Let's Get Practical #4: Healing The Traumatized Kid

[Raphael]

I wrongly titled this journal. This journal is going to be about a lot of things: healing traumas, exploring my shadows, removing limiting beliefs, turning limiting beliefs into opportunities, changing thought patterns, forgiving, changing behaviors, deconstructing myself, and improving myself.

[Raphael]

I always easily attracted a lot of hate and criticism in life.

I had some periods where I got criticized so much that I became desensitize to it. I was emotionally numb. My state of mind was: "You can criticize me until I die, it doesn't do anything to me. I'm emotionless, therefore you can't hurt me, therefore I'm always winning".

That was quite a fucked up narcissistic state.

Edited September 2, 2021 by Raphael

[Raphael]

Three themes are going to frequently appear in this journal:

• My relationship with my dad.
• My relationship with my body.
• My feeling of being abnormal.

[Raphael]

Exploring My Relationship With My Body

I didn't really know where to get started so I'm going to start here.

I'm at a point in life where my adult self feels like all of this is old and doesn't really matter in the end but that's not how my child self and my teenage self feels. My child self and teenage self aren't healed yet, they still suffer and I can feel it inside me.

[flowboy]

On 02/09/2021 at 5:51 PM, Raphael said:

Exploring My Relationship With My Body

I didn't really know where to get started so I'm going to start here.

I'm at a point in life where my adult self feels like all of this is old and doesn't really matter in the end but that's not how my child self and my teenage self feels. My child self and teenage self aren't healed yet, they still suffer and I can feel it inside me.

Your inner child and teenager won't disappear when you heal your relationship with them

You'll team up with them.

They will always matter.

 

A good exercise to do, is to get into a meditative state, and have a direct conversation with your inner child.

You can do this by writing the conversation down, or by talking in your head.

Listen to him. What is he going through? What has he been through?

What does he want to tell you?

What does he need from you?

A lot can be healed with the words:

• I love you
• I'm sorry
• Thank you
• Forgive me

You can keep repeating those sentences to your younger Raphael and have some interesting conversations with him after that.

[Raphael]

On 9/3/2021 at 8:43 PM, flowboy said:

Your inner child and teenager won't disappear when you heal your relationship with them

You'll team up with them.

They will always matter.

 

A good exercise to do, is to get into a meditative state, and have a direct conversation with your inner child.

You can do this by writing the conversation down, or by talking in your head.

Listen to him. What is he going through? What has he been through?

What does he want to tell you?

What does he need from you?

A lot can be healed with the words:

• I love you
• I'm sorry
• Thank you
• Forgive me

You can keep repeating those sentences to your younger Raphael and have some interesting conversations with him after that.

Thanks

I actually already did something like that in the past. What I'll do is express the emotions then and have a conversation with my different subpersonalities.

[Raphael]

Exploring My Relationship With My Body: Feeling Ugly

There's a paradox with me: I know consciously that I am physically attractive as I got complicated by women in the past and noticed women's looks on me, but at the same time there's a part of me who feel ugly. There's a part of me who feels that I am the ugliest person on earth and the ugliest who will ever exist. This part feels extremely dirty and I can feel it in my stomach, there's a burning sensation in my stomach when I open up about this.

Two body-image issues:

• Being Skinny: I was born with a quite skinny genetics. Because of that I was physically weaker than other boys when I was a kid/teenager and got bullied mostly verbally.
• Slight leg deformation: I have a slight deformation in my right leg that makes my leg naturally go outward. My right leg isn't naturally straight aligned so I need to force it a bit to make it look natural. Overall, this is not a big issue and not that much noticeable when I walk. I can walk, I can run, I can swim, I can do everything that I want with my legs.

