Id like to think of myself as a happy person, I am always trying to make others laugh and id give you the shirt off my back or my last kidney if i knew it would help you. But, for some reason, I cant give myself a break. I expect more from me then others, I don't allow myself to process feelings or express them until they explode out in a ball of self hatred. I recognize this about myself but have no idea how to fix it. I just wanna learn to be nice to me, like I try to be nice to others. Can anyone relate? Has anyone ever overcome this?

[stopdog]

I would keep my last kidney although I might give away the shirt. I think what you are describing is a control thing and possibly self esteem. How to get self esteem from within rather than from others because of what you give them? Is that possibly a part of it? I think you could start by acknowledging what you want is okay and it is okay for you to give it to yourself and then start small and give yourself things. And sit through the discomfort that may arise from within yourself.

low self esteem -Check , control? I don't do for others for attaboys i do it cause it makes me feel like I gave them something in return for liking me, like we are even.

[stopdog]

Originally Posted by LolaCabanna

low self esteem -Check , control? I don't do for others for attaboys i do it cause it makes me feel like I gave them something in return for liking me, like we are even.

I did not mean control like attaboys. I mean control in a different way. But do you expect people to give you something for liking them? If they did try to give you something - what would you feel?

I have to go out of office to work now but will try to think of a better way to explain it. Or I could just be totally off base.

[Sannah]

I think that knowing where all this came from would be really important in solving this. You mention that you owe people for being nice to you? Did you try to do this while growing up? If you were good enough you would be treated better?

Your dilemma brings 2 things to mind for me, meeting your needs and inner child work. I can explain more about meeting your needs if you want more info. Just let me know. If you don't like your inner child you aren't going to want to take care of her.

Originally Posted by stopdog

I did not mean control like attaboys. I mean control in a different way. But do you expect people to give you something for liking them?

No.... I feel like I need to do for others to like me, i am unlikable unless i can bring something to the table for them. People don't just like you for no reason, there is always a reason. I may not be doing a good job of explaining myself. Thanks SD

Originally Posted by Sannah

I think that knowing where all this came from would be really important in solving this. You mention that you owe people for being nice to you? Did you try to do this while growing up? If you were good enough you would be treated better?

Your dilemma brings 2 things to mind for me, meeting your needs and inner child work. I can explain more about meeting your needs if you want more info. Just let me know. If you don't like your inner child you aren't going to want to take care of her.

BINGO - As long as i did what was expected of me people were nice. I became so good at it I could fill peoples needs without them telling what they were. This left no time for me and needs. I just wanted people to love me, so i concentrated on making others happy.

More info on needs would be great as I suck at that game.

[unaluna]

I kinda see you as a big tower of ice cream (or cool whip) - we can take a scoop when we need it because you are this regenerating tower of goodness. like niagara falls. a beautiful power source. myself, i'm a scrawny tree with half dead leaves and bitter fruit. or a big emrty rotted out tree.

[WikidPissah]

I do a similar thing. I would never speak to another living thing the way I do to myself. I will torture myself for hours (verbally mostly). I have gained control over the self injury stuff though...so maybe I am headed in the right direction.

Originally Posted by hankster

I kinda see you as a big tower of ice cream (or cool whip) - we can take a scoop when we need it because you are this regenerating tower of goodness. like niagara falls. a beautiful power source. myself, i'm a scrawny tree with half dead leaves and bitter fruit.

Well its all a sham...A mask I put on before I was potty trained and its been on so long, I cant get it off, I don't want it off. Then when I do have BAD moments, when even I cant lie to myself and pull myself out of it....its messy and makes me hate me more. I'm a sad clown, who is tired of being sad.

[Sannah]

Originally Posted by LolaCabanna

As long as i did what was expected of me people were nice. I became so good at it I could fill peoples needs without them telling what they were. This left no time for me and needs. I just wanted people to love me, so i concentrated on making others happy.

And there was no one around to meet your needs?

This actually goes right along with the more info about needs that I was talking about.

When you are a kid your caretakers are supposed to meet your needs. Adults are supposed to meet their own needs or get some other adults to meet their needs. Children can help around the house, etc., but they are not supposed to be meeting the needs of adults. The adults who get children to do this are people who didn't get their needs met as children and never fixed this issue (and think that it is okay to do this to a child).

So when a child doesn't get her needs attended to and she has to meet the needs of an adult, she never learns that she has needs or how to meet them and she was trained to be of service to others only. A child learns about her needs by getting them met as a child and then learning how to do it herself as she grows older.

I also think that there is a glitch in there to being able to meet your needs as an adult if you grew up this way. I think that the child in this dysfunctional environment learned that it wasn't okay to have needs. You already talked about craving to be loved. Well, I think that a child learns that getting love = denying her needs. So as an adult, of course you won't meet your needs because this will jeopardize getting love. Just realizing this helped me to unlock my ability to meet my needs.

And when you cannot meet your own needs, meeting the exact needs for someone else is the 2nd best thing, meeting your needs vicariously.

Originally Posted by Sannah

And there was no one around to meet your needs?

So when a child doesn't get her needs attended to and she has to meet the needs of an adult, she never learns that she has needs or how to meet them and she was trained to be of service to others only.

