Muji - your student has an interesting trigger. I wonder what could have happened to her in her past to create such a trigger. I can just imagine a hostile parent abusing her in some way because she didn't come home with the graded test...something that was completely out of her control.

Have you talked to her about it? Maybe to help you both with your opposing triggers you can grade her paper quickly - say at the end of the class. No other students need to know about it. That way both of you will have your triggers reduced. And isn't that the goal? Well, the goal is to heal what caused the trigger but...in the absence of being able to do that.....this is the next best thing. Don't you think?

i would have to write small book about my abuses , i think we simply cannot see this things for ourselves but can for others hope that makes since .

everyone feels a false safety even with thoses who abuses us oddly i always say my boyfriend picker is broke lol , its what we know ptsd is hard to try new people who you would not really go for ordinary . myself i do not feel worthy

Maybe she has some OCD??

Thanks, Lucky Empath, I talked to her, and she's a very sociable, easy person to talk to when there's not a test around. She's got 2 little kids and one was sick last night. We talked well about her feelings taking care of her sick child, and she was very accepting of the reassurance and comfort I was able to offer her.

But when a test comes out, she turns into another person entirely. I realized that's what my trigger is. My parents were Jekyl and Hyde, just totally different personalities when they became abusive. They were impossible to deal with.

Unlike with them, I'm not the vulnerable one when this student gets trigger. Also unlike with them, I know what her trigger is--it's related to a prior experience and test stress that she hasn't healed yet. She's even able to talk about that. She told me she's decided not to become a nurse after all, even though she's a good student. She realizes she can't handle the stress nursing would bring.

That conversation could have been painful for her, but it wasn't. I was able to offer other options of majors, and she decided she'd look into become a pharmacy technician, another major at my college. So this class she's taking with me won't go to waste, and the discussion gave her good advising.

With my parents, though, it never worked out like that. My dad beat me bloody on several occasions at my mom's insistence and in her presence, and I never knew why. Nor did they even acknowledge if happened, even with my blood dried on my bedroom walls. That Jekyl and Hyde thing would happen, and unlike with my student, hard as I tried, I never could find out the trigger to avoid it.

Anybody ever get left with Jekyl and Hyde memories of their abuser's behavior and a mystery as to what the trigger was? I ask because I think a component of my repetition compulsion since then has been to go through it again to figure the mystery out. Anybody else?

I have more Hyde and silence ... No real Jekyl

I am glad that you were able to work it out with your student. Too bad she was not able to stay in the program and become a nurse. But a pharmacy tech is a good job too!

The man who abused me also used Jekyl and Hyde tactics. From what my therapist explained this tactic is well thought out and is designed to keep the child in a constant state of confusion. This keeps the abuser in control at all times. The more confused a child is the more control the abuser has over that child.

In the memories that have returned, and have this behavior in it, I would say I never knew what it was that set him off or made him be nice to me. ***TW*** In the most recent memory he would lock me in a metal cabinet and when he would let me out he would yell at me for doing something wrong yet there was nothing wrong to be done. Total control tactic in my case. Keep the child guessing and confused. That was the only purpose.

I am sorry that your parents also used this tactic. It's awful to hear the stories from everyone here. They are all different yet someone all the same too. Lots of sick people on this earth. It's so sad.

Yeah, Lucky Empath, it's deeply sad. But I appreciate the insight you gave me from talking about it when you wrote:

" From what my therapist explained this tactic is well thought out and is designed to keep the child in a constant state of confusion. This keeps the abuser in control at all times. The more confused a child is the more control the abuser has over that child."

From that point of view, it all makes a perverse kind of sense. Not that it excuses it to me, but it makes me feel like less of a dunce for not finding the key to the Jekyl and Hyde act. That was the point: keep it so irrational and chaotic that they key would be hidden since there wasn't one to begin with at all.

On the one hand I'm sorry I spent my life trying everything possible to figure it out and find the key. On the other hand, in the light of this insight I know my failure to find the key wasn't my fault. That was what my abusive parents kept hurting me with on top of everything else. With "don't you get it? When will you ever learn?" and so forth, when really the whole thing was, as you say, "designed to keep the child in a constant state of confusion." They were religious, so they kept saying I didn't "get" it because I wasn't in tune with God. I mean that literally, that's what they always said to me. So now I know it was just to keep me "in a constant state of confusion."

That's really sad, yes, but it also allows me to forgive myself, you know? So thanks for that.

They *were* deliberately keeping me confused. I mean, if mom's real goal had been to get me to do housework? She could have used positive reinforcement only, and got a willing, happy slave.

