The Life of a Peapod, haha!

[Peapod]

Hey there,

Have been reading a lot of the posts on here and it's so great to see a message board that really is focusing on simply encouragement, support and growth...wouldn't it be amazing if more people stood for this in daily life....

anyway hope people don't mind, but just great to have the chance to get all this out of my system...


Well I'm 20, at Uni, and for the first time in my life i can finally say i've found my own voice and i'm not afraid to use it. )

Starting right at the beginning, I blame no one else for how i was brought up.  I believe my parents did the best for me they emotionally and physically could at the time, and accepting that means i don't have to be angry but can just accept their limitations as i have now learnt to accept mine.

Looking at my parents as an adult myself, i can see exactly why the struggle for me to find my voice as a child was pretty much impossible.  Both had severely unhappy childhoods, their relationships with their own families are not one of love, acceptance and honesty but fear, obligation and insecurity.  Through no conscious fault of theirs, their influence had led me to find myself with these traits through my own upbringing.

However, I've been lucky enough to have a best friend who was and still is one of the most emotionally balanced people i know.  I have no idea why we ended up being such close friends, me being as unbalanced as you can get back then, but her friendship and the chance to see another much happier and loving world in her family gave me the little bit of knowledge needed to keep me searching for peace, that happiness does exist and love isn't about needs or wants, but pure acceptance and enjoyment of others in a healthy and happy way.

Through a battleground of years of self harm, bulimic symptoms (never wanted to label it Bulimia for a fear of accepting the label as me and being unable to see a way out...) incredibly painful low self esteem i've somehow found the strength to keep driving away at being better, happier, healthier and i finally feel as if i have got close to being the me i have always needed to find.  The me that got squashed as a small child due to my parents views that it's better to hide feelings and 'save face' than be honest and risk being seen as vulnerable.  The me thats always been there and has struggled to understand why i wasn't good enough to be shown on the outside if thats who i was on the inside. I believe it's the internal battles we go through that cause us the most trauma - those of shame, guilt, fear.  How can we expect to feel loved or accepted, what I think we all search for, when the person we hate most is ourselves.

The thing is today, i know i am vulnerable, i am putting myself at risk everytime i open my mouth to express how i feel or what i think.  But you know what, i love it.  i love that i can trust myself and be proud of who i am, at the same time being aware that i'm not perfect and i will make mistakes.  But that's all cool, i can handle that.  To be true to myself is like walking out of the door as one solid block, instead of the falling apart in bits and pieces doubting who I was, what I was doing and what exactly I stood for.


Something I only recently learned but I think is a major key to regaining my voice was to learn that honesty is ok.  People who care don’t get angry, or threatened or think you’re just attention seeking as i thought they would.  I can’t believe how many supportive people I have around me, and I never knew they were there.  Like I’ve spent my whole life trying to hide who I am and now I feel like I could yell it from a rooftop quite happily haha because at the end of the day, if you're not being yourself who the hell are you being? and why should you have to be them?!.  From my experience honesty is the only think that will help you move forward in life.  And if you can’t be honest with yourself and other people, then it can be a great move to delve into that and figure out why.  Society brings us up believing honesty is often wrong or something to fear..but when you think about it, it’s really not. In reality, if there’s no integrity what really do we have?!

I don't think life gets easier once you free yourself up of baggage you might have carried for years, consiously or unconsioulsy, but i think it changes.  Once you can accept where you've been, why you've you've been who you've been and who you are today, then the focus no longer looks backwards but changes to the future – you’re choosing who you're going to be, what you're going to do and best of all choosing who you're going to love.

To be able to stand on your own two feet and say 'hey you know what , i am ok just as i am'  has to be the biggest acheivement anyone can reach.  And i hope that one day, every person will be able to do that.

Sorry if i've rambled, but thanks anyway, wishing you all well
P x

[axa]

Peapod,

Wish I knew what you know at 20.  Great to read your posts and welcome. 

I agree "how can we expect to feel loved and accepted when we hate ourselves"  at least this is my experience.  I have posted about this and even though I have done much work over the years there is that underlying  hatred that is very young and angry that I am struggling with.

