doom. Sometimes I wonder if she even thinks she does this. I think it is so ingrained in her now that it is a part of her.

24 comments:

  1. Amen, do not fill yourself with fear. When fear knocks upon your heart, or head, let faith open the door. I love you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for sharing that even experiencing things such as a happy time can still be a sense of dread and fear for people that have experienced a form of abuse. It is what constantly keeps them locked in a perpetual treadmill, always thinking your closer to recovery and then something just sets you back again.

    I am learning so much from your postings and have a new found respect for you. It's not a matter of just be happy and get over it like so many would say. It's a structure that has many layers that have been built upon over time that need to be disassembled first before the healing process can begin.

    Love and Hugs ~ Kat

    ReplyDelete
  3. It sounds like this is a good book for you at the right time. Your on a journey. Thanks for taking us with you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. My eyes welled up as I read this.For a long time I did not know HOW to be happy. This may sound odd, but I clung to havoc even after leaving home because it was familiar to me. Peace? What is this strange word? This is how I thought.Not one of my brothers or sisters left their childhood whole.God has done a lot of healing in my life. For years I would not pray to God the Father because I was terrified of Him. It wasn't until just a few years ago that He showed me I was projecting the image of my earthly father onto Him.

    Thank you for blogging. I think you are helping far more people than you realize through your honesty.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I sometimes get into a funk where life can be to good something bad is bound to happen.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm a fairly serious person and when I catch myself being happy, silly or carefree my immediate reaction is to feel foolish and guilty. I've spent my life waiting for "the other shoe to drop" and it seems there has been no shortage of shoes. Never-the-less that doesn't mean I need to rob myself of the good times. It's tough to change -but I am trying.

    My mother isn't a fearful woman in the usual sense, but she is full of her own brand of misery and it is the only way she seems to relate to me. I don't think she has a clue she does this. I feel sorry/angry toward her at the same time.

    ReplyDelete
  7. These positive feelings sometimes cause me anxiety. They are just so foreign they can be scary at times.

    ReplyDelete
  8. So much hurt, so much pain, so much fears in this world..."Perfect love casts out fear..." So remain in His love...for fear is not from Him. Take care JBR. You bless me to keep finding happiness despite the ills that surround us.

    ReplyDelete
  9. My mother sounds the same as yours. She is very fearful. She is also very angry. She is also very out of touch with herself and her emotions. My husband's mother is much the same. They both had difficult childhoods. They both are operating on what they have learned and have never got to the point of realising they can be someone else completely. They probably never will.

    I was clashing with her terribly when my son was born. Until I did some work on myself and could see the past I was playing in the conflicts. I have let it go. I am letting her be herself, while standing up for myself and I don't feel the fear and hurt so much anymore. I started to be kind to her, to love her as she is. I noticed that she softened and started to be kind back.

    It is still not something that comes naturally to her. I have learned I need to ask her for help sometimes. This is something I never did before. I was an 'over functioner' dishing out advice and being critical to her.

    I am glad we have come to this new place in our relationship and I am able to enjoy my time with her because one day she will be gone and I might just find that I miss her terribly.

    Lots of love to you x

    ReplyDelete
  10. I believe my Mom fear keep her eyes closed to the abuse and allowed it to continue for many years. I still have trouble with happiness.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Yet more food for thought. Thank you for pointing this out, JBR. The fearful thing occurred in my family as well. I so want to end that cycle.

    ReplyDelete
  12. OHG, how very true. I never thought of it this way. In retrospective I understand now why certain habits, believes etc where so very hard to change, why I so very hard kept believing in them, fearing the good wont last... Thank you. Thanks for making me aware of my progress. I learn so much with you and in the blogoshere in general. Hugs to you

    ReplyDelete
  13. i found that after being unhappy, stressed, and in pain for so long, that when peace and happiness did appear in my life, i didn't recognise it, didn't know what to do with it, didn't know how to handle it... strange, isn't it.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Reading these comments and seeing how some of your readers including yourself having difficulty with positive feelings is an eye opener. Never thought postitive feelings could have a negative outsome also. God Bless.

    ReplyDelete
  15. To me. getting past all of the fear was the door that opened the way to contentment. I do believe that everyone who suffers and wants a living end to that suffering will eventually come to that door where the fear is less relevant than the peace.

    Be Well kiddo

    ReplyDelete
  16. At the same time I also lived a life of fear growing up. As most of you know in my writings that my mother is a fearful woman. I would succumbed so easily to her fears that I am just now realizing what a fearful based woman she really is and I want NO part of this anymore!

    Well said, friend. Great post.

    xoxo Sue

    ReplyDelete
  17. I remember reading what I'm about to say in a minute before and it made sense to me. I have forgotten the author's name but she said that some people are so used to their dysfunction that when they get to a state of function, they will create the dysfunction just to feel comfortable again. I know these aren't the exact words but it is the gist of it.

    ReplyDelete
  18. allowing myself to be happy or even just feel good has been so hard. Right on post. Your journey helps me in mine. Sarah

    ReplyDelete
  19. "if you pretended to be happy when you were suffering inside, happiness may feel like a sham to you still."

    I know this one only too well.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I doubt highly that she tries to fill you with fear and doom on purpose. I feel fairly certain that she is just this way. I also imagine at this point - unless she finds some kind of recovery - she will be powerless to change it.

    But you can change your reaction to it and it sounds like that is just what you are doing.

    God bless,
    PG

    ReplyDelete
  21. It is so difficult for me to feel good about myself and to understand that it's okay for us to be positive. It is a strange sensation to get use too and I guess that I'm just realizing that it took me over 22 years to feel badly about myself because of my rape and abuse that I have to allow that much time to continue to heal from it all.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I have only recently begun to accept happiness as a part of my life. Before now it's always been accompanied by thoughts of dread and foreboding. Often the ones we love dearly don't even realise they're filling our heads with thoughts of doom and gloom. Don't listen to them and keep speaking truth and light into your own life!

    ReplyDelete
  23. I have been struggling with this exact thing for months. I have been trying to work out, with my T, why every time I feel good I self-sabatage in order to cause myself pain. I realized that I have a deeply ingrained sense that anything good will bring bad, that any time I hope, I will be dissappointed, that even thinking about good things will make bad things happen....
    It's so interesting to read that others struggle with this too. It isn't just me.
    I have been beginning to hope. It's a start. I am trying to find that calm space between anxst and the over-excited feeling I get when things are going well, but it is elusive. Any little disappointment is devistating because I leave myself so open to it, now, in my longing for normal relationships and emotions.

    Peace and love to you, JBR, and hope... so much hope.

    ReplyDelete
  24. PS, that song is haunting and wonderful

    ReplyDelete