If Others Don't See Me The Way My Parents Do...

I even told my H once that one of the reasons I loved him was because he didn't try to pretend he was someone else around me, like so many other guys did with their girlfriends:/

T says its about them, not you. We were children . Children do not burden parents, parents are just toxic sometimes, maybe they had toxic parents. Not justifying behavior . You did not burden or embarrass anyone.

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That's why my t had me write a letter to myself, because my self-esteem was damaged from the beginning when my father thought I was broken and needed to be fixed, praying for me, taking me to churches for prayer, having lots if people pray on me, etcetera instead if accepting I was deaf and getting on with doing the best thing for me.

Hazel, you didn't do anything to deserve that treatment. It wasn't anything you did or anything you are. Sometimes families pick a scapegoat for abuse.
I think some abusers do this because deep down they hate themselves, and they don't know what to do with that hate. My dad is like this -- even in his hubris, when he's putting us down and puffing himself up I know he deeply hates himself. And he will pit sibling against sibling, saying how one is better than the other when in a fight with one of us. One day I'm great, one day I'm trash in his eyes.
But I know, even intellectually knowing that it's the abuser's issue and nothing to do with you, it doesn't reach the heart/belief level and it doesn't make it hurt any less. I just wanted to encourage you as I'd want someone to encourage me, by telling you is absolutely isn't your fault and you did not do or be anything wrong.

Oooooooooo! My mother used to do this kind of thing with my son when he was a baby!!

Is there anyone who felt loved and valued by their parents? I guess they wouldn't be on here or having issues.

People tend to hurt the people they're closest to.

That's why a lot of childhood abuse comes from within the family (as apposed to a stranger). It's also why there's so much domestic violence. I think it's because we consider the people we're closest to, to be the safest people who won't leave us.

It's definitely not your fault.

Because they couldn't. The answer really is that simple.

Of course knowing that doesn't undo years of conditioning does it?

If my own parents can't love me why would anyone else?

That my parents are mentally unwell themselves just means that I should pity them. It wasn't their fault therefore I'm not allowed to be angry at them.

We both know that if it were another person in our shoes we would be nowhere near as hard on them.

It's hard when your feelings are beating you over the head and over whelming even ounce of logic you have.

Thank you all for your words. I think my questions came more from a grief and pain spot, than a logic spot. And I am feeling a bit better today.

Trigger icon for abuse mention

I had the opportunity to ask my granddad why me and not my sister. The answer was very simple: my sis reminded him of my mother, his daughter, I did not. It did help me to know cause I kept thinking I was asking for it somehow...

My therapist recently asked me if I've ever wondered "why me" (in terms of having an overall %$^$ childhood). I used to, but now I just think it's a coincidence; it's just life. These things are passed down through the family, sometimes for generations, and I don't give as much credibility to the genetic component as I do to the attachment and personality issues being passed down repeatedly.

Now that you and your therapist have a handle on your attachment issues as you've recently said, maybe you can work on the deeper, core issues now--self-worth is one I'm thinking of... How would you describe your self-worth?

Anyway, it's good to see that you're doing a lot of self-exploration lately. Don't get too carried away though!

We have been and will continue to work on self-worth and a few other major issues. She said that maybe it could write out some of the things said to me as a child and compare them to things I might say to a child, and really examine whether it's something that they should have said to me. That's going to be really hard.

Ooops, I didn't mean to imply that these things are ordered and happen one at a time...sorry about that.

I think it will be less difficult now that you are feeling more secure in the relationship. That's when the most difficult work gets done, right? You'll do fine.

And you are so young, you have many, many good relationships look forward to in the future. This is a great opportunity for you.

And that's why I stick with it when I want to quit. If I don't do the work now, I will have to do it later. And later, it will be harder. So although I want to quit a lot of the time, I keep going and I keep trying.

We're all coming to the wedding. Thats how much faith we have in you. We'll be that couple-three rows of weird ladies in big hats in the back on the bride's side.

Wait...I'm getting married? When? To who? Did I miss the invite???

I gotta quit reading wedding bees website! Ykwim!

I was loved and valued by my parents, but they couldn't give me what they didn't have IYKWIM.

I'm sure there are many, some of whom do visit this forum too. I think a lot of it involves a sort of reinterpretation and getting to know your parents as real people. I think the real picture that emerges is rarely a black and white picture of of saintly acceptance and valuation, or devilish malice. Not always, but often it would be a mix.

I think at the end of the day, at least for me personally, a kind of a faith or spirituality (or some other ways to raise above it all) that goes above and beyond my own life and my parents' life becomes a necessity. A lot of the kinds of things people discover about themselves or their parents in therapy, those things don't answer any ultimate questions of "why?" Yes, you get more trivial "why" answers (genetics, environment, parents were raised that way, you had this kind of personality, this mistake led to other mistakes, etc) but none of those answers are inherently meaningful or connect with each other in a way to make things meaningful, in terms of fairness or deserving the way you were treated or why "you", etc.

A lot of times you are just left with a kind of "it just so happened that." In therapy I felt quite devalued by randomness of events of my own life. I felt small and insignificant. There was a logic to those events, in explaining them, but that itself was random still. There was a terrible unfairness to it. It's almost like someone just "happens to" be born in disease ridden region in Africa or never ending war zone in the Middle East or a poverty stricken village in South America. A lot of things will follow logically from that, but not the original happening of being born there. Or people born with serious genetic/bodily illnesses or malformations. There is a terribleness in how the logic of that can be explained, like parents who would leave their kid because taking care of her was too much for them, too emotionally painful, too expensive, too involved. So an original "bad luck" leads to worse things yet! Bad encouraging more bad. How is that fair?! They did not deserve the first bad, now a second bad as a result of the first?

But not to move far off track here, for me a big part was getting to know my parents as real human beings with limitations (just like myself), and this included actually talking to them about some of the things that happened to me (in a language far from blame, though inevitably it did involve it), then follow that with trying to find a meaning system and place of safety and value above all this misery and randomness of life.

My parents made fun of me too. I don't know the answer, but I know it hurt me and still affects how I see myself and maybe always will. My mother actually showed contempt for me. Her nickname for me was "fatty" and she would go on long rants about how it made sense I had no friends and no one liked me, because I was "fatty" the stupid lazy cow that was good for nothing. I don't know if ill ever shake that perception of myself.

Both of my parents are crazy and really the only consolation I know of is they both can criticize almost anyone. I remember them mocking all the neighbors all my friends parents, everyone was a scum bag or a loser to them in some way. I just try to focus on the few memories I have of people who thought I was worth something. I live my life and do all that I do for that handful of people who told me I wasn't a big fat loser, that I was valuable and that they loved me. I owe my life to them.

Your story reminds me of my uncle who would refer to my cousin, his second son,
as 'the trash can' because he was a chubby little kid who liked to eat
My aunt's marriage reminds me a lot of my own. Neither my uncle or my H are malicious people, but they are emotionally abusive all the same, and almost everyone else is a scumbag or a loser to them too. It's a very sad, lonely way to live and they're both miserable and make the people around them miserable

Thank you for sharing your stories.

I always feel like it is my fault. Maybe they were/are too wart harsh, but it was still my fault for needing to punished in the first place. I'm so scared. They could pop out of anywhere my memories can reach