A Ghost from the Distant Past

[Michael Hawkins]

The poor self image is a common symptom of child abuse.

Although I was sexually abused early in childhood (by an older preacher's son, ironically), I think my self-esteem issues are more connected with being a preacher's son, with all the shaming and judgment that is often found in a Christian upbringing.  In working on my trauma, memories of being threatened with everlasting Hell if I didn't "shape up" are often the ones that left a mark.  The message that, no matter what I did in life, I'd still be a miserable sinner, worthless and unworthy - I developed a level of ego arrogance to compensate, and when this got stripped away, all that was left was the shame.  It really did a number on me.

[Michael Hawkins]

The poor self image is a common symptom of child abuse.

Although I was sexually abused early in childhood (by an older preacher's son, ironically), I think my self-esteem issues are more connected with being a preacher's son, with all the shaming and judgment that is often found in a Christian upbringing.  In working on my trauma, memories of being threatened with everlasting Hell if I didn't "shape up" are often the ones that left a mark.  The message that, no matter what I did in life, I'd still be a miserable sinner, worthless and unworthy - I developed a level of ego arrogance to compensate, and when this got stripped away, all that was left was the shame.  It really did a number on me.

Then again, I suppose a dogmatic, judging and condemnatory religious upbringing is a primary example of childhood abuse.

[KriyaYogi]

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Toward the beginning of a long relationship (I've had three), the personal power that you speak of is completely intact - and, most likely, is what attracted her to me in the first place.  During this relationship, I met Jeffrey after I'd been meditating for five years of so, having awakened jhana in 1994.  I dedicated myself to a retreat lifestyle, posted my meditation schedule on the refrigerator, and enjoyed several years of being a yogi saturated in third jhana, meditating into the fourth, touching the arupa realms on occasion.
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    I have a distant memory of you talking about posting your meditation schedule on your fridge lol.  Was this on the Yahoo forum, that was sooo long ago.

 My partner is an angelic spirit, what she does to stop co-dependency feelings in me is take one day off a week for herself.  We don't talk one day per week unless we are traveling.  I think this was a great suggestion on her part as it gives me time to process any codependence feels I may have had from the week.  At the beginning of the relationship I started to feel codependency and she backed away because she felt my feelings and they were not 'masculine and balanced' to her.  Eventually we establised the one day off per week pattern which works for us.  Maybe this idea can help others?

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Eventually, deeper and deeper layers of trauma, suffering and wounds were ripped open, going back to early childhood sexual abuse, and multiple traumatizing events that were beyond my control, but that left scars.
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    I guess alot of us have stuff like this huh?  Weather it is being targeted by EMF attacks like me, being a POW in a war, being sexually abused, etc...

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I can't really encapsulate everything into one post,
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   I can understand that, to tell a story of trauma in all detail can require weeks or years of talk, sometimes with a counciler.  I am still healing a bit from my own traumas although it is far better now.  I hope it improves for you as well.  Just talking in more detail may help.

-David

[KriyaYogi]

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What you describe here could very well be the life I have lived during the past 15-20 years.  Sleep-deprivation was a primary form of torture, one of the things that led me deeper into despair.
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   It is very possible.  I have seen many people at your level become targeted like this.  Basically if there is no sleep deprivation there is little chance of it being serious electronic targeting but if there is significant sleep deprivation then more analysis should be done in my opinion, the sleep deprivation is the fulcrum.  The best way to test is to use an specific EMF cage which employs nuculear fallout shelter radiation halving principles to eliminate 99% of ionizing radiation (A fallout shelter). 

Actually if your intuition says this is something that applies to you we can have a longer conversation about it on Facebook and do an analysis.  It may or may not apply.

-David

[Michael Hawkins]

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What you describe here could very well be the life I have lived during the past 15-20 years.  Sleep-deprivation was a primary form of torture, one of the things that led me deeper into despair.
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   It is very possible.  I have seen many people at your level become targeted like this.  Basically if there is no sleep deprivation there is little chance of it being serious electronic targeting but if there is significant sleep deprivation then more analysis should be done in my opinion, the sleep deprivation is the fulcrum.  The best way to test is to use an specific EMF cage which employs nuculear fallout shelter radiation halving principles to eliminate 99% of ionizing radiation (A fallout shelter). 

Actually if your intuition says this is something that applies to you we can have a longer conversation about it on Facebook and do an analysis.  It may or may not apply.

-David

The sleep deprivation I'm talking about, David, comes from the mistaken idea that you can't go to bed with unresolved issues hanging in the air.  Not my boundary, that's for sure.  So, countless nights trying to fall asleep when someone keeps talking, shouting, following me down the hall, etc.  May as well cue up the Judas Priest and turn it to 11, like the U.S. Marines did in Panama as a form of mass-torture.

Now my nights are often interrupted by nightmares of the fights I used to get in.  But they are, I think, becoming less frequent.

[Jhanananda]

Then again, I suppose a dogmatic, judging and condemnatory religious upbringing is a primary example of childhood abuse.

Here I think you are on to the problem with a lot of us coming from parental child abuse might be based upon ridged, fundamentalist, doctrine which has screwed people up throughout history.  It may very well have been part of the psychosis my mother exhibited, because, even though she was not a religious person; nonetheless, her Friday and Saturday partying we always followed by religious observation of church come Sunday, and most of the abuse I experienced was delved out Saturday night. 

Part of my healing journey involved reading the literature of abuse therapy, and most notably the :Courage to Heal" had many insights such as this for me, where the abuse victim is often victimized Saturday night before Sunday worship.

[Michael Hawkins]

Then again, I suppose a dogmatic, judging and condemnatory religious upbringing is a primary example of childhood abuse.

