We can see reality not as it is

We can see reality not as it is

Published 17.11.2023 | By Йосиф

We can see reality not as it is

Untreated childhood injuries can turn reality upside down.

We can see reality not as it is, because reality is distorted by trauma.

For example, I can rigidly show my boundaries, and then someone who experiences certain expectations for me may decide that I “attacked” him.

It happens that I talk about what I see, and my feedback is taken for criticism.

Someone who has been criticized a lot and accepted little is more likely to feel criticism even in the most neutral words.

Frankly speaking, it is easier to interact with such people who have received more acceptance and more freedom from their parents. Because they, thanks to their experience, admit that they can be treated well, and do not keep a stone in their bosom.

Traumatics, rather, do not believe in being kind to themselves, are more likely to suspect attacks and disrespect, and begin to defend themselves. It takes a lot of patience to convince them that the other person is not the parents who caused the damage, but completely different people with different motives and meanings.

But it also happens the other way around. Violence is being committed against my client, for example, but he does not notice this violence, and even welcomes it.

This happened to one of my clients. She decided to make repairs, and pretty soon discovered that the foreman was cheating her, and she was paying for a lot more materials and services.

A healthy reaction would be anger, and an immediate desire to restore the boundaries, up to the dismissal of the thief, but it was not there.

When I asked the woman what she felt, she replied that she was afraid to spoil the relationship, and (after we began to delve into her feelings) even the horror of “being alone”. In addition, she noticed that she was afraid to “destroy idealization” (this is an experienced client with whom we have been working for a year, and she tracks her processes very well).

All these signs indicated to me that we were dealing with a parental projection that completely distorted the perception of reality in this woman. Now it became important that she saw the projection herself.

By the way, it’s not that easy. I have had clients who could not notice the transfer, even with long-term work. Such people remain “on the surface”, do not notice the relationship of the present with past experience, and therefore cannot get rid of traumatic-distorting perception. In their picture of the world, such a foreman remains the ideal person with whom you should not spoil relations (all the analogies that you have with other people who are in the same protections are quite appropriate).

However, my client managed to recall a childhood episode in which, as a three-year-old, she experienced severe violence. The father, enraged by some “unforgivable” mistake of the mother, kicked her out of the house, not paying attention to the suffering of the children. Such episodes were repeated more than once, and my client had stable defenses: the mother is a victim, she cannot protect, the father is strong, so he can protect.

The archetype of force and violence becomes an image of “protection”, is idealized, and this archetype should be obeyed, maintain good relations with it.

In later life, all events that somehow carry the image of violence are perceived not as an invasion, a violation of boundaries from which one needs to defend oneself, but as a desirable (because of fantasies about protection) image with which one needs to get along and which one needs to obey.

Does this remind you of anything? From a third to half of the country’s population live under the influence of this imago, refusing to recognize violence against themselves, and refusing to call violence violence, justifying and justifying it in every possible way.

.. Getting rid of such a harsh scenario happens only thanks to the desire to work with trauma, the willingness to feel pain from the damage done, the willingness to grieve and acknowledge violence. And admit to being a victim. Only after this work, anger at the violation of borders, and, in fact, the borders themselves, are restored.

Veronika Khlebova

http://espavo.ning.com/profiles/blogs/3776235:BlogPost:2250856