Always Trust Your Protectors?

by Charity, Laura, and Allegra

Us: What if they resist and insist on remaining stuck in their own trauma, without regard to how this affects the rest of the system? What if they see their existence as everyone else (including everyone else in the system) as being the enemy?

We're tired of living like this.

Friend 1:  Maybe that protector doesn't believe that the rest of the system can handle the trauma they are holding. My T used the expression "falling on their sword" to save the rest of the system, back when that was necessary. What you are viewing as "stuck," they might be seeing as heroic and protective. Like they are covering a grenade with their body, so of course they would resist you trying to pull them off.

Thanks, but that's not it. Rachel says, "I'm no hero." Basically her POV is that she's the only one who matters in her world, and everyone else, inside and out, is the enemy.

We also believe that one of our very young littles is imitating Rachel's mindset and behavior. It's one thing when an adult has these issues, but for a toddler it brings up a number of additional issues, which none of the adults are prepared or willing to face. We/they profess the rightness of protecting the children, but none wants to be responsible for doing so. We are all acting like wounded, needy children.

Friend 2:  Everybody inside is trying to be safe. Some of us just got messed up about what that means. Of course they try to act like our abuser - the most awesome force in our universe once upon a time.

Yes. Exactly. Except in our case it's having been raised by a parent who became multiple as a result of said abuser. We were not abused directly, but our grandmother was a toxic presence in our life from the point of our conception until our mother's death. We refused to talk to our GM after that, and she outlived our mother by six years.

Thank you both for responding. Reliving all of this makes us feel angry beyond words, but we still need to discuss it.