Okay, this is making more sense now. I'm sorry to hear about all that. I can see how anything remotely resembling passivity would be a major red flag in that context. I'm glad you shared, and also glad you made it out on the other side. And also glad that you made it here to the forum! Apologies if my other replies were on the gruff side.
It may be a challenge, but it would be important to consider that while you may have cured your CFS/ME, you have not cured yourself of your childhood experience and its effects on your perception. That's my read of the energy with which you are speaking.
For me, trauma was hard-wired into my neural circuits. This formed a distorted 'lens' through which I saw the world. People who have undergone significant trauma often have a really hard time Seeing past this 'lens' of trauma, which shows a world that is only danger, violence, fear, violation, and nothing more. It IS possible to See beyond it and experience life differently, but it requires a ton of self-work to undo that programming and find the way forwards. It also requires that we let go of our suffering eventually, which as Gurdjieff said, is one of the hardest things for a person to do, mainly because it is quite literally lodged in the body. I know I'm still a work in progress on that one.
Then there's another level of difficulty - when someone who has been traumatized comes across the information of the C's, they seem to confirm that yes, it IS a jungle out there, you DO need to always expect attack, you can't trust your own mind, as you can be easily manipulated and attacked even in that realm that seems most intimate - the one between our ears! So that's a recipe for constant nervous system overload.
So what do we do?
If we can't trust our own minds, it is imperative to network, as you are doing. It's the best kind of activity there is, as it helps us See beyond that lens of trauma. There is also active psycho-education AKA reading books about healing trauma and letting go of negative emotions and changing our core beliefs. Knowledge Protects, as the saying goes. Have you looked into the psychology books like Pete Walker's Complex PTSD, or Healing Developmental Trauma?
Then there are more somatic exercises like EE, and somatic exercises in Rosenberg's Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve, as well as somatic exercises in Peter Levine's In An Unspoken Voice. All of these can help release negative emotions from the body and bring about a ventral vagal state. This brings your nervous system out of its frozen trauma mode and into a healthier and more relaxed state, allowing you to experience life differently.
This relaxed state doesn't mean passivity, either. A friend of mine was saying the other day he was worried about relaxing, because he felt like if he let his guard down for one second, everything would go kaflooey. Hyper-vigilance is a tough habit to break. I know from first hand experience. It can be very hard to develop Faith, and Trust the Universe, and hold that FRV in a world gone mad. It is possible, tho, to find a balance between that trust and a protective sort of vigilance.
I've seen that when I'm relaxed and my nervous system is in good shape I feel more capable of making good decisions, can See more clearly, and am thus better able to fend off attacks. And each time we return to ventral vagal state, our nervous system becomes more resilient and able to withstand shocks. Because yes, there is still evil everywhere. But that's not ALL there is. The experience is sort of like the volume knob gets turned down on it all. And the volume knob gets turned up on the possibilities for learning, for exploration, enjoyment of beauty, and even love. I don't think we should ever give up on love. So a certain amount of passivity can be very healing. I think this is what the C's said when they meant that sometimes 'Being needs to catch up with Doing.'
So all that to say, perhaps your conceptions of active and passive should just be thrown out the window for a little while. Because these conceptions are also likely a form of attack, based on the lens through which you're currently looking. 'Activity' does not need to be reduced to 'destroying evil'. Activity can also be wonderfully Creative, in the sense of acting on behalf of your own destiny. I think that's one of the best defences against attack, as well - asking yourself what your deepest dreams are, and then taking step by step towards them, evil and interference be damned.
