[Swingset321]

I want to try and make sense of my past because it is creeping up in my present reality and in my current relationship. With how I react/respond to the littlest situations and feel a huge sense of guilt about people and situations that have nothing to do with me. I'm also in my first relationship now (I'm 25) with a partner, of 2 years, whose patience I test all the time because I constantly try and push him away (in every imaginable way). But he says he wants to stick around, so I want to be better for him, as much as myself.

So I've decided that the first step for my recovery is to write it down. To get it outside of me so that I can see it on paper and begin to understand where my emotions are coming from, so that I can move on.

Confusion is the word that pops into my head when thinking of my past, now. I'm confused about what is normal. Also the words scared, isolation, then numbness. I just am unable to fully articulate my emotions when I have to verbally tell my story. I was never good with speaking words but do pretty well with writing, weirdly.

One major theme that I think is pretty representative of my past & present is my hunger for affection. It is so much inside of me this want for love. I felt almost starved for it from a young age. My mom has said that when I was 2/3 I would just demand to be held from her male friends. Which she says is why she thought I wanted a father so badly. Which is why my mom says she stayed with my eventual stepdad, a man 20+ years older, when I was 2. She said she did it for me. There relationship from the beginning was unhealthy, in middle school my mom told me the first night that he stayed over he had r**** her & a pregnancy resulted which she terminated. Over the next 10 years that my mom was with my stepdad I gained three siblings and she lost another child.

As time continued my mom and stepdad's relationship grew more and more vile and there was constant fighting. I always sided with my mom and saw her as the victim. She is here in this country alone, no family/friends and my stepfather kept us completely isolated by moving us to a smaller town in a different state. My mom worked tirelessly trying to provide for all of us and my stepdad always demanded more from her. As there fighting escalated I became involved & fought back for my mom. Told my stepdad what he was doing was wrong. But I was not as strong as him at the time I was still a kid, 9, 10, 11, 12. His reaction to my fighting back was to make me feel like I was nothing. That I was a disgusting, crazy, out of control child and tried to keep my siblings away from me. And, you know what I think that he was so convincing that my mom started to believe it too. At certain points I remember her using the same language that my stepdad used against me, I was trash, garbage, nothing.

By the time I was 12/13 I had full blown anorexia & had to be hospitalized. My stepfather was not only a superstitious racist (ironic because he is white & my mom Taiwanese), but was very scared of sickness. So as my health deteriorated he increasingly kept himself & my siblings away from me. After I got out of the hospital my mom finally got a restraining order against my stepdad. She said I saved her life so now she would save mine.

Recovery from my ED was motivated more from guilt & obligation. My mom now was a single parent fighting a nasty custody battle for my three siblings that took another solid 6-7 years and marked by mom's new relationships, police visits, lawyers, court psychologists, social workers, and my outpatient treatment.

Today my stepdad is out of all our lives for the most part (save the occasional texts on holidays to my sibs). My mom is in a new healthy relationship & I am physically healthy. I am an emotional train wreck at times though and find it very difficult to open myself up to people, even counselors. So I want to use this forum as an exercise for myself to lay it all out there. I have not spoken to my mom honestly about my feelings yet, that just may be the last step. But this forum will be the first step in me being comfortable and okay with talking about my feelings.

[LaborIntensive]

I came from a great deal of fighting back and forth with mom and dad too. It's hard to train yourself to see what the triggers are when your interacting with someone. I notice that I shy away from loud sounds, violence of any kind and in a relationship I will rather leave and never come back to a woman who decides to start yelling or acting in a strange way with me. This way I avoid hurt and go back to what I do best which is living alone.

But we are all so different as human beings that the only good rule is to do unto others always. I always treat people as I want to be treated and when that fails I walk away from them or the situation. Perhaps this is the "wrong approach" but I know that while everyone cheers watching a street fight I am the guy who wants to break it up (did it in school) or I walk away knowing that most people are utter fools.

I don't know if this helps but I congratulate you on wanting to see these issues and working on making yourself better in interacting with others. Be forgiving, listen and be sure to be there for the ones you love. At the same time be strong, stand for yourself and never go on the attack.

[Swingset321]

Thank you for your words they are helpful because your reply is helping me to think/process! And yes it is hard identifying triggers. I am noticing though that I am highly reactive when I notice someone is even just a little upset. I'll go overboard and then a recording in my head will turn on and I'll start to think if I've done something wrong and then I shut down. So I do not do well with confrontation of any kind (a complete 180 from when I was younger: when I was about 3-6 years old I was known to like hurting other kids) and as my partner says I have a complete emotional shutdown or 'stonewall' him when he is trying to express his feelings. He calls it my 'blank face' and that I just am expressionless. On the other hand at times I feel like I have no control of my emotions around my partner and its emotion overload. Which is why I know I have to figure out what these triggers are, by exploring my past traumas/experiences, and where they are coming from so I can have healthier relationships.

Originally Posted by LaborIntensive

I came from a great deal of fighting back and forth with mom and dad too. It's hard to train yourself to see what the triggers are when your interacting with someone. I notice that I shy away from loud sounds, violence of any kind and in a relationship I will rather leave and never come back to a woman who decides to start yelling or acting in a strange way with me. This way I avoid hurt and go back to what I do best which is living alone.

But we are all so different as human beings that the only good rule is to do unto others always. I always treat people as I want to be treated and when that fails I walk away from them or the situation. Perhaps this is the "wrong approach" but I know that while everyone cheers watching a street fight I am the guy who wants to break it up (did it in school) or I walk away knowing that most people are utter fools.

I don't know if this helps but I congratulate you on wanting to see these issues and working on making yourself better in interacting with others. Be forgiving, listen and be sure to be there for the ones you love. At the same time be strong, stand for yourself and never go on the attack.

[LaborIntensive]

Heh, heh, sound like me...Blankface. I do this to. It's because your trying so hard to listen and understand all the while processing it against past issues that were similar and how you handled them and what outcomes occurred from them. I know this to well. Some people are bothered by it but it is normal for analytical minds to do this in conversations. I too play dumb rather than get into to many confrontations.

[Swingset321]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one then and thank you for your explanation, it makes sense!

Originally Posted by LaborIntensive

Heh, heh, sound like me...Blankface. I do this to. It's because your trying so hard to listen and understand all the while processing it against past issues that were similar and how you handled them and what outcomes occurred from them. I know this to well. Some people are bothered by it but it is normal for analytical minds to do this in conversations. I too play dumb rather than get into to many confrontations.

[Lacy Rose]

I definitely do the "blank face" too. It bothers my husband that I close down at even the hint of confrontation or conflict. I can't help it though...
When we have been exposed to so much at such a young age... how do we learn to deal with conflict? Recovery is so hard!