I also think that there is a glitch in there to being able to meet your needs as an adult if you grew up this way. I think that the child in this dysfunctional environment learned that it wasn't okay to have needs. You already talked about craving to be loved. Well, I think that a child learns that getting love = denying her needs. So as an adult, of course you won't meet your needs because this will jeopardize getting love. Just realizing this helped me to unlock my ability to meet my needs.

And when you cannot meet your own needs, meeting the exact needs for someone else is the 2nd best thing, meeting your needs vicariously.

Exactly...no one meet my needs and I was trained to serve. This makes it hard for me to even say the word needs. Anytime I even think of meeting my own, I feel like a wretched person , as it means i will not be tending to another and run the risk of them not loving me.

[Sannah]

Do you think that it still applies today?

Originally Posted by Sannah

Do you think that it still applies today?

what part.... yes that is how i feel today.

[tooski]

Are you working on this in therapy? I have some of this same stuff going on, especially where you said that no one loves someone for no reason at all. But that's what our parents were supposed to do!!!! Just love us because we were cute and adorable.

I feel like I have to earn love, too. (And I'm never good enough, ever...) I'm working on this in T and that's why I asked if you were. .

Tooski - I am working on acknowledging that I have needs. Therapy to me is one issue after another....so currently we are digging for the root of all the evil. Have you learned anything you would like to share?

[murray]

Wow I so feel for you Lola.
I wish I had something useful to say, but I'm kind of in the same boat and have no idea how to change.

[Onward2wards]

Lola, I can totally relate! I am working on this in therapy at the moment.

ok...so its nice to know I'm not the only one...

Has anyone learned anything they can share with the group? I really wish i could just be all selfish and do for me and me only, but because my self esteem and feeling of self worth is tied to my need to do for others....i cant bare the thought of feeling unloved, even if its for all the wrong reasons or not real at all, you know?

[unaluna]

you might be taking how your partner is, and applying her logic to "the world". like you chose her because she met your "need to be needed" at the time you met, but now you are growing and changing, and you see how one-sided the r/s is and has always been, and you want something more from her, but she's saying it's not fair to change the rules now? Hey, guess what - if she's had a free ride for all these years with a partner who was willing to give more than she took - what did she think she did to deserve that? It's like not paying taxes - sooner or later, it's gonna catch up with you. Maybe that's not what's going on, but you said a coupla times while you guys were sick, that her being sick counted more than yours, that's why I bring it up.

ETA: "needs", admitting I had needs, I wanted to wash my own mouth out with soap rather than admit it in T. I think this is why I have made T play dollies with me for the past two years. He holds the doll that represents me for the entire hour - I need him to do that. We don't really talk about it. yet.

All true Hankster and she said she is trying and sees the error in her ways, but when it comes down to it.... i have to consistently point it out and its tiring...I feel like if she cant see my needs she must not love me. Although I know that's not fair either, i need to learn to recognize and ask... uggg

[unaluna]

have you guys done marriage counseling? cos this seems like it needs a change in attitude. I mean you almost broke up last year, but now nothing has really changed, everything is still the same. is she in T?

Originally Posted by hankster

have you guys done marriage counseling? cos this seems like it needs a change in attitude. I mean you almost broke up last year, but now nothing has really changed, everything is still the same. is she in T?

She refuses to go to T, I cant take too much upset right now....so I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt and trying to get my self emotionally stable before I would even think of uprooting my entire life.

[unaluna]

so you're using my mother's logic, that you're the loser, cos you can't force a loser-dummy to smarten up. sorry if that sounds harsh. but my grampa (mother's father), when I told him that it was I who had left my husband, not he who left me (my mother had lied to grampa, idk why), grampa got a big smile on his scruffy ol face and shook my hand and said, good-a for-a you! I have no idea how many or what lies my mother has told about me to all the relatives over the years, I just get a hint of them from time to time.

so, not saying you need to uproot immediately, or at all. just look at the situation differently. You're not unloveable cos partner won't take care of you. You ARE a fountain of sweetness. SHE might be a little selfish, a little lazy, a little full of herself, a little unwilling to bend? Sounds like she doesn't have much to give and is envious of you. You feel like your only options are to say, either she's right and you have to crush yourself, or she's wrong and you have to stomp on her? Can you get to a win-win? Or at least a way for you not to lose? Last time you were gonna move, change jobs etc. Why so drastic, why can't you leave her but keep your job?

[~EnlightenMe~]

Originally Posted by LolaCabanna

Id like to think of myself as a happy person, I am always trying to make others laugh and id give you the shirt off my back or my last kidney if i knew it would help you. But, for some reason, I cant give myself a break. I expect more from me then others, I don't allow myself to process feelings or express them until they explode out in a ball of self hatred. I recognize this about myself but have no idea how to fix it. I just wanna learn to be nice to me, like I try to be nice to others. Can anyone relate? Has anyone ever overcome this?

I so totally relate right now. I have been in this self-hatred mode since about five or six months ago. It's eating me alive, but I can't seem to relinquish it. I've yet to overcome this and don't see a light at the end of the tunnel, if there is one. I hope you have better luck!