Dear Anita,

“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, meaning, is it worth it, for the child?”

No. (Sad smile.) Of course not. How could it be? 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 in their life… that does sometimes happen for some children.

I’m having a less than great day today due to a health issue I won’t name here. (It’s chronic yet mostly manageable but also a bit rare and not well-known.) Though not brain-related, it affects neuro-transmitter levels, and puts me in an irritable mood in which negative memories surface and my thoughts tend to repeat. In this mood, I often end up thinking of what I would like to say to my sister, or other family member. I don’t bother/have never bothered to say these things IRL because she would only talk over me or deny the things she has said and done. (But when I’m in this mood, I would happily punch her in the face. And I feel like that would be the least of what she deserves for how she treated me growing up.) She thinks all/any of my problems are either my own fault or perhaps caused by our father. As an adult, she has told me that I’m my own problem, that she deserved to have children and implied that I didn’t deserve them or a husband, etc. When 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 with all my problems and needed to shut up and stop bothering them. Every day it was some nasty, hurtful comment or other. What floors me is the parents seldom called her on what she said and didn’t acknowledge the impact of it. Sometimes they told her to shut up, but this was typically at times like when they were driving and needed to focus on traffic. I always wondered why they never thought, “Whoa, what is wrong with this kid? Why is she always saying nasty stuff to her little sister? We need to take a good look at her, figure where this is coming from, and put a stop to her behavior.” Especially since, as the older we got, kids who knew both of us would say, “Jeez ‘Mary’, you’re really mean to your sister.”

Of course they had plenty of their own reasons why they never thought these things. They were both fairly estranged from their own families. My dad was bullied by an older sibling and this factored heavily into his having a poor self-image, a huge chip on his shoulder, and a hair-trigger temper. Neither of my parents were at peace with their estrangements but instead greatly absorbed with resentment to the point where it occupied their thoughts. (And sadly, I’m now repeating their behavior. Sigh!)

One day, I was feeling a lot of self-hatred but had a moment of detachment from my thoughts and decided to google ‘self-hatred’ in an attempt to figure out where it comes from. I found an interesting blog on it written by a therapist.

Dear Anita,

Thank you. Again, you make many of my points for me.

The “I don’t know why my parents ever had me” was not meant as a literal question; it’s what I thought as a child around ages 8 – 12 years old. There were entire stretches of days where no one in the family spoke to me civilly or engaged with me in any positive way. (Just to be clear, I have two siblings: a brother and a sister.)

Yes, I pretty much was the family scapegoat as child and served the purposes you described. Later as I got older, I couldn’t handle being the scapegoat anymore, so I stayed in my room a lot and tried to avoid attention as much as possible, and I morphed into being the lost child in terms of dysfunctional family roles. The mystery comment was said in recent times, but what’s ironic is that at about the same time, my sister suggested I look into finding a meetup group for people who are highly sensitive… I have never discussed being HSP with her, so she does understand me on some level to have even come up with that, lol.

Our parents have passed, and I’m not concerned about cutting contact with the siblings because what contact there is is minimal. “Question now is how can you live a different life than your role in your family of origin, a role you didn’t choose.” Yeah, I guess that’s one way of framing it. I despair of finding a life, a way of living, that I want to live. All I ever wanted for the most part was to find someone to love and be loved by, get married and have my own family, and that has never worked out for me. My longest relationship was only 2.5 years. And now that I’m too old to have kids, I don’t know how hard I want to work to make a relationship work. I tried hard in those relationships, the best I knew how that is, to make them work and they failed, mostly with the guy ending it. In hindsight, I put up with getting very little while giving a lot, which was, after all, what I learned at home. (For the record, I have an anxious attachment style and most of these guys had an avoidant attachment style.) After the last one, I was heartbroken and felt wrecked by the rejection. I said to myself and the few people who would listen, “I don’t want to date anyone for a loooooong time.” And I haven’t. I don’t have a sense that I’m worth very much to anyone. Even though I know, logically, I am one of about 8 billion people on this planet and all types of people with all types of problems—criminal records, mentally illness, history of drug/alcohol abuse—get married, have kids, and find new relationships after previous relationships have failed, I don’t see much possible for me. I can’t see myself as worthy or attractive to anyone other than, say, someone looking for a meal ticket or someone to take advantage of. “She’s okay; I’ll put up with her for now… until someone or something better comes along… or until she gets too annoying.”

Hopefully no one says to me now, “What, so you think you’re nothing without a man?” No, it’s what I wanted. And what’s wrong with that? (I’m tired of people making me wrong/mocking me for wanting what I want, for wanting a normal life, to be treated well, to have what most people do want—this started with my family.)

Lost soul

Dear Anita,

“… too many people deny the reality of their childhood, viewing it from the imagined parents’ point of view, (“my parents did the best they could”), not from the real  child’s point of view, (that would read something like: I was mistreated, I suffered a lot).”

