Heya,

For a long time now, I've really been abusing myself, not taking care of myself, personal hygiene, not eating properly, getting enough sleep nor exercise, have hardly any social life..

I feel I've identified that (a lot of) my disregard for myself comes from blaming myself for having been emotionally abandoned by my parents. They were also abusive when I was growing up.

I've felt that, surely, they wouldn't have been like this had I not been somehow fundamentally awful and bad, unlovable! Intellectually, I realise this cannot be true as they 'hated' me even before I was born - my dad never wanted children and my mother only wanted someone like a porcelain doll that she could dress up and mould into what she wanted them to be, not to know them for who they were. I realise there was nothing I could have been or done to make them hate me - I was innocent in that sense - but this realisation has never reached my emotional 'truth' for some reason.

I believe it'd help me to hear it from someone else that what my parents did was not my fault. I've sometimes wondered why I need to hear these things from others when I already 'know' them, and my therapist says it's because 'that's what we humans are like' - social beings who need that connection. So, if anyone out there could help me with this, I cannot even tell you how much I'd appreciate it

All the best!

[Mefisto]

Im sorry your parents did this. Its totally not your fault, man. You were just a kid, what you possibly could do wrong? I didn't understand though, you were raised in foster home or you have some step-family? Anyway, i have read that a lot of parentless kids becoming more tough and indepentent than normal kids. I dont know if its true, but maybe it did some positive effect for you?

Thank you so much, Mefisto!

I lived with my real parents and they've always been more or less physically present in my life, but emotionally, they are closed off and unreachable. They didn't accept my neediness nor so-called 'bad' feelings like anger, fear or sadness. They see these as weaknesses. My therapist suspects that when I cried as a baby or a small child, my parents either ignored me or failed to recognise what I needed, which I took as abandonment. I was a very lonely child and couldn't get close to my dad as I was terrified of this destructive rage he has within him. My mum, on the other hand, took care of me like a martyr because she had to, not because she wanted to.

I feel the good things that have come out of my challenging past are a deeper sense of empathy, sensitivity to other people's pain and hardships, and a genuine understanding of what it's like to have one's trust broken and how hard it can be to rebuild after such devastation. I also feel my experiences have made me more resilient.

[Frankbtl]

Hi d.o.a, it really wasn't your fault
We do see it as parents responsibilities should be to be supportive, attentive, nurturing, caring, free with giving and showing love...........but the sad reality is that there are "parents" who just aren't able to do that. No way, no how.........they just don't have it in them. You could have behaved any way whatsoever but those "instincts" just weren't going to be there.
But that doesn't mean that you and your feelings are any the less important. You matter just as much whatever your parents problems were. You're not a reflection of how your parents behaved, you're still you, and you still matter!!!!
Now time to try to separate yourself off from some of their "inadequacies", hey??
Time to accept that you do deserve to be valued, respected, supported by others, to be cared about, to be loved?? And there are going to be people out there without the "difficulties" your parents had who can/will show you that. Who will treat you as you deserve to be treated.
And you...........you need to try and treat yourself better too, right??!!
You've been a long way, you've had to face enough abuse, please try not to let that continue through yourself. You don't deserve it!!
I completely understand it's not that easy but.........step by step???
And we're here to support you with that.

Alison

[ManOfConstantSorrow]

I am definitely with your therapist in this, and indeed my T and I have similar discussions, particularly around impingements. Parents should provide the right protective supportive environment for children to develop. When they don't impingements (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...ements&f=false) occur cause stress leading to damaging feelings. This may have been the case for you too, perhaps.

Dear Alison, thank you so much for your reply! So compassionate, so true, so healing I'm going to save your post into my phone so I can read it to remind myself whenever, wherever!

YES, time to become my own person!!! I don't even know who that is, but I'm going to find out.. And I do already know it's a good person, no matter what!

Also time to let other people see who I truly am and to trust that there are indeed people capable of loving me for ME

Time to learn how to take care of myself in ways I deserve to be taken care of!!!

It's not going to be easy and there's a lot of work to do, but I believe that where there's a will, there is a way!

Thank you for the link, ManOfConstantSorrow! This is exactly what my therapist has told me about - that suffering trauma in early relationships actually affects the neural pathways in a person's brain. She says that healthy relationships later on in life mend the damage and lead to the creation of new neural pathways.

Hm, I really connected to this post. The family I grew up in shared the mutual belief that I wasn't worth their time. Did I grow past that? I did eventually! A while ago, I took it upon myself to become happy and independent. Although I felt as if everyone scoffed at me initially, I now have my own life and am somehow on good terms with that same family. I got lucky with the family part, but learning to love myself was the hardest part. Everyone who rebuilds themselves from a difficult child are basically chiseling on their hands and knees the stonework foundation of their life, cobbled poorly by insensitive parents (I might have heard this somewhere, but I forget where).

Good luck on your journey. It will take a while, and it won't happen overnight, but it happens in slow steps. Even when you think you're taking a step backwards, you've actually taken a step forward, albeit hard. There will be times you might doubt yourself or almost take harsh words to heart, but never forget you're your #1 leader. Sorry if these metaphors sound cheesy. They best explain how I feel, and I really want you to do well. I think taking care of yourself, such as eating well, might be an easy way of feeling better, to start off with. I've been there myself. Continuing work with your therapist sounds great, and allow people into your life who make you feel positive while keeping out the negative ones. If they help, there are some good self-help books on self-esteem. Writing out what people have said about you and then writing out logical explanations for their actions helps me sometimes, such as thinking, "Well, maybe he wasn't making fun of me, but just was trying to be friendly but awkwardly failed, especially since no one else was in ear shot."

Thank you for your reply, Breezy Day! I'm sorry to hear you had a tough time with your family as well, but also glad to hear you've been able to move on and build a better life for yourself

That is such an excellent description you shared about chiseling the stonework foundation of our lives! It's what my therapist has said, that even though I've 'grown up', I'm now correcting the foundations of my life, what was there at the beginning.. It's such hard work! But has to be done..

Thank you so much for your words of encouragement, I really appreciate it!!! There are times when I feel stuck, frustrated and like I want to give up. But gotta keep moving forward, right..

Right now, learning to eat well is really important for me as I've been suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome for years and haven't been able to work because of it for almost a year.. Lately, though, I've been too tired to put much effort into finding the right diet as I've already tried so many things that haven't worked..

For the moment, I'm focusing on correcting my sleep pattern which has been completely whacked for a long time..

I also really need to start letting people in.. I've been so worried they'd hurt me the same way I was hurt in the past that I haven't been able to let anyone inside my little protective bubble..

Wow, really good book! Thanks for the link. I read one bit about what unexpected shaming does to us physiologically that seems to explain a type of "anxiety attack/meltdown" that I have experienced maybe a dozen times in my adult life. I never knew exactly what was happening to me before.