I said I wouldn't talk about myself but I am wondering if anyone has felt this way before

My mother left me in state custody when I was 15 because my new stepfather didn't want me. Ever since then I have done things and made myself lose almost every person in my life. I lived with a family for a year and was almost adopted when I was 16, but my behavior was so bad that my foster mother left me at a hospital and suddenly stopped all contact with me, an entire church had encouraged her to do so. Then after that I was in a transitional home and I tried to find meaningful friendships, but actually people just tolerated me. After that I lived with a room mate, and considered her a good friend. She cared about me. She said so. But she couldn't stand the way I acted. She moved after 1 year, to another state. We still talk on the phone or skype sometimes, so I haven' t completely lost her but she told me she has to handle me in "small doses". I take full responsibility for everyone I lost. I'm a toxic person..and I'm working on it. That isn't the point of this thread.

The thing that confuses me is, I admire the people who have left me and consider them worthy because they were important enough to someone (me). With my mother, part of me knows that what she did was terrible. The other part of me sees her as strong and bold. While I'm the pathetic weak one for clinging to her and caring. With my foster mother, I still think about her every day and I am almost sure she she never thinks of me. I think it makes her a strong, wonderful person to be able to just switch off any emotions and 100% let me go.

I don't know if it makes me a better person or a worse person for feeling this way, but sometimes I wish someone would. be afraid of losing me like I am them. For once I could be the strong person, not the pathetic, weak clingy one.

I also never throw anything away because I cling to everything,.so when I do throw something away I feel powerful, if that,makes sense.

[BlossomingLen]

Hello! It's a pleasure to meet you.

I understand how confusing and strange it can be to lose others. I know I haven't experienced what you have, but I can tell it has caused you a lot of grief and relief, in a way? There are very mixed emotions. I've had people leave me before. Part of me was hurt that they'd leave, but another part of me was happy that they were able to move on and continue with their lives.

So, I think I get the feeling you're describing. Even so. Sometimes people come and go. Friends leave, off to do new things. Nothing lasts forever. But here's how I see it. It's about the journey, not the destination. While I am hurt that my friends ended up leaving, I'm happy about all the times I shared with them. Does that make sense?

I know I don't know you. But from what you described, your behavior isn't weak. You aren't a bad person, nor a lesser person because you're afraid of losing others. I think that's normal, honestly. Yes, it's easy to admire people for having qualities that you don't, like shutting their emotions off and tossing people away. But is that really a good thing? Is throwing a person away with no regret an admirable trait? I don't believe so. I don't think it's strong, I think that's lacking empathy. Empathy makes people human. What you're feeling right now, all of this mixed emotions, frustration, guilt, and relief; that's what makes you human. It's a natural reaction to everything that's happened to you. From what you've said, you've been through a lot. So, it's only natural that you'd act out during certain occasions. I wouldn't blame you at all.

Even so. I hope you feel better soon.

Have a wonderful day.

[TishaBuv]

I'm so sorry for all that happened to you. Abandonment can really screw with the way we think and feel.

As a mother, I would sooner live in a dumpster with my teenager rather than abandon her for any reason. I don't know all the circumstances, or what your behavior was like before you were 15, but still you were abandoned by your mother.

I think how you feel makes you neither a better or worse person. I think your feelings got reversed because you feel such pain and humiliation for wanting and needing to be loved.

You were the child. You did nothing wrong. Even if your behavior was horrible, you must have been pushed to become that way by abuse.

[Bill3]

(((((Anna72914)))))

What was your relationship like with your birth mother before she abandoned you?

[~Christina]

Hugs to a fellow Nashvillian

Originally Posted by Bill3

(((((Anna72914)))))

What was your relationship like with your birth mother before she abandoned you?

I always thought I was a problem for her. She was married when she was 14 and had stillborn baby at 15, from what she has said something happened so she thought she could not have more children. I am not sure when but she divorced him because he did things that were wrong and after that she just did wild things. She had me when she was 29 and she was diagnosed with HIV when pregnant with me, so she always blamed me for that, I think. (I was born healthy).

I was very close to my grandmother but she was jelous of this and would try to prevent me from hugging her. She would get mad at me if I didn't comfort her enough when she was sad. I remember once when I was around 4 she was crying and holding me in her lap but I wanted to get up and play and she got really mad, saying that I was being inconsiderate of her feelings.
She also told me things like that I could die if I ate halloween candy, I would choke to death on food if she didn't chop it up, and when columbine happened she showed me every detail and said it would happen at my school.

She told me I was so weird that no kids would like.me, and she was right. If I even started to get a friend she ruined it because she was jelous. She would coach me on being mean or acting bad so that family members wouldn't want to be around me and it could only be her.

