Suffering Unseen and the Gradually Murdered Soul

Suffering Unseen & the Gradually Murdered Soul

What happens when our essential emotional needs during development are invisible to everyone around?  What happens when profound deprivation occurs and no one notices, no one can see it happening? How often does this unthinkable deprivation occur simultaneous to caretakers believing they are providing everything the child needs?

What often seems to happen goes something like this: 
The unbearable pain from such emotional malnourishment in childhood comes to be experienced as a naughty secret; an inherent badness; a character defect that makes one believe, with certainty, that they are unlovable, inadequate, never-enough…..

All sorts of creative adaptations are made in an attempt to pull the needed emotional responsiveness; holding; containment; nurturing. 

Perhaps a child discovers that emotional distress, otherwise always unnoticed, might be seen by way of displaying a particular experience, such as being sick or displaying great helplessness. This can become the misguided communication (being sick or helpless) that gets repeatedly utilized due to it's potential to evoke even just a flicker of emotional nourishment. Perhaps a parent temporarily becomes more nurturing when the child is sick.

Now a real predicament is in place: 

A conviction is born that one must be sick / helpless in order to try and get that needed warmth; that loving responsiveness;  that essential emotional  holding. Even the smallest taste of what has been so needed comes at an impossible price, one that the deprived person is all too willing to pay:  Any growing independence, agency or self-efficacy (all so crucial to a person's life experiences) must be stifled.

What becomes of the one who had to pay such a high cost for what, at best, may have been a subtle scent of what was needed emotionally?

The felt deprivation remains powerful, pervades time, and intertwines itself deeply within the person's developing identity, outside of conscious awareness. This paves the way towards an adulthood filled with endless possibilities for re-experiencing the unthinkable deprivation: repressed emotional pain is enacted in behavior. A person may find themselves in a multitude of re-traumatizing experiences. Repeatedly futile attempts to fulfill the ever-present longing one has been left with can fill an entire lifetime. This devastating emotional catastrophe can occur without a single person ever noticing. 

The world of unthinkable agony may very well be experienced entirely alone throughout one's life without it ever being recognized nor understood. It is more likely that the problems or "symptoms" arising from this lifelong devastation are noticed only as they appear on the very surface and then profound misunderstanding ensues. Such misunderstanding may take the form of grossly inaccurate labels placed upon the sufferer based on those "symptoms" serving only to enhance the experiences of one's soul being murdered bit by bit. 

Alas, tragic suffering in dark isolation abounds…

- Dr. Amie Love Callon

@StopTheSoulMurder

Impingement and Abandonment

Each moment in a person’s life is an experience, one that is only and uniquely experienced by oneself.

Each experience we have impacts us in some way, whether it be quite subtle or profound. The variety of ways we may be impacted is countless.

There is a multitude of impossible binds we may find ourselves in again and again, especially during development, which tend to leave a lasting mark long into adulthood.

Certain repetitive experiences of impossible binds throughout childhood can pave the way for the development of excruciating and complex shackles that bind us in our adult lives; that interfere with our getting to live the lives we want to live.

For now, I shall ponder one such shackle; such bind; such relentless suffering:

What is one to do when completely opposing fears have become crystalized in that person’s interpersonal experiential world after the continuous re-experiencing of such opposing forces? How can one do anything but run endlessly from one side to the other and back again when all that has been experienced thus far is one extreme or the other, such as: impingement / engulfment / oppression on one end and abandonment / aloneness / cold painful isolation on the other?

And do others see this particular bind as often as I do?

How does this allow or disallow the creation of fulfilling relationships in adulthood?

And what might happen if real curious awareness of these binds could be brought about? What might occur after a person gains awareness of this prison they have been made to live in? What might become possible?

We cannot predict. However, what often shows up is a new opportunity for more expansive life experiences.

I never tire of the opportunity to see what unfolds in those uncharted waters.

Dr. Amie Love Callon

Soul Murder: Strategies For PREVENTION & healing

How can we release ourselves from the shackles that bind us; the shackles that come from early traumatic / painful experiences (that are most often unconscious)?

There is no “getting rid of” emotional pain and trauma, no matter how badly one may want to. We cannot erase our past, we cannot erase the experiences we have endured; experiences that have an impact on how we feel as we move about the world day after day.