[Raphael]

Exploring My Relationship With My Body: Being Skinny

Most criticism, mockeries, hate, and rude comments that I got were about me being skinny. Here is everything that I can remember:

• From an uncle, while shaking my hand: "Oooh. Look at this hand hehe. How is he going to be a construction worker?".
• From an uncle discussing with one of my parents: "You need to do something for Raphael, he needs to go to the gym.".
• From a good friend:
  • When I was in an amphitheater as a kid and didn't want to force open a retractable table because I was afraid of breaking it: "You don't have any strength".
  • After a class when the teacher gave us instructions on how to calculate our BMI: "You're just way too skinny". My BMI was around 14 - 15 when I was 14, it caused me harm.
  • "Ah Raphael, why aren't you like your dad.". My dad was the complete opposite of me, he had a hyper-muscular masculine body that many men fantasize about and who perfectly fit masculine ideals. Because of that I experienced enormous shame for not being as strong and muscular as my dad.
• From a past cousin that I didn't saw after a long time: "Hey Raphael, you're still skinny like this?"
• From a woman,after I failed to close the sliding door of the school van: "What is happening? You can't close the door? You don't have any strength?"
• From a friend's older sister while I was helping him move a desk: "Is it OK Raphael? Are you fine? Do you need a break?". Yes, I was fine, I was able to move this desk, I wasn't going to die. I have the capacity to move weights.
• From a girl that responded to the question "What are we going to do?" from another kid when we were in a classroom while the teacher wasn't here for a few minutes: "Arm wrestle! Ophelia vs. Raphael! Ophelia is going to win". It made me feel inferior considering that masculine standards always expect men have larger bodies than women.
• From a girl that I was playing with as a kid who touch my right shoulder and felt my bone: "Burk.".
• From a guy at the swimming pool: "The tall guy". He probably qualified me like this because I was tall and skinny. I didn't like to have a nickname, I felt judged on my physical appearance.
• From a woman telling to my mom: "He is tall". I didn't like that because it reminded me of other criticism on my body and I felt judged.
• From a man: "You're very tall". I didn't like that because it reminded me of other criticism on my body and I felt judged.
• From a boy that I met when I was at a swimming pool in France:
  • "You're so skinny, you look like an asparagus".
  • "Are you anorexic? Do you eat? Is it normal to be so skinny?". Yes, I was eating perfectly normally.
• From a high-school teacher while I was eating a big piece of bread: "You need to eat more Raphael". I didn't like that because I knew that she said that because she was judging my body.
• From a girl when I was in middle school: "Hey, can I see your hand? Oooh. It's so tiny".
• I was in a gymnastic class when I was around 13 and a girl asked me to hold her legs while she was doing a headstand, however, I wasn't sure of the amount of strength that I should use. Because of that I failed at holding her legs and she responded to me: "What is happening? You don't have any strength?". I felt some shame.
• From a girl when I was in high school: "Raphael are you skinny from everywhere?".
• From a guy when I was in high school: "You look like a sugar cane!"
• From a guy when I was in high school: "You don't have a leg you, you have a bone.".
• From a guy when I was in high school: "Look at his leg. His leg looks like my arm.".
• From a guy when I was in high school and when students were doing blood donations: "Hey, don't try, don't try cause if you try you're going to die!".
• From a guy when I was in high school during a gym class when I was trying to do a headstand and was having difficulties: "There's too much wind!".
• From a girl who sat on me when I was in high school: "Hey! I didn't break his legs!"
• From a tourist on the beach: "Your hands... they look like a girl’s hands.".
• From someone that I don't remember when I was a kid: "Your legs are like chopsticks".
• From my dad: "You need to move out, you need to do some sport, it's normal that you are so skinny if you don't move.". True, it would have been wise to exercise more but with all the criticisms that I was getting, I just wanted to hide and play video games.
• From a girl in the school bus: "His legs are very tall". It wasn't really a criticism but I didn't like it anyway because I felt judged on my body.
• From a boy who was a few years younger than me in the school bus and who was analyzing how skinny I was: "But... but... even my leg is bigger than your leg."
• From a boy when I was in middle school who asked me about my weight: "This is not normal. How can this be normal? I personally weigh 56 kg". My weight was maybe around 45 kg - 48 kg.
• From a past male coworker: "How is it that he is so skinny even though he eats so much? He looks like a sugar cane stick. Nobody understands.".
• From a past female coworker:
  • "You're so skinny. Is it normal?".
  • "Why are you going to the gym. Is it to lose weight?". I responded that it was to gain weight.
• I also remember some criticism from my grandpa but my memory isn't clear. I remember an old woman saying that I was very good-looking, then my grandpa said something about my weight like: "Yeah, yeah, but he has to strengthen".

