I’ve never posted in a forum before.
I came across this site by chance and something lead me to article on self love. I’ve struggled all my life with low self worth stemming from an emotionally abusive relationship with my mother. I’ve held down very high functioning jobs and post people would not believe that I had any self esteem problems but I am wracked by self doubt and anxiety. The effects of my abuse came out in dysfunctional relationships where I suffered with mood swings and tantrums and then was surprised when people left me. 17 years ago I met a man who seemed to accept my issues and we got married. I continued with my tantrums and mood swings without any awareness of why I was behaving like that and the effect it was happening to me and yes you guessed it.. he left . I was shocked and had to confront how I had got to that point and so a journey into the awareness about the effect the emotional abuse had on me and the effect on my husband. My husband came back but he was unable to let go of the abuse I had affected on him. He asked me to show me that I had the ability to look after myself rather than use him as an emotional support but I could love myself but I struggled to even do the self like part. So the tables turned because he felt unsupported emotionally he let me know how this sapped him.
So here I am now, I’ve had years of self doubt and low mood. I hate myself for not being able to take steps to make me emotionally whole so I can be a better wife and mother.
I’m in a mess. My emotional upbringing has left me lacking in the emotional support that relationships need. My low self esteem stops ,e taking any self care steps ( actually sabotaging it by overeating ) . My low self worth means I can’t take any steps to sort out what has become an emotionally abusive relationship.
I’m not sure what I’m expecting and as I started typing I wondered why I was doing this. I suppose I saw the bravery of the first post and then the love of the replies.