Yes, exactly. And I’ve always wondered: why does only the parents’ point of view matter, and not the bewildered child’s? The parents are adults who have the benefit of maturity and experience; the child has no frame of reference for what happens to them: they only know what they have experienced and how they feel subsequently—they can’t even explain their own thinking processes yet.

“I heard a counselor saying: everyone is doing their best at all times, every single person… whatever it is that he or she is doing.”

I’ve also heard this from a therapist, and there is a certain sort of logic to it, but I’m not convinced that logic extends to every situation. Is a person committing the act of murder doing their best? I suppose someone could make an argument this is true, yet it makes no difference to the victim in question.

“A child feels all alone in her distress and so, the suffering is not comparable to another.”

True, I felt very alone in my distress. Plus, my siblings enjoyed seeing my distress, which made the world feel even more hostile.

Anita, I’m not sure how to continue this thread at this point… I should probably look for a therapist, although I despair of finding a decent one. The last couple I tried wouldn’t even give me a regular appointment time; every week, both the day and time varied. (To anyone reading this—is this how therapy is now in 2019? When I went to therapy years ago, I always had the same hour on the same day of the week.) And that’s in addition to the fact that neither of them was helpful nor empathetic. It’s frustrating putting in a lot of effort to end up not getting help. But not seeking help isn’t an option either, so try I must.

This is what I know for sure: I am good, well-meaning person. I am not perfect, of course: I can get irritable and crabby when things go wrong or I’m under the weather, but I generally mean well, and want to get along with others and live a decent life. I am worth something. I have worth equal to any other human being. I believe I am worthy of being loved by someone, even if that someone never materializes. I have a loving heart and much love and joy to share. I know I’ve been a good friend, a good partner, a good aunt, and a good daughter. When I took care of each of my parents in their final days, I had several people at both the hospital and nursing home tell me they wished their adult children showed up 1/10^th as often and took care of them as kindly as I did.

I believe I have value, even if my value is never seen, known, appreciated or returned to me in any fashion. But I’m still clueless as to why this is so. Why others have friends, spouses, children, and extended families that care about them and rally around them, yet I am all alone. I’m clueless and hurt.

Lost soul

Dear Anita,

I do see your point… in fact, you are making my points for me. 🙂 I’m just very used to people–including a few therapists I’ve seen–telling me my childhood wasn’t all that bad and that my parents did the best they could. Sometimes and in some ways they did well enough, other times and in other ways, they didn’t… like the time I was forced by my mom to try on underwear over my clothing in the middle of a store, otherwise she wouldn’t buy it for me. She definitely wasn’t doing her best as a parent in that moment.  Also I’ve had friends who WERE molested or, say, usually found their mom passed out drunk when they came home from school. I can’t claim I had things as bad as some others did; I can only say my childhood was hard for me.

I’m glad you understand that “cookies don’t make up for cruelty;” they certainly don’t. The thing is, even today, I am still susceptible to the voice in my head (programmed by my family) that tells me that I am the problem, that I need to toughen up, get over it, and that it really wasn’t that bad. When I have bad days or go through tough times, I still doubt my reality. Everyone else (my siblings) functions just fine; I’m the one who can never get things together… at least not very well or for very long.

I’ll try to write more tomorrow. It’s been a long week. Some things improved or got accomplished, some others got worse or didn’t get tackled. I get overwhelmed so easily, sigh. Thanks for responding.

Lost soul

Thank you – Anita, Peggy, Brandy and Inky – for replying. Sorry it’s taken me a few days to respond. I’ve avoided coming here the past two days because even on an anonymous forum, I’m afraid of how people will react to me.

Anita – what you wrote sounds a lot like me. Off and on, but pretty through much my whole life, I have felt excruciatingly lonely and removed from life, like I just don’t belong. And many times I feel like I don’t even exist. Was your loneliness like this–that is, lifelong?

Brandy – thank you, just thank you!

Inky – I do things on my list… just not the difficult ones. The past few days, I shampooed all the carpeting in my home, which is not hard in itself, but moving all the furniture and putting it back makes it a lengthy process. I also made myself exercise every day and even forced myself to go out for a bagel one morning. But what I really should be doing is interviewing and hiring a realtor, a tax professional / financial planner and possibly a lawyer. And then start looking for a new place to live. But I had the excuse of a holiday weekend (I’m in the U.S.) to not do any of those. I also should have gone out shopping for groceries, but oh well, tomorrow will be soon enough.

Peggy – thank you for your reply. I’m mentally exhausted/overwhelmed rather than physically so. It’s interesting you mentioned Bach flower remedies. I had never tried them before but randomly bought myself one of them (“Wild Rose”) back in February when I was visiting the health food store… and then I never used it! After reading your message, I decided to take it, and I did feel better for most of the day.

I asked if I can ask for what I need because I’ve shared a bit on other support forums and got responses like, “God, you’re a mess,” “Pick yourself up by your bootstraps” and “Get over yourself.” I don’t find that kind of response helpful, however well-intentioned it might be. What I need is warmth, reassurance, and just knowing people care. I don’t have that in my life now, and never had it growing up.