Dear Lost soul:

This will be a somewhat long post, please have the patience to read it with an open mind.

It is evident that you had therapy in the past, that you read plenty self help books, you know the terms: family roles, core beliefs, learned helplessness and many more. I did too, before I started what I refer to as my healing process, or the healing path,  March 2011. I read plenty, I knew terms, I had a bit of therapy (months, put together). But I was not on the healing path yet.

I asked you in the post before last, “When parents feed, shelter and clothe their child and take away the child the following: hope, courage, the feeling of being wanted and valued, are they doing the child any favors..?”

You answered: “No.. Of course not.. The only imaginable case where it could  be okay would be if the child got those things,  on a consistent basis, from another person or group of people”-

but I didn’t suggest in my question to you that you didn’t receive “hope, courage, the feeling of being wanted and valued”, I wrote: “when the parents take away… hope, courage”, etc.

Reality: you were born with hope and courage, and the feeling of being wanted and valued, or at least, you were born with a strong inclination for these things, and then your parents and siblings took those things away from you. Not that they failed to give you these things; they took those things away from you.

And because those things were taken away from you by acts of verbal aggression, “another person or group of people” can not correct it for a child still is living at home with aggression, being the family chew toy, I think is the way you put it.

“In this mood, I often end up thinking of what I would like to say to my sister, or other family member… I would happily punch her in the face”- in this mood, your feelings fit the reality of your childhood and life afterwards perfectly. You are angry at those who intentionally and aggressively hurt you for many years.

But you “don’t bother/ have never bothered to say these things.. because she would only talk over me or deny the things she has said and done”- you are still in contact with her and within that contact you accommodate her denial of your reality.

“When (we) were children, she was always telling me that no one liked me, that no one could like me, that I was stupid, fat and ugly, that I was driving mom and dad crazy.. the parents seldom called her on what she said… One day, I was feeling a lot of self-hatred”-

You still repress your anger at your sister, and parents and brother, I think. So what happens to your anger? It turns against you, against the victim.

Let’s look at what you shared earlier: “my childhood was not that bad… (So what’s my problem, right?) I wasn’t beaten or molested. There was food, clothing, a roof over my head, and extras like sports… even today, I am still susceptible to the voice in my head.. that tells me that I am the problem.. that it really wasn’t that bad.. I still doubt my reality… doubting my view of my childhood/ family of origin… maybe I was just too sensitive and it wasn’t really all that bad- I just took it all too personally… I also sometimes doubt what I understand about life currently… I’m still clueless as to why this is so. Why others have friends, spouses… yet I’m all alone. I’m clueless and hurt”-

You keep living your childhood experience in the present because you keep doubting that childhood experience. That experience will not go away until you no longer doubt it. It needs to be acknowledged and held in awareness, not acknowledged temporarily and then abandoned.

You were abused in your family of origin, used as a place to dump family members’ frustrations. Your anger toward your parents is justified. Your anger at your siblings now (and ever since they were adults, at the least) is justified.

You have lived your life as if they were correct when they “were always pointing out my flaws, all the things I couldn’t do or do well… these things were really harped on”- and because you believe what they harped on, you don’t want to do much because.. more harping is on the way, delivered if not by your sister currently, then by the mental representative of them all, in your own brain.

Why bother to call a realtor or do anything much if you are going to be harped on yet again…?

anita