Not Feeling Very Communicative

[MakersDozn]

Or, as our grammar mavens would put it, we're feeling rather uncommunitive. (Stupid modifiers.)

Anyway, we've got a boatload of difficult feelings that have built up during the past....well, long time, and the only person we feel comfortable talking to is our T. Granted, having a good T is a plus, but we only get 45 minutes a week with her. We don't feel like opening up to other people, not even people here at MM. This is not a reflection on other people here; it's us and our issues keeping us silent and miserable and stuck.

Well-meaning people can say, "Go easy on yourselves" or "You'll move forward when you're ready." The problem is that some in our system are readier than others, and the reticence of the ones who aren't ready causes problems for the system as a whole. To put it another way, the problems of a few are making life worse for the many.

What to do? The hardest thing for us is simply to get the conversation going with outsiders. So we'll start here, and hopefully we'll get somewhere.

A bunch of beleaguered MDs

[mosaic]

it is so difficult when there are some who are holding back and others who want to push ahead.

in our experience those of us who were ready had to literally drag the unreadier ones with us and it was a lot of work, and a boatload of anxiety.

we know your system is more egalatarian than ours - and maybe that makes dragging others along more problematic.

[nats]

What you're saying resonates a lot with where we are emotionally right now. The concept that "You'll move forward when you're ready" as far as I'm concerned means we never will.

[tweeter]

(09-03-2012, 08:18 PM)MakersDozn Wrote: Or, as our grammar mavens would put it, we're feeling rather uncommunitive. (Stupid modifiers.)

Anyway, we've got a boatload of difficult feelings that have built up during the past....well, long time, and the only person we feel comfortable talking to is our T. Granted, having a good T is a plus, but we only get 45 minutes a week with her. We don't feel like opening up to other people, not even people here at MM. This is not a reflection on other people here; it's us and our issues keeping us silent and miserable and stuck.

Well-meaning people can say, "Go easy on yourselves" or "You'll move forward when you're ready." The problem is that some in our system are readier than others, and the reticence of the ones who aren't ready causes problems for the system as a whole. To put it another way, the problems of a few are making life worse for the many.

What to do? The hardest thing for us is simply to get the conversation going with outsiders. So we'll start here, and hopefully we'll get somewhere.

A bunch of beleaguered MDs

Sitting in the wings, listening sympathetically.
tweets

[MakersDozn]

(09-04-2012, 09:11 AM)mosaic Wrote: we know your system is more egalatarian than ours - and maybe that makes dragging others along more problematic.

Yes, that is a factor. Eglalitarianism can be both a blessing and a curse. Because more system members can show leadership, it's easier for those system members to take on too much, and this creates a vicious cycle of "those who can" carrying the load for "those who won't."

Thanks for letting us know that you too had to drag the less ready ones forward. We've always felt that in the healing community, it's considered wrong to push those inside who don't want to be pushed. That we have to be fair to them at all costs.

At all costs? Sometimes the cost of fairness is too high. The ones who are resisting can't see past their own pain, and they prefer the misery they know to the uncertainty of moving forward. They would rather give up, although we as a group choose not to do so.

Anyway, thanks again for your support.

MDs

[MakersDozn]

(09-04-2012, 03:01 PM)nats Wrote: What you're saying resonates a lot with where we are emotionally right now. The concept that "You'll move forward when you're ready" as far as I'm concerned means we never will.

Oh, absolutely. There is no perfect time. We're never going to be totally ready for any step forward.

It's like the concept we had years ago of what a workday would be like for us. We'd get one task from someone to work on, and we'd complete that task. Then, and only then, would we get another task, and we would repeat. And at the end of the day, we would have completed X number of tasks, and leave the office with all loose ends neatly tied up.

Life isn't like this. The reality is that we enter and leave each day with a boatload of works-in-progress, and very few of them get completed when a day is over. Healing is like this, we think. We can't accomplish it instantaneously, perfectly, or neatly, but we still need to move forward.

Thanks for letting us know that you identify with what we wrote.

