© Photo credits: Jana Preslickova
Hrvatska verzija dolje ↓
This weekend a new wave of my old depressive thoughts have hit me once again. I have had this abandonment issue since I can remember. I fear that whoever is the object of my love will one day just disappear and will not love me anymore. If the object of my love is not around for me to see, thus make sure I can receive love right there and right now, I could just spin off into a belief that that person has gone forever and will never be back to love me again. To my subconscious mind it is hard to explain that this is not how it works – that if someone is physically not there, that person can still love me and care for me. It is not easy to explain that I have plenty of people who love me, take care of me, would do anything for me. I do not need any one person to do all those things. All those things my subconscious mind does not understand. My emotional self cannot resonate logically. It simply feels. And when HE is not around, it feels abandoned. Period.
People who have abandonment issues like I do, were babies who were left crying in their crib. Their caretakers had all the best intentions, but had no idea what they were doing. They sometimes picked up the baby after a first cry, sometimes they left the baby to cry for a longer time, and sometimes it was so long that the baby stopped crying by herself before the caretakers picked her up. Inconsistency. What this is doing to the baby is sending a message that her caretakers cannot be trusted – she doesn’t know when they will come to her rescue and if ever. How can we expect from ourselves to trust anyone when those who our lives depended on could not be trusted?
Hardest part for most people in these situations is to acknowledge that what they have experienced was a trauma. I was one of those people. It took me the longest time to accept this truth. That is the reason why it took me so long to finally start making any progress on it.
We think that how we lived our lives was normal, because ‘everyone is doing it’. The truth is, we ALL have traumas, and YES, unfortunately, everyone is doing it! When you leave your child to cry and you are not consistent in when you are going to pick it up, you are raising an insecure child. This child will have trouble trusting that people will love him/her, that they will in fact show up to do so. When you don’t teach your child how to self-soothe, you are raising a dependent child who will not be able to find solutions by herself, but will always expect you to provide some, and when you will not be able to, this child will feel abandoned. I could go on and on explaining all kind of traumas that happened to you as a child. You might feel that I am exaggerating when I say those are traumas, but the fact that you (or I) do not want to accept it, does not make it less so.
The only thing you are doing by not wanting to believe this here and now, is postponing to help yourself. The only way you will ever resolve your traumas (or any problem for that matter) is to acknowledge it. Only when you are able to see this truth, only then you are able to start doing something about it. If we keep refusing to see it, we will never resolve it. It will keep being our pattern until the end of our miserable lives on this Earth.
When I think of resolving those traumas in my life, I think of a Super Mario game. At the beginning of your life, you are there like at the beginning of the game. Three steps in, you encounter a trauma – you eat a poisonous mushroom. This poison is slowing you down and it doesn’t allow you to be as fast and as agile as you are normally, without the poison running in your veins. As you are living your life, your initial trauma gets reinforced as similar patterns of behavior are happening over and over again. You are eating a lot of poisonous mushrooms.
After so many poisonous mushrooms in your system, you are so slow and so convinced that this is your normal speed. You believe it because you see it. Maybe no one ever told you that you can be faster? Maybe no one ever told you that you are wrong? Well, I am telling you today! You are wrong because you can be faster. You would be amazed at how faster and more able you can be if you get rid of all that poison that is slowing you down! We never really loose our strength, we just slow it down by all the traumas and negativity we collect on our way. We are born to be fast, agile and able to deal with all the obstacles and dragons that stand on our way.
Are you willing to become yourself again? You would, but you don’t know how? You need to heal those traumas inside of you, one by one. This particular trauma is now so big inside of you after you have been growing it for so many years. Your system can process only a piece of this trauma at a time. You will keep getting what will seem like a same situation over and over again. What is crucial in that moment is to understand what to do. You have only two choices – to surrender or to fight. If you fight it, you will win, and you will kill a piece of it. That particular piece will never come back again. The situation will come again, but it won’t be the same. It will be weaker, every time you defeat it.
