Disclaimer, please don’t diagnose or try to fix your issues just by reading my post and attributing what I’ve written down about my own very personal experiences to your own. Do go and talk to a professional instead, because they’ll be way better at helping you live your best life compared to a random post on the internet. I love you, random citizen.
I’ve put my playlist from Uni Year 1 on as I’m writing this, arguably the year my depression slipped into irreparable territory.
Phone is officially on Do Not Disturbed, turned screen down, and pushed to the edge of the table.
Let’s begin.
2 weeks back, my therapist and I had come to the conclusion that I’ve been making rather good progress. I was determined to be stable enough to go off my anti-depressants, my working and human relationships were going pretty well, and I was understanding (truly understanding) how to empathise with others.
To me, the last item was big. I wasn’t apologising to people because I felt I had to, or out of spite and anger, or just because it seemed like the socially inclined behaviour. Sure I could empathise and cry with those I love, but pride always got in the way of me empathising with those I had hurt.
Now, I could apologise to my mother and my partner with sincerity, explain why my behaviour (though still not warranted or justified) occurred, and acknowledge how I had hurt them with my words and/or behaviour.
It felt good.
It was then that my therapist pulled out a worksheet, with which she proceeded to delve deeper into the multiple modes of me, based on the idea of the “child self” that everyone has. This was the aspect of Schema therapy that I connected most with. The regression into the past hurt but felt surreal, and hard to fully grasp in terms of my day-to-day thoughts and actions. This one stuck, still very intensely, two weeks on.
There’s three main Schema Modes: Child Modes, Maladaptive Coping Modes, and the Maladaptive Parent Modes. Of course, there’s also the final Mode we all aim to be: the Healthy Adult Mode, but that’s a long time coming.
Under Child Modes are the Vulnerable Child, the Angry Child, the Impulsive/Undisciplined Child, and the Happy Child. If you asked me to pick before therapy began, I would have picked Impulsive/Undisciplined Child, cause that’s how I saw myself. That explained my tendencies towards doing dumb shit that hurt me and everyone I loved constantly over the years.
But now that I’ve had some time to look at myself through crystal clear lenses, we addressed the fact that under the Child Mode specifically, I was a combination of Vulnerable Child and Angry Child. The reason for me thinking I was Impulsive/Undisciplined Child will surface later.
With Vulnerable Child, I feel some of the following: lonely, isolated, sad, misunderstood, unsupported, defective, deprived, overwhelmed, incompetent, doubts self, needy, helpless, hopeless, frightened, anxious, worried, victimised, worthless, unloved, unloveable, lost, directionless, fragile, weak, defeated, oppressed, powerless, left out, excluded, pessimistic.
This made a lot of sense, though I try not to acknowlege the above bolded, because it made me feel Weak. So pathetically weak and honestly, deeply selfish and ungrateful to feel this way when I have so many people who love and support me, and encourage me and acknowledge me consistently. However, that’s not the point, because these feelings exist. I’m allowed to have these feelings, I just need to take ownership and responsibility for how I deal with them and how I act with them around.
With Angry Child, I feel the following: feels intensely angry, enraged, infuriated, frustrated, impatient because the core emotional (or physical) needs of the vulnerable child are not being met.
Of course, everyone blames their parents, and so do/did I to an extent. I couldn’t acknowledge or reach out about the feelings I had as Vulnerable Child because my Dad won’t talk about emotions that border on mental health, and my Mom has her walls up 50 feet high. So I learnt to push them down too, cause feeling was weakness. Being flawed wasn’t good, and to Be Good, I couldn’t act like I had anything Not Good inside me. It manifested in as young as 4, maybe even younger. I was always angry, frustrated and unable to rid myself of the confusing anger that bubbled deep in my chest, prickly and painful under my skin, expanding behind my eyeballs and rushing my head. I cry so, So hard whenever I get angry, because my state of Anger only arose once the sadness and loneliness couldn’t abide being buried within any longer. Hot wet tears came as I was typing this, but as per fashion, I sucked those weak, humiliating, embarrassing tears back in.
