Uncovering shame

[Gaining Strength]

I am lonely, My shame is oozing out today.  I have a big project for my sons school that I have been working on for several months.  It is not quite complete and it touching all my buttons.  I am sure it will go well but now, in the morning the worthlessness, rejection, the loneliness and inadequacy are bubbling to the surface even if facts contradict them.  I am glad I can share it somewhere. - GS

[Gaining Strength]

Inadequacy GS, who is judging you and/or your project?

All of these components of shame are from so very long ago.  That is one of the things that makes it hard to unearth.  The shaming seems to have begun before I was old enough to remember.  That inadequacy is one of several shaming aspects that were ingrained in me early on.  I simply have carried them forward and loosening them is very painful.  Just naming them is painful  but it is worth it because I live with them named or not, I simply have denied or repressed them to date.  So now I am trying to let them go. - GS

[Gaining Strength]

Thanks CB.  I like that new name and believe I might change my name to that in a few months.  After my business is up and going.

Could you be feeling bad about your project BECAUSE it is almost done and about to be unveiled?  Do you have any shame about doing a GOOD job?

I am definitely not feeling bad because it is almost done.  I recognize these bad feelings as simply old, outdated messages.  I work on rewriting them. I have found great comfort in knowing that it will work out in the end.  That helps counter the old shame feelings.

I do suspect there is shame about doing a good job.  I have finally realized, only in the past year, that my parents and perhaps my brothrs and definitely at time my late husband (and first husband) found any achievement threatening and so they systematically belittled any and all achievements.  Consequently there was hell to pay (shame heaped upon shame) when I did accomplish anything, small or large. 

I am soooo glad to hve figured this out.  This is the kind of thing Noooo one except here would believe.  I am glad to be able tothrow it out here and know some will believe me and accept that family can actually do this to people they claim to love.  But I am strong now and I can rise above it.  It is just that I am in the midst of the process where the old stuff pops up and I must consciously counter it with the healthy understanding.

Thanks so much for your post.  Your processing your work issue is a great model for me in my day to day struggle. - yours - Strength (almost)

[mudpuppy]

I have to run out the door to work,

Your feet must be feeling better.

mud

[Hopalong]

GS:
Me, too:

at 5 I was already trying to work out the acceptance I longed for in my family out in the world. 

Only it really kicked in at age six...at The Horrible Private School. Horrible memories. I was too short, too little, almost 2 years younger than some of my classmates, and a scholarsip kid. Uggh.

Dittos to every word CB said about the kind of work you're doing, GS. You're a warrior.

I was wondering if the pain associated with the project for your son's school has anything to do, also, with having to go to an elementary school? I know those buildings call up memories for me...

Bravo, brave woman.

Hops

[Gaining Strength]

I survived.  It went swimmingly.  My shame has nothing to do with current life other than to interfere with it.  But that is my issue, the shame that has very old roots does interfere with my life - but less and less each week and each month.  And as I have more and more positive experiences of setting out to do something and accomplishing it the easier and quicker I will get over this.  This has definitely been a transformative year for me.

I had lunch with one of my brother's today.  Long story short, I said to him, "One of the things that I resent the most is that our father never said to me, 'Once you leave my house - that is it - don't expect any financial help from me.'"  My brother's answer actually shocked me.  He said that my father had told him and our other brother that they could expect no financial help.  Well he never told me!!!  It's an amazing thing because both of my father's parents were quite wealthy and they gave him vast amounts of money.  They also set up educational trusts for us that paid for our secondary and college educations (an expense spared my father.)  Yet he saw absolutely no reason to help his own children.  And he forgot to tell me that he wouldn't be helping me.  So I went from wealth to poverty in one fell swoop - without a word and without a hand and without any advice.  Pretty rotten from my point of view.

Time to get over it and move on.

[isittoolate]

GS,
Is your father alive?
If not, who recieved the vast wealth--and a Will like like could be contested!!

[Gaining Strength]

It's not the money - it's the complete lack of love or concern or caring - it is still astounding to me.  How can you give birth to a child or children and not give your life for them?  That is what I still can't get a handle on.

[axa]

Gs

I think one can treat children so badly when they do not see them as humans.  That is my experience.

axa