Hello, I have CPTSD(I am diagnosed) and I am struggling with black and white thinking. I struggle because there is this giult around that symptom.
I was listening to John Bradshaw and essentially, I had "lightbulbs" go off when he mentioned that we essentially put ourselves into a transe based in shame, especially with negative thoughts because we have imagined a partner(in my case earlier on in life it was "a idealized family) when enduring trauma to help us cope but that this person isn't realistic essentially and we split because as a child we registered people as "safe and unsafe".
Well, my "idealized image" is different then reality.
I made a family with my husband and our kids suffer from debilitating mental illness, this registers as "unsafe" for me and after years of being the safe person but not feeling safe(it's ongoing) I have been the non abusive safe person, while also not feeling safe myself, and at a given point this image of (an idealized partner), came to mind and splitting would occur, when my husband's defenses were up, *due to his past*, and how unsafe* he then felt*, due to how our kids are at times, how he would then be would register as *unsafe*, to me.
On the forefront I would be the person saying and doing "all the right things", working it out, using the appropriate communication(non violent communication) having the hard talks respectfully.
It would take a LOT to do this because he carries his own traumas and I felt "I was carrying this conversation, the one making it productive", because he's triggered in these instances but because of how I handled it, things would move on well, he would feel safe and then at some point after, I would have black and white thinking.
I know we continously go through trauma in a sense, given how unwell our kids are. I know I suffer with feeling isolated at times, and "like the capable one", because for lack of better words he "carries his past on his back, carries others from it on there", when he gets triggered by these situations, he can also hear things through his own internalized shame, when triggered by how unsafe the kids can make the environment feel.
These are private talks, we have had(no intense "scene" sort of instance)and good boundaries(as far as the kids are concerned).
Yet I find the "splitting" I go through, after, these hard talks, or even moments where I feel *sensative*, from the sheer stress(which also leads to splitting) at times if he registers as unkind(he's a logistican and can register as lacking empathy or mean).
Anyhow, when I go through this splitting there are elements of "a walking trance " as John Bradshaw calls it, that same sensation, of this sort of fixation, and shame based thoughts that present as a sort of *outer critic*, where he is not "this idealized parnter", and it's not something I would *choose to think like*, in good conscience and its hard to *work around or work my way out of*, it feels intense, and it's really quite out of character sort of thinking and I "don't recognize myself in it" and it's hard to work through.
Just wondering if you've experienced anything like this, what helped you. Please be kind. I work so hard to be a safe person/safe partner and these moments torment me, more then "hurt someone or something ".
#CPTSD #Splitting