Dear Elizabeth,

I am so sorry that your family was so unfair to you, that they treated you like a black sheep and accused of all of their problems. They felt better about themselves when they would put you down and denigrate you:

There was a point in time when everyone took joy out of bashing me. Because i was different i was used as a yard stick for badness. My own siblings would comfort each other by saying you are better off than Elizabeth.

They have also falsely accused you of the things you haven’t done:

I have heard my own father accuse me of lasting after my brother inlaw because i exposed his infidelity. My own sister accusing me of wanting her husband when i had never ever shook hands with him.

My other sister get so pissed that she got laid off instead of me. My father accuse me of being the cause of my sisters being laid off as well as his own retrenchment.

I can imagine how horribly alone and unloved you felt. To experience such bullying and hostility from your own family, from those who were supposed to love you and protect you.

That’s a terrible trauma, Elizabeth, but the good news is that you are determined to help yourself and heal… and you can heal, I promise you.

You said earlier:

When I started my journey of emotional healing I had no idea just how deep the wound run. Because I learnt a long time ago to self soothe, I never really paid attention to my feeling as I felt like me coming unhinged will be a great inconvenience to the people around me.

How did you self-soothe as a child?

I have suffered depression for so long but no one in my family knows. My sister once said to me my feelings are not important enough for them to care about.

That was just one more reason to feel unimportant, unseen, like nobody wants to know you and what’s really going on with you.

So I kept putting Bandages all over my heart. I tucked away and swept everything under a carpet. I never got upset or spoke up about what I wanted because I was worried that they would leave me.

I guess you didn’t dare to express your feelings and stand up for yourself in your adult relationships either? You were hurting but said nothing? That’s why you probably stayed with Christopher for 2 years, while knowing he is rather selfish and wouldn’t be there for you when you needed him.

One of the first steps in healing, besides accepting yourself fully, is to feel all your emotions. It’s best to do it in therapy – to allow yourself to feel your anger and your sadness and your disappointment and your disgust – at various family members for treating you so poorly. You don’t do it to their faces, you don’t knock on their door and start accusing them and attacking them – but you allow yourself to feel your anger in a therapeutic setting. Because validating our emotions is so important for healing.

Anita has already mentioned that your anger at Christopher probably stems from a deeper anger – anger at your own family. You have all the right to be angry at them, and you can process it in therapy. And when you’ve worked on it, you can decide what kind of relationship you want to continue with your family. Are you in touch with them, btw? How is your relationship with them at the moment?

My family scares me. My parents scare me even more.

I can imagine that, specially if you’re a little girl, who needs their protection and soothing, and all she gets is bashing and accusations. Now, as the adult Elizabeth, you have the chance to say No to their abuse and protect yourself. To cut contact even.

My biggest fear is they dont have my back.

They don’t. Not only that, but they are hostile towards you (The things they say about me behind my back are awful.) It seems they behave more like enemies than a loving family. So you’d need to set boundaries in your relationship with your family members – maybe with some of them you need to reduce contact to zero. To protect your mental health, and also to show that you care about yourself, that you value yourself. You are not a doormat for anybody, not even for your family members.