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Ann.
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May 29, 2015 at 1:07 am #77454
AnnParticipantTo describe me the best, am a woman who lived for 26 years who was stuck in the same environment and apparently has a quarter life crisis. I have always been an excellent day dreamer. This was key to my existence during the early years of my life. I was born as an only child to the couple who clearly hated children and seized the opportunity to crush a baby soul who was defenseless. I was told that am the reason for all the unhappiness happened to my parents and to the world as a whole. I was physically, emotionally and verbally abused on a daily basis, sometimes at a busy supermarket or during a late night sleep. Little did i know what these memories will do to me as an adult. I was an intelligent and a shy kid back at school and had a keen interest in literature. Education was important to me so that i can get a job and stay away from a family who didn’t love me. It happened during early teen ages. I started finding difficult in studies and feeling ill with symptoms. My parents dodged off all my worries and said i was faking it all. It took me more than 10 years to finally figure out what being “tired” and “depressed” meant. I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and PCOS. By that time all my dreams had been turned into ashes and irreversible. I didn’t do well in college, jobless and still living off my parents who feels i deserve the ill fate. Now i realize that life doesn’t go the way we planned it and hitting rock bottom is always liberating. Sometimes i feel little sad when i look around and see my friends move up the ladder in life with little “push” from their parents, fall in love, get married, have kids, some embark long distance travel. But my life had the same routine for two and a half decades. I have panic attacks, anger issues, sleeping trouble, depression. I am so tired of pretending and trying for a “change”. Nothing is happening so far. If given a choice i would happily die and getting taunted by parents.
May 29, 2015 at 7:21 am #77462
JacquelineParticipantI to had a dysfunctional upbringing. I wMany times I wished I could fall asleep and never wake up. I was always sick and depressed. My thoughts were negative and I had no self esteem and felt worthless. I always felt I wasn’t worth loving since my parents didn’t love me.
I had to change my thoughts. I started practicing positive thoughts, started eating healthier and my eyes opened to the fact that how my parents acted was a reflection of themselves and was not my fault.
I learned to love who I am and hold my chin up high.Everything your parents did was not your fault. Take the time and change your thinking and learn to love who you are. It takes practice but as long as your moving forward than your doing good.
May 29, 2015 at 8:43 am #77464
AnonymousGuestDear lavender27:
What you are describing here is a serious, long term childhood trauma, injury to your person. Healing of such ongoing trauma can not possibly in my view be anything but a long process. It is not possible to just change your thoughts and move on. No easy fixes. Embarking on the process of healing is a choice you may have already made, maybe you need to choose it again, with more commitment?You describe your childhood and current situation in a no BS way, just as it was and is. I like that you do. It means to me that you are not as foggy as you could have been. You have some clarity. You wrote that you are tired of pretending. Well, you are not pretending in your post. It may be a good start in an ongoing process of healing: to no longer pretend.
What do you think of starting or re-starting your process of healing? How about a plan? One step at a time (some step along the way would be having no contact with the parents you were so unfortunate to be born to/ those who injured and continue to injure you)?
anitaMay 29, 2015 at 8:52 am #77466
satchiParticipantHello Lavender,
I am so sorry that you are in such pain.I send you warm hugs and positive energy.
You sound like a gentle soul who has been trampled upon by others. And it sounds to me like you are down in the dumps so to speak.
The only way now is UP. Please do not give up.
Your words reflect your state of mind. If you were my sister then this is the advise i would give her. It is not my intention to judge you…but just to offer you some new thoughts.>It seems that right now you are wallowing in self pity. Yes you can grieve the past but not continue to live in it.Push forward.
There will ALWAYS be people who have it all, are much better off than you. Try not to compare yourself with others. It always will make you feel worse.You are a living breathing human with unique thoughts.There can be no one else like you!YOU ARE ENOUGH!>Push the negative thoughts away.May be schedule a time period like say an hour a day, of allowing and acknowledging those thoughts then bundle them up and put them in the attic for another day. Make a list of what makes you happy. Try and do at least some of those activities daily.Especially when you start to feel down.Distract your mind.
>Be a part of something bigger than yourself. Be less interested in you,and more interested in the world around you.
Find some way to serve others less fortunate than you.Find like minded people.This will definitely help you find happiness.>There is no blue print for life, no rules set in stone. No guarantees or promises.The only thing you can do is love yourself just the way you are.
……………………
PS: While typing this out I came across a very nice article on the subject we are discussing.I thought I would share the link with you.
http://markmanson.net/life-purpose#.ene14c:gl7Elove,
free soulMay 29, 2015 at 2:08 pm #77474AnnParticipant@gogetem I am really sorry to hear that you went through the same too. Yes, what negative people do reflects their mentality not ours. Like you even i try to move forward but you see sometimes i go back to zero again because its not so easy to keep resisting the negative thoughts. Keep up your good job.
