Since the ability to communicate as proper mature adults has always seemed to be a problem with each of us on a personal basis, I have felt the need to write this down in a readable format, lest it be skimmed through or discarded, which would not come as a surprise. I want to state ahead of time that it may be very easy to see only the “bad things” written, because as well as poor communication, there seems to be a tendency amongst all of us to hear or read what we want to, that I am quite aware that this will most likely be the outcome, and I am fully prepared and expect nothing less.
As a 26 year-old woman now (and I can thankfully call myself a ‘woman’ as I have felt for so long that I have always been a child unable to grow up), this past year alone has taught me more than the previous 25 years have added up. It took 2 years of massive ups and downs in Europe, on my own the majority of the time, it took an extremely tumultuous and emotionally exhausting and abusive relationship, and it took me meeting the right person(s) to speak with to open my eyes for me to understand and realize that the guilt, the shame, the emotional anguish, the anger, all the awfulness summed up, has not been entirely my fault.
I have learned “we are not to blame for what happened to us, but we are responsible for who we are today”. That line has changed my entire outlook on life.
I have spent so many years horrible angry, and horribly sad. I have not had love for myself, as I was never taught how that was possible. I have hated myself, I have harmed myself, I have wanted to die, I have starved myself, I have been extremely drunk too many times to count, I have smoked so many cigarettes, I have thrown myself into walls (not literally, of course I’m not that nuts, am I?), and I have not cared. I have felt, if no one cares, then why should I? Well, that is the most important thing and the answer is so glaringly obvious- no one may care, but the only person that I will ever have in my life that can give me the care that I deserve and need and want - is myself.
I have been told to ‘let go of the past’ ‘just get over it’ ‘can’t do anything about it’ by the people in my life who have caused me the most hurt. When you are told these things, they are extremely invalidating to my feelings, and it is blatant denial that the abuse and hurt ever happened. However, now, understanding why I have been told that I don’t matter in so many subtle ways has been the first step toward being able to manage my outlook and approach to many people in my life; but what is more difficult for me is actually accepting these truths.
This is because to accept the truth of your internal world means giving up hope of ever being recognized and valued as a separate person.
I often wonder if I was sometimes so hated for being born. If I was somehow perceived as a threat, was I invading on your turf, your space? Because I wonder, it would seem to be the case as a loved and wanted child does not experience, should not experience, from the people she loves and looks up to the most: Withholding (the silent treatment), countering (refuting or invalidating statements or actions), discounting (putting down emotions, possessions, experiences, hopes, and fears), sadistic and brutal humor, blocking (avoiding a meaningful exchange, diverting the conversation, changing the subject), blaming and accusing, judging and criticizing, undermining and sabotaging, threatening, name calling, forgetting and denying, ordering around, denial, and anger, Wounding “honesty”, ignoring, smothering, dotting, unrealistic expectations, invasion of privacy, tactlessness, humiliating, shaming, insinuating, devaluing and discarding, being unpredictable, reacting disproportionately, dehumanizing, objectifying…
Was I really loved? Or just loved when I was living up to the grandiose expectations that were put on me without my knowledge from birth?
As I grew older, was I perceived a threat because I sometimes refused to continue to play the mindless fool? That I started to have my own thoughts and mind?
So back to round one, I am perceived as a threat. Was it so easy to become disillusioned of me and devaluing? All interest lost in me, I experience my parents become emotionally remote, absent and cold, rejecting any effort to communicate with me, because life has enough pressures?
Am I, was I burdening, cornering, besieging, suffocating? Did you want to get away, to abandon any commitments to people who have become totally useless to you.
In your mind, do you think I’ve conspired against you, sought to belittle or humiliate you, do not understand you?
But following some anti-egoistic behaviours on my part (a critical remark, a disagreement, a refusal, however polite) – it is so easy to devalue me, being previously idealized. That I have dared oppose you - I am judged to be stupid, cowardly, lacking in ambition, skills and talents, common.
There are, however, some other things it is pretty safe to say about myself.
One is that I have been very willing to tolerate CRAP. When you grow up with things, you have no way of knowing that they are abnormal. You think that some people “are just like that.” You’re trained to tolerate it, because to do anything but is a sin. You’re brainwashed into thinking it’s your fault. You have no way of knowing that everyone’s home is not like yours.
I have learned that, to survive as a person, I must never let anyone own me. I have protected my right to private ownership of myself, because I know the consequences of letting others make my personal and private choices for myself.
Such as what to think, how to feel, what to say. I know that letting anyone treat MY head as THEIR property, to furnish as THEY please, is moral prostitution that destroys my very integrity.
I also know that, like any partier who takes over someone else’s house, they are going to trash it.
And so, oddly enough, being told that I am to have no privacy, being taught that I have no boundaries, I am keenly aware of the borders of personal privacy and have fortified them.
Why am I so clear about my boundaries, and so solidly defensive of them?
Why, by surviving a childhood like the story of The Three Little Piggies and the Big Bad Wolf. Each little piggy’s house is his person, the private property of his body and mind. Our deepest instincts compel us to not let the Big Bad Wolf just barge in as if he owns the place. Why? Because doing that to another’s mind is moral violation, and even little children feel violated by either act. But, unlike the other little piggies, this child has learned that when you say no, the Big Bad Wolf huffs and puffs and tries to blow your little house down.
So, this little piggy built hers of brick.