MDs

[MakersDozn]

(09-04-2012, 03:19 PM)tweeter Wrote: Sitting in the wings, listening sympathetically.
tweets

Thanks. We appreciate your sitting with us.

MDs

[Tangled Web]

(09-04-2012, 05:55 PM)MakersDozn Wrote:

(09-04-2012, 03:01 PM)nats Wrote: What you're saying resonates a lot with where we are emotionally right now. The concept that "You'll move forward when you're ready" as far as I'm concerned means we never will.

Oh, absolutely. There is no perfect time. We're never going to be totally ready for any step forward.

It's like the concept we had years ago of what a workday would be like for us. We'd get one task from someone to work on, and we'd complete that task. Then, and only then, would we get another task, and we would repeat. And at the end of the day, we would have completed X number of tasks, and leave the office with all loose ends neatly tied up.

Life isn't like this. The reality is that we enter and leave each day with a boatload of works-in-progress, and very few of them get completed when a day is over. Healing is like this, we think. We can't accomplish it instantaneously, perfectly, or neatly, but we still need to move forward.

I love the way you put this MDs......and I totally agree!
TW
Thanks for letting us know that you identify with what we wrote.

MDs

[Dreamscapes Collectives]

(09-03-2012, 08:18 PM)MakersDozn Wrote: Or, as our grammar mavens would put it, we're feeling rather uncommunitive. (Stupid modifiers.)

Anyway, we've got a boatload of difficult feelings that have built up during the past....well, long time, and the only person we feel comfortable talking to is our T. Granted, having a good T is a plus, but we only get 45 minutes a week with her. We don't feel like opening up to other people, not even people here at MM. This is not a reflection on other people here; it's us and our issues keeping us silent and miserable and stuck.

Well-meaning people can say, "Go easy on yourselves" or "You'll move forward when you're ready." The problem is that some in our system are readier than others, and the reticence of the ones who aren't ready causes problems for the system as a whole. To put it another way, the problems of a few are making life worse for the many.

What to do? The hardest thing for us is simply to get the conversation going with outsiders. So we'll start here, and hopefully we'll get somewhere.

A bunch of beleaguered MDs

I so know about the concept of our issues keeping us silent. We, too, have been having a LOT going on, and we only see to be able to post here or even talk about it in 3D in spurts...often about once a month. This isn't good for us, and we know that, but we don't know how to break the wall of silence.

It can be especially hard when some people are ready to do something and others are dragging their feet. We don't want to push people if they truly aren't ready. But some of it is just that they don't really want to have to deal with what comes with moving forward. It's frustrating and maddening and makes for complications for everyone.

I think it's brave to try and start here breaking that wall of silence. We want to, in regards to things we're dealing with, but we just can't seem to find words right now.

In this thread, do you want to try just talking in general, or actually talking about the issues you guys are facing?

understanding,
a LOT of us

[MakersDozn]

(09-04-2012, 08:17 PM)Dreamscapes Collectives Wrote: In this thread, do you want to try just talking in general, or actually talking about the issues you guys are facing?

understanding,
a LOT of us

Good question. But first, thanks for letting us know that you understand.

We think that it would be more helpful to us to talk about specific issues than it would be to talk in general. The question is: How specific can we get without triggering a negative reaction in someone inside, a reaction that would cause us to shut down again?

A lot of what stalls us involves a sense of hopelessness based upon having experienced a lifetime of hurts that we've repressed. We stuff so much just to get through life, but eventually stuffing the hurt ends up biting us in the backside.

Since we've been in therapy for so long, we've peeled away many layers of the provebial onion, and we're getting to the hard stuff that lies beneath. One core issue that we've found is that the reality of who we are as individuals is very different from how we set out perceiving ourselves. And likewise, the reality of how our life has turned out is very different from the "Brady Bunch" idealism that we envisioned.

We should say that it's the bigs who are experiencing the pain that we're talking about. Three out of our five bigs are in a very difficult place from which it seems nearly impossible to move forward. And they would rather choose the misery they know over the uncertainty of moving forward.