How might we stumble upon ourselves - our true selves? How might we finally come to discover who we truly are after a lifetime of having to hide the true self in the shadows of a false self; a self that was always performing and accommodating to others in order to secure survival while growing up?

One of the few things I can claim to know with profound and utter certainty is this: “one must go in to come out.” I mean this in regards to the vast array of powerful emotional states we may have been running from most of our lives.

The journey going in is not easy. In, fact, in can feel as scary as allowing ourselves to be annihilated.

It is with a brave heart one endeavors on such a journey. I will always have great respect for the true courage and willingness it takes to do so.

The journey will likely be painful at times, indeed. At times it will feel terrifying, at other times it may feel wonderful… it may feel awful, incredible, liberating, devastating, cruel and kind and who knows what else. And while we cannot rid ourselves of the painful stuff, I have found comfort in understanding that we can know for sure that all feelings are, by nature, temporary. All feelings - the ones we like to feel and the ones we don’t (the pain) - they are always temporary. (Even though they are quite convincing of their false permanence when we are in them).

What happens when we go into the pain that we may have been so sure would kill us…. and we survive?

What happens when we “go in” or lean in to the pain, the fear - alongside an understanding, caring, curious, nonjudgemental other who is willing to be in the darkness with us, with the sole desire for understanding our emotional experiences, with us?

What I have seen is this: what follows the prolonged experience of an actual relational home for one’s emotional world (as described above) is profound understanding of previously unknowable terrifying emotional experiences; experiences that have been kept out of consciousness but stored in our bodies. Finally these experiences (parts of our selves) are allowed to be seen and known and understood. They can then become bearable and integrated. We can finally start to tolerate what was previously intolerable. We finally can say the previously unsayable. With this new understanding, born out of the co-creation of a true relational home for our feelings (often for the very first time), comes greater tolerance for our emotions. This starts leading us along the path to genuine self-acceptance.

Split off painful experiences gradually become integrated. We move towards becoming more whole human beings, rather than strings of fragmented pieces of raw emotional experiences; raw experiences that never had a chance to be processed or truly known (yet lived through nonetheless); never allowed a chance to be discovered, nor understood, and thus barely resembling anything remotely close to an authentic sense of self.

If we are able to find ourselves in a therapeutic relationship in which we are co-creating a safe, open, nonjudgmental, and curious stance TOGETHER as we follow along the journey to understand not only what has happened to a person, what has been experienced in a person’s true emotional world throughout their endlessly unique experiences, but also this: to attempt to understand, together, to the greatest degree possible, the serious barriers that come up between us based on each of our own histories and archaic organizing principles - to find a way, together, for true understanding from both sides to exist simultaneously.

There may be many ways of releasing the shackles. The way I have described here is where I have found the keys to releasing some of those shackles, not just in my own personal journey, but alongside the journeys with others as well.

Oh and what a beautiful sight that is to see. Liberation of the soul; the soul saved from being entirely murdered.

People find their own ways of being able to live, and be alive, before they die. What an honor and a joy it is to be a fellow traveler and a witness of such freedom found.

Dr. Amie Love Callon

It really is something: to be believed in.

There is perhaps nothing of greater value than this: For one human being to feel seen, known, “gotten” & believed in by another. This is the truest form of emotional nourishment. This is something we all need, especially when growing up as our identities are developing. This is also something many people never got.  

Having to grow up without this vital experience is devastating. When the emotional malnourishment is so severe it tends to remain out of consciousness in order for the growing little human - completely dependent on the parent(s) - to survive.

Although buried deeply into the unconscious, the pain & torment brought about by this crushing deprivation lives on. It looms within the deepest, darkest & coldest undercurrents of one's emotional life.

If you had to grow up emotionally malnourished in this way (and if you have actually been able to discover such painful awareness of what happened to you) the fact that you are still here is a phenomenon worthy of the highest honor.

Against all odds, you have survived, and for this long.

This is a clear and undeniable strength of character beyond what many people are even capable of imagining. You may not even be able to recognize it yourself. After all, this is “all you ever knew” right?

Regardless, this strength is unique. The power that exists within it is rare. It is a strength that has emerged after having endured some of the darkest coldest waters in life: waters that brought unthinkable terror, aloneness, horror and agony; the kind of pain and darkness a person should not ever have to go through but was thrown into nonetheless.

This is a profound strength that no one can take away from you, whether you realize it or not.

I do highly recommend coming to realize it.

- Dr. Amie Love Callon