Thread by @AprilSpectrum, So I'm doing self-therapy with regards to childhood abuse, codependency, and ptsd.And [...]

So I'm doing self-therapy with regards to childhood abuse, codependency, and ptsd.

And I found a quote I'm gonna summarize that is fucking hilarious.

"Although no evidence supports Freud's theories, they continue to influence psychology today"

Lmao

Anyways today's work is on "The Self"

Now common to #autistic folks like me, and also common in #PTSD and #ChildhoodAbuse is a low or lack of sense of self.

This often shows up as Chameleon behavior in social settings.

People who have a low/lacking sense of self have any or all of five categories of issue

1) Inferiority Complex
2) Self Erasure
3) Lack of Self Care
4) Socially Dysfunctional Behaviors
5) Social Anxiety and Dependency

Sense of Self develops in a healthy childhood by fusing internal and external factors.

Id, Ego, and Superego is a common framework for viewing this.

How does the quote go?

"I'm not who I think I am, I'm not who you think I am, I am who I think you think I am."

Id is the inner baby. The "I need food gimme love wah"

Ego is the mirror. "I have red hair. My clothes are un/cool."

Superego is a navigation between them.

And if you picture those three as sections of a venn diagram you will have a closer parallel. Ish.

There is also the development of your own self image through the Erickson's 8 Stages.

Am I good at things? Am I smart? Can I make good choices?

And previously I've focused on that a lot.

But I was seeing it like stairs, as a progression. Like "oh wow I failed Hope vs Despair. Guess I'm fucked."

But instead, think of them as side quests in a videogame

Credit where due, this view came from an Imgur friend, DoctorSnakebeast.

You don't *have* to get these stages at certain times.

If you are an infant, and you don't learn that the world is safe and good, that doesn't mean you are guaranteed to be a codependent ptsd mess (like me)

It just means you *need to retry that quest*

That is a slice of the pie, not the whole pie.

By which I mean, those stages are just *the ingredients for your Id*

Your social interactions create your Ego

And you create your Sueprego

Now for this part I'm gonna tangent a bit but it's related.

I overheard at a festival one time some girls (tweens) talking and one suggests going on a particular ride.

The other laughs loudly and says "oh my gawd [name] you're so crazy!"

It was a phrase I'd heard thousands of times, applied to a family member of that same name.

I had heard it used on her over foods, games, movies, and other suggestions, to silence and ridicule her.

And even at times when she repeated someone else's idea.

It was a jarring moment, because even tho it wasn't *my* trauma, per se, it was something that triggered a reaction in me.

One of pity for the [Name] girl there.

Because built into the universal subconscious was the idea that she was crazy, and she would be adopting that view.

Just like I, as a child, adopted the view that I was fat from being told it, again and again, by my abusive mother.

Was I fat? No. Not when she first said it to me, as an infant too young to remember hearing it, for being born at 10lb instead of 8 like my sister.

Was I fat in middle school, at 78lb, at 5'8"?

Was I fat when I got reported to the principal for skipping meals, for being anorexic?

Was I?

I believed so. I believed it so strongly that it didn't matter I could see my bones through my clothes.

When someone is abused, or suffers Single Event Trauma, they are handed a Belief by the outside world which is inaccurate and harmful.

Humans evolved to fold outside beliefs about ourselves into ourselves (like butter into dough) as a way to create a society

But it isn't always healthy

Which is why we end up with all.kinds of disorders.

And the hardest thing to do is to interrogate which of these outside beliefs is worth being adopted.

This is something autistics in particular, and all GiftedKids™ especially struggle with.

School and our own natural inclinations teach data gobbling.

It's the same phenomenon that makes your conservative parents believe Rush Limbaugh about the election,

Or makes your friend buy into that MLM scam

We read or hear a thing that is formulated as a statement, and our brains accept it is a fact.

But we can hack the system.

Because our brains *don't actually pay attention to where we hear things*.

And I know this sounds embarassing and stupid, but as Uncle Iroh says, pride is the source of embarassment, and humility is it's cure.

You can gas yourself up.

You can stand in front of a mirror

Or lay in bed in the dark

Or drive down the highway

And say, out loud "you are a strong, confident person. You are kind, you are smart, you matter. You are a good person and you deserve good things"

And you'll believe it.

That movie (and book) The Help.

I is kind
I is smart
I is important

Fucking do that. Say in in a singsong voice. Doesn't matter

Your brain needs to hear it, it doesn't care who it hears it from.

The final incredient to Sense of Self is what I am gonna call character building.

LGBT+ folks understand this next bit.

A lot of us miss out on being the Teenager™ that is shown on tv. We miss out on sneaking into concerts, dying and cutting our hair awfully, dressing weird

When you are an adolescent, your job as a human isn't to go to school, and prep for college, etc.

It's to experiment and figure out who the fuck you are

And we often dont

That's why people have midlife crises

You are supposed to fall in love with a bazillion people,

including that cringey boy band,

and break your heart a thousand times,

and figure out "oh so what I *ACTUALLY* am attracted to is XYZ!"

You are supposed to mess up

And you're supposed to do it a lot, and big

Paint your nails black
Buzzz cut your hair
Buy that stupid mini skirt or those shoes you can't even walk in

Mistakes are lessons

When you miss that as a teen, you have to go back and complete that mission later.

Which is why that guy who "did everything right" in high school, for into a good college, married his middle school girlfriend and had 2.5 kids and a dog

Buys a mustang gt cobra on his 45th bday

So yeah that's what I'm working on for me in my self therapy.

And I guess my homework is to try something new to find out if I like it. (:

Wait wait wait wait

I have a homework for anyone reading this.

Write down the adjectives other people have given you.

Everything from "smart" and "pretty" to "stupid" and "ugly"

Write them all down.

And then cross out the ones you don't want anymore.

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