(The other two bigs are in a calmer place, but are not leaders by nature, so they can't be counted on to take the initiative in making things better.)

Some of the feelings that come up are anger, sadness, shame, and fear. Much of these emotions are rooted in unresolved pre-verbal traumas. These preverbal traumas have left the bigs at the place where their core emotional development was thwarted--leaving them significantly hurt at an early age. The are intellectually, psychologically, experientially adults, and they self-identify as such, but at the same time, they remain emotionally wounded young children.

Well, there you have it. We hope that talking about this doesn't put people off from responding.

Thanks,

MDs

[Tangled Web]

I am here sitting with you listening......

[MakersDozn]

(09-04-2012, 09:21 PM)Tangled Web Wrote: I am here sitting with you listening......

Thanks. We appreciate it. Sometimes we don't know how we're going to get through the day. It's hard.

MDs

[tweeter]

(09-04-2012, 08:38 PM)MakersDozn Wrote:

(09-04-2012, 08:17 PM)Dreamscapes Collectives Wrote: In this thread, do you want to try just talking in general, or actually talking about the issues you guys are facing?

understanding,
a LOT of us

Good question. But first, thanks for letting us know that you understand.

We think that it would be more helpful to us to talk about specific issues than it would be to talk in general. The question is: How specific can we get without triggering a negative reaction in someone inside, a reaction that would cause us to shut down again?

A lot of what stalls us involves a sense of hopelessness based upon having experienced a lifetime of hurts that we've repressed. We stuff so much just to get through life, but eventually stuffing the hurt ends up biting us in the backside.

Since we've been in therapy for so long, we've peeled away many layers of the provebial onion, and we're getting to the hard stuff that lies beneath. One core issue that we've found is that the reality of who we are as individuals is very different from how we set out perceiving ourselves. And likewise, the reality of how our life has turned out is very different from the "Brady Bunch" idealism that we envisioned.

We should say that it's the bigs who are experiencing the pain that we're talking about. Three out of our five bigs are in a very difficult place from which it seems nearly impossible to move forward. And they would rather choose the misery they know over the uncertainty of moving forward.

(The other two bigs are in a calmer place, but are not leaders by nature, so they can't be counted on to take the initiative in making things better.)

Some of the feelings that come up are anger, sadness, shame, and fear. Much of these emotions are rooted in unresolved pre-verbal traumas. These preverbal traumas have left the bigs at the place where their core emotional development was thwarted--leaving them significantly hurt at an early age. The are intellectually, psychologically, experientially adults, and they self-identify as such, but at the same time, they remain emotionally wounded young children.

Well, there you have it. We hope that talking about this doesn't put people off from responding.

Thanks,

MDs

"The are intellectually, psychologically, experientially adults, and they self-identify as such, but at the same time, they remain emotionally wounded young children."

And so we have it. One example of that which can explain humanity's inner crying and anger, no matter what the psychological architecture. If the mold is made, the shoe fits, even if the exact expression is different.
The results can be generally understood. On the individual level there is some mystery, because no one can know what would have been, not just what might have been.

Readiness for progress can come from a mentor who can get thru, and maybe literally take the hand of someone who wants out of the misery.
It can come from not being able to take one's state of being anymore. When the discomfort of that state becomes worse than walking out the door into an unfolding life. Easier said than done.

your friend,
tweeter

[Dreamscapes Collectives]

Hey MDs. We wanted to let you know that we read your post about things to talk about and we fully intend to get back to you on it. Our sleep schedule has been screwy the last couple days. But we wanted you to know that we had read it and we have some thoughts we'd like to share to continue to conversation.

Leaving you some blue flowers in the interim.

Realms

[MakersDozn]

tweeter,

Readiness for progress can come from a mentor who can get thru, and maybe literally take the hand of someone who wants out of the misery. It can come from not being able to take one's state of being anymore.

When the discomfort of that state becomes worse than walking out the door into an unfolding life. Easier said than done.

Thank you.

Take care,

Charity