Thank you for your wonderful post

axa

[isittoolate]

Welcome peapod,

Add me to the list of people who wish they had been as insightful as you at your age.

Good Post!

I am 67 and trying to find myself still, and I think that is pathetic.

xx
Izzy

[Peapod]

thanks for your posts,

it's strange you guys see being insightful as a good thing, most days i just wish i could be a normal care free irresponsible 20 year old, you know 'ignorance is bliss' and all that.  not that all 20 yr olds are irresponsible....but i wish for like one day i could just forget it all.  i would love to be 67!!...although i would've hoped issues are no longer existent by then. guess not hey?

a lot of people say i think too much, but the thing is if i don't think, i don't work, like i have to think to survive somehow.  anyone else ever feel that?
....it's cool to read other people do think along similar lines here and i'm not alone in trying to find some kind of better way....


and Izzy...pathetic? No.  An incredibly strong and determined person who is everyday getting closer to who she wants to be in life? Yes.

P x

[isittoolate]

hi peapod.

No,. At 20 I was very responsible. I worked and paid my rent and other expenses to live and never lied or cheated anyone, but all the while I still hated the "other side of me". I was ugly, I was boring, I was.....................voiceless.... I am now talkiing, on this board mainly, about things that my parents did...... born 1908 and 1909 and now dead.

Repeat that statement for every age of my life and I have followed all the rules, like filing Tax Returns, renewing my driver's license, never having an a car accident with my cars. I bought a new one, and paid cash, every 10 years. This one now I have had for 17 years.

It was just an idiot who rented a car , 1969, with power steering that he had never used before and who speeded us up the Hwy at 120 mph, but at 90 mph I saw the speedometer, as the loss of control began and I was only 30. Now at 67 & I am tired of sitting. It's a wonder that my bum isn't numb, and I buy a new wheelchair every 5-6 years.

However the worst part is the inner me and how I can put that together. This is a great place for people throwing out ideas and for me if a word sticks, I investigate it. I have had two, one was shame and one was self-degradation...? I forget , that sounds wrong.

This is the inner me that requires fixing.............whatever it is, I lost a daughter, now 42 and 3 grandchildren over it.

I have told myself that I think too much, ....also that I over-analyze others.

Getting closer, peapod????? I think I have a long road to travel, but at least I don't have to walk it, and these tires never go flat!

love
Izzy

[Gaining Strength]

Peapod - are there TWO peas in your pod?

I have been thinking this very thing, "Have been reading a lot of the posts on here and it's so great to see a message board that really is focusing on simply encouragement, support and growth...wouldn't it be amazing if more people stood for this in daily life...."  It sure would be nice but I am so glad to have found them here.

"it's strange you guys see being insightful as a good thing, most days i just wish i could be a normal care free irresponsible 20 year old, you know 'ignorance is bliss' and all that.  not that all 20 yr olds are irresponsible....but i wish for like one day i could just forget it all. "

I wish you could just forget it all too. But since that is not the case then I am glad that you are insightful.  It may help you keep growing and not get stuck the way some of us have been.  But I am glad that I have finally figured out as much as I have.  I started working on it at about age 23 or 24 and it took me almost that long to make a real break through.  I am glad to have made that break through no matter how long it took.  It really is better late than never.  I know lots who never made it. 

Are you listening Izzy?  Pathetic would be not even trying.  Time to change the way you talk to yourself.  I am here to tell you that changing the way you talk to yourself is a MAJOR part of changing your life.  My 6 year old has a tendency to call himself "stupid" and each and every time I hear him say that I stop him in his tracks and explain how important it is to not call himself names.  I believe this and my changes have come as I have learned to see myself, my situation and my actions in positive terms, to reach towards living rather than hide from the dark parts of life.  It works.

So glad you are here peapod.  So glad that you are making changes.  It is never too late to just have fun.  You can still do that even though you are insightful. - your new friend - Gaining Strength

[isittoolate]

Oh GS

You are so good for me!!!!!!!!!!

I was listening!!! Honest Mommy!

Certainly glad I am doing all this searching so that I cannot be called pathetic!!!!
Mucho gracias
Izzy