the late snow said:
I do think I have learned this "hardening". possibly as a survival technique. I think it has been crucial. Perhaps, I can get to the point where, I can easily call upon this when I meet a N. Trusting my intuition has to be my goal, too.
My main problem is that I think I can play their "game" and win eventually. the last one,
i knew in my heart to run, however I did not run, fell victim to the "story" even whilst "knowing it was untrue" got the D&D two weeks ago and NOW the way I feel PSTD, that all invasive numbness, shell shocked...
Do you really want to "harden" yourself? I am not sure about that word, but I am having trouble thinking of another one. In my own life I have been working with my reactivity--the way I react to various triggers. The problems seem to revolve around not having been permitted to be myself when I was growing up--it was a very narcissistic, alchohol-driven, abusive family situation. When you are told that you are not all right the way you are and that you should be something else instead, you start to disown parts of yourself as I mentioned earlier, as well as to accumulate troublesome memories that can trigger when you find yourself in a similar situation again.
One thing I have been doing about it is to begin to re-own those rejected parts. What we reject we tend to project on others, and by examining what I find particularly appealing in other people I have found that I can discover what parts of me I have disowned, and make them a part of my life again. This has the effect of invalidating the narcissistic influences--I see and deeply understand that what I was told about myself growing up was not true, and I begin to see the problems that the people telling me that were themselves having. When I no longer believe what they said, the triggers no longer have the force that they once had.
For this to work, I have to thoroughly understand "the games narcissists play." That has been hugely helpful. But then I have to discover how that affected me, and to re-integrate what I lost because of it. It is much harder to do than to describe, especially if you come from a particularly nasty family background.
When I think of "hardening," I think of the defenses that we build up against how we have been treated. For me, those defenses have kept me distant from other people, and it was my desire to be closer to others that led me to do (or resume doing) this work. The distancing reflects emotional immaturity -- how would you develop healthy emotional maturity growing up in a family like that?--and there is also likely some degree of "acquired narcissim" because we learn, very automatically, from what we see other people doing.
How you respond to your own narcissistic tendencies will say a lot about you. For me, it created a conflict. For a very long time I have been aware that I have particular "selfish" tendencies. This had bothered me, but didn't understand where it came from and my attempts to change it didn't work. Now I at least see what that is about, and I am gradually changing it. Not everyone is so bothered by it, though, or wants to change to the point of actually doing something about it. Another thing I have noticed is that in certain situations I would catch myself "behaving like my parents" toward other people, especially children, and that
really bothered me Perhaps I was self-triggering, behaving in ways that triggered my memories of being treated that way?
Treating other people in obviously unpleasant ways was a little easier to deal with. I think you need to have a well-developed conscience that you have tuned so that it reflects your own values and not those that have been imposed upon you, and you need to have a desire to change. And then you need knowledge and support, and you need to go to work!
