Unable to love myself

[Certain Hope]

Hope,
   I don't understand your last paragraph? Did you ever love yourself? what exactly are you saying. I would love to understand . Thanks    Ami

Sorry, Ami, I guess that was a bit cryptic.

When I wrote that, I was thinking of what you've said about the time up until you were 14 years old - this time when you felt comfortable within yourself. I can't imagine that... I suppose because my mother's effects on me had already taken their toll, long before the teenage years.
I remember being very, very shy... feeling security only in our home, with my parents. I know that's much more than many folks have had... who were never safe even in their own homes as children. But I'd hide behind my mother and even run to hide when out in the yard, if a car would approach to pass by our house.
So no, I don't remember ever "loving" myself.
I do remember being terrified that I would lose my mother... that she would be gone and I would have nothing.
And I remember a fear of waking up without my sight... opening my eyes in the middle of the night and thinking that I had gone blind.
The concept of "loving myself" just doesn't compute when I think back over all those years. It's not that there weren't some things I was able to enjoy... just that a concept of "self" did not exist... let alone "loving" self.

Love,
Hope

[motheroffour]

ALL, 
 Thanks for the support on this.  I really appreciate you saying what you did.  And for your patience with me as I risk the expression of my weakest areas.  I can feel that you have "been there".  That gives me hope.

CB & Hops, thanks again for the words of encouragement.  Really liking this idea of looking outward.  I need to put more of my focus in that direction.  Maybe some day I will have something to show for the effort.  This idea feels peaceful to me and helps me to take some of the pressure off myself.  Going to pray for strength in this area.  For courage to try.  To fight the fear and do it anyway. 

Izzy, Thanks for just being there.  Can't say anymore cuz I am kinda tearful.  Sometimes it helps just to hear the encouragment.  The "you can do it" message. 

Praying for more faith, trust, and patience as I try to move forward,

mof4

[Iphi]

mo4 this topic you have created really blows me away.  I am in awe of your bravery in going for the gusto with this.  It is inspiring.  For some reason, it really wasn't until reading your posts and Ami's posts on this board that the idea of coming forward with my persistent weak areas really came to the front of my own mind.  Don't know why as I've been reading this forum for some months now.  Not to say I will have the courage to do as you have done, but the idea is there.   

This topic also galvanized my thoughts in some other ways.  I definitely know that unloved feeling so well.  But not recently.  But what has changed?  It used to always be with me and now it isn't.  When did that happen?  This topic made me realize these things and made me inquire into myself about the changes of recent years.

It made me realize something I want to share with you.  This is going to sound nutty I fear.  I started allowing myself to receive love from several sources.

Books were the earliest and are the strongest influence in my life.  The way I see it, when an author puts a book out there, they are putting parenting out there.  They are sending their parenting out into the world so that what they know (and put in the book) can be received by teachable people.  Even many fiction books have life lessons from the author in them.  Sometimes it isn't right up front, but in the way the author writes about people or events, appreciating their qualities and accepting them, or enjoying them.  I experience books as loving and inclusive: they include me.

The next thing is music.  Same thing - I feel like the composer and the musicians are putting themselves into it and giving it out there and it can be received.  I don't know what maternal love feels like to receive, but there is one singer who gives me that experience, whose name is Lisa Gerrard.  When I discovered her work in 1993, I didn't listen to any other music at all until 1996 or 1997.  I just played her music over and over.  In my opinion, it is Medicine.  I found that someone posted a video on youtube of a live performance of one of her most moving songs.  I found the camera too shaky to watch, but I was at the concert where this was filmed and tears were running down my face as I heard this song for the first time.  It was overwhelmingly maternal and comforting:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsOim9n8aLk

I don't have anything figured out, but at least we can share things that work for us! 

[Ami]

Dear Iphi,
 I am so, so so glad that you are here. Whenever I see your name, I know that you will offer wisdom and humility. I am so glad that my posts helped you to "come" out and  share your voice.
   I had in the back of my mind that there must be people out there who can relate ,but are silent. It gives me a boost to know  that I am not alone                Love and a Big Hug   Ami

[isittoolate]

many fiction books have life lessons from the author in them.  Sometimes it isn't right up front, but in the way the author writes about people or events, appreciating their qualities and accepting them, or enjoying them.  I experience books as loving and inclusive: they include me.

Iphi

I was so pleased that this happens to you too.

Some authors have the ability to put you right into the scene, the rain, the blizzard, the heat.....(I might be reading and think "I can't go out. It's pouring!"................but in the book, not for real.........
.... and then they've created their characters, their personalitities. their relationships..........

..........then they put a couple together either romantically, or say 2 cops as partners, or 2 lawyers, same sex, oppositer sex whatever and I can see all this being true to life as it is so believeable.

Have you read Nelson DeMille? Night Flight, Plum Island, Wild Fire---wow he has a guy who would drive me nuts, but this guy's wife knows how to handle him. I love how DeMille has this guy say one thing and also shows what he would LIKE to have said. I laugh and I groan but I sure enjoy his books.

Now someone who really knows sociopaths too is Joy Fielding. The first book of hers that I read was "Kiss Momma Goodbye" and I swear Fielding lived with an N, the way she had the crazymaking dialogue down pat. I've enjoyed ALL her books--when I can get them at the Library.

I have many authors I follow and read a book a week usually....but if there is 'foreign language" it slows me down as well as, say, Russian cities, or Italian Streets......,

Fun

Great
Hang in

Izzy

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[motheroffour]

Iphi,

I too love books and music!  They have literally been my salvation this last year.....sustaining me as I go.  I think music means more to me than ever.  I have decided that song writers must "know" what it is to suffer or progress thru pain. The lyrics seem so powerful.  My H and I laugh with each other sometimes because we catch ourselves unusually tearful when listening.  The music just means so much to us! 

I often think of books like "Les Mis"...ones that have literally changed my life in the reading. Sometimes I don't know if I am more like Fantine or Jean val jean or even Javier.  Victor