与人的联结 | Connections, 用心爱自己 | Love Thyself, 读书笔记 | Books

丢失的自我

这周看了一本书,Garbor maté 的《the myth of normal》。书厚是真的厚,内容也紧实,哪怕一本书40%都是参考文献,一般一两天就翻完一本书的我也生生啃了一个星期。

看得有点心惊肉跳,很多身体疾病其实都是自我压抑造成的。

最常见的大概是压力大造成胃溃疡,好歹大家都还觉得理所当然。更少见一点的比如像是渐冻症这样的病,几乎所有的病患都有同样的性格——老好人,从来不挑起争端,总以他人的需求优先,无限压抑自我。这样的逻辑联系是如此明显,以至于在病人切片结果出来之前,护士都看得出来访者到底有没有渐冻症:『这人不可能是渐冻症,他没那么老好人』,而他们的判断几乎从不出错。

这些疾病都与性格有着紧密的联系:癌症、自体免疫性疾病、顽疾的皮肤病、偏头痛、纤维肌痛、子宫内膜异位、肌痛性脑脊髓炎,等等等等。这样的人一般有一个或多个如下特点:

  • 强迫性地关注他人的感受,同时无视自己的感受
  • 认同社会赋予的角色与责任,身为男性/女性/朋友/爱人就应该xxx
  • 努力过度、十分有责任感,通常伴随相当的成就,因为如果没有成就与对他人的付出,自己就没有存在的价值
  • 压抑愤怒,不知道如何生气
  • 强迫性地想要安抚他人的情绪,强迫性避免让他人失望

而这些特点都有一个共性:下意识的自我压抑。

比如对于愤怒的压抑:

One healthy response to assault for any sentient creature is anger, a function of the evolutionary RAGE system in the brain whose purpose is to defend our boundaries, physical or emotional.

My fiend Dr. Julie Holland’s comment about women’s anger being subdued to the detriment of their health tracks invariably with my observation among people with depression, autoimmune disease, and cancer.

There is an unhealthy kind of guilt: a chronic conviction that we’re innately blameworthy and should expect, or even deserve, punishment or reproach. In this dim light our faults and failings become evidence of our redeemable lowliness rather than invitations to grow and to do better. This type of guilt, or the fear of it, often strangles a robust “no,” smothering self-assertion: the prospect of others’ disapproval or disappointment triggers the intolerable conviction that we are bad, wrong, inexcusable. Left unchecked, it augurs physical or mental distress, as we have witnessed in stories throughout this book. Many people suffer a corrosive, automatic gait and shame if they so much as contemplate letting others down, treating their own needs as valuable, or acting on their own behalf.

因为成长的过程中,父母的爱是有条件的,不压抑自我就只有被依恋对象抛弃:

Neufeld sums up eloquently what all young ones, whatever their temperament, need first and foremost: “Children must feel an invitation to exist in our presence, exactly the way they are.”

With that in mind, the parents’ primary task, beyond providing for the child’s survival requirements, is to emanate a simple message to the child in word, deed and most of all energetic presence, that he or she is precisely the person they love, welcome, and want.

The child doesn’t have to do anything, or be any different, to win that love–in fact, cannot do anything, because this abiding embrace cannot be earned, nor can it be revoked. It doesn’t depend on the child’s behaviour or personality; it is just there, whether the child is showing up as “good” or “bad,” “naughty” or “nice.” We understand and respond to the needs and emotions the child is “acting out” on, rather than simply punishing the behaviour and banishing the feeling.

作者说,他自己的工作狂倾向也来自于此:

My own workaholism as a physician earned me much respect, gratitude, remuneration, and status in the world, even as it undermined my mental health and my family’s emotional balance. And why was I a workaholic? Because, stemming from my early experiences, I needed to be needed, wanted, and admired as substitute for love. I never consciously decided to be driven that way, and yet it “worked” allot well for me in the social and professional realms.

Oddly as it may sound, it was the best worst option. A suffering child has two possible options when it comes to processing her experience (of only the “good” parts of her being validated). She can conclude either that the people she relies on for love are incompetent, malicious, or otherwise ill-suited the task, and she is all alone in this scary world; or that herself is to blame for, well, everything.

As painful as the latter explanation is, it is far preferable to the other one, which paints a life-threatening picture for a young being with zero power or recourse. The first option is not an option at all. Better to believe “It’s my fault; I’m bad,” which lets you believe there’s the chance that “if I work hard and be good, I will be lovable.” Thus, even the debilitating belief in one’s unworthiness, nearly universal among people with mental health diagnoses and addictions, begins as a coping mechanism.

我自己很久以来也是,很多时候我每天可以说是强迫性地画画或者学习,与其说是100%的热爱,不如说更多是想要被喜欢:如果我再厉害一点,就可以被爱了吧!但是就像作者形容的一样,这种成瘾性的努力,跟其他的成瘾性都有一个共同之处:就是,让你上瘾的这个东西永远不会真正地让你满足。它给你的永远是一种暂时的、几乎满足的——温暖、被接受的感觉。然而,就像我贴出一张画有很多赞让我暂时满足了被爱的需求一样,其实它也同时强化了我的认知:只要厉害就会被喜欢。

然而这些喜欢是太过肤浅的喜欢,完全无法满足我底层真正的需求:just being accepted and loved as I am, without good behaviours or achievements. 而这样的爱,是建立在时日浇灌出的深厚的联结与深度信任之上,一种彻底的接受、爱,与non-judgement。

它的产生有几个条件:

  1. Non-judgement and total acceptance, already rare among friends and families, let alone strangers. This is a trait of a person however–if they have it they have it–you can’t really expect someone to transform into it.
  2. 时间与共同经历建立起的信任,光是这一点陌生人就完全无法做到了
  3. the conscious decision to love this person, day after day

一个人最开始吸引你的也许是外表或者成就这种表面的东西,但是真正带来满足的是,因为最初的火花吸引而慢慢深入了解一个人,建立了双向信任以后,至少一定程度上无条件与包容的爱。

所以,出路大概是:

  • 有意识地,把人群按照『可以信任与依赖的程度』分层,不同的人也许在不同的事情上值得信任、无法信任,但陌生人绝对是在『0信任』的层级,因而去追求陌生人的喜爱一定是饮鸩止渴饮酒止痛,酒劲过去只会强化有条件的爱带来的痛苦
  • 有意识地,时刻关注自己对自我需求与情绪的压抑:
    • I seem to believe that…
    • What has this belief actually done for me?
      • coping mechanism: protected me from…
      • but caused me the long term damage of…
    • What is the life I really want?
  • 有意识地做决定:给我两个选项,如果我利用我的负面动力,得到著作等身羡慕与荣光;如果我放弃我的负面动力,就依赖我小火苗的热爱,想努力时才努力,默默无闻而自得其乐,我选哪一个?我为什么把它们放在对立面上?

把完整的自己找回来,与自己和解。

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