When you surrender the game, you have eaten another poisonous mushroom – you have put more poison in your system. You have reinforced the belief that you are not strong enough to win over that thing. That is a lie! You are strong, but you are not succeeding because you have unrealistic expectations from yourself. You want to kill this giant beast in one go, otherwise in your mind this thing ‘doesn’t work’. You are expecting to eradicate in one minute something you have been creating your whole life! You are powerful (and beyond your awareness), but you are not a Superman (yet)! Do what you can here and now. And keep doing so. Keep doing so. Keep doing so. If you keep going, and you keep fighting, you will eradicate it very fast! It took you as long as you are alive to create this trauma, and it can be gone in matter of months. Even if takes a year, two years, isn’t it worth it, to finally be free?
As you keep going, you understand your enemy better and you have less poison thus more strength in every next fight that comes. Every time you get better skills, more knowledge and better technique – you will kill the enemy in no time. My depression used to last weeks, months on end. This time it lasted for a single weekend. And every time, I have new tools, new methods to attack it, and every time when I choose to fight, I am a winner!
On the other hand, if you never even accept the fight, the trauma will overcome you like a huge gray cloud. It will be so dense and so big that it will never allow you to see a single ray of sunlight. Do not choose this path. You deserve a beautiful sunny life!
Ne dopusti da te traume definiraju. Bori se!
Ovaj vikend napao me ponovo novi val mojih depresivnih misli. Imam taj strah od napuštanja otkad se sjećam za sebe. Bojim se da će, tko god je objekt moje ljubavi, jednostavno nestati i neće me više voljeti. Ako objekt moje ljubavi nije tu, ja ga ne mogu vidjeti i ne mogu dobiti tu ljubav sada i ovdje, vrlo lako počnem vjerovati da je ta osoba otišla zauvijek i neće se nikada vratiti da me ponovno voli. Mojem podsvjesnom umu teško je objasniti da stvari ne funkcioniraju na taj način – ako netko nije tu fizički, ne znači da me ne voli i nije mu stalo do mene. Nije lako objasniti da imam jako puno ljudi oko sebe koji me vole, brinu o meni, koji bi učinili sve za mene. Ne trebam tu jednu osobu koja treba učiniti sve te stvari za mene. Sve to moj podsvjesni um ne razumije. Moje emocionalno biće ne može razmišljati logično. Ono jednostavno osjeća. Kad ON nije tu, osjeća se napušteno. Točka.
Ljudi koji se suočavaju sa strahom od napuštanja kao ja, bili su bebe koje su puštene da plaču u koljevci. Njihovi su skrbnici imali najbolje namjere, ali nisu imali pojma što rade. Ponekad bi podigli bebu nakon prvog zvuka plača, ponekad bi je ostavili duže, a ponekad toliko dugo da bi beba sama prestala plakati prije nego bi je netko podigao. Nekonzistentnost. To djetetu šalje poruku da se njezinim skrbnicima ne može vjerovati – ona ne zna kada će doći da joj pomognu i hoće li ikada. Kako možemo očekivati od sebe da vjerujemo ikome ako nismo mogli vjerovati onima o kojima nam je život ovisio?
Najteži dio za mnoge u tim situacijama je shvatiti da su doživjeli traumu. Ja sam bila jedna od tih ljudi. Trebalo mi je predugo vremena da prihvatim tu istinu. To je također razlog zašto mi je trebalo toliko vremena da napokon počnem stvarati napredak na tom polju.
Mi mislimo da je normalno to kako smo živjeli i bili odgajani. Jer, ‘svi to tako rade!’ Istina je, mi SVI imamo traume, i DA, nažalost, svi to tako rade! Kad pustiš dijete da plače i nisi dosljedan oko toga kad ćeš ga podignuti, podižeš nesigurno dijete. To dijete će imati poteškoća vjerovati da će ga ljudi voljeti, da će se zapravo pojaviti kako bi to učinili. Kad ne učiš dijete kako da se samo umiri, podižeš ovisno dijete koje neće biti sposobno naći rješenja za sebe. Uvijek će očekivati da ih ti nađeš, a kad ne budeš mogao, dijete će se osjećati odbačeno. Mogla bih do sutra objašnjavati o svim traumama koje su ti se dogodile u djetinjstvu. Možeš misliti da pretjerujem kad kažem da su sve to bile trauma, ali činjenica da ti (ili ja) to ne želimo prihvatiti, ne čini istinu manje istinitom.