 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Raphael

[Raphael]

Exploring My Relationship With My Body: Leg Deformation

I got some comments and mockeries regarding my legs too, but much less than my skinny body:

• When I was a very young kid, I remember my mom speaking with me or maybe someone else (possibly an aunt) and she was explaining the first time that she become aware that I had a leg deformation. She was saying something like this: "I was looking at Raphael while he was running and his legs were going outward. I said to (someone), hey look at Raphael, look at his legs, this is not normal". It wasn't a criticism nor an attack but as I was extremely young it did hurt my self-esteem. I remember feeling that something was wrong with me, I remember feeling abnormal, feeling inadequate. Small judgments like this can badly hurt a very little kid, but my mom wasn't aware of it. My mom was only explaining what she saw, she was concerned about me, she cared about me. Maybe this is one of the reasons why I don't like people to care about me because I felt attacked when someone cared about me when I was a young kid. This is highly possible. This is not an issue if someone cares about me, if someone cares about me it means that someone appreciates me. This is perfectly normal to care about the people that we like even though over-caring creates dysfunction as it doesn't allow someone to use its mind. It's fine mom, you have the right to care about me. It also applies to anyone else who appreciates me, it's fine and I can appreciate somebody back by saying "Thank you". This is what living in a society is about, in a healthy society people care about each other.
• From a boy when I was around 6 - 7: "Your legs go outward when you run!". This boy actually had a similar issue to me so it felt pretty dumb when he criticized me on that, I responded to him: "Yes and you too!". I felt attacked, I felt unsafe. I didn't understand why someone would criticize me on my body. I think that he was insecure and was projecting his insecurity on me as he had a very similar issue. My teacher was just behind me when I responded to this boy and she said something like this to me: "Hey! Raphael!". I didn't' understand her response because I didn't attack this kid, he was the one who attacked me, I was just defending myself. I think that she didn't hear what the other kid said nor what I exactly responded, she probably only perceived me as being a bit verbally abusive without understanding my situation. I think that I felt that I didn't have the right to defend myself and that it was abnormal to defend myself when someone attacks me. Well... no this is not abnormal, this is perfectly normal for someone to defend himself if someone attacks him, however, it is context-dependent and there is a mature way to handle these situations that I am conscious of as an adult. In some situations, we do have to defend ourselves and fight back, but in most situations, we can just accept the other person and have compassion because the other person is suffering and respond something like "Alright, alright. Ok. Are you OK? Are you fine? How do you feel.". This is the mature approach.
• In middle school, I was running during a sports class while two girls were running behind me and mocking me because of my legs. My legs were probably going a bit outward but I wasn't conscious enough to make the extra effort that I needed to make (because of the deformation) to keep them straight. I felt ridiculed, I felt humiliated, I felt abnormal, I was afraid, I felt like an inferior human being. I think that I might have a bit of resentment against these girls inside me. I think that this event had a big impact on my body-image issues, I think that I started to be much more careful and fearful of how people would perceive my body after this event.
• I was in Paris in 2017 and I was walking with an uncle, he asked me a question about my leg: "Your leg go outward, what is going on?". I wasn't aware of it and I think that it wasn't a big thing, but he questioned me anyway. It annoyed me a bit and I responded: "It's just a natural deformation, I was born with that, I cannot do anything". My uncle didn't attack me, it didn't felt like a personal attack but like a simple question. He was just curious, people ask questions when they see some unusual thing but it annoyed me anyway because I got a lot of criticism on my body. That's fine, people are just curious and ask questions.

