As Usual, when I hear of new psychological terms, I research them and found the link below that others may be interested in.

I'm proud to say that I have stopped my 'repetition compulsion' regarding intimate and friendship relationships in my life that only hinder My Healing rather than enhance it .

Sadly, growing up, I would not allow anyone to where I lived and instead went to classmates homes when I was invited, nor would I date all the nice guys in my teens who showed an interest in me because I didn't think I deserved their kindness and I also wanted to protect them from my alcoholic mother's verbal abuse, and my secrets of sexual abuse.

Fast forwarding to drinking age, of course my first abuser fit right in as did the second, and third, in which by then I was 33 and learning the Effects of Alcoholism on Families and Relationships, which lead me to learn about the Effects of Abuse and The Characteristics of Abusers. Then after 3 more unhealthy/abusive relationships, I ended the sixth one three years after being diagnosed with PTSD at the age of 40 because he did not show the characteristics of an abuser until we got intimate, after being just friends for the first year, so yeah, I made the decision I was better off alone than to be constantly disrespected by guys who keep trying to manipulate me into living there lifestyles.

Just this past January I had to block two guy's numbers from my phone, and stop answering my door regarding one who lives just down the hall from me, whom I believe knocked on my door the other day though I didn't bother to even look. Every time I see him he gives me this look of wanting me to acknowledge him, but each time I just walk pass him as if we never met. I am so done with people disrespecting me, especially after asserting myself.

Now that I'm learning about myself living with PTSD, I know when I 'trigger' around people, including my siblings since reaching out to two whom weren't even the cause of a lot of drama growing up, it's a sign that I am being disrespected in one way, shape or form. I know when I am emotional around people, it's My Inner Child triggering and when I am feeling angry, it's my teen and early adult self triggering. I simply cannot be myself around those I trigger off until I learn more about myself living with the symptoms of PTSD.

When I am out and about I always socialize with strangers, whether or not I am feeling anxious, and they don't even have the slightest clue I live alone with PTSD 24/7, nor that I don't have any friends, let alone a life worth sharing.

Sometimes I miss the part of myself loving someone, which I have accepted just like any other loss in my past.

Alone Naturally



https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evil-deeds/200806/essential-secrets-psychotherapy-repetitive-relationship-patterns


So, how can we resolve the pesky repetition compulsion? With great difficulty. Because to do so requires relinquishing the defense mechanism itself. The repetition compulsion defends against the experience of all of the feelings we denied during childhood about our imperfect parents and ourselves: sadness, anger, rage, despair, hopelessness, hurt. Feelings we were unequipped to to cope with them then, and continued to avoid into adulthood. Now must be faced. The childish hope that once kept us afloat must now be relinquished , and reality finally accepted: Never will we receive from our parents all we needed. Nothing can ever change that. Healing, ..... entails the mature acceptance of the traumatic facts of one's emotional mortification, the causes and consequences, as well as resolute willingness to swallow the follow bitter pill. We cannot change the past nor undo the wound ... We can, nonetheless, allow ourselves to feel our rage and our grief over this irretrievable loss ... We may even--with some good fortune, time and grace--find within ourselves the capacity to forgive those whom we feel inflicted our agonizing injuries With this courageous, conscious acceptance, the repetition compulsion, like the past, loses its power over us in the moment.


Dr. Steve A Diamond ~ Psychotherapy for the Soul: Thirty-Three Essential-secrets-psychotherapy-repetitive-relationship-patterns.

Alo, wow! Thank you for sharing -- your story and the article with info about repetition compulsion. It's all such good information and so insightful.

The subject of forgiveness is a complex one for me, and I'm not sure I can even get my head wrapped around it... I sometimes have compassion for my abusers, but I'm not sure that's the same thing(?).

But he is so right: we cannot undo the wound. We were not given our birthright of being born into a loving family, but as adults, it's our responsibility to deal with that and the consequences.