Note that this is true strength, backbone, integrity, moral purity. It is not the phony strength people of swollen self-esteem think they have. To the contrary, you find it in the modest. Note also that this is responsibility for oneself claimed, not avoided. In other words, I have learned that I am more grown-up than many other people are.
Another thing it is safe to say about myself is that, from birth, I have had my self-esteem relentlessly assailed. Abused feelings are tender, sensitive feelings. As easily injured as burned skin. That is just a fact of life, not a moral fault.
So, good god, I am quite sensitive to criticism. It causes me REAL PAIN, because it inflames old wounds. To avoid this pain, I am extremely conscientious and try very hard to be liked. Since I have aimed to please, so long as my boundaries are respected, it has been very easy to get me to do anything I do not think is wrong or foolish.
Yet I have been trained to feel that something’s wrong with me if some intolerant person just can’t stand me being the way that I am, looking the way I look, feeling the way I feel, or thinking what I think. All this manifests itself as low self-esteem and has marked me as “sensitive”.
Vicious attacks on sensitive feelings and low self-esteem draw far more blood than they would otherwise. So, I might as well go around wearing a target with the word VULNERABLE emblazoned on it. On seeing it, every bully in the world thinks, “There is someone I can really hurt” = “someone I can be really powerful on.”
Thus, this crap in my life has up until now, “doomed” me to life as a target for every bully I have encountered. This is one reason why I have been in the awful and abusive relationships that I have been in — not because they seek an asshole for a boyfriend or future husband, but because these abusive people spot and target people like me as vulnerable prey.
The wolf puts on sheep’s clothing and sweeps me off my feet, idealizing me and showering me with affection. Till the honeymoon is over. Then Dr. Jekyll’s mask comes off. I was no more likely to fall for this con artist than anyone else. Probably less likely, in fact.
This being said, I am absolutely not responsible for what happened to me, but I am responsible now as to the person I am. I am an extremely intelligent and creative individual. I have a huge heart, and I care about people sometimes far too much. I have carried around a lot of hurt in me for years because I have denied feeling the hurt by use of food, by use of alcohol. I don’t want to be stuck in this same rut 1, 5, 10 years down the road.
Another thing is, I am very aware that while it is important to acknowledge my past and what has been done, it is also important to not let the anger of that awareness ruin me. The line of abuse from both sides of my family stops here. I don’t know if I will marry, I do not know if I will have children. I do not want this to continue.
I will choose not to suffer because of the actions of others. If others blame me for something, that’s their choice. But it’s my choice whether I agree and accept that blame. I am responsible for what you do. I am not responsible for what others do, even if they try to make me feel such.
At this point in my life, I understand how the dynamics of our family has effected me and how it has shaped me. In a lot of ways it has, obviously, not been so healthy. In some ways, I would not change anything because it has made me take a good look at myself and has made me stronger.
I also understand, from a daughter’s point of view, that both of you had extremely rough times growing up and were also abused emotionally, verbally. It is an assault on the entire person. It leaves wounds and scars far deeper than any physical assault can leave. I understand how this has shaped my parents. I understand that both have carried around for so long so much hurt and anger because of it, and because they were never able to deal with it properly, have carried these awful feelings of shame and anger and sadness with them their entire lives. I understand this anger and frustration has been taken out on me, because I was hated at birth; my innocence eh..
I wonder what was seen in me: feigned innocence, relentless and ruthless manipulation, the cunning of the weak. Was
my selfishness disarming in its directness, in its cruel and absolute lack of empathy? I suppose I demanded with insistence, punished absent-mindedly, idealized and devalued capriciously. At birth I had no loyalty. I did not love, I clung. My dependence was a mighty weapon and my neediness - a drug. I had no time, neither before, nor after.
So was I perceived as both a mirror and competitor? Did I reflect authentically everyones constant need for adulation and attention? My innocuous charm, endless curiosity, fount of energy, sulking, nagging, boasting, bragging, lying, and manipulating - were these recognized?
I supposed I was watched with envy, with rage, with wrath.
It makes me very sad to know this.
However as a daughter also, it hurts to not be loved by my parents, to be treated instead as a mirror. I am a person with my own mind and I do have feelings.
How am I to think, to feel, after being told so many times, “you’re always welcome here” (when I’m Good), or “Get the fuck out of my life” (when I dare disagree or stand up for myself), back and forth. When I say I don’t feel wanted here - then told I am - then told to get the hell out.
It is quite a huge thing to take in and process that there was no love for me, uncondionally - it was very conditional. I have walked on eggshells with people my entire life now, thinking that if I stand up for myself, if I disagree, if I state my opinion, then the love or friendship will be taken away in an instant. Now I understand that this is not normal behaviour and it is to not be tolerated from anyone. I am happy to be myself and I will not bend for anyone, I will not falsify who I am to make other people like me or love me or falsly respect me.
If someone can‘t accept and respect my opinion which differs from theirs and lowers themselves to abusing me emotionally, I find it impossible NOW for it to hurt me….because ultimately they are asking me to disrespect my own opinion and conform to theirs. In other words they are asking me to disrespect myself…Not in this lifetime. Not anymore.
So, in conclusion, I honestly have no sense of the true meaning of what “love” is.
I feel blessed that I am able to love people, love animals, and not automatically hate them because they do something I don’t like. Or say something I disagree with - and I’ve had to question my self in the past, maybe I should hate someone because they aren’t exactly like me, or they don’t think like me, they are worthless. It is scary to have someone disagree, it’s such a threat.
Well I have learned that is not the case.
