"Healing Developmental Trauma" by L. Heller and A. LaPierre
- Thread starter Arwenn
- Start date
Here are my results:
Connection: 15.38%
Attunement: 21.43%
Autonomy: 30.77%
Trust: 23.08%
Love/Sexuality: 15.38%
Whether Autonomy is my main developmental core issue or not, and based on such a short questionnaire, it's hard to know for certain, I do resonate with what's been said below.
Connection: 15.38%
Attunement: 21.43%
Autonomy: 30.77%
Trust: 23.08%
Love/Sexuality: 15.38%
Whether Autonomy is my main developmental core issue or not, and based on such a short questionnaire, it's hard to know for certain, I do resonate with what's been said below.
luc said:Thank you Bear for this post, so many things you said hit home for me too! I'm just at the beginning of the HDT book, but it's crazy how I seem to check almost every survival style
I am almost halfway into the book, and I too felt that I could see myself in all survival styles. Then I took the test, and the results did surprise me:
Connection: 15.38%
Attunement: 57.14%
Autonomy: 15.38%
Trust: 0%
Love/sexuality: 7.69%
I was expecting at least some percentage in Trust and higher percentage in the Autonomy one for sure, based on the checklists in the book. Autonomy was the one I felt more identified with from reading. But then I also realized that I used different survival styles at different times in my life, and I think that this might be true for all of us. I did live a big chunk of my life perhaps using Autonomy defenses, but perhaps it is not the case anymore.
For example, under one of the checklists for Autonomy it says: Enjoys disappointing others, which, thinking back in my life, I could strongly identify with, especially in my relationship with my mother and at a certain period of life. She calls me her No child, because when I was very little, I would say No a lot and argue with her if she wanted me to do/eat/wear something I didn't want. Later on, around preschool age and up to early adolescence, I was her little helper, being a good girl and trying to please her. When I was a teenager I felt that if my mother expected me to have good grades, I just wouldn't give her that pleasure and I was definitely not a good girl either during that time. Later in adulthood, up to now, I am happy to see her proud of me when I tell her that I acquired skills in living that she always deemed worthy as a woman to have. So, this is just one example, but it seems to me that as we go through life, as we age, and as we accumulate new knowledge, experience and perhaps our hormonal/neuronal structures go through changes as well, our ways of adapting and interacting with the world, change as well. But it seems (if this test is any good at all) that I need to reread the attunement chapter, to which I did not pay much attention, because I am not needy, damn it!
Laurelayn
Jedi
Hello,Bluefyre said:
Thank you for your posts Blufyre. We seem to have many similarities in the way we were raised.
I have been working with a caring, wise therapist using EMDR for 1 1/2 years and it has been an amazing journey for me.
Over the past 8 or so years I have been reading books from the "big five" reading list here as well as many other suggested books through the many threads and SOTT articles I have read.
I started therapy out of sheer desperation to feel anything about myself beyond the sheer self loathing, guilt, disgust and shame I was living in at the time. I'm fairly intelligent and I had convinced myself that if I knew where all the crap came from in my head I could "learn" my own way out of it. Boy was that not going to happen!
Financial resources have always been a big issue for me but I found this thing called the "self rescue manual" it is available in many places in the U.S. and has lists of resources to help oneself just for the asking. I was struggling with alcoholism and ended up with my therapy getting 100% funded through a state grant program.
The thing for me that came through all the reading I did was that if my brain was that damaged before I was even able to learn to use it how the hell could I ever get better. It was horrifying and my drinking got much worse before it started to get better.
This is all excruciatingly hard work. EMDR can be brutal but, being able to look at my childhood through the eyes of a kind caring adult has been so healing for me too. Close self examination when one is in such a state while at the same time finding a willingness to believe, have some modicum of faith in my own will and ability to heal was a huge leap of faith for me.
I am feeling like a real human being lately, and I have actually been able to experience feelings of safety and wholeness that I would not have considered possible even 3 years ago.
I decided to share this because, it is because of the things I read here, that all of you have the courage to share, that is no small part of the reason I persisted with my own journey in a better direction.
This is a work that will take the rest of my life, and I honor myself for taking it on.
I am profoundly grateful for this community.
Laurie
Here are my results:
Connection: 23%
Attunement: 35.7%
Autonomy: 38.5%
Trust 0%
Love/Sexuality: 15.3%
I'm about a third of the way through the book. I almost stopped reading it as I found a huge disconnect in my life between the guilt factors and the pride factors. I am thinking that if I was trying to develop the pride factors, I was really bad at it as I don't recognise most of the factors that correspond to the guilt factors I identify with. Also realising that one category doesn't cover all and that we are all a mixture helps, but I am still bemused at how poorly I appear to have developed those pride factors.
