Necessary Losses

When my psychiatrist recommended the book Necessary Losses by Judith Viorst, my heart sank. He told me it would be a good book to read as the discord and between me and my parents continues to expand.

The full title of the book is Necessary Losses: The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies and Impossible Expectations That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Grow. First published in 1986, my psychiatrist told me this book is both widely known and respected. Indeed. It is endorsed by both Benjamin Spock, M.D. (the author of The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care [five editions with revisions beginning in 1946]) as well as Rabbi Harold S. Kushner (author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People).

The book discusses losses of many kinds: death, divorce and growing older as well as the formation of identity and the cutting of the apron strings by both parents and children alike. For me, the book is a tool meant for continued enlightenment about the loss of parental relationships while they are still living, and the importance of not letting this encumber my recovery.

As I wrote in an earlier sharepost Stigma within the Family, I realized that in order for me to accept my parents' negative views about PTSD and who I really am, I would need to let go of the illusion that my parents' arms were a place of safety for me.

At the age of 40, I find that I am taken aback at how deeply this illusion of safety matters to me. Aren't I technically an adult? If I am to truly ask myself why I struggle so with this sense of loss (something I never really had but wanted desperately to believe was true) I needed to start again at the beginning of what I know. From there, I could work to identify what I have yet to attend to and recognize emotionally within myself.

Four Facts I Currently Know:

1. I know that as a child, I needed to hold onto this illusion of safety as a survival mechanism. I told myself that the fear I had and the abuse that occurred was solely because I was the bad person. If I blamed myself, then I could continue to view my parents and family as my shelter of safety. This inversion of reality ensured my survival as a child.

2. I know that the abuse occurred because the abuser was the one who was troubled and in the wrong. I was chosen by the pedophile due to availability and circumstance--not because I deserved it because I was an inherently bad person. I did not fully understand this concept until I was in my late twenties. I allowed myself to be re-victimized over and over because I carried deep within me the idea that I deserved to be abused and used by any one.

3. I know that recovery from this type of early childhood trauma includes a healthy establishment of my true identity that does not include the false beliefs that I am an inherently bad and worthless person. Undoing the foundation of my sense of self has taken time in therapy. Learning how to love myself has taken years.

4. My healthy sense of self is what ensures my survival now. Without it, I would still be caught in the victimization trap that only serves to reinforce my negative and unhealthy sense of self. Sustaining my healthy beliefs prevents old patterns of previously instinctive behavior.