[Raphael]

Alright everyone, thank you very much. What am I supposed to do now? Am I supposed to kill myself or what?

[Raphael]

1 minute ago, Raphael said:

Alright everyone, thank you very much. What am I supposed to do now? Am I supposed to kill myself or what?

@Raphael Notice the bitterness, anger, and resentment.

[Raphael]

Exploring My Relationship With My Body: Self-Hate

All the criticism that I got on my body contributed a deep feeling of inferiority and self-hate:

• I hated being mocked at
• I hated been mocked on my body by girls
• I hated been mocked on my body by boys
• I hated being a target of bullies just for existing as a human being
• I hated being compared to a girl
• I hated my body for being weak
• I hated being seeing as weak
• I hated being seen as an inferior human being for being skinny
• I hated being seen as an inferior man
• I hated how many comparisons people would make with me
• I hated being treated like a kid and talked to as if I was younger by some kids that were younger than me
• I hated not being taken seriously
• I hated that people would always want to help me because they perceived me as being inferior were what I wanted was to do things by myself

I really hated myself enormously just because of my body.

[Raphael]

Exploring My Relationship With My Body: Noticing Feelings

/!\ Warning: These are just feelings that are arising while journaling. THEY DOT NOT REPRESENT HOW I AM 95% OF THE TIME NOR HOW PEOPLE PERCEIVE ME IRL IN MOST SITUATIONS.

I'm noticing some feelings arising and things happening while exploring my body image issues:

• My social anxiety is spiking
• I feel unaccepted
• I feel weird
• I feel abnormal
• I feel anger
• I want to self-isolate
• I feel afraid
• I don't feel safe
• I feel inferior
• I don't want people around me
• I don't want people to touch me
• I don't want people to talk to me
• I don't want any friends
• I want people to leave me alone
• I want people to stop mocking me
• I want people to stop criticizing me
• I feel hate
• I feel hated
• I'm getting into stage Red: I want to kill people and to take down this whole fucking world with me
• I feel unattractive
• I feel avoidant of women
• I feel a distrust of women
• I don't want women to look at me
• I don't want women to care about me
• I feel hate of women
• I feel avoidant of men
• I feel a distrust of men
• I feel hate of men
• I don't want men to look at me
• I don't want men to see me as being weak
• I feel alone
• I feel isolated
• I feel alienated
• I feel some burning sensation in my stomach
• I feel not understood
• I feel sad
• I feel some tears coming up
• I feel agitated
• I want to end my life
• I want to end my suffering
• I want to hide
• I feel shame
• I feel avoidant
• I feel very distrustful of people
• I don't want to care about people because I feel that people hate me
• I hate myself
• I feel extremely fearful of what people think of me

Other things that happened while journaling:

• I did loud and weird sounds with my mouth, I'm letting everything out
• I repeated "Leave me alone, leave me alone, leave me ALONE, LEAVE ME ALONE, LEAVE ME ALONE, LEAVE ME ALONE, FUCKING LEAVE ME ALONE"
• I cried a bit while at the same time repeating: "Help me, help me, help me please, help me, help me, help me". I did this a lot.
• I breathed repeatedly and very quickly
• I tried to cope by clicking a bit everywhere on the internet and by going on some porn websites.

Edited September 23, 2021 by Raphael

[Raphael]

I'm noticing that as I'm journaling things are getting very messy. I'm wondering if I'm doing things properly. I have a lot of insights and my mind is going in thousands of directions. This journal is going to be messier than I expected.

[Raphael]

An Insight On My Dad: He is Here to Help

On 9/23/2021 at 4:52 PM, Raphael said:

I cried a bit while at the same time repeating: "Help me, help me, help me please, help me, help me, help me". I did this a lot.

I had an insight about my dad while doing the shadow work session. This insight is: my dad wants to help, is here to help, and my father's sub-personality inside me wants to help me.

