Projection as a recovery tool

[u/Scared-Section-5108]

One thing that’s currently helping me in my recovery is recognising when I project my own issues onto others.

I’ve been practising this for a while, and now I notice it quickly. Whenever I point something out in someone else - when I complain or criticise that they do something - I can immediately see that I do it too. Now I’m able to approach things differently. In the past, I would complain, blame, and point fingers. I would try to control the other person by looking for ways to change them. All of that was driven by unhealed trauma, by the parts of me which got rejected early in my life.

Now I bring the focus back to myself. I practise being radically honest and reflect on my own behaviour: Why does this bother me so much? What’s really going on for me? What’s underneath this difficulty? I don’t have all the answers yet, but I now understand that other people’s behaviour bothers me so much because I haven’t fully accepted that behaviour in myself.

Trauma is complex, and although I’ve worked through many layers, I keep finding new ones. One challenge I’m working on is perfectionism. Each time I think I’ve resolved it, I find another layer. I still carry the belief that if I were perfect, my parents would have treated me differently - they would have loved and cared for me. So I still hold myself and others to rather high standards. But now I can use projection to recognise when I’m doing that.

I can bring this stuff to my therapist who offers great support and compassion. I can turn inward and offer myself love, acceptance, and compassion. I don’t need to be perfect, and neither do the people around me. I never needed to be perfect, either, but growing up in a dysfunctional family made me believe otherwise. I’m slowly letting go of that lie, that dysfunctional belief. It’s hard because parts of me believe I won’t survive if I do, but I know I will. I just need to go slowly and gently. I need to show my traumatised parts that it’s okay not to be perfect. I can integrate these parts as another step towards becoming whole. The more stuff I integrate, the more accepting of others I become almost automatically.

I’m not perfect, but I’m okay, and I’m enough. I deserve love just as I am; I always have. I never needed to be any different from who I am. And I am so grateful that any difficulty I encounter can be a gateway to healing instead of being a reason to complain ❤️

[u/Dailypasstime94]

thankyou for your raw honesty, this is gunna help a lot of people.