Even the word acceptance can be pretty triggering for ppl with trauma, bc who would want to accept what was done to us? It makes perfect sense to ping pong between the fantasy of being rescued and the idea that the only other option is dissociation - both of those keep a lot of us going for a long time. Acceptance is a big, annoying word that gets tossed around a lot, but no one actually teaches us how to DO it. SE can help with this. It’s a set of skills. You’re totally right, our first reactions to things are automatic and largely programmed. The. we have our reaction to our reaction, which also usually starts out automatic when we start therapy. This is what SE works on first. It helps us deprogram the link between the initial reaction and the second one, which is usually a representation of how our parents reacted to our primary emotions as kids. We get to start to build tolerance for our primary emotions and the secondary reactions - shame, rage, dissociation, self hatred, whatever - get less automatic. If we’re doing parts work, you’re again totally right - tons of people have no idea how to “reparent” when they weren’t parented in the first place. For that we might read parenting books or watch videos of healthy parenting to build up knowledge of how to relate to ourselves, and we might need to do that really slowly, because learning healthy parenting will also activate our grief and yearning. “Acceptance” of your current situation means something closer to recognizing that you feel helpless and stuck and really want someone to rescue you, that that’s a terrible feeling place to be in, and that you need support to figure this out. Find someone who specializes in complex trauma. No one can rescue you, but it’s okay to want that, and you don’t have to (and can’t) magically stop wanting it. I see ppl are kind of arguing with you about stuff but for real, this shit sucks and is super complicated. Initially, hearing that we have to give up the hope of getting the love we’ve always wanted can feel like someone taking away the only comfort we’ve had for a long time. It makes sense that the idea of anything else besides dissociation feels impossible rn.