It’s okay, I’ll be able to cry freely one day, beyond crying over novels and movies and music.
The goal will to be at Happy Child mode, who: feels loved, contented, connected, satisfied, fulfilled, protected, accepted, praised, worthwhile, nurtured, guided, understood, validated, self-confident, competent, appropriately autonomous or self-reliant, safe, resilient, strong, in control, adaptable, included, optimistic, spontaneous.
Of course, I doubt I’ll be all of these constantly, everyday, but I aim to be a majority of these most of the days. That’s why I want to move by 2020, because I doubt I will ever feel appropriately autonomous or self-reliant if I continue living at home with the huge influence of my parents.
There are three Maladaptive Coping Modes, which in my mind I thought of as the Teenager Modes. You’ll see why later.
The three modes are: Compliant Surrenderer, Detached Protector, and Over-compensator. I didn’t know (or perhaps didn’t want to know) which I was, so my therapist gently pointed out that it was the Detached Protector, and with the breakdown and explanation, it made sense.
The Detached Protector behaves in the following manner: cuts off needs and feelings; detaches emotionally from people and reject their help; feels withdrawn, spacey, distracted, disconnected, depersonalised, empty or bored; pursues distracting, self-soothing, or self-stimulating activities in a compulsive way or to excess; may adopt a cynical, aloof or pessimistic stance to avoid investing in people or activities.
Initially, it didn’t seem to resonate as I still made and have many friends that I care about, I’m very involved and feel instantly left out when I’m not included, and I almost demand attention and affection. I’m not someone who detaches from others at all.
But this mode, my teenage mode, doesn’t just manifest itself in actions and behaviours, but also in that voice in your head. The same goes for all the modes, but for me, the Child Mode was more instinctive behaviour, an acting out once I forgo meeting my Vulnerable Child’s needs.
This Detached Protector teenage mode manifests in the voice that tells me to go drink, go bugger off with those guys, to take those pills, to binge and binge and maybe purge but definitely binge. To buy this game or that game, to go shop for the most unnecessary bullshit, to buy $20 worth of snacks, to go off with those one-day old friends to Khao San road and not tell your travel girlfriend just cause a guy who impulsively asked you to join him to Bali tomorrow backpedals and rejects you.
She is my devil on the shoulder, my cool, hot friend who’s the worst influence, but my best friend, because she does all of this to protect Vulnerable Child. Just as how Angry Child reacts because of Vulnerable Child, so does Detached Protector. Angry Child acts out when Vulnerable Child gets hurt, Detached Protector convinces me to leave behind everything to avoid Vulnerable Child from getting hurt, or from feeling like she is hurt. It’s all about blanketing the loneliness and sadness and feelings of being left out that are about to come, to flood my senses and blood and mind with so much activity in a hedonistic, yet emotionally detached manner, so I don’t notice that Vulnerable Child has already been hurt.
Detached Protector pops up whenever Vulnerable Child gets a twinge of sadness or confusion, and goes, “Hey, a bottle of wine sounds real good now. Or how about you text that guy who you shouldn’t be involved with? Too late and you got responsibilities tomorrow? Why not pop about 10-15 of those sleeping/drowsy pills, that’ll knock you out so you Don’t think about feeling bad and you can sleep it all away. It’s the best, it’s peaceful and you’ll feel better tomorrow.” With my active decision to remain sober, to throw away all drowsy medicine, and be in a monogamous relationship, she took up the worst vice to boulder me down with: Food.
The most heinous part of it all is that she convinces me to binge after every therapy session.
“That was a painful one, you should treat yourself so go eat a lot and just reflect later.”
You’d think that sentence wouldn’t work on someone fresh out of a good therapy session right? Well that’s where the my Maladaptive Parent Mode comes in.
