Hi Anita,

Okay, I’m just gonna type so sorry if I ramble a bit.

Most of what I remember about my childhood is pretty traumatizing. Maybe not as traumatizing as some people’s experiences, but it was bad enough that I blocked out most of it. From what I can remember, I fought with my parents a lot! I’m talking, at least every night there was some sort of fight. During these fights my mom would either lock herself in the bathroom, while me and my sister begged her to come out, or she would give us the silent treatment, or I would storm off into my room, slam the door and a few minutes later my mom would knock on my door trying to stir things up again. These interactions created a very unsafe, toxic environment.

Because my parents got divorced when I was really young (I was about 1 years old), I figured it never really affected me. I would rather see my parents apart than together because when they’re around each other, they always fight. So I would go see my dad on the weekends with my sister, and that wasn’t really much better either. When I would try to talk to my dad about my feelings, I can’t really remember how he would respond, but if it’s like anything how he is today, he gets irritated at me and makes the situation about himself. There was a time where I had asked my dad help with my math homework, and he got frustrated with me because I myself was frustrated that I didn’t understand. I can’t really remember what lead up to the fight, but when we got in the car, he started shouting, got out of the car, and just started walking around the apartment complex.

As a young girl, I remember always feeling angry but I could never understand why. So how I coped with the emotion was by picking fights with everyone. I remember slapping my babysitter across the face, hitting my younger sister, yelling at my parents and older sister, hitting and yelling at my mom. I was just full of anger, and nobody really helped me understand why. But when I turned about 13, something happened inside me. I stopped externalizing that anger, and started internalizing it. I was so nice to everyone. I didn’t lash out as much to my parents, or my sister. I was very polite to strangers, always afraid of starting conflict. Something inside me just shifted.

But the anger never went away, I just kind of suppressed it. And the times I do see it, is when I’m in romantic relationships. I lash out, and I become just down right mean.

I really want to dig deep and find the root cause for all this anger, and resentment. When going to therapy the main thing I wanted to discuss with her were my parents, and how they treated me. My childhood was nothing but trauma, and some hellish nightmare. Sure I got toys, and cool gadgets, but emotionally I got nothing. It leaves me feeling empty, unwanted, and just unloved. I kind of hate my parents, because even to today they still don’t see it. They still don’t see the damage that they caused, and it sucks. I’ve tried talking to them about this, and both of them just stare at me. My dad has apologized, but it really didn’t do anything. I’m still angry at them.

My therapist would always say: “They did the best they could” and I’m sure they did. But it still doesn’t take the pain away. It still doesn’t explain why I feel like this everyday. Like, I wanted / want to heal from my past, but we didn’t even go over any of that. So, I’m just supposed to forget about it, tell myself they did the best they could, and move on? I don’t find any peace of mind doing that. I either wallow in what happened, or keep trying to find answers as to why I feel so empty, and have no clue who I am.

phew, that was a lot haha. If you need to know anything more just let me know (:

Hi Anita,

I’m glad to have met someone who has experienced the feelings of being less than others and has found a way to lessen the feeling. If I understood correctly, the feeling of being less than will not go away entirely, but can be lessened over time by creating new neurological pathways (different thoughts) for that emotion? I’ve heard of CBT before but never really tried to change my thinking. I just let the old tapes (thoughts) re-run themselves.

What I find truly interesting about what you wrote is understanding this on an emotional / deep level. I know that intellectually I am not less than anybody, nobody is, but I can’t seem to really convince myself (or my mind) that I really am enough. How do we understand more on an emotional level? Is it just something that the mind will eventually grasp after creating different pathways and new ways of thinking?

Selkie, I really try not to. She (the therapist) really helped me in some ways, like becoming a little more aware of myself, but I do agree that I feel that at times she would get impatient with me. I think going back into therapy would be a good idea, I would just need to maybe find a different therapist. I just feel like there’s still a lot that I haven’t really uncovered / discovered about myself, even after going to therapy for a while.

Anita, Yes! I would definitely agree with that’s where the anxiety comes from. When I’m at work (I work in retail), I’m always anxious that a customer is going to come up to me and start arguing, get angry, or say something that I don’t know how to respond to. I think that’s why I’m always wanting to be in the back where I don’t have to be around customers, when I actually really do like helping people. I do beat myself up about little things too, like missing a day of working out, or not being productive enough throughout the day. All these restless thoughts are exhausting *sigh*.

Thank you so much for the questions, and advice. I really do think I need to start bringing in more fun moments into my life since most of it has been focused too much on work. I’m going to make it an effort to incorporate new and fun activities into my life that way it gives me some downtime and opportunities to explore.  Thank you again for your help (: