So messed up!

I wrote this huge long post in the abuse forum wondering if what my mom did was even really abuse, but the computer ate it. Now it seems like that means I should not be posting about this gross stuff anyway and totally second guessing whether I should have said anything to anyone ever about this stuff. UGH.

I once told my mom when she was telling me how worthless I was that other people didn't think I was worthless and liked me (one of my few attempts to stand up for myself in high school). She told me that they only seemed like they liked me and they didn't really. No one was ever going to love me and if they acted like they liked me it was only because they didn't know me as well as she did.

I feel like my therapist is actually getting to know me. All this secret stuff I've hidden. he's going to hate me and think I'm gross. I carefully hide how gross I am. Now he knows part of it. ugh. I called him yesterday for reassurance, but I'm STILL totally messed up and thinking about hiding in a hole somewhere and never seeing him again.

Time for you to watch the Burl Ives version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. PC is the Island of Misfit Toys. We're humans, not fish or prairie dogs. If our mums don't want us, or if they can't be there for us for some other reason, like they are sick, or they die, we can still survive. Even thrive. We still could have a great contribution to make. Or the movie "Immortal Beloved", about Beethoven.

I had a father who was emotionally abusive to me. Now as an adult I know what he told me was both untrue and just downright cruel.......but there is that bit of me that still believes the things he told me.

I know it can be really hard to trust your T and despite that "but" voice, your T will not hate you or think you are gross.

Be gentle with yourself you are not those things, that your mother said you were - Soup

It is hard to believe one's mother is wrong, even when evidence of such is strong. I do understand as I heard many of the same type things.

My T and I talked about something relating to this recently....and how those old tapes keep playing in current situations...and how I need to see that the words just don't fit for me. Even if I believe them to the core of my being, I need to try to step out of that place and see for myself...We cannot be what others put on us.

I know it's hard to accept when it's someone in a caregiver role. My parents were physically and emotionally abusive to me when I was growing up....and I am trying to work through those feelings of being worthless, insignificant, ugly, disgusting...I am trying to separate myself from those words just enough to try to see if they really fit.

It's not an easy task....and I haven't successfully worked through it yet...just wanted to share what I've been learning about that so far, in case it's useful....

Know that you are not alone, and it is SUCH a struggle...

((( HUGS )))

The only thing that I think, and I do remember when you posted before about your secret stuff, is that I am sorry that you had to go through that when you were a kid. And I'm really sorry that confronting your history is so difficult, but you have shown really incredible bravery in sharing it here and with T. There is no grossness or hatefulness in you because of what your mother did to you. If there is grossness or hate at all, it resides with your mother, not you.

Nobody here sees any grossness or any quality that justifies hate here. And your T doesn't either. We see you as you are, a very sweet person who has a beautiful way of supporting others here.

Your feelings are normal and natural after what you've been through, they are the leftover effects of how you as a child felt. Shame is so primal for CSA survivors; it's like a coat we've been wearing for so long we don't even notice it.

I'm sure you've read the postings of other CSA survivors here. Have you ever thought that any of them were gross? Or deserving of hate? I'm sure you haven't. And that's because you see people as who they are, not as what has happened to them. And that's what we-- I'm not really intending to pretend I"m the voice of PC or anything-- but that's what people see. That's what your T sees. None of us are your mother, who had a vested interest in making you feel this way. But you can choose to see it differently, because she wasn't right, not by a long stretch.

Anne

Thank you all so very much. I'm reading and re-reading these and trying to see myself as something other than nasty and horrible. Thank you.

I've had so many things that I've written over the years "retracted" by computers that if I took it personally, as a sign of what I should & shouldn't write, I'd be second-guessing at least 20% of my life. Since I occasionally write professionally, I'd be even poorer than I am now!

The things that can cause a computer glitch--and lost data--are so numerous that tracking down a single cause usually isn't worth the time: It won't happen quite the same way again. I guess if you believe in your heart that your life's direction is guided somehow by your computer, I can't/shouldn't change your mind. It saddens me greatly, though, that you have come to doubt your own memories of being abused because of a computer misfire. And to regret telling you therapist ...

I so hope you will reconsider. Computers are tools, that's all.

Okay, when you say it that way, roadrunner, it sounds pretty funny. Actually made me laugh.

It's not that doubt my memories, it's that I doubt their significance and whether what happens matters, or SHOULD matter at this stage of my life. And whether I should bother other people by talking about it. Does that make sense?

For a long time I heard my mother inside my head putting me down. Now I hear T instead, supporting me.

You dont need a "huge long post in the abuse forum wondering if what my mom did was even really abuse". Any parent who actively convinces her child she is worthless is an abusive parent.

Hugs.

My dad did the same as your mum and for about 15 years I didn't believe it was actually abuse. But then every psychologist I ever met told me the same thing: It IS abuse. Emotional abuse.

I understand and I do the same thing. Although I sometimes do doubt memory as it is so contradictory at times - in my case.