It feels like I'm turning to my dad to help me. As young as 4 years old, my dad always told me to let him know if anyone bullies me at school. He wanted to protect me, but as he was over-protective and had a lot of anger and impulsiveness I cut him out of my life by stop talking to him. Maybe that's one of the reasons why I often paired with hypermasculine guys in the past: because they reminded me of my dad, because I wanted to feel protected as I didn't felt safe. Maybe that's also one of the reasons why I'm living in my parent's house, maybe it's because even though my dad is a difficult person to live with he always cared about me and wanted to protect me in the end. I feel some safety in this house but at the same time some unsafety as I'm a bit afraid of openly expressing myself in front of my dad.

As my dad always had a lot of inner conflicts, I declined his help. This is why I don't want help because help reminds me of the help that my dad tried to give me. As he was very conflicted his help felt oppressive to me, but he couldn't help himself. This is also why I don't want to help anybody: because help feels selfish. The one who tried to help me the most was my dad but as he had a lot of impulsiveness and anger inside him his help felt selfish, it felt like I had no right to do anything. In consequence, I feel that helping is selfish, I feel that I have no right to do anything because I'm preventing myself to help the world. However, my dad did the best that he could. He had a lot of difficulties helping in a healthy way, but he did the best that he could. I forgive you dad.

Not helping is a protection mechanism within me. I don't want to help because I see help as selfish because this is how it always felt when my dad tried to help me. I'm overprotecting myself as my dad overprotected me, I'm damaging myself just like he damaged me. We are both acting in a very similar way. We are the same.

By not helping I'm selfish too. I couldn't be alive today without people who helped me and people who raised me - in an imperfect way, ok - but raised me anyway. These people did the best that they could. This is natural to help others, so I'm letting myself being natural and helpful to others.

My father self is trying to help my child self inside me. He wants to nurture my child self, he wants him to grow, he wants him to become a man. My father self inside me wants the best for my child self inside me. I'm allowing my father self to help my child self and I'm also opening up my child self so that he can give feedbacks to my father self who do the efforts to listen to my child self to help him best.

I'm letting my father self helping my child self and my child-self is opening up. My father self and my child self are now communicating together, they are helping each other, working together, growing together, and healing together.

[Raphael]

Exploring My Relationship With My Body: A Feeling of Unsafety + Social Anxiety

I remember not feeling safe while going to school because I had a weaker body and because of the amount of criticism that I was getting on my body. I remember being on guard, I remember checking behind me in case of someone would try to target me. I guess that this is the same feeling that women experience while walking in the street: women don't feel safe, they are always on guard. I can relate to that.

This feeling of unsafety contributed to me developing social anxiety, it made me feel alienated, it made me feel afraid of the world. I remember a few experiences that I think were caused by me having a weaker body and by low self-esteem:

Being Trapped in Middle School

When I was 8 or 9 in middle school, I was just walking in the school when two boys came around me. One of them caught me from behind so I couldn't move. He was really tall and much more muscular than me. The second one came in front of me and tried to grab my feet. I tried to defend myself, I didn't let him grab my feet. After some moments of agitation, they finally gave up and let me walk away. I remember being in the middle of the schoolyard, I remember everyone staring at me. I remember feeling publicly humiliated, I remember feeling ashamed of being weak. I didn't want people to look at me, I wanted to hide, I wanted to escape. I didn't get physically beaten, but I still got traumatized. In my mind, I was like: "Just wtf happened? I'm just walking and people are attacking me."

A Bit of Agitation in The Library

I was peacefully reading in the library when I was 13 when again some boys targeted me. It didn't go physical again, but it was still a bit traumatizing. I was wearing a hoodie and one of them covered my head with the hood, then a third boy came and took my defense. The third boy was also a bully, but he never really bullied me that much, this time he just told to one of the other guys: "Hey, come on, he only has his skin on his bones, let him". I'm honestly thankful for this boy even if he wasn't an example most of the time. Again, I felt humiliated, I felt ashamed, I felt weak. And again I was just wondering wtf happened. I wasn't doing anything, I was only reading peacefully, but these boys targeted me.