She moved to Florida when she married her husband(they met on a website for people with AIDS)but now she lives in this state but a different city. I talk to her on the phone but the only thing she cares about is her husband it seems. I saw her a few times, but never alone. He controls everthing she does and hates me.

[Ceridwen18]

I wish I could give you a real hug right now. You sound so lost. I agree with TishaBuv....I was an abandoned child, now I'm a mum, and I would never leave my children. I have my own MI to deal with, and both my boys have mental issues as well. We endure together.
I've thought a lot about my issues, and I believe everyone needs someone that loves them no matter what....usually that comes in the form of a parent's unconditional love. If you don't get that, life and relationships are very difficult to navigate.you drift, unanchored from the solid ground we all need as a foundation.
Everyone deserves love, whatever behaviours you exhibit, they are behaviours, and not you. You deserve love.

Originally Posted by Ceridwen18

I've thought a lot about my issues, and I believe everyone needs someone that loves them no matter what....usually that comes in the form of a parent's unconditional love. If you don't get that, life and relationships are very difficult to navigate.you drift, unanchored from the solid ground we all need as a foundation.
Everyone deserves love, whatever behaviours you exhibit, they are behaviours, and not you. You deserve love.

Wow, this is what I've always said. It's too late for me though, no one wants to love an adult unconditionally. The things I've done in the past I've done in the past to try to get it only make more people leave. I've accepted that I have to live my life this way. Therapy can help but.it doesn't replace what I lost.

I hope you can find healing, though.

[Ceridwen18]

Hi Anna72914, I have also thought yes, as an adult it's too late. You're right, not many people can love anyone but their children unconditionally, and some can't even do that. We can strive to love ourselves unconditionally. It's really hard, yes. I console myself that I love my children unconditionally. I may not have received it as a child, but no one is going to take away my ability to give it.

[Bill3]

The other part of me sees her as strong and bold. While I'm the pathetic weak one for clinging to her and caring.

Anna, you were strong enough to be able to meet her needs when you were at a stage of life when you, the child, were supposed to be receiving nurturing and support and care, not being compelled to give it. As a child you were biologically designed, as are all children, to cling and to receive care. You cling today because you never received the care you needed and deserved. But your writing in this thread clearly shows intelligence and insight. You had the strength to develop these even in the absence of parental support and even when you were being compelled to be a de facto caregiver.

You speak several times of how your behavior drove people away. My guess is that you had an overwhelming need to know whether you could trust people after your mother abandoned you. This overwhelming need led you to test those near you with your behavior. Could you dare to trust them? Would they stay and love you and care for you even if you misbehaved?

Originally Posted by Bill3

Anna, you were strong enough to be able to meet her needs when you were at a stage of life when you, the child, were supposed to be receiving nurturing and support and care, not being compelled to give it. As a child you were biologically designed, as are all children, to cling and to receive care. You cling today because you never received the care you needed and deserved. But your writing in this thread clearly shows intelligence and insight. You had the strength to develop these even in the absence of parental support and even when you were being compelled to be a de facto caregiver.

You speak several times of how your behavior drove people away. My guess is that you had an overwhelming need to know whether you could trust people after your mother abandoned you. This overwhelming need led you to test those near you with your behavior. Could you dare to trust them? Would they stay and love you and care for you even if you misbehaved?

I did things that were wrong. I did them to get my needs met and get the attention I needed. Emotionally I have the same needs as a child and people don't understand that so I tried to do things in a way people understood to get what I needed. People have told me how smart I am in the pass as a way to dismiss my needs so I do not like being smart.

One time in a psychiatric hospital, the kind that bully people, I had a meltdown and I couldnt control it. Later a social worker told me I was too smart for it and accused me of manipulation. But I honestly was so upset I couldn't help it.

So in the past I have needed to translate myself to others as a way to make them unde rs tand. I can change who I am at any second and then they leave.

I decided last time I will never go to a hospital again. I don't want to be miunderstood by them anymore because I'm smart.

[Bill3]

I am sorry that a social worker of all people would fail to understand that anyone, including smart people, can become overwhelmed by unmet emotional needs. And it sounds like people failing to understand happens a lot.

Could you please explain what you mean by changing yourself so as to be understood and then they leave? Or maybe give an example?

[Ceridwen18]

I'm sorry you had that experience. I don't think emotions have much to do with being smart. When they overwhelm us, our intelligence doesn't often help.

Originally Posted by Bill3

I am sorry that a social worker of all people would fail to understand that anyone, including smart people, can become overwhelmed by unmet emotional needs. And it sounds like people failing to understand happens a lot.