With the Maladaptive Parent Modes come two parents: The Punitive Parent and the Demanding Parent. I’m a pretty lax person so it was clear that Demanding Parent wasn’t it.
Punitive it is: feels that oneself or others deserve punishment or blame and often acts on these feeling by being blaming, punishing, or abusive towards self or others. This mode refers to the style with which rules are enforced rather than the nature of the rules.
My therapist personified Punitive Parent very well, “Sure, you want to go to therapy and fix yourself and do it your way, go ahead. I’ll just watch from the sideline until you break down and realise you were wrong and I was right. Go ahead, prove yourself wrong.”
Nothing I do will ever be good enough, will be right, or the correct decision for Punitive Parent, because I am never good enough. I deserve punishment for not being perfect, for having flaws and deserve to be in pain. So with a tough therapy session comes the following voices,
“That was a painful one, you should treat yourself so go eat a lot and just reflect later.”
Combined with,
“Huh, you think that went well, didn’t you? Yea right, you just wasted $200+ and you’re not much better than before you went in. Just go stuff your mouth like the fatso you are, you’re a fraud.”
Makes sense, doesn’t it? If it doesn’t, it’s fine, it’s just cause they’re my Modes that I get why they can control me so well.
Overall, it’s helpful to recognise them. We also discussed phrases to identify my Modes.
Child: I feel bad and that makes me angry
Maladaptive Coping: Do something else so it doesn’t feel bad
Maladaptive Parent: Go ahead, you know you’re gonna regret later
Fortunately, while those voices and inclinations to behaving as per my modes are more limited these days because I’m more aware of their triggers. I’m more aware of how to diffuse them too, which involve recognising what I’m feeling and trying to pinpoint what is making me feel this way. Additionally, what to do now so I don’t allow my Modes to take over and act upon my emotions in their own ways.
It also means that I’m a step closer to Healthy Adult, and am now, rather comically coined, encroaching onto Healthy Teenager territories.
The Healthy Adult: nurtures, validates and affirms the vulnerable child mode; sets limits for the angry and impulsive child modes; promotes and supports the healthy child mode; combats and eventually replaces the maladaptive coping modes; neutralises or moderates the maladaptive parent modes. This mode also performs appropriate adult functions such as working, parenting, taking responsibility, and committing; pursues pleasure adult activities such as sex; intellectual, aesthetic, and cultural interests; health maintenance; and athletic activities.
I don’t yet have the mental capacity for being a full Healthy Adult, not while my other 3 Modes still have such a strong guiding voice in my head and heart. I, however, am on my way there, and have accomplished enough autonomy of self-love and self-care that the modes don’t control me as much as before; I can safely say I am mostly my own person, and that I’m learning more about her each and every day. As such, Healthy Teenager is coming right up.
The reason for writing all of this was sparked by an immense sense of loneliness. I initially attributed it to my partner not spending enough time on the phone with me; I blamed him for not calling first thing in the morning, for not keeping me on video call, for obviously choosing not to address my upcoming visit in November. But he did address it in a realistic manner, and had issues with his phone charging slowly which negated constant video calling.
I understood it, but still felt bad, neglected, avoided, unloved, lied to, and intensely lonely. My heart ached.
So I stepped back and took a long shower; it was then that I came to the realisation that this isn’t new. I’ve felt a surge of loneliness with my previous partners, with my best friends, and even with my family. I was always surrounded by people, or constantly texting/being texted to, but still I felt alone. I can’t blame those around me for the emptiness inside of me that endures through Vulnerable Child. I can’t force my loved ones to fill the hole in my heart that can only be filled by myself.
Thus, this post. And boy, did it help. I feel so much more at peace, and I’ve plastered the hole with brownie dough (relax, I’m not binging right now I promise, I’m hydrating with water) to keep it gooey and warm and filled. I am the reason the emptiness is at bay, and I’m proud of myself.
Good job Aziel. I love you.
excavatingminds 