Hi Rosencrantz,
I’m sorry I haven’t been replying to your other posts, but I’ve been reading them and thinking about them, and I’m so glad you expressed what was going on behind the scenes. Really, as if we need more people attacking us in our lives.
But I had a strong reaction to your last post and I wanted to share my own struggles with this problem:
Rosencrantz: The energy to cope with the shame of being attacked. And then the exhaustion...the not being sure...the uncertainty...the (self-)blame....the 'should I have', the 'could I have'...
One of the most difficult hurdles for me to overcome was belief in what was real, in what really happened. I felt all these strange things, and I intuitively knew that so much was wrong, but reality slipped through my fingers every time I was challenged by either of my parents to defend myself (WHY was I being asked to defend myself all the time??).
In another posting I talked about having some fact to hold on to. I’d further qualify that by saying something undeniable, something in the present and less clouded by the confusion of childhood. With my dad, it was being told I was “a loveless child from the beginning.” This was such a ridiculous statement that was so obviously intended to hurt me, blame me, let me know how I’d let
him down… When reality starts shifting in his presence, I remember this statement and reality snaps back into focus: my father is a sick, wounded animal. Ignore his barking and get yourself to safety.
As you’ve seen, my dealings with my mother have been much more difficult because I’m so much more emotionally attached to (embedded in?) her. Here’s where my shame has been eating me day by day for years. My therapist has been trying, little by little, to help me understand that I’m not a horrible monster who deserved (nay demanded) all the abuse I received. (Abuse???? I was abused????
) But I didn’t believe it. I had a massive database of all the failures in my life, all my failed relationships, all the times I had wounded my parents. And I had all their explanations in my head for why it was my fault (lucky them that they don’t even need to remind me how it’s all my fault anymore, though they do).
But last week I discovered a fact about my mother. She doesn’t ‘get’ how hard people have worked to build their lives and pull themselves out of their pain and confusion (or even how much work it is just to live normally, without a history of abuse). And she didn’t ‘get’ how much work it takes to be a parent – and that the parent has to put his/her needs aside to address those of the child. Now I can finally hear myself think (which lately has been amazingly quiet without all the internal noise), because I’m confident that yes, my mother did not take care of me. Yes, I was a kid who did deserve a caring, supportive, nurturing environment – and no, I didn’t get it. All that really happened.
Yes, both of my parents brought this on themselves, but that doesn’t really help me think myself out of a bag. My friends bring stuff on themselves, too, and I want to be supportive in helping them out of their messes just as I hope they would do the same for me. I want to forgive and accept their flaws, just as they do mine. But my parents are different (are they really? Am I just being a spoiled child??). They really, truly are different. And now I have two pieces of earth to stand on when that truth is called into question.
Wildflower
P.S. - Thanks for being you in this community.
