Can't Let Myself Be Happy

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This topic has 22 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 6 months ago by Anonymous.

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April 7, 2016 at 2:32 pm #101208

Ruthie
Participant

Hi Gigi,
I can’t say I know how you feel, as we all have our different experiences. However, I do know what it is like to feel unloved and abused by a parental figure. I’ve spent most of my life not loving myself. The destructive choices that I have made as a result of that, have colored my life in a way that I could and did feel ashamed of for many years. I wish I could reach through this computer and put my arms around you and let you know what a beautiful person you are. What is so empowering to know, is that when someone mistreats us, it has everything to do with them. It is not to say that we do not own our own behavior, however, it is to say, that each person chooses how they will treat others. Today, when people mistreat me, I realize it is coming from a place within them, where they are hurting. HURT PEOPLE, HURT PEOPLE. I love myself today in a way I never thought possible, after much re-parenting and lots of soul searching. It has radically changed my life. I have started a health and healing center for women. My primary focus is on helping women learn to love themselves. When we learn to love ourselves it radically changes our lives. Your mother sounds wounded to her core. People can’t give away what they don’t have. You needed and still need the love of your mother and for whatever reason(s) she is unable to give that to you.
That is not a reflection of your beauty and worth, it is a reflection of how she feels about herself. I could go on and on as to all the reasons people hurt each other. I just want to leave you with this……
You are a beautiful creation, forever changing. Be true to yourself and restore you inner peace. Know that you can become what you choose and that you have a purpose. You are the only you there is and you are pure love, light and innocence. We are all blank canvasses when we are born and we are born pure love and innocence. Unfortunately, we all have had people write on our canvasses with untruths about who we are. Know that your mother was lied to too and she is operating our of her own pain. Your mother’s real core, believe it or not, is pure love, light and innocence. I prayer that you find healing and love for yourself, because you are worthy of being loved, we all are.

Ruthie

April 8, 2016 at 6:32 am #101260
Gigi
Participant
Thank you! I guess I struggle a lot with self love. Even if I get the positive thoughts in my head they are quickly turned around into a negative. It could be as simple as a stranger staring and me and I automatically start to freak out. At times I feel like I don’t even exist. For example, whenever I’m at a store and someone Is handing out samples, I am Always ignored, every single time! I feel like as I got older I grew out of my awkwardness and felt reasonably attractive. I would receive attention from men but whenever I fell for them or decided to get intimate they usually disappeared. I know relationships aren’t just about looks and I was probably a little desperate but I couldn’t help but blame it on my looks. This only led me to be more wild. I had almost all my friends turn their back on me and it’s also hard not to blame myself. Sure some thought I was a little strange but I was always up for having fun and always there for my friends. Sure enough, every year at school I would find out friends were trashing me behind my back, or just straight up told me our friendship was over. Even my friends from my hometown stopped responding to my calls and messages. It still bothers me to this day. One in particular I lived with sophomore yr in college and knew from high school. She decided to tell me I had to move out within a couple months because I was not trying to be part of the roommate family.
After graduation, she said she had more important real world obligations and didn’t have time for me. She has tried to come back and message me but it hurts too much to respond. My other close friend from the past couple years I mentioned upthread. She would demand I pick up her kids, buy her groceries, and got mad at me when I moved in with my new boyfriend and cut me off. Back to during college i was in a sorority and had most of them dump me because my abusive ex was a fraternity president and they wanted to be on their good side. I have a couple friends who have been long term that have told me they admire me and parts of my life so I used to attribute the way I was treated to jealousy, but I literally would not be able to believe that so many people would be jealous when I am really pretty average! I would like to be able to reach out to people now and not blame myself if they do not deliver as a friend. And do the same in my romantic life.

Love Gigi
- This reply was modified 8 years, 7 months ago by Gigi.
April 8, 2016 at 12:41 pm #101307

Ruthie
Participant

Hi Gigi,

I am sure you have heard it said, that the most important relationship we can have is with ourselves. If we have a mindset that we are not loveable, that we’re different, strange, whatever the case may be, this is the energy and intention that we put out there. We basically shoot ourselves in the foot, so to speak. People, even on an unconscious level, pick up our energy and respond accordingly. If you put out the energy that you are an awesome beautiful women (and believe it, because it is true) and when I say beautiful, I am NOT referring to the external vessel (our body) I am referring to the very depths of your soul, you will find people drawn to you. We have a tendency to sabotage our relationships with others by our faulty beliefs about ourselves. Our body language is so powerful and it speaks directly from the mind. When you love yourself (not for anything great that you have done) but love yourself, the good bad and ugly, just as you are and really wrap your arms around yourself, you will begin to glow in a way that can not be hidden. Know that we need to learn to love ourselves based on nothing external, but for the beauty that we were created to be. Now that I have self-love, I look at people entirely different. I am no longer looking for someone to complete me, make me feel good about myself, or to get something from them that I feel I may be lacking. I look at all people through the eyes of love and compassion. I have all the love I need inside me. The love we are all looking for lies right inside us. When our self-love in nurtured, it makes it possible to actually see others as to how we may bless them in their pain. We don’t allow ourselves to be disrespected, and if we are, we are able to respond in a healthy way, rather than react in a negative way. We realize, their mistreatment of us has to do with their own demons. I encourage you this week, to walk up straight and tall, smile as you look at people, hold your held up high and believe that you are worth loving yourself. Put on positive energy and put it out there and see what happens, you might find it miraculous. Sending you love.

