Monsters and Demons

From the novels I’ve written to the introspection of myself, it is always the monsters and demons I wrestle with. To be deeply neurotic and to cringe at the thought of even a hair being out of place must be perfect for the eyes of the world to see; those are the lyrics of a life tragedy. It is that demon I fight. What has happened with the core of who we are, as a living being, having been severely compromised? Injured within a story of inconsistent love masquerading as authentic love. This is not an authentic message we receive from a soul gifted with the responsibility of being able to come out of their inner world to love us. To the core of our being, to be authentically loved is a gift not enough of us know.

To have a flaw external for others to see, so what, and why does it have to be viewed as a flaw? Can’t it just be something that is there, that exists under God’s umbrella of what is possible? It is who I am, a part of my whole, what makes up me. Why did my mother try so desperately to ‘fix’ me by having ‘her perception’ of my flaws removed from her sight, from my being? What would others think of her if they saw a flaw in her creation? Just exactly how enmeshed are we with those who are close to us? Are you, deep down, even able to differentiate where your being starts and where your children or parents begin? Or is there a blur between you and them, as if you are them and they are you? What has happened to so many of us?

I am so caught up with and enmeshed in what you are thinking and feeling that even a hair out of place on my head causes an inner state of drama within me, well, it used to. It has to be perfect! Otherwise, your caretaker’s desperate need to be viewed with positive regard (Carl Rogers coined Positive Regard) by others in your orbit, indeed, ALL that you encounter, will be jeopardized. Why? Where did that permanent state of being hypervigilant toward others’ negative evaluations or criticism begin? It is now such an overwhelming unconscious feature of self that it actually shapes the inner character of those you are ‘supposed’ to be closest to. They don’t find Moms and Dads love; they find a needy soul, a Parent, that they, the children, must protect and take care of in the face of her/his incessant NEED to be found to be perfect. Walking on eggshells. The child now grows up feeling something is wrong with themselves and tries desperately to make others love them in the face of feeling so flawed. Yet, you are not flawed at all, and never were, from the beginning! It was that brutal need of the parent for you to be perfect for them to survive in their world. And round and round, human nature continues, generation after generation, the passing of the transmission of a trauma that never found resolution. It could well be many generations of family disturbance that simply was never resolved. The attitude toward therapy and/or psychology is often tarnished by a culture’s rule of never awakening to life outside the realm of “normal, herd obedience and belonging.”

Co-dependency: Many hate the term, but it is what it is. Toss the term, who cares? The existential experience is what we must learn to change. It is a term that tries to define a blurring unconscious array of ‘traits’ that so often defy a definitive ‘term.’ A loss of the self in a perpetual effort to become what that ‘someone else’ needs you to be for the other’s well-being. You are now duty-bound, taking care of other’s feelings to the point of denying, burying, and ignoring your own. An inner drive is built into us by a family circle or culture, which has been injured along the way in life. Now that family injury, gifted to us; thank you very much. It is what it is, and in varying degrees for differing individuals, it is a painful life struggle to become aware of and strive to overcome. But overcome we shall, and indeed can, though not easy.

So, where does the monster of self-hate come from in the title above? Why ‘self-hate?’ In a nutshell, One learns and interprets constant monitoring and corrective criticism from a caretaker as a message that you are simply not OK as you are. A child’s ‘innate’ self-centered experience of life automatically perceives a lack of unconditional love as being an inherent flaw in themselves. This translates to an inner perception of hate toward the self that must FIX what is wrong with themselves… to be loved. You’d love me if I wasn’t so _______, you fill in the blank.

Why do co-dependents need to learn to love themselves? In a toxic environment of being criticized, neglected, mistreated, etc., we presume it is us that is the cause of this mistreatment. Something is inherently wrong within ME; we come to be filled with a toxic sense of shame about who we are at our core. This is a state of disrespecting the self, a state of disowning aspects of our character, hating those disowned ‘parts of ourselves’ that were found by important others in our life to be unacceptable. We must learn to reincorporate those abandoned ‘parts’ that we buried from our identity. To do that, we must learn to love those parts we came to hate and abandon. It is nothing we did wrong; we were misled and deceived by others who didn’t see clearly how human life and experience authentically work. That’s all. No one has the true blueprint for human life and how we SHOULD be. To come to love is to come to understand you have always been lovable the way you are from the start. Why come to love yourself? Because it is nature’s path. If ever a ‘should’ about human life existed, that should would be “love thy neighbor as thyself.” When you learn to love yourself, you forgive and learn to love humanity at the same time. To find self-respect, self-dignity, tolerance, self-understanding, to appreciate our unique differences, to welcome oneself onto the playing field of the earth… these are the qualities of love.

As I’m putting together this paper, the questions above I asked myself for clarification. Simply put, some of us learn to hate aspects of ourselves (I hate that hair out of place, my smile, my eyes, ears, nose… my goodness, the list is as long as the imagination’s possibilities). We need to find something tangible to explain why we feel this way about ourselves. Truly, most often, it is not the physical traits, but rather a deep inner wound from a damaged sense of self, now a ‘flawed self-perception. (We come to hate the self, yet it is a flawed perception of reality). A deep inner wound of not ‘feeling’ lovable. To not be loved adequately, we existentially turn that experience toward a ‘definition’ of self, a toxic shaming experience. It is an existential crisis for one’s soul to not bond adequately to our caretaker and no fault of our own. This awakens us to our mission. So much of my writings speak of ‘coming to self-love’ because so many of us have ‘learned self-hate,’ which is not our nature. We are not flawed; our perception is. We must work towards developing a better personal understanding, at first, perhaps with a nonjudgmental therapist. Then, in a help group with others that share the same problems, perhaps a co-dependency group. With inner strength developing, we can begin working within our family to change old behavior pathways. We now find ourselves in process… the process of changing.

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Jesse Donahue

**  Copyright notice. All of my writings are copyrighted and registered with the Library of Congress.

My name is Jesse Donahue. In 2015, at the age of 58, I took up writing, and since then I’ve written two novels, poems, and essays about my journey struggling with CPTSD. The essays, 50+, were an adjunct to journaling in therapy to amplify my learning and self-understanding.

My writings, which include therapy notes, poems, novels, and essays, are a part of my ongoing personal therapy. Many of my essays are in a stream-of-consciousness style, unleashing, sharing, and delving into energies that continuously process in my subconscious. My writings were initially geared for me and my therapist’s eyes only. I began by exposing my thoughts and feelings on paper. Then, via personal choice, shared them here with the readers. My essays develop from my weekly therapy notes. My intent and desire are to encourage readers to recognize traits in themselves and see a therapist. If you are in therapy, ask your therapist to read them and discuss what pertains to you. It can be a long and difficult process over extensive periods to awaken the unconscious issues that have us acting out in life. Our behavior can seem like dancing to a buried energy that we are not able to directly confront. Hopefully, my insights will assist the reader in a faster process toward reaching a deeper self-understanding. Bringing the unconscious out into the light of self-awareness, understanding, and acceptance fosters self-love and the process of change.

 

My published writings with the CPTSD foundation: *The Hidden Bugaboo. The Beganning. Twelve Days Without Coffee. Learned Helplessness. Cast Out of Eden by Toxic Shame. The Crumbs and The Banquet. What an Outside Appearance may Not Show. Obedience to the Light – Bombs or Love. Stepping Into the Shoes of Who You Are. Personal Honor, Integrity, Dignity, Honesty. Inspirational Tugging – Teachers. Codependency – Overriding the Monster of Self Hate.