Jedino što radiš kad to ne želiš prihvatiti ovdje i sada je da odgađaš da si pomogneš. Jedini način na koji ćeš ikada riješiti se svojih trauma (ili bilo kakvih problema) je da ih prihvatiš kao takve. Jedino kad si sposoban vidjeti tu istinu, jedino si tada sposoban nešto učiniti po tom pitanju. Ako nastaviš odbijati vidjeti istinu, nikad je nećeš razriješiti. Nastaviti će biti tvoj obrazac ponašanja do kraja tvoj jadnog života na ovoj planeti.
Kad mislim o razrješenju tih trauma u svom životu, uvijek ih uspoređujem sa Super Mariom. Na početku života tu si kao na početku igre. Tri koraka naprijed, suočiš se s traumom – pojedeš otrovnu gljivu. Otrov te uspori i ne dopušta ti da budeš brz i okretan kao na početku, bez otrova koji teče tvojim venama. Kako odrastaš tvoja se trauma ponavlja i postaje jača kako se slični obrasci ponašanja pojavljuju u tvom životu. Jedeš mnogo otrovnih gljiva.
Nakon toliko pojedenih gljiva, toliko si spor i toliko uvjeren da je to tvoja normalna brzina. Vjeruješ to jer to vidiš. Možda ti nitko nikada nije rekao da možeš biti brži? Možda ti nitko nije rekao da si u krivu? Eto, ja ti govorim danas! U krivu si jer možeš biti brži. Biti ćeš zaprepašten kada shvatiš koliko možeš biti brži i sposobniji kad se riješiš tog otrova koji te sputava. Mi nikada zapravo ne izgubimo svoju snagu, samo smo usporeni traumama i negativnošću koju skupimo putem. Rođeni smo da budemo brzi, okretni i sposobni da jurimo kroz sve te prepreke i zmajeve koje nalazimo na putu.
Jesi li spreman ponovno postati ono što jesi? Htio bi, ali ne znaš kako? Trebaš iscijeliti traume unutar sebe, jednu po jednu. Ta trauma toliko je velika u tebi nakon što si je uzgajao cijeli svoj život. Tvoj sistem može procesuirati samo dio traume odjednom. Suočavati ćeš se s onime što će se činiti kao ista situacija ponovno i ponovno. Ono što je važno znati u tom trenutku je što učiniti. Imaš samo dva izbora – predati se ili boriti. Ako se boriš, pobijediti ćeš i ubiti ćeš dio traume. Taj specifični dio se nikad više neće pojaviti. Situacija će se ponovi, ali neće više biti ista. Biti će slabija, svaki put kad je poraziš.
Kad se predaš, pojeo si još jednu otrovnu gljivu – unosiš novi otrov u svoj metabolizam. Potvrđuješ vjerovanje da nisi dovoljno jak kako bi pobijedio. To je laž! Jak si, ali ne uspijevaš jer imaš nerealna očekivanja od sebe. Želi ubiti tu zvjer sada i odmah, inače proglašavaš kako ta tehnika ‘ne funkcionira’. Očekuješ da ćeš istrijebiti u jednoj minuti nešto što si gradio cijeli život! Jak si (i iznad onoga što možeš zamisliti), ali nisi Supermen (još)! Napravi ono što možeš sada i ovdje. I nastavi to činiti. I nastavi. I nastavi. Ako nastaviš boriti se istrijebiti ćeš je vrlo brzo! Gradio si tu trauma cijeli život, a istrijebiti je možeš u nekoliko mjeseci. Čak i ako će ti trebati godina, dvije, nije li vrijedno napokon biti slobodan?
Kako napreduješ, razumiješ bolje svog neprijatelja, imaš manje otrova u sebi stoga, više snage da u svakoj sljedećoj borbi. Svaki put imaš bolje vještine, više znanja i bolju tehniku – ubiti ćeš neprijatelja dok si rekao keks! Moja je depresija znala trajati tjednima, mjesecima. Ovaj je put trajala samo jedan vikend. Svaki put imam nove alate, nove metode kako je napasti. Svaki put kad se borim, ja sam pobjednica!
S druge strane, ako nikada ne prihvatiš borbu, trauma će te zaposjesti i progutati kao veliki sivi oblak. Biti će toliko gust da ti neće dopustiti da ikada vidiš ijednu zraku sunca. Nemoj odabrati taj put. Ti zaslužuješ prekrasan sunčan život!