Could you please explain what you mean by changing yourself so as to be understood and then they leave? Or maybe give an example?

I change myself to be the person I think they would give the most attention to.
Honestly I have no idea who I really am, I just become the person who will benefit me most in the situation, automatically, without making a choice, and then I cause those people to leave when they realize what I was doing was only to get the need met, and they cannot stand my behavior.
Once I realize what I'm doing or actually think about it, its usually too late because then they will know and I risk losing them, so I have to keep going. If I had a "real" Anna to return to, I would, but I don't know who that is.

I'm a female and I've been alive for 23 years, 1 month and 15 days. That is the only "Real" information I can give about myself.

[Bill3]

It feels so important to be accepted that you are willing to try being almost any personality or set of personality traits, whatever you judge seems most likely to be accepted by the person or people that you wish to attach to. It seems like there isn't anything fixed or steady about you other than your basic demographic data.

You mentioned therapy before. In what ways do you find therapy helpful and/or unhelpful?

Originally Posted by Bill3

It feels so important to be accepted that you are willing to try being almost any personality or set of personality traits, whatever you judge seems most likely to be accepted by the person or people that you wish to attach to. It seems like there isn't anything fixed or steady about you other than your basic demographic data.

You mentioned therapy before. In what ways do you find therapy helpful and/or unhelpful?

It does help me to talk. It upsets me when someone disagrees with me so I would rather have a therapist that will just listen to me and not tell me I'm doing something wrong. When someone tells me that it always upsets me, because I already know I do things wrong and I already hate myself for it.

Because a therapist, it's not their job to love you, they aren't supposed to love you, so it doesn't help with that. I need someone to actually love me.
Newborn babies don't love themselves before they are loved, so it is hard to understand why I am expected to love myself first.

This is the way I think it should go.

1.You are loved
2.You love yourself
3.You can love other people

But most people expect me to skip the first part. Some of them actually think I should and it is fair, but some people maybe just know I don't have a choice but to skip it in this world.

[Bill3]

I think that to expect you to automatically love yourself is to be unaware of the significance of being loved in childhood. Children change biologically, physiologically as a result of being loved. Those changes can be and are built on in a functional family.

I agree that a therapist does not love clients. However, s/he might try to foster self-love. In your experience, how helpful (if at all) has therapy been in trying to cultivate self-love through therapeutic discussion and process?

[Ceridwen18]

Hi Anna,
I did mention self love in my post, I'm sorry if that upset you. I understand what you are saying about the order things should go in. I don't think I was really able to love myself until I had children and experienced their love and need. I did not have children to fill a gap, please don't think that, that would be a very wrong thing to do, in my opinion. But it helped me, because my mother was the source of my abandonment issues, when I became a mother myself. First I got angry at her all over again, then I used that anger to move forward.
The other thing I use is my spirituality. I imagine unconditional love from, in my case, the Goddess, the Great Mother. I see her nurturing the little unloved girl I was.
These things helped me.
To be honest, I don't have an answer. I see a vicious circle for you, and understand your hopelessness.
What I mean to provide you with, is hope. Eventually, after many many years of believing no one would ever love me, I came to love myself, others and be loved in return.
I'm not sure what your path to that will be, but it can happen. Don't give up.
I have used medication (for depression), therapy (from a clinical psychologist - and it took a few to find the right one) and much self reflection. I still have bad days, but I am getting there. You are an articulate, sensitive, intelligent young woman with heart and spirit. Cling to that, and know there is hope for all of us. The journey of one thousand miles begins with a single step.

No I didn't mean you at all . You gave me great advice and seemed to understand. Don't worry

I'm talking about people who disregard it completely and think its wrong for me to need these things.

[MaryRuiz]

Sometimes I feel this way.

Anna, I am sorry that I don't have words to help with what you are dealing with.

All I want to say is at moments live this the hug button does not seem enough.

[BeaFlower]

Originally Posted by Anna72914

It does help me to talk. It upsets me when someone disagrees with me so I would rather have a therapist that will just listen to me and not tell me I'm doing something wrong. When someone tells me that it always upsets me, because I already know I do things wrong and I already hate myself for it.

Because a therapist, it's not their job to love you, they aren't supposed to love you, so it doesn't help with that. I need someone to actually love me.
Newborn babies don't love themselves before they are loved, so it is hard to understand why I am expected to love myself first.

This is the way I think it should go.

1.You are loved
2.You love yourself
3.You can love other people

But most people expect me to skip the first part. Some of them actually think I should and it is fair, but some people maybe just know I don't have a choice but to skip it in this world.

I do love you And also other people here.