Here I think you are on to the problem with a lot of us coming from parental child abuse might be based upon ridged, fundamentalist, doctrine which has screwed people up throughout history.  It may very well have been part of the psychosis my mother exhibited, because, even though she was not a religious person; nonetheless, her Friday and Saturday partying we always followed by religious observation of church come Sunday, and most of the abuse I experienced was delved out Saturday night. 

Part of my healing journey involved reading the literature of abuse therapy, and most notably the :Courage to Heal" had many insights such as this for me, where the abuse victim is often victimized Saturday night before Sunday worship.

I can relate to this from the perspective of a hellion preacher's kid.  Starting at age 15, I partied my butt off Friday and Saturday nights, then would spend all day at church on Sunday.  Most of the "church family" kids with whom I grew up did the same thing.  Religious indoctrination and social conditioning are a form of mind control (which is abuse), and the mind does not want to be controlled, so it seeks to break out through escape mechanisms like drugs and alcohol.  Either way, trauma ensues.

[KriyaYogi]

Alright Michael, sounds different from my issues, lets discuss then on that topic.  My issues are primarily resolved currently so lets focus on helping you to be the best you can and reach your highest potential!

-David

[rougeleader115]

Hello friends,

Michael, I just wanted to say hi and thank you for sharing yourself and story. I have watched the videos and dialogues with you at retreats many times over the years. You went offline shortly after I started posting here, but I have read most of your writings and posts. I have steadily learned from and been comforted by all of the vulnerability expressed by those on this forum. I deeply appreciate your honesty, and often think of one of your writings that talked about entering a dark and narrow passage alone. The walls get tighter, and family and friends remain at the entrance, further from one’s grasp. I am not trying to say anything really but that your writings and words alone have followed me and shaped and helped me on my journey. I’m glad you are back and still alive. Best wishes to you and thank you.

Rougeleader

[Jhanananda]

It's good to read something from you, Rougeleader.  I am glad to see you are keeping in touch.

[Michael Hawkins]

Hello friends,

Michael, I just wanted to say hi and thank you for sharing yourself and story. I have watched the videos and dialogues with you at retreats many times over the years. You went offline shortly after I started posting here, but I have read most of your writings and posts. I have steadily learned from and been comforted by all of the vulnerability expressed by those on this forum. I deeply appreciate your honesty, and often think of one of your writings that talked about entering a dark and narrow passage alone. The walls get tighter, and family and friends remain at the entrance, further from one’s grasp. I am not trying to say anything really but that your writings and words alone have followed me and shaped and helped me on my journey. I’m glad you are back and still alive. Best wishes to you and thank you.

Rougeleader

This is so appreciated, my friend.  The timing is immaculate.  And to know that those long ago seeds have found roots in an earnest contemplative like you is wonderful to hear.  As I emerge from the Dark Night, all I want to do is help others in whatever way I can.  It's good to get the tribe back together again.

[KriyaYogi]

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 I deeply appreciate your honesty, and often think of one of your writings that talked about entering a dark and narrow passage alone. The walls get tighter, and family and friends remain at the entrance, further from one’s grasp.
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    That was also my experience, irregardless of cause, I wonder if most dark nights of the soul occur in this manner, meaning that we generally feel that we have to move through our process alone without anyone understanding or supporting.  There was a period of time that I felt very alienated from most of my family and friends.   

I also suspect that most of us who have gone through this process are at a loss to explain it to others.  Unless it's lived it is very hard to understand the intensity of it or even explain over time.  What do you think Michael (and others)?

-David

[Michael Hawkins]

   

I also suspect that most of us who have gone through this process are at a loss to explain it to others.  Unless it's lived it is very hard to understand the intensity of it or even explain over time.  What do you think Michael (and others)?

-David

I suspect that you are correct here, David.  I was so utterly alone and cut off.  People drifted away, I stopped pursuing them, and pretty soon it was just me, my complexes and my wife, who joined me in the Projection Fest.  I'm sure that social and family isolation is a prerequisite for a true Dark Night of the Soul.  We can only go through it alone.

[KriyaYogi]

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I suspect that you are correct here, David.  I was so utterly alone and cut off.
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   I tend to compare my dark night to being a POW in a major war like the Vietnam war.  For a while I was watching movies like Rambo and Deer Hunter about POWs and seeing how the depictions compared to my mental states.  No one can really understand those kinds of Veterans, or maybe any Veterans who have seen combat.  No one appreciates their process, sacrifice and the change in them and I believe we will always remember the intensity of our dark night similar to a Veteran remembering combat, though we can integrate it and go on to live a healthy life.


What I'm trying to work on now is rebuilding lost relationships that were effected from my dark night of the soul.  Some relationships that should have fallen away fell away (unhealthy ones) but I also lost some which were caused by my personal fears/projections surrounding the dark night.  Espicially I want to rebuild my friendship with my best female friend who lives in Sedona.  I projected so much onto her during my dark night that she backed away from our long term friendship.

This might be a great seperate thread to start?  How to pick up the pieces after coming out of the darkness.

-David

[KriyaYogi]

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I was so utterly alone and cut off.
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   If you are like me you are wondering what the h*** happened to all your friends??  I am reminded of Jesus before crucifiction.  How all of his best friends (his disciples) left him.  Was it them all at the same time or demonic forces?

For me one of two things happened either 1) people slowly faded away, they kept appologizing for not checking their messages and then eventually they stopped checking messages totally and the messages showed as 'unread' on my end or 2) A hard cut.  This was the most hurtful.  A person who was a close friend would suddenly disappear with no explanation.  Their social media profile was just 'gone', their profiles disappeared one by one, calls would not go through and messages were unread.

I'm so glad I have found some friends here who are here to stay and as we keep talking my paranoia is decreasing week by week.

-David