I have always had an issue with being in the spotlight when I am unprepared. I end up like a deer in the headlights. Working in sales, I realised early on that I needed to do something about this so I joined Toastmasters where I practiced speaking in public (and became pretty good at it). But the really useful tool I learned was how to cope when somebody threw something at you in a conversation that was unexpected, how to handle that. And I thought I had a pretty good handle on that too.
I found to my mortification however that the underlying issue was still there in spades. I was national sales manager, attending a big presentation for a multi million telecommunications network. My sales team had done a really good job getting us to the shortlist. This meeting was to move to the next step in the process and there was a large contingent of staff and management from both companies in attendance. As soon as the meeting started, the CEO of the comms company opened with a question to me, wanting to know whether our company would put all our traffic on their network if we won the deal. Should have been an easy question, right? But no. To my horror, I was, once again, like a deer in the headlights. I was not expecting any questions, certainly not the very first question and I had no answer to that question as the decision was not mine to make. So many things I could have said. What I should have done was referred the question to the gentleman in our company who looked after the network. But I was literally dumbstruck. I couldn't say anything. I couldn't think of what to say and I couldn't engage my voice. I was literally frozen. And the longer the silence went on for the worse it got. Eventually that gentlemen stepped in and answered the question. And I sat there for the rest of the meeting, shamed and embarrassed. Truly one of the worst situations in my career.
I still occasionally think back to it and feel the mortification, and wish I had been somewhat prepared, somewhat able to redirect.
Since then I have always tried to be better prepared, to think about upcoming meetings and how I might cope better. But the reality is that down deep, I have this paralyzing fear of being exposed, of people looking at me and judging me, of feeling that in reality I was not good enough for the job.
Connection: 23%
Attunement: 35.7%
Autonomy: 38.5%
Trust 0%
Love/Sexuality: 15.3%
I'm about a third of the way through the book. I almost stopped reading it as I found a huge disconnect in my life between the guilt factors and the pride factors. I am thinking that if I was trying to develop the pride factors, I was really bad at it as I don't recognise most of the factors that correspond to the guilt factors I identify with. Also realising that one category doesn't cover all and that we are all a mixture helps, but I am still bemused at how poorly I appear to have developed those pride factors.
I have always had an issue with being in the spotlight when I am unprepared. I end up like a deer in the headlights. Working in sales, I realised early on that I needed to do something about this so I joined Toastmasters where I practiced speaking in public (and became pretty good at it). But the really useful tool I learned was how to cope when somebody threw something at you in a conversation that was unexpected, how to handle that. And I thought I had a pretty good handle on that too.
I found to my mortification however that the underlying issue was still there in spades. I was national sales manager, attending a big presentation for a multi million telecommunications network. My sales team had done a really good job getting us to the shortlist. This meeting was to move to the next step in the process and there was a large contingent of staff and management from both companies in attendance. As soon as the meeting started, the CEO of the comms company opened with a question to me, wanting to know whether our company would put all our traffic on their network if we won the deal. Should have been an easy question, right? But no. To my horror, I was, once again, like a deer in the headlights. I was not expecting any questions, certainly not the very first question and I had no answer to that question as the decision was not mine to make. So many things I could have said. What I should have done was referred the question to the gentleman in our company who looked after the network. But I was literally dumbstruck. I couldn't say anything. I couldn't think of what to say and I couldn't engage my voice. I was literally frozen. And the longer the silence went on for the worse it got. Eventually that gentlemen stepped in and answered the question. And I sat there for the rest of the meeting, shamed and embarrassed. Truly one of the worst situations in my career.
I still occasionally think back to it and feel the mortification, and wish I had been somewhat prepared, somewhat able to redirect.
Since then I have always tried to be better prepared, to think about upcoming meetings and how I might cope better. But the reality is that down deep, I have this paralyzing fear of being exposed, of people looking at me and judging me, of feeling that in reality I was not good enough for the job.
Divide by Zero
The Living Force
The test seemed too short, some of the questions had choices that didn't fit me and I wasn't sure of the "other" being able to properly register/analyze me.