...but then We sussed out she just needed to scream and hit me, so I provoked that.
That took what control I could take of the situation.
Dad? Co-operating got me hit less and comforted more, because he really wanted obedience, power-over, and a totally pliable sexual partner.
But he needed me to believe it was my fault to keep my mouth shut.
He told us we liked it and wanted it.
We believed it, so we were that.

They abuse, and we blamed ourselves. Mission accomplished.

There was definitely repetition compulsion among my parents for the purpose of constant confusion and chaos as well as for other purposes. Every 2 to 3 weeks, they would argue like cats dogs. There always the threat of separation and divorce. So naturally, I was the one who could be good enough to keep them together.

And it was always the same. They would kiss and make up. Everything would be fine and it would repeat itself on and on and on. And every day before I went to school, I had to listen to what a rotten SOB my father was. And it would be the same way when I got home from school.

These things constant repetitious patterns of behavior that never, ever changed until I got the hell out of that house when I was 17 and moved out with my brother. I think he saw what happened to me when I was a baby/toddler and was looking out for me. And my mother always having a male bad guy was present up until last September when we had our confrontation. Perpetrators will have no calm due to their deeds, and if they have their way, you won't either.

I am glad that helped you Muji. It is too bad you felt at fault for not being able to figure out the jeckyl and hyde tactic. My therapist always says "it's impossible to make sense out of the senseless" and she is right. And everything these people do is completely senseless.

I am like most and want to apply logic to what was done. We, as humans, were given a brain that want's to find logic in everything. To explain the world around us and make sense of it. But when the world around us is not logical it creates a black hole in our thinking. A black hole that can swallow us up if we spend too much time in it. So many of us create our own logic around that which is not logical and say "it was my fault" or "it's because they love me"...all things we do to create logic where there is none. All things we do to keep ourselves alive and able to live each day. We are all pretty darn amazing that we could do this...don't you think?

I also want to clarify...when I said in a previous post that there are "Lots of sick people on this earth" I meant the people who abuse and not those of us who were abused. Those of us who were abused... I think we are pretty darn amazing to say the least.

Muji, rather than start another post about repetition compulsion, I'll post my insights from my therapist here as promised. Here's what he told me last night when we discussed repetition compulsion:

It's about recreating what's familiar, even if it's not good for us. We do it BECAUSE it's familiar.

He also mentioned object relations. We internalize our early objects, meaning our parents. Our parents become a BIG part of us, and that's what we end up seeking out in the world. It's why we enter abusive relationships, personal or otherwise. This is what happens when we are abused during our formative years.

He ended by reinforcing that we seek our narcissists if we're raised by one because it's familiar, even though it's bad.

Realize that you were originally asking for suggestions, and this is where it gets complex b/c we might all need something different to heal. For me, what's helped is developing the "fight" response and allowing my anger to come to the surface. I finally had a breakthrough and said I'm sick and tired of my situation at work and started reaching out to creative talent recruiters, and I feel the tide slowly starting to turn. For me, it was getting in touch w/ the anger. For others, it may be necessary to cry or journal, or start with cognitive healing. So I think we can start w/ self analysis, see what's lacking and start working on that. Is it poor boundaries, inability to feel, lack of understanding, etc.? I feel like they all require different remedies.

And as Arfie noted, because repetition compulsion is a tough nut to crack, I believe (and these are just my thoughts -- I don't know if a therapist would agree) that for those of us who have poor boundaries and are lacking the fight response, we actually have to get sick of our suffering in order to change. Does that make sense? You actually have to get to the point where you're just not willing to take it anymore. If you're a teacup, you're full, and they keep pouring it on and you say, ENOUGH. That tolerance is different for everyone, but as we get better, I believe we're willing to put up with less and less nonsense from others. I share this with humility; I can only speak for my own experience, and it's simply how I've seen this play out in my life.

yes me too , i just dont know why i got into things like this i like to learn how not to do this as well min

So well said aurora... My dad was an alcoholic who I believe had PTSD not diagnosed from being in WW2 for years starting at 17 years old .. God bless him for that however I was most often the target of his rage

He finally did quit drinking when I was an adult however my first husband was as bad an alcoholic and I had another long relationship with someone who was an alcoholic and I HATED it but I did it I think perhaps with some misguided intention of being someone important in their lives and I wanted to save them... So screwed up... Making sense out of nonsense....x

SC,

Thanks for being open in sharing your lifelong experiences in relationships from family of origin to adult relationships. I have the same kind of track record. And then there's the effect I've noticed on my career decisions over time.

This is eye opening. Much appreciated.