@Anita You nailed it! Thank you for reminding me again that healing is not easily done which i realized as i have been trying for over an year to get out of the trauma. The other day while having a casual conversation with a matured woman (she was abused like me as a child by her parents) who told me that “Dysfunction breeds dysfunction”. She went on to tell me that though she was a better parent to her children, at times she involuntarily followed the pattern she has seen in her family. Her words resonated in my mind. Honestly, i can’t think of me doing the same to my kids in future. Still i wish to eliminate any demons in me. By the way you are right about making a new plan for my healing process. My therapist also believes that i don’t need any medicines but a change of environment as an easily affected by my parents negativity. Thank you for your time.
@free soul Thank you very much for the tips. I’m sorry i looked like a very self centered whiner in the above post. I understand there is always someone who is going through worst than you. Today after my first post i was trying to control my nose bleed and was very low. Then i came across the news about Iraqi women and their torture at the hands of IS. I always volunteer charities and looking forward for a day when i can independently work for the well being of those who are less privileged.Thank you all for taking time to go through the post as i find it easy to vent here than catching up with a friend. It is because only those gone through the same trauma understand it better.
May 29, 2015 at 2:25 pm #77475AnnParticipantI also have trouble controlling my emotions. For example, one day i was reading this short novel where the master was kicking his servant through a door from behind. I got teared up reading it because it sounds familiar to me (i used to get kicked that way). And it is difficult to explain this to someone without them judging me.
May 29, 2015 at 4:17 pm #77478AnonymousGuestDear lavender27:
You are very welcome. Regarding another’s comment to your post: “It seems that right now you are wallowing in self pity.” and your response to that comment: “I’m sorry i looked like a very self centered whiner in the above post.”- this is my thoughts about this:I re- read your original post and I did not see self pity in it. I saw in it statements of facts. The reality that your childhood was miserable is not self pity, it is the truth. The fact that some others may have it worse (I don’t know about that) does not change the fact that you have experienced misery.
I hope you do feel empathy toward yourself. Self empathy is necessary for healing. Self empathy is a positive thing. Self pity gives a very negative connotation to self empathy.
Please do evaluate anything and everything you read and decide what is true and what is not, if you can. Just because somebody (Including myself) states something- even with best intentions- doesn’t make it so. You decide.
Take care:
anitaMay 29, 2015 at 5:00 pm #77484satchiParticipantDear lavender,
I think I agree with what anita has written. I did not mean to suggest you are self centered.I would like to apologize for my poor choice of words. You are hurting and I wasn’t trying to minimize your feelings in any way.
What I was trying to say is, that you must not continue feeding the sad thoughts. Don’t allow yourself to get sucked in to a pessimistic frame of mind. Instead take all that energy and direct it towards making a stronger YOU. People who do not value you or hurt you should not get one bit of your mind space.
Although there is a lot of family and friends drama in my life but, I must admit that personally I have no experience with the kind of abuse that you seem to have undergone. But reading your words makes me sad and I want to help you feel better. I am sorry for not expressing myself more clearly.
I hope you can find peace and happiness.
love,
free soulMay 29, 2015 at 5:12 pm #77486AnnParticipantDear Anita and freesoul,
Both of you had valuable points here. I agree sometimes i feel self pity and blame myself for failures and revisit my past. But am learning to be more empathetic and compassionate to myself and to others too. You didn’t offend me at all with your thoughts free soul. As anita said am the one who go through the terror so i should know what you accept. Thank you both for all guidance and wisdom.May 30, 2015 at 7:28 am #77497AnonymousGuestDear lavender27:
Please post again about your process. I appreciate your grace, freesoul.
anitaMay 30, 2015 at 11:36 am #77510AnnParticipantThere aren’t too many worth mentioning and am bit of a mess now. But i can certainly see the “changes” that happened to me in the past few years. I don’t know if it has to do with ageing. At 20 or 22 i believed everything my parents said about me without even thinking if it was true or not. As a result of that i suffered from terrible unworthiness. But now i treat myself with more compassion and started believing in my abilities. Another major change is that i start to speak about my troubles. During all these years i ferociously shielded my personal life from friends and well wishers. If any of my friends accidentally found out bruises on my body i used to come up with a story about how i skidded.. Now i talk about it and above all accepting the fact that i was raised different. I still have panic attacks and sleep disorders. But doing exercise or going for a long walk keeps me tired to get a better sleep. I have been trying the breathing technique too to relax. I am a teetotaler and vegan which helps me to stay healthy. Still there is a long way to go because i find my agony and depression are deeper than i thought. I have been looking for a better job so that i can move out of home. I seriously wish to join a yoga class after that. I certainly need to control my anger and emotional outbursts. I hope yoga can make me feel peaceful again. On a long term basis i find myself working for underprivileged children. My gut feeling tells me working with children will help me heal. It would be like travelling back in time and helping my younger self 🙂
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