Childhood issues resurfacing

[Gaining Strength]

Little time but need to post.  I am really struggling again.  The childhood issues are popping up to be addressed.  I awoke in the wee hours face to face with very painful issues tieing me in knots.  Rejection, condemnation, and inadequacy.  I know these are surfacing in order to give me a chance to deal with them again. 

A dream last night - in a small one room apartment - doll house size - and things in bags spread around - order needs to be made - my first husband is there and I begin to make order.  He has a filing cabinet to place.  As I move it around - he says NO, No, no to wherever I place it.  There are no more spots to place it. 

I wake with a start.  I know immediately that this is the crazy making that I lived with in my home as a child, and in both my marriages.  No matter what I did it was not accepted.  That is a nightmarish way to face life.  It has marked my entire life.  Now i am left to reassemble my life and make it different.  I am very, very angry.

I am enraged that my parents raised my in the midst of wealth and them simply abandonded me to nothing without so much as a word.  One year out of a state of being of rage I now have come back to being enraged about the abandonment that I experienced.  I was abandoned after being made to feel on a deeply, powerfully unconscious level - inadequate.  Inadequate to having wealth, inadequate to being included, inadequate to .....

My father has always been misogynistic  but he would deny this completely.  My mother has had her own misogynistic tendancies developed in order to succomb to my father.  The effects on me as the only daughter and youngest of three has been devastating.  I am enraged that I am left to pick up all the pieces by myself.  I am so incredibly angry.

I am thankful that I can come here and share this in a place that someone might understand and some might have some compassion.  There was no room for compassion in my life - only condemnation.  I lay in the bed in the wee hours trying to conjure up the image of what true compassionate love would feel llike.  I did not get far.  I firmly believe that compassionate love is the healing force.  I can't quite get to that feeling.  I will continue to practise it with my son - that is definitely one path to it.

Thanks for being here - your friend - GS

[Hopalong]

Oh, hon.
So you've acted it out by abandoning yourself.

That's what making order will do...it will be saying, I am parenting myself now.

(((((((((((((((((((((GS)))))))))))))))))))))))

Hops

[poetprose]

I can relate, to the dysfunction, I was raised where anger was behind everything...  I wrote this to myself a few years ago,

"Family Tree"

I'm speaking as a little girl
in my famiily tree
like a victom exposed on a shelf
for all the world to see
My great great grandfather
believied in love with many condtions
Be perfect child as I am
Maybe then I will take you fishin
My daddy played by all those roles
But at times he was so mad
I think his father told him he was very bad
Me I am now a grown up
with children of my own
And I have learned it is not that easy
to outgrow a seed sown...
Still I know I am loved in my present condition
Think I'll share this with my kids
while we go out fishen

[moonlight52]

Poet and GS ,

What a poem .........it captures  understanding and new perspectives that are available daily and in a split second even if we make a choice that does not come from the highest self life is movable .
We get the opportunity to make another choice from growth and maturity .Perspective is everything it always has been.......

BTW I find myself on another branch of the Tree of Life.........


love to you

moon

[Gaining Strength]

Yep, indeedy Miss hopperoony - I have indeed abandoned myself.  That's the sad legacy of this dread thing we live in.


poetprose - WOW!  You nailed it with that poem.  Would you mind if I share that with some folks in real time?

Moon - how wonderful to see you.  I have missed you.  Thank each of you for your thoughtful posts.  They warm my heart so.  I love this place and am deeply thankful for it.  I have had a remarkable day.  My life is clearly changing.  I am thankful.  Still so far to go but the pieces are falling in the right places.  Too tired to share much, hope to post tomorrow.  I am thankful for so much now.  What a wonderful change.  Much more functional than when I began here 7 months ago.  I can't wait to see the progress in 7 months hence.  I'm counting on miracles.  Thanks to you all. - GS

[debkor]

Hey GS,

I was looking for some relaxation techniques and came across this site.  I thought you would be interested in some of the things on here.  It's tools for personal growth.   They have tools for working with stress, burnout, fears, pride and many more.  I saw Inner Child  tool and thought you might be interested in checking it out.  Below I have copied the Titles but that's it.  It's way to long to post I'll put the link on the bottom of the page.

Who is the "Inner Child"?
How did the "Inner Child" get there?
What is the unfinished business of the "Inner Child"?
How does the "Inner Child" come into being?
What messages did the "Inner Child" need to hear, but which went unsaid?
What are the signs of activity of the "Inner Child"?
What are the negative consequences of suppressing the "Inner Child"?
What nurturing messages can you give your "Inner Child"?
What are some steps by which you can help heal your "Inner Child"?

http://www.coping.org/growth/beliefs.htm

Love
Deb

[poetprose]

Yep, indeedy Miss hopperoony - I have indeed abandoned myself.  That's the sad legacy of this dread thing we live in.


poetprose - WOW!  You nailed it with that poem.  Would you mind if I share that with some folks in real time?


Yes cerrtainly  share it!! please be my guest

[Gaining Strength]

Thanks Deb & poetprose  - GS, a tired GS who is treating candidiasis and in the midst of a yellow city (the pollen is so thick with no rain that everything is literally yellow.) Tired sometimes leads to depression.  I have to watch it carefully.

