*I just noticed that you submitted two posts today, Oct 4. This post that I am about to submit,  is what I typed before noticing your new posts, thinking that you may not post again. I will submit a 2nd post following this one.

Dear Sadlyconfused:

* Soon to be Contentedly clear, I hope!

“I had a father who(se)…  cruelty and criticism towards/of me really amped up when she died and could no longer protect me from it. I grew up in a very misogynistic environment and walked on eggshells…. I do carry a lot of shame and fear in me…  I’ve harshly judged myself all my life…I became a massive people pleaser to get through it, which has been really difficult to emerge from as it’s pretty much been my identity my whole life. Without it, who actually am I? What do I stand for?… people naturally assumed that my easy-going, people pleasing habit was my core personality, rather than the trauma response that it really was… I didn’t tell my husband that I was weaning off anti-depressants which I feel was a massive communication error on my part, as my poor behaviour had no explanation. I have such a bad habit of just trying to deal with things alone, as though it’s something shameful“-

As an adult, you rightfully, I am sure, labeled your father a misogynist, which suggests that you know that many of his opinions about girls and women were wrong. But as a child, your father was a superior being, a god (to the child that you were),  and what he said about you was the word of god. He told you in so many ways that there is something terribly wrong with you,  you naturally believed him, and shame (the belief that there is something terribly wrong with you) took hold, a core belief was formed.

The hallmark of shame is a constant, vigilant, painful awareness of  mistakes made/ wrongdoings committed: often imagined mistakes and wrongdoings, and in regard to real mistakes and wrongdoings: they always appear, to the shame based individual, much bigger than they are.

Your last post, Sept 29, after submitting a post with lots of extra print, was: “Oh my word, what did I do to the formatting in that last post?! Sorry“- the excess print happens in my posts when I copy from an online source and paste it on tiny buddha, so I am sure that the excess print was not your fault, not a result of a mistake you made. But see how you reacted: seeing a mistake where there was none, seeing it as a huge mistake, automatically taking responsibility for it and apologizing. That was your last post: maybe that imagined (wrongly perceived) mistake was too much to bear…?

Believing that you are (as I believed about myself) a … sort of Mistake Monster, you walk on eggshells, being very cautious, careful, alert, not wanting the monster to do what it does: huge, terrible mistakes that will hurt people and bring you punishment. Any word you say can be a mistake… so you stay quiet, any deed that you do can be a mistake, so you watch everything you do, careful.

anita