Connection: 31%
Attunement: 21%
Autonomy: 0%
Trust: 15%
Love/sexuality: 31%
Connection: 31%
Attunement: 21%
Autonomy: 0%
Trust: 15%
Love/sexuality: 31%
Connection: 15.38%
Attunement: 7.14%
Autonomy: 15.38%
Trust: 30.77%
Love/sexuality: 30.77%
The thing is, we don't live in a very loving world, and "normal sexual relationships" are becoming rather anachronistic. We are very much in the Blade Runner reality where "integrating an open and loving heart with a vital sexuality," is kind of like winning the lottery. Their healing advice, while well-intentioned and truthful, is nearly useless. I guess if I really want to get into it, I need to read the book, it probably has much more practical advice in it.
Attunement: 7.14%
Autonomy: 15.38%
Trust: 30.77%
Love/sexuality: 30.77%
I had to use the other response in a couple of cases too. I expected trust and sex to be the biggest ones, but I considered sex to be much less important. It does make a certain degree of sense, because the two do go together.DBZ said:
This part kind of baffled me. They must be referring to the "Don't grab yourself there" lecture I got when I was around this age. I vaguely remember being somewhat confused/annoyed by it, but calling it a traumatic or life threatening experience is rather hyperbolic. I think my sexual attitudes were based on decisions made much later. I had a pretty much neutral attitude toward sex until about 16, when it became primarily negative.
The thing is, we don't live in a very loving world, and "normal sexual relationships" are becoming rather anachronistic. We are very much in the Blade Runner reality where "integrating an open and loving heart with a vital sexuality," is kind of like winning the lottery. Their healing advice, while well-intentioned and truthful, is nearly useless. I guess if I really want to get into it, I need to read the book, it probably has much more practical advice in it.
Here are mine:
Connection: 46.15%
Attunement: 28.57%
Autonomy: 23.08%
Trust: 7.69%
Love-Sexuality: 15.38%
I was actually expecting Connection to be the highest - and Attunement does make sense as second place.
Connection: 46.15%
Attunement: 28.57%
Autonomy: 23.08%
Trust: 7.69%
Love-Sexuality: 15.38%
I was actually expecting Connection to be the highest - and Attunement does make sense as second place.
I've read about 30% of the book and it's very interesting. Some bits really hit home. Reading the different adaptive styles, I could mostly relate to (based on feedback and my own observations) Connection, Autonomy and Attunement. In particular Autonomy, because I've already noticed from reading The Narcissistic Family that I tend to be a people pleaser, and have difficulty with saying 'no' and being assertive, and articulating my needs.
This was sad, and struck a chord: "If I show you how I really feel, you won't love me - you'll leave me." One of the things the author writes that can help with this type of survival style is 'exploring the difference between counter-dependency, rebellion, and true autonomy'. That gave me much food for thought.
There was also a bit on rumination about people with this type of survival style, and I bet it goes with a more/less high score on Neuroticism:
The Love and Sexuality bit was also interesting. What really struck me was this sentence, because I never looked at it this way: "Growth for Love-Sexuality types involves learning that surrendering to love is not about surrendering to another person but about surrendering to their own feelings. When asked to get in touch with a time in their life when they gave in to their heart feelings, they often remember their newborn child or a pet they deeply loved. When asked to remember the feeling in their body, they describe a melting feeling and a fullness of the heart - which helps them begin to understand 'opening the heart' from a different perspective. This can be the first step in a process whereby they come to experience love as its own reward."
I'm looking forward to read the rest of the book. I also took the test and I got (also surprised at 0% Trust):
Connection 23.08%
Attunement 28.57%
Autonomy 23.08%
Trust 0%
Love-Sexuality 15.38%
This was sad, and struck a chord: "If I show you how I really feel, you won't love me - you'll leave me." One of the things the author writes that can help with this type of survival style is 'exploring the difference between counter-dependency, rebellion, and true autonomy'. That gave me much food for thought.
There was also a bit on rumination about people with this type of survival style, and I bet it goes with a more/less high score on Neuroticism:
The Love and Sexuality bit was also interesting. What really struck me was this sentence, because I never looked at it this way: "Growth for Love-Sexuality types involves learning that surrendering to love is not about surrendering to another person but about surrendering to their own feelings. When asked to get in touch with a time in their life when they gave in to their heart feelings, they often remember their newborn child or a pet they deeply loved. When asked to remember the feeling in their body, they describe a melting feeling and a fullness of the heart - which helps them begin to understand 'opening the heart' from a different perspective. This can be the first step in a process whereby they come to experience love as its own reward."
I'm looking forward to read the rest of the book. I also took the test and I got (also surprised at 0% Trust):
Connection 23.08%
Attunement 28.57%
Autonomy 23.08%
Trust 0%
Love-Sexuality 15.38%