[moonlight52]

GS ,

My hubby and little one have asthma and have seasonal reactions to pollen and bee stings etc.This is very difficult for them.My husband was told as a child (while suffering greatly as a youth with asthma) he was doing "it"
ie not breathing to get attention.Well after having to take him to hospital for asthma faking this sort of thing is a silly idea so even mocking occurs with folks with asthma.

I do hope life is moving forward for you step by step not easy but the strength needed you do have and I do love to read your posts.
When I some times am over optimistic I just reel myself in and now have a more balanced out look .There is no "cure for bi-polar" just knowledge that it can be managed by understanding triggers.

I am not familiar with canididasis .I do understand about allergies my hubby takes a french tree bark called PYCNOGENOL that has helped a lot....

love to you GS


Moon

[teartracks]

(((((((((((((((((GS))))))))))))))))

Awful feelings aren't  they?   

One day at a time GS. 

tt

[Leah]

((((((( GS )))))))

Thinking of you.

Leah xx

[Gaining Strength]

Moon - I had some people who said to me as a child that I was just doing things to get attention.  My response as an adult to that comment is "Then give the child the attention they need."  What a crazy statement.  Children need attention.  children who are not loved need it more than any others.

I am holding on because I have begun to build a foundation strong enough to handle the struggles that I am facing.  I do so look forward to the day these struggles are lessened.  I do so hate needing to be strong.  I am so very angry that I have faced so much and hurt so badly and rceived so little compassion and encouragemenht and good advice.  I am angry about this.  But I will not give up until I have "made it."  I have made enough progress, even though it is the tip of the iceburg, to know that I can move forward.  But I am angry that I have to get stronger and do it all by myself.  Children are born to parents because they need nurture and direction.  It is not very easy just because we are in adult bodies, to stand on my own two feet and move forward.  I am angry about this and my T is glad that I have reached this point of anger.  He wanted me to be here years ago but I was still in rage and that was not a time or place to deal with my substantial anger.  Now I am just angry and I have to be careful to channel it away from myself - that would lead to depression again and I will not go there if I can help it.

CB my little boy is doing well.  This week we started soccer so Saturday we have soccer and baseball games.  He is working with me on his reading and we are learning to move past his quick reactions to frustration.  That is a very interesting challenge.  Thanks for asking.

TT and Leah thanks for the hugs - I sure do need them. - GS

[Gaining Strength]

I was working to fix the airconditioning in my house. (I've been staying at my mother's.) My house is a catastrophe - a mess by mother and child's toys upended in every room and cats made havoc everywhere.  I must clean it out and restore order.

It has become for me many, many things.  As I was working today I had to battle depression and despair over and over.  I got an image of a man in a small lifeboat shouting orders to others of us getting in.  "You must jetsam all but the essentials," he called out.  And suddenly I saw the value of letting go of all but the life giving.  I  think I will call and have a dumpster delivered right after Easter.

It is so very difficult to climb up out of the pits just to face a seemingly insurmountable amount of work.  I think of it as my own personal Katrina.  It helps me to stay out of guilt. 

Something else happened earlier today that thrust me into deep self criticism, bordering on shame and depression.  With considerable work I was able to turn it around and to give thanks that it happened as a signal that I must focus on self-encouragement and self-support and self-love and identify the self-criticism and self-condemnation before they get hold.  They have been so ever present in my life that it is astoundingly difficult to even recognized them.

I continue to make progress with getting at the darkness created in growing up in my family.  I have this small glimpse into the sense that I am still waiting for my parents to give me permission to have nice things and that permission is not coming.  I am still angry that I am going to have to pull myself out of the muck and mire.  I am still angry that I was so terribly emotionally abandoned and rejected and belittled.  I am very angry. 

I know of no where that I can come and express these feelings and feel certain that someone here will understand and many here will have compassion even though I am experiencing childish emotions way too late in life.  But I know that many here understand why I am still experiencing childish emotions.  Because when we did not receive what we needed emotionally as a child we became caught at the developmental stage.  And now I have to give it to myself and I am angry.  But I intend to use this anger to propell me through it.  I am still making progress in other areas and that keeps me encouraged.

I give indescribable thanks for this place.  It has been a true lifeline for me.  A real place and the only place that I can come and be heard.  Thanks. - GS

[Hopalong]

suddenly I saw the value of letting go of all but the life giving.  I  think I will call and have a dumpster delivered right after Easter

W O W,

you are really
gaining strength!

This is IT.
Bravoooo, GS!!!!!

Hops

[teartracks]

GS,

I'm so sorry for all the crummy circumstances.   Realizing that you were not lovingly parented is a very hard place to be.   Detaching from the parent(s) is just as hard.  Staying detached is hard.  Reparenting yourself when you're dealing with the anger and swimming with the alligators (Katrina) doesn't help.  I wish we on the board could have a GS and CB day and lighten the burden.  In as much as possible via cyber, I send my very best wishes to both of you.

tt