[HALLIEBETH87]

I grew up dealing with emotional/verbal abuse and the isolation that comes with it from family and friends. It sucked. My question is do any of you still have problems coming to grips with the lies you were told and having faith in yourself that goes against everything you heard growing up? I thought I was SO fat and now the size 10 I was then seems perfect to me now (psych meds really did make me gain weight.) I was threatened with my life several times and watched from the living room as she made my Dad teach her how to shoot a shot gun. Guns still scare me...... She would always tell me how my friends were really my friends and they all talk about me behind my back and how if I had brains I 'd be dangerous.

Im single and have been for like 4 years. Im afraid I'll always be alone because I'm no good at relationships. I dont believe I am worth anything when it comes to guys even though my faith says something else about self-worth. The lies used to consume my thinking and thought I am not completely shadowed by them-they do still hurt. I fear my relationships will always suffer from it all.

[Ardmore]

I understand how you feel, I have major trust issues and it really does suck.

But if we keep pushing people away, we may lose the people who could change our lives.

I've learned that the hard way

[alwaysrejoice]

I still hear things in my head that were said to me when I was young. I wonder if these family members realize the damage they were doing at the time.

[Sannah]

Originally Posted by HALLIEBETH87

Im afraid I'll always be alone because I'm no good at relationships.

I dont believe I am worth anything when it comes to guys

The lies used to consume my thinking and thought I am not completely shadowed by them-they do still hurt.

I fear my relationships will always suffer from it all.

These things can be worked through in therapy.

[HALLIEBETH87]

Originally Posted by Sannah

These things can be worked through in therapy.

I have gone to plenty of therapists. And they truly helped me, they did. I stopped seeing one after I got my new job (2 yrs ago) and my work schedule no longer allowed me to see my current therapist. I have wanted to go back to her but never have...

I dont trust to talk to my pastor. He doesnt understand meds etc. He doesnt think people need them. Im too afraid to be honest about all of my stuff

[Sannah]

Can you see a therapist who fits into your work schedule?

[darkpurplesecrets]

((((HALLIEBETH))))

Thank you for posting. I hear what you are saying. The lies continue today and often are all we have ever known. For us it was the truth for so long and it permeated everything in our mind. Because it started before our mind had any chance of knowing what a lie or the truth even was, it became part of who we are. All we knew was what we were told and when nothing else is there to cause question how are we to know it was even a lie? Or to even question anything at all?

Up until just four years ago we lived our lives based upon the only truth we knew. Truth to us was the lies but we did not know that. Trust was something that was never known because for so long we were told trust no one but the ones that abused you and when someone tried to show us anything else it caused great question and doubt inside. Still today it causes great question and doubt but we are learning it is possible to trust now, or at least trying and taking that risk because if we never take that risk we will never know.

Back four years ago our therapist then was the only person we could trust at all, but when seeing her twice a week then going back into the world we lived in made it hard to hold onto that trust at all and when we would see her again it was as if our questions started all over again. She always seemed to be there and listen but when we left her office it would seem as though she disappeared and often we wondered if she was really real in the world we lived in or was she a dream, one that we had always hoped for but just never was. The lies around us were still being enforced daily, so the truths never made any sense when the lies were heard so much more.

I think that trusting first has to come from within ourselves and opening up our own minds to figure out the truth that never was. It is hard but as you walk through what we know and see now as the lies we can slowly change for it did not take a day to get to where we are and it will take more than a day to undo what was done.

Trusting ourselves is hard, one because we never learned we could trust ourselves, I do not think I knew I had a self out a long a system within. And two, I never knew where I began and those that abused me ended. They became such a part of myself that their words became a part of myself also. When you hear it all the time and live it, where does one begin to separate themselves from all that you ever knew?

Constant questions and thoughts that contradict themselves now that I could not see then is what has started to even shed light on the lies that made up our beliefs. As I look around me now and I for the first time am away from the constant re-enforcement of the lies, it is starting to make sense that a little at a time the truths I can see now can be held onto ever so slowly. Still it is hard at times when the lies bare down on me, and that fear that the truth was never to be known screams louder, the questions come all over again.

I think our relationships now scare us because for us we had nothing to compare them to except what we learned. In time, we can begin to trust ourselves, which in turn leads to being able to trust in others. Relationships with men still terrify us and what happened then still haunts us. We never learned to read people or to question them but to just accept them and in that it allows many times for them to overpower us in our fear and distrust, but also our need never to get hurt again.

Relationships with men for us was always about submission and pleasing, even though now we are learning different we did not realize we had any rights at all. Our realization that we had rights often fights with the lies that were ingrained and it contradicts all we were taught. Sometimes the lies still try to scream out louder than any rational thoughts we have now and are learning, but the truth is beginning to make sense little by little and we are beginning to take that new truth and keep ourselves safe.

I hear what you say about being worthy to guys, I know that feeling and that I am nothing to them but what they want. Truth is you are worthy and you do deserve a good relationship one that you feel safe in and one that you are okay with. Sure the lies still hurt and with every right, but in time those lies can be exposed for exactly what they were and are----lies. Give yourself the time you need to sort through the lies and to talk about them and what they were and made you feel. Talking to a t will help there and I hope that you will be able to bring that back into your life.

Halliebeth, you are not alone in what you feel, I hear you and I validate what you are saying, but you are not those lies you were told and they can be changed with truths now. It is hard as I am dealing with so many lies that were told and it is hard to see the truth we should have known then but you are worth knowing the truth, and knowing that you are not the lies you were told. Hold onto that and know that you are not alone. You are being heard, understood, and validated. Keep reaching out and talking about it. We are here for you.

Sending you gentle hugs and loving thoughts. Always.

dps

[HALLIEBETH87]

thanks so much for your loving reply. i have grown a whole whole lot these last 7 years. im still working on trusting.