A Bit of Agitation During The Sport Class

I was experiencing some moral bullying during a sports class when I was 14. I don't remember what these boys were saying, but they were mocking me and I remember not feeling safe. They were just around me making fun of me. As I wasn't feeling safe, I remember putting my right arm in front of me in a defensive way. While I was doing this, I remember one of them mocking me even more. I don't remember what happened after that, but I know that it didn't go physical. I was afraid, I didn't want to be attacked, I was trying to defend myself, I felt humiliated.

[Raphael]

I think that the reason why bullying almost never went physical for me was because of the quality of the schools. The schools that I went to were privileged schools for privileged people — even though I wasn't privileged and was feeling a bit different — because of that most kids had a better upbringing than average kids so they were less prone to engage in physical violence.

[Raphael]

I want to slow down a bit while doing this. I want to take more time to re-read the previous posts, to analyze, self-reflect, make the meaning evolve, understand, and ultimately heal.

[Raphael]

Exploring My Relationship With My Body: "It Doesn't Hurt You Because You’re Not Fat"

/!\ Warning: The emotions shared here are just repressed emotions that needed to be expressed. They aren't a personal attack against anybody and don't represents how I interact with people.

The first time that I went to a psychologist was when I was 14. My main teacher noticed me in the classroom and was a bit concerned because I was quite lonely and wasn't interacting that much with other kids. She talked with me at the end of a class, asked me how I was feeling, asked me what was my experience, noticed that I was quite skinny... like her... then decided that I should see the school psychologist.

I went to the psychologist and she had a folder with information about me since I was 4 years old. I remember her showing me some drawings that I did when I was 4 - 5 years old. She asked me if I remember these drawings, I responded that I know that they are mine because I remember my style when I was around that age but don't remember them exactly. The session continued, we talked about my family, we talked about my dad, we talked about school, we talked about my grades, then she asked me a question on my physical appearance: "How do you feel regarding your physical appearance?". I remember responding: "I don't know. When I look at myself in the mirror, I see myself as fine but people always tell me that I'm skinny.". We talked a bit, then she told me something like that: "You know there's a lot of people who would like to be like you.". I responded: "How much?". She said: "3/4 of the world's population.". I didn't respond to her, but I was like: Really??? So... I get highly criticized and humiliated by literally everyone in the school and now you are telling me that 3/4 of the world's population would like to look like fucking skeletons?! Really?! Well... if this is the case why do I get so many critics based on my physical appearance? Why do I experience so much hate for looking how I look? Why everyone points fingers at me because of my body? And it's not like one or two specific individuals, but it's everyone: boys, girls, family members, strangers, and even teachers. I remember having a history teacher who made some remarks on my appearance during this school year, he was basically saying that I was skinny and that was wearing glasses and that because of that it was motivating other boys to bully me. I didn't understand what was the problem. I didn't understand why some people would be mean to other people just on the basis of physical appearance. People don't look the same, so what’s the problem? Why should it be a motivation to target someone? It didn't make any sense to me.

I remember being with my sister and my mother one day and my sister told me something like this: "In all cases, it doesn't hurt you because you’re not fat.". Oh yeah... really??? Well... you know what? I would have preferred to be fat. Because at least fat is normal. And because at least when you are fat you have other fat friends that you can relate to. Because when you are born with a naturally very skinny genetics YOU HAVE ALMOST NO ONE THAT CAN RELATE TO YOU AND THAT CAN UNDERSTAND YOU. DON'T EVER TELL ME THAT YOU WANT TO BE SKINNY BECAUSE THIS IS COMPLETE CULTURAL BULLSHIT/NONSENSE FOR ME. Believe me, you won't like to be skinny.

[Raphael]

So... I have been throwing out emotions in the previous posts and it feels great. I will start to analyze, self-reflect, and find new meanings next time.