Posted by fallsfall on February 11, 2005, at 11:42:08
In reply to Parts and Pieces, posted by daisym on February 11, 2005, at 1:26:56
>I don't know what to think. I thought I was getting better about all of this being "me" but today it was definitely "her" and "her stories." Maybe it is just easier to allow all of this to have happened to "her" instead of me. Maybe I can own it better in the future. But tonight I feel like I need to apologize for sinking so quickly into talking about this as her and me. It makes me feel sort of foolish on one hand but it feels completely true and the best way to handle it on the other.
>I'll talk to him about this too, but I want to know what you guys think. Is it the stress? should I fight it?
>I'm also really, really tired.
Little Daisy is (an ingenious) coping mechanism that allowed you to survive. There is nothing shameful in using this coping mechanism - it is a shame that you *need* it, but not shameful to *use* it. You are at a point where you realize that, while it served you well in the past, that it isn't the best coping style for you right now. Hence your desire to "own it all". But they call them "coping *SKILLS*" for a reason. They really are skills. A skill is something that you learn to do (i.e. it isn't a reflex). A skill is something that comes easier or works better with practice.
Think about driving a car. When you first learned how to drive it took all of your concentration to keep the car going in a straight line. You couldn't read the signs or figure out where to go, all you could do was stay on the road. But as you practiced, the ability to "stay on the road" was learned by your subconscious. So then your subconscious could keep you on the road, and your conscious was free to start reading the street signs, and drink your coffee, and talk on your cell phone, and break up the fight in the back seat. But there ARE times (even now), when for some reason your subconscious can't quite do it's job (maybe it is raining so hard that you have to really concentrate to see the road), and you have to consciously work on that aspect of driving again. You don't have to do this very often now (but you *do* have to do it sometimes), but you had to do it a lot more when you had only had your license for a year. You have *learned* how to drive.
Coping skills are no different. At first it takes a lot of effort to use them, but as you keep practicing they become second nature - most of the time. But your ability to use them will go up and down (but go up over all - because the "ups" will be higher than the "downs" are low). This is just a slightly bigger "down" than you are used to. Seems perfectly reasonable to me, given what you have been through.
It *doesn't* mean that you have failed in learning your new coping skills. It just means that you are *still learning*.
Little Daisy has taught you important things about yourself. Resolving her issues is different from burying them. But resolving them takes time and effort and pain.
If you "fight it", your subconscious will not learn the new coping skills, and you will be left with only the old ones.
Of course you are tired! All this learning is exhausting! Plus everything else you have going on. Can you say "I'm tired because I'm working really hard on really hard things", and accept that being tired is reasonable?
(((((Daisy)))))
poster:fallsfall
thread:456153
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050211/msgs/456261.html