Feeling-BAD-about-Self – as a concept in the Substitute Sense of Self-oriented System
Here is a list of some of the possible experiences of a person who has a Substitute Sense of Self and is battling through life trying to fulfill their Ego-References, the conditions which, if fulfilled, allow them to get the emotional ‘high’ of feeling-good-about-self which is the essence of their Substitute Sense of Self.
This list is a complement to the list of examples of feeling-good-about-self. Both lists are intended merely as stimulants and aids to your own introspecting, during your Recovery process , not as lists of what you will surely find in yourself. Remember too that just because you don’t immediately recognize you have one of these feelings doesn’t mean it isn’t there in your subconscious, still waiting for you to become aware of it by continuing your introspecting, your questioning of your motives and examining your feelings.
Also, please be aware that none of what I say here is an absolute truth. I am just putting down a structure, a way of thinking that helped me to recognize and label certain feelings in order to be able to work with them in myself, and heal them, recover from them. Please interpret my findings that way.
Please realize also that I’m not sure how accurate the descriptions are below. It’s been challenging to put these feelings into words, and I’m not sure I have done it well yet. I’m also not positive whether these feelings I am calling ‘feeling-bad-about-myself’ can be considered the exact opposite of what I was after, ‘ffeel-good-about-self‘ as a ‘Substitute Sense of Self’.
However, here’s the best wording of what ‘feeling-bad-about-myself’ feels like:
- not feeling ‘present’ to my own experiences, and not feeling ‘present’ to other people in their regard of me
- not being acknowledged
- feeling annihilated
- feeling estranged
- feeling excluded
- having no say in matters of my life
- having no voice in what matters to me
- not feeling heard or seen by others
- hiding behind not stating anything about my personal life
- feeling ‘dirty’ in some vague way
- feeling inadequate
- feeling ashamed and hiding away from people, from participating in life
- feeling guilty, feeling insecure about who is to blame if there is blame to be had in a situation, and having a clear preference for taking on the blame, and for clearing/excusing the other person by ‘understanding’ his or her point of view
- sensing that I have no right to exist
- sensing living as a ‘bodily ghost’ among people
- feeling rejected from The Enmeshment
Maybe what all of those sensations of ‘feeling-bad about-self’ have in common is ‘not sensing a self.’ And that could be due to some degree of dissociation between my current felt experience and the felt experience I have when I am sensing my Substitute Sense of Self. That dissociation exists when, in a specific situation, I fail to achieve my desperately-needed positive outcome in the performance of my Ego-References (Conditions).
I speculate about what’s going on which generates the kinds of feelings in the list. My subconscious judges whether the results of my efforts in that particular situation are going to get me the potential parental approval (virtual: from the inner parent, or real). Failing in achieving the desired outcome of the Ego-References equals to not being allowed into the enmeshment. This equals having to live without a spine (experienced only in the enmeshment, through the Mother). That is a situation you don’t want to face, so you are disassociating from self – moving even further out of awareness of being a ‘self’ than when experiencing a Substitute Sense of Self!