Ruthie

May 3, 2016 at 6:10 pm #103498

Gigi
Participant

Hello all, I wanted to revive this to ask one more thing without starting a new topic. My boyfriend and I got into a really emotional discussion tonight about parents and I am still hurting from not what he said but just the way I upset him. We got on the topic because we were talking about a coworker who is like a father figure to him was discussing his love life with my boyfriend. I said that’s a little strange and unprofessional, but he is also having the same discussions with his mom. His father passed away a year ago but they had been separated since he was young. His mom has been remarried for over 20 years now to someone who is kind of a jerk on the surface but is supposedly abusive behind closed doors. My boyfriend got into a fight with the husband a few years ago before I was in the picture, but he still visits the house to see the mom and his half sister.
His mom now routinely calls my bf to complain about her husband, and the sister has told us that he has hit the mom on several occasions and kicked her out of the bedroom. However, the sister is very loving to her father when we go over there so I don’t know what to believe. The mom just complains that she hates him, but won’t leave or go to the police. My boyfriend has said that if he hurts the sister, he will drive to their house and have a physical confrontation. I said this is completely unacceptable as he would be breaking the law and jeopardizing our relationship, even though I do understand. I don’t like the fact that his mom constantly complains, but we have to act like everything is okay. She already did not let my boyfriend have a childhood by making him work to pay her bills. I love her but I think he should let her fix her own problems. This brought up how I said I do not love my parents, but they still financially supported me. He was in no way supported by her. He keeps telling me I need to change my mind because of the regrets he has losing his dad. I understand this too, but it doesn’t change my feelings about my parents.
He keeps asking my hypothetical questions like would I let my mom move in with us if she lost everything. I still say I am not sure. He said that is the difference between us because he would do it, and he knows I’m not that heartless. I guess we just come from such different backgrounds and we cannot understand each other on the topic. I’m okay with helping his family out if needed, but not when they can’t help themselves. I feel so lost and sad that I hurt him when I know this is a sensitive subject for him, what should I do f?

Gigi

May 3, 2016 at 6:51 pm #103501

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Gigi:

The hypothetical situation of his mother living with you and your boyfriend feels to me like a bad, bad idea. I wouldn’t like it if I was you, and from reading your post, you wouldn’t like it either. So, if I was you, I would tell your boyfriend that this wouldn’t be acceptable for you. Of course, in the-end-of-the-world scenario, lots of exceptions will be made, but until the end of the world, no one’s mother is welcome (says I!)

anita

May 3, 2016 at 6:59 pm #103503

Gigi
Participant

Anita, That made me smile 🙂 Thank you! I would hope that it’s one of those scenarios but it felt all too real when we were discussing the state of her household. Maybe I am just not an understanding person but the hypothetical represents so much, mainly that it’s okay for her to not take care of herself and set a good example. My boyfriend said he now believes family is the most important thing even though he is estranged from the entire rest of his family… I definitely am considering how I would feel down the road if she were to need ongoing financial support even though I love my boyfriend very much.

May 3, 2016 at 7:47 pm #103507

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Gigi:

Glad I made you smile! Your boyfriend still sees his mother and his family the way he wished they were, not the way they are. You have a clear enough view of his mother, but he is blind, as sons often are. No one more than a child, into adulthood and even old age, is more invested in seeing the parents in the best possible way, no matter how removed from the truth.

So it can be crazy making to a person, like you, willing to see the… inadequacies of your own parents while you see your boyfriend’s blindness and future plans to reward his mother for her dysfunction and bad mothering.

I wonder if you can sit with him, soon or in the future, and write down rules you both agree about. If the two of you are committed to each other as life partners, when you are, make the rules together regarding the contact and accommodations between you as a couple and his mother (and other relatives as needed), including money affairs. So you agree ahead of time and don’t have to dread the What Ifs.

You wrote in your post this evening that you are worried that you hurt him, but boundaries with his mother need to be discussed and agreed upon at some time even if it is distressing to him. The thing is, avoid unnecessary arguments and comment and stick to what is practical. Just take care of business.

anita

May 3, 2016 at 8:03 pm #103509

Anonymous
Guest

Oh, and Gigi, be gentle with your boyfriend. You can’t change the way he sees his mother. He is still that little by attached to her, still looking up to her. As maddening as it is, if you choose to be with him, be gentle with him AND be assertive. Both.
anita
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