How do you say it?

Ftt and I are talking little by little about my father and his inappropriate behavior toward me. It is SO hard for me to talk about this with her or anyone. I know it is pushing at me and this is the direction I am going in, but I feel like I am being a very bad girl by saying all of this in therapy.

I hear (not literally) voices tell me, you KNOW it isnt true, he loved you, he meant well, etc and you (meaning me) are just an ungrateful little liar.

I wondered why I did some of the things I did as a teen and young adult, why I was drawn to a kind of creativity that most people are not. And why I acted as I did. It was my secret with myself. And now that secret isnt a secret anymore. At the end of my last session I realized where we were going with this and I feel so ashamed. I cant say to her what I had been doing and how I felt with my father. I feel like a bad, dirty girl. Just a bad, bad, bad digusting little girl who covers it all up by being nice.

Hugs. I know you are good and not disgusting. You will see it someday.

Wow, Thanks, Minime

I hear brain washing techniques pouring out all over your post. You seem to be approching your core issues here. You know you are not responsible for what happened but someone did not want to take responsibility for what they did...so they decided to blame you. Now you are in recovery where the responsibility will go back to where it belongs. Hang in there!

brave of you to post, ((blue)). hard for me to read. thanks NF for your post.
sorry i cant add anything more.

but here are some hugs, if ok. .

Thanks NF and Deli (I could use some hugs, its all OK )I am trying so hard to put the "blame" where it belongs. These feelings about myself are so deep and so automatic. It is so hard to intellectually tell myself I am not dirty and disgusting and bad bad bad. It takes SO MUCH mental energy to go there and not feel like this.

I was telling ftt that even when I am in my house doing this or that for my kids or just sitting and playing with them, eating dinner, or wahtever I feel like this bad criminal that I have to hide something (and I have no idea what it would be that i need to hide) and be secretive about something (no idea what that would be either) and I should be doing or acting some other way in order to be "good." I am bad just sitting down doing nothing.

I am told it was the abusive behavior that was directed toward me, that both of my parents had mental illness issues, but its a struggle to connect with how I feel today

It's easy for me to say to myself intellectually, you are not; and I intellectually reply, OK, so what. But it doesn't change how I feel; the hatred and intolerance is still there, nothing changes.

How do you say it? How do you FEEL it?! when would it ever happen? Those feelings are so far below the surface I'd need a diving bell to get there, and I don't know where to get one.

You are not what you have had done to you. Bad experiences in your past does not in any way make you a bad person. And being nice doesn't mean you are covering up, being nice despite horrible things being done to you says in a very powerful voice that you are a nice person.

I can relate to all your saying. I feel the same way. I'm also dealing with my parents are dead and now I'm going to talk about them. I feel I'm talking about them behind their back. I would never say these things to their face. I just put that smile on also and go about my way.

I'm just not feeling the anger toward them like I should I'm feeling it toward myself.

I have nothing to offer except hugs, and letting you know you're not alone. I am still afraid to say what happened to me in therapy. It seems too big, too overwhelming, and I fear being judged, disbelieved, and even felt sorry for.

Have you been able to talk about why it's hard to talk about?

Thanks SAWE, Mike, Raceka and Moon

I also feel like i am talking about them behind their back- its a weird feeling.

And Moon- I have the same feelings that I dont want ftt to feel sorry for me, but I dont think she does, or at least its not obvious. I think she considers what will help me and emapthizes. I think.

I had been PMing with a friend and this is what I wrote (Im copying here):

I am so used being diconnected from myself and my feelings from the incidents with my father that I dont know if I like these memories being a part of me. I dont know if I really want to make the connections between how I behaved, especially when I was in photography school, and my relationship with my father. There is a part of me that prefers to believe I have this "bad" side of me, or this "strange" side of me rather than a damaged side of me and that is why I was this or that way. I dont know if that makes any sense, but I feel less protected now.

I think it is as if I prefer to be protected by the feeling that I am bad, because if I am not bad, I have been hurt or damaged in some way. ANd that is more painful than believing that I am bad. I can deal with bad, I always have. But hurt, sad, and damaged is very diffcult for me. And then I would think what could have been had I not been hurt in this way. I am writing it here, but I am not feeling it, not yet.

You are soooo not alone in feeling this way. I too have always felt that I was bad, I deserved what I got, I asked for it, etc. Self-blame comes easy. I can deal with that. Being pushed to realize that it was not my fault makes me feel as though I then have to pass blame onto my parents...and I can't handle that....Then, there's the issue of "do you have to blame?"...and that's a concept I can't seem to get a grasp of at the moment.

MUE- That is exactly how I feel. Telling myself I am bad seems to be my way of coping and it is easier for me than realizing it was not my fault and I have been living out a "damaged" life. That is hard, sad and would make me feel so hurt if only I could feel something about it. I dont feel anything at this point.

I would rather judge myself as being crazy than damaged and hurt. It seems just way too painful to go to a place of sad and hurt and why did they act this way to me???

(((((Blue))))),

I can relate. I would rather think of myself as "messed up" than thinking maybe my parents "goofed up." Feeling sad and hurt and why did they act that way? I know what you mean. For me, more my Dad than my Mom, but we protect our parents, or act numb. My Dad hurt me, but not intentionally I don't think. Is it here or in Peaches' thread about not blaming parents, but feeling angry and hurt for what they did or did not to?

Sorry I'm in a hurry and haven't read the other posts, but wanted to know I "get" what you're feeling. Ftt will help you; hang in there!

Wow, Blue, you are making so much progress! So you haven't reconnected with this hurt and by telling yourself that you are bad this is acting like a lid to keep it all covered up? Wow, that's great insight.

Now I can see more clearly why you have been feeling like a criminal. Do you think that secrets like this lead to that??