I love intelligent, insightful clients. They typically have many years of experience in therapy and while most clients teach me something these clients teach me more. One of my very insightful clients talked about being raised by their parent who they believe had Narcissistic Personality Disorder. How they dealt with the abuse they identified coming from their parent was that as a child they eventually came to the conclusion, "I deserve it" and that brought them some measure of peace. This was the same thinking that led them into abusive relationships as an adult. I thought that was insightful and I told them so but it didn't resonate with me on a personal level until this morning.
I was feeling moody and had time to myself to just be by myself and for some reason I remembered a bad dream from maybe about 2 years ago. In this dream, Alex had found out I lied to him. He was leaving me. I cried and begged and pleaded with him to forgive me and stay with me, but his mind was made up. In the dream, I eventually accepted this and was ready to move on, and that's when I woke up, laying in bed beside him. I cried and moved closer to him and touched him just to reassure myself that he was real and he was still with me. I do this sometimes. I've done this all my life, back when I used to share a bed with my little brother. I'd put a hand on his back or chest to make sure he was still breathing, because just staring and watching for signs of breathing was never satisfactory enough. I wonder if my husband knows I do this. I wonder if I'll do this with our future children.
Anyway, on to my personal insight. I never questioned that I was guilty in my dream. I mean, it's normal to go along with whatever nonsense your subconscious comes up with in your dreams, but more than that, I'm a recovering compulsive liar. It's a common trait in alcoholic and abusive families. I'd lie about big things that mattered, like that one time a tutor thought the story I was telling my classmates about being beat up by random people in the community to explain away my bruises was suspect, or when my elementary school staff pulled me and my mom into a meeting to discuss things they had heard me say about being terrified of my mom because I got bad grades. I barely made it out of those situations without rousing further suspicion. I lied so well, and only learned to lie better, but soon it became about trivial stuff, things that didn't matter. Over time these lies would cost me friendships and make me incredibly lonely and confused. Lying like that, and the fallout this created, reinforced my own conclusion that I came to when I was beaten as a child, "This is because you're bad." What a relief. Now it all makes sense. I lied, so I'm bad. I stole, so I'm bad. I hit my brother, so I'm bad. I got bad grades, so I'm bad. I deserve to hurt, because I'm bad.
I don't know when I stopped lying. Probably some time around college, which makes sense. I was finally out of the house and away from my mother. I could finally heal and feel safe. Although she stopped beating me when I was about 13 years old, I flinched every time she raised her voice and moved towards me in anger and I didn't even bring up my hands to defend myself or back away. Why? Because I deserved it. Because I was bad. Bad people don't deserve to feel safe. Maybe that's part of why I get angry at abusers and want to hurt then, because of this toxic internal belief that bad people don't deserve to feel safe. I don't know.
I've had years of therapy since then. I've found love in the safety of a patient and kind man. I've created a perfectly safe home. I almost never lie, which sometimes causes problems for me, but when I do lie it's because I don't feel safe - and, perhaps, because I still believe I'm bad and bad people lie. I think this old belief is going away over time, but I wonder if it'll ever be fully gone. Last night, in the midst of a party at my house playing games with my friends I thought, "He's going to leave me. He's going to get fed up and hate me and leave me" and perhaps that's fed in part by this old belief that I am bad and deserve to have bad things happen to me.
Anyway, needed to get these thoughts out and process them. I'm listening, Dr. Mooney.
No comments:
Post a Comment