As with all of us here on the retraining journey, I have an inner victim. I know… this is a tough one. Just saying that, the word itself, ‘victim’, makes something inside me cringe. There’s an immediate yuck factor that arises, a bitter taste in the mouth, a disdain and disgust bellowing deep down. 

And yet, I must face it. If true healing is to happen, I must be willing to look at ALL parts, even the ones I judge as yucky and unsavory (sigh..). 

Initially, I resisted this. That little victim part would come knocking and I’d treat her like an unwanted stepchild, “Oh, it’s you again… ugh.” That resistance alternated with ignoring, attempts at overriding, distracting, shaming, and belittling. All automatic reactions. And of course, in typical limbic system fashion, she’d persist. Little did I realize that all of those reactions, from the disgust and disdain, to the shame and belittling, were all taking up residence in the same space. Those were my victim’s playmates – they were all on her side, in her camp. They were and are her known family, and while they all are triggered by each other, they also all work to strengthen and support each other by trying to whip me into shape, to keep me presentable and likable to those around me. Never mind how ‘I’ feel about it, this is the how of who they’ve been conditioned to be – team Limbic System in action. 

Now, what?

Recently, after a strong ebb, my Extinction Burst ebb (if interested, read here), I noticed she was sounding the alarm at a deafening level. A few days later after the EB subsided, some other ITs showed up and she was ringing bells and blowing whistles once again. And in response to her urgent summoning, I pulled out all the familiar tactics.

This time, thankfully, a bit of grace stepped in. I slowed down a bit and noticed that the inner adult (or so I thought) that was showing up to manage her, was in fact a BULLY! And that bully was another one of her playmates that was trying to shut her up because it believed that she was just an attention seeking whiner and complainer. After all, isn’t that what we’re told? In our suck-it-up, pull yourself up by your bootstraps individualist culture – what is one to do?

But if I accept that these parts, the undesirable personality traits and characteristics, all rest in the neurobiology and behavior of the limbic system (and they do), then I must accept that somewhere in their expression is something trying to protect me, even if I do not yet understand what that is or how it works. 

Committed as I am to slowing down during these days of recovery, I am starting to hear with new ears. And when I listen closely to my inner victim, I notice she has a specific script: It’s not my fault, I don’t know how this happened, Why am I being punished?, I’m doing everything I’ve been told to do, I’m good, Stop hurting me, Don’t you hear me?!, I’m telling you the truth. And from that proximity, quiet and up close – I realize, she really does sound like a child. In fact, she is saying things that would have been appropriate to my life situation decades ago. 

Feelings follow Behavior  

Despite a couple of decades of therapy, I have found that my victim part still feels compelled to show up uninvited, a fact that has been a great source of shame and embarrassment. But since having begun my rewiring journey, I’ve come to understand that although therapy helped me intellectualize my experience so that I could rationalize that things were not my fault, the tools offered did not penetrate deeper. So, while the process added some neural circuits connected to reasoning out and reassigning blame, it never untangled the wires where it all began: the limbic system.

The neural chemistry of blame can often feel vindicating and energizing, but it comes with its own team members of indignation and self-righteousness. And although momentarily invigorating, it hardly promotes healing. Even should we witness our assigned perpetrators (no matter how small or egregious the infraction) brought to our best version of justice, once again, it is hardly a remedy to an impaired limbic system because guess what? They’re all in it together. The grudge holder, the victim, the bully, the blamer, shamer, belittler, critic… yup – all team Limbic System. 

Finding what helps

So, once again, I had a consult with my inner subway mom. I wondered, what she might do or how she might respond to her child if she knew that it was in great distress, not temper tantrum “I want what I want” stress, not CAN (cortisol, adrenaline, norepinephrine) chemistry seeking withdrawal stress, but the stress that arises when a little child really believes its discomforts are danger, unable to discern the difference. 

After reflecting back to that subway moment once again, I pictured that mom – only this time I gave her my adult face. I asked her, What can you do? Recognizing that this pattern doesn’t serve healing, yet also seeing how much this inner victim is hurting, What would be best here? I chose to believe that she could be kind and compassionate, without being enabling. I chose to believe that she would choose to be soothing and comforting while guiding attention to something engaging or fascinating. I chose to believe that she would listen and validate without a trace of pity or charity. In short, that she would reassure that child that it was heard, that its voice and experience mattered and that it was loved – and then choose to feel better by shifting attention, by implementing our retraining tools. 

And so, that is what I did. I sat down and closed my eyes. I pictured that little girl at the age she was when it all started. I apologized to her for all that she experienced all those years. I told her I understood how difficult things were then and that I understood that something in her present discomforts were eerily familiar and creating fear. I told her I understood why she believed that they were here to stay, and I understood that she was worried that she wouldn’t be able to control the discomfort or make it stop.  But then I also gently, and lovingly reminded her that the past situation that was so harrowing was all over, that there was nothing to stop anymore, that yes, there is discomfort but it is not danger. I spoke out loud with my hand on my heart and said that our current experience was actually here to help us and the present discomforts weren’t the same, even though something might feel familiar, that they were an opportunity to course correct and empower ourselves. I asked that little victim part to trust me to take care of her and to trust that the choices I would make going forward would bring us to good place. She seemed to like that. 

I imagine I will have many more conversations like this with that little victim part. I will have as many as it takes. In the meantime, I am grateful for the realization that she is not just having a pity party and she’s not just seeking attention. She wants LOVE. She wants to know that there is an unfaltering someone at her side that is committed to her/our wellbeing, and that she can feel badly from time to time without those feelings being a threat to being loved, or a predictor of what’s to come. 

As with many of the tools and principles introduced during this journey, it has taken me a while to recognize all the behaviors and patterns my limbic system expresses. It has also taken me a long time to realize that each and every one of them that I have spent so much time hating and beating myself up for, all those insistent and persistent voices, impulses, urges, mental rehearsals, defenses, and so forth, are all part of a system (a brain structure, literally) designed to protect me. In some form or another each unwanted characteristic or trait and the behaviors that come with them are an injured part run amok, trying to keep me free from physical, psychological, and emotional harm, discomfort, rejection, abandonment, and simultaneously connected to whatever situation, person, or resource I’ve been conditioned to believe is necessary to stay alive – even if my higher self sees them as harmful.

And for whatever reason, it and they, my inner victim and all of her playmates will not yield to anything but love. This has been the greatest lesson in all of this. I can implement all the tools, do the rounds, and study the science, but if there is a trace of anything in the tone of my inner landscape, any actions or words that speaks to those parts in way that is anything less than fully accepting and kind – they will rise up like an army of miscreants to defend themselves and are willing to injure the greater me along the way for they are unaware of consequences. They do not have foresight. And it’s not their (the limbic system’s) fault. 

In this way, I now see the limbic system is not like a child – it IS a child. And I have not always been kind to mine. 

But I know better now. And now that I know better, I can do better.

All must be met with. Nothing but LOVE.