I especially like what he says about how we can allow ourselves to feel our rage and grief. It seems to me that allowing ourselves to feel our feelings of being unwanted, abandoned, etc. by our caretakers is where the healing starts. Why? Because it puts the responsibility of the original wound with our abusers. We did not create the wound, but we cannot ignore it either.

Thank you again -- I have copied the link to the article and am planning on reading it later.

Hugs, Aurora

I can REALLY relate to that. I have had the broken record in my life too and it never made sense until memories surfaced recently when I was two years old and had horrible trauma. I think, we all try unconsciously to heal our past traumas and the best way is to recreate them in our adult life. Once you see it, as you do, it will change. We only do harmful things to ourselves when it is unconscious.
You are obviously noticing these repetitions, most don't even notice. Good for you, I think that is huge. I am noticing the repetition but it seems to have changed a bit for the better. Hang in there :)

This sounds like what I did with each of my rapes actually. I have no suggestions, but you are not alone!

Alo,

Thanks for taking the time to share your research into repetition compulsion and then showing examples of it from your own personal bio. I'm trying to learn about the psychology of it and then apply it to my own history, so your post is really, really helpful.

i had a friend who called it sleeping with your mother or sleeping with father when we get in bed with someone we know is so much akin to our abusive unavailable parents who failed us miserably so we continue on an endless search for the person to heal that wounding only to do it over and over used to go to SLAA and learned alot about love addiciton if we did not sufficiently get our needs met for security and attachment or neglected or overindulged severely we want to repeat that past , for me it has been self esteem issues and i believe more than i chose to get raped i disagree i wantedi it hell no i believe a predator as the lady says can spot a victim in a room of 300 people,, and those are dangerous folks not just dysfunctional i believe in this room there is such a huge continuum of our cumulative experiences we are able to bond around our common humanity and not our differences and that is how we as a group can share our experience strength and hope to heal, my friend had a good analogy too of jumping in a pool with no water over and over,, and that pain is just so compulsively seductive, untill we crack our head hard enough i guess

Hi!
I don't mean to repeat myself either but each day I get more upset that my oldest brother would mentally abuse my mom by bringing up her past, when she was a kid, she was abused physically, tormented, abused sexually, and witness disturbing events like the death of her parents. Mom managed to serve on 4 boards, she was in a support group (in that support group everyone was like family, when there were special events, they allowed me and my youngest brother to attend and take part like helping mom decorate. When life was peaceful, mom tried to tell my oldest brother about her activities, you know what the butt hole said to her? "they must be desperate to have you on their boards". I thought that was totally distasteful because I felt that he should had been happy for mom. Example he could had said "I'm glad for you mom keep up the good work"! something like that. But NO he had bring up sad things to her and now all she do is dream about the horrible things he said to her, a year ago, when he and mom talked on the phone, he told her that he saw that her parents are dead but not her sister. The sister died a horrible death when she was a passenger on a motorcycle. I remember in 1989 when mom talked with one of her dead sister's kids. The lady (she is not a kid a anymore), asked my mom was she aware that her mother (mom's sister) was dead. Mom said yes, I went to the funeral. During that time mom and her family lived in California when she got the news. Mom and I (I was a baby at the time) went to Ohio to attend my aunt's funeral. There is more to the story.

The point I'm getting at is I hate when someone triggers off another person's emotions like that because it's not good, especially for someone my mom's age. Mom tried very hard not to focus on things but it seems like there is someone there to bring it back, then she'll have some say to her "you need to forget about it or forget about the negative people involved". How could she when that bozo keep being negative. Mom is a very sensitive person and I feel that she did not get over certain things in from her past. I'm not trying to control my brother or nothing but I hate that my brother triggered off things with my mom. I hate this like God hate sin.

Now our home life is not peaceful like it used to be, there is a lot of sadness and anger floating around instead of the laughter we used to have. I know what you mean.

Your oldest brother is really toxic, I'm sorry your mom lets him derail her like that.