[peaches100]

My parents are in town visiting right now, and it's always a stressful time for me. i feel so divided. On the one hand, i'm glad to see them and love them. on the other hand, i have this deep pain inside due to issues i have that relate to them. it's hard and messes with my head.

in therapy, it has been really hard to acknowledge that i have pain or anger toward my parents. i feel guilty talking about their weaknesses or failings. i feel like a bad daughter. it's just easier to feel like i'm wrong, to think i see things wrong, instead of blaming them for anything. even though deep down it also feels like i'm denying my true feelings.

in therapy, my t tells me to feel my feelings, to acknowledge them. and sometimes, i have done this, and my pain came up and my t comforted me. and at the timme, there was some relief, and i felt like i was being real to myself.

but as soon as i see my parents again, i deny my pain all over again. a part of me says i'm just being a baby, and exaggerating things that happened. . .that what happened to me as a child wasn't "that bad," that other people had it much worse, and that anybody else would have breezed through my childhood no problem. Because it wasn't physical abuse, it was only emotional abuse or neglect, and even my SA with my neighbor could have been worse, and i don't have any justified reason for my pain or issues. especially if my mom is nice to me, i feel like a traitor and have such shame i feel like self-harming. and when i tell myself that, then i feel that i am being a good daughter, and the guilt eases, but i also feel that i've killed a part of myself inside (or that part of me is dying).

i don't know what to do, because i feel that i am stuck and it is a two-edged sword, because either i take my parents' side, or i take my pained inner child's side. And either way makes me feel bad. And i don't know how to see it right.

[Melbadaze]

Peaches, your inner world isn't a lie, and trying to remain reasonable with your parents is fine too. Just because you feel how you feel, doesnt mean everything about them has to be wrong, thank gawd for therapy where we can talk about our inner life, so we can continue in our outer lifes. I don't think its about sides, I think its about survival sometimes.

[Perna]

My T taught me the difference between Love and like and I learned that though I loved my stepmother I didn't like her. It's okay to love one's parents. But, you don't have to be the good daughter anymore in your thoughts if you don't agree with, or even merely don't personally like, what they did with your upbringing.

What happened to other people with their upbringing has no place because it's not part of your own life and experiences. You only have you and your experiences and can't compare because you can't be another and another can't be you. My SA was not that major either but it should not have happened and I would have liked to have had someone I could have told instead of having to deal with it all by my 10 year old self. There's no disloyalty or guilt in feeling that way, it's just the natural way I feel. I was not a "failure" for not being able to tell my stepmother and she was not "bad" for not being the sort of person I might have felt I could tell. That's just the way our personalities, backgrounds, and relationship made the cookie crumble.

I'm not "stupid," as my stepmother called me one time too many, making me decide to leave home, nor was I ever a "dirty, old, black-hearted thing". I was a child struggling to learn to make sense of my surroundings and experience and, in some ways had a helpful teacher and, in others, a really lousy, abusive one. But here I am because/despite my education at the hands of my parents and other teachers and I'm still working at it.

As Melbadaze alludes, forgive both yourself and your parents, your insides are yours and your dealing with your parents is how you have learned/want to deal with them. They have their own issues unrelated to you.

[lily99]

(((((peaches))))) i identify with so much that you write.
more hugs