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Hey all! Sorry I haven’t been around much. It’s good to be here now!
There’s something I want to bounce off you guys because I’ve been struggling with it for a LONG time, and I think it really holds me back in therapy a great deal.
The work I’ve done in therapy so far has shown me that the bulk of my problems stem from my relationship with my parents, starting when I was just an infant – on through my childhood to today. There’s a pretty clear indication from things my therapist and my husband have said that my parents were rather neglectful. I’m not talking about physical abuse or SA in the family. . .lack of affection, emotional support, protection, guidance, help, and emotional abuse from my dad. I did have some SA as a child by a neighbor, and know my sister had SA also, though I am not sure of the circumstances. This I believe happened to both of us because my parents really didn’t keep a close eye on us.
There are a number of other traumas and pains I have inside me related to my parents. I am willing to accept that perhaps my extreme sensitivity has caused me to blow these things out of proportion or allow them to hurt me badly, when perhaps other kids would have been able to let those things roll off their back. So there’s an issue of me not being sure that my feelings of hurt or anger are really justified. This makes it really hard for me to even admit to my t (or to myself) that I feel hurt or angry at my folks. Also, as a Christian, I am taught to honor my father and mother, so I feel guilty and ashamed about sharing with my therapist the negative feelings I have toward my mom and dad. I love my parents even though I have a very strained relationship with my dad. I would never want to hurt them. And I don’t want to seem like a whining complainer. Still, I have all of this unexpressed pain that I’ve denied and pushed down for so long, and it is really making me sick.
What I notice that I do is, whenever I think or talk about anything negative related to my parents, I immediately feel guilty. Then, I try to compensate for the negative thought by thinking about or telling about something good my parents have done for me. Also, when I think or speak about things that happened during my childhood, or express pain about it, there’s a voice inside me that says “It wasn’t that bad. You should not feel hurt or angry.” Or “You’re a bad daughter for talking about their faults.” This makes me so uncomfortable that I end up just stuffing the feelings back down, or worse, tell myself that I am not hurt or angry after all, that things were good and my own perceptions are wrong. I try to look at things from a positive angle. But in some way, I am denying the part of myself that has been hurt and is in pain from things that have happened to me in the past. I am trying to “not notice it,” just the way that my parents didn’t notice my pain and struggling as a child.
Lately, I’ve started having angry dreams, where I tell my dad off. But when I wake up, I can’t remember why I was angry in my dream , or what I said to my dad. During my waking hours, and even in therapy, I don’t feel the anger and can’t reach it. However, yesterday, almost without thinking, I wrote something about my family and emailed it to my t. I have to say that, honestly, I meant what I wrote. But it was mean I think. It was sarcastic, and it sounded angry. I feel so guilty and ashamed for having written it because it just isn’t nice. I don’t feel like a good daughter or a good Christian. So I sent a second email, asking my t to ignore the previous one, as I felt bad and should not have sent it. However, my t wrote back that she’d already read it and we would address all of these things on my session (today).
HELP!! I don’t know what to do!! On one hand, I need to talk about all the hurt and pain I have inside because I can’t seem to make it disappear. But on the other hand, I want to “Honor thy father and mother,” as the Bible says to do. I don’t know how I can honestly express my negative feelings about my parents in a way that still honors them. Or in a way that I don’t feel ashamed of myself. I keep trying to just counteract the painful feelings by saying it wasn’t that bad, or by thinking happy thoughts. I want so much to be a nice person, and a good daughter. I feel like I won’t be if I allow myself to feel hurt, angry, or disappointed or if I talk that way. But by denying it’s there, I am denying my own reality and making myself sick.
It’s a huge dilemma, and I know it’s holding me back in therapy big-time. It’s all stuffed down and it *hurts*.
Please somebody, can you understand the situation objectively enough to tell me how I can honor my feelings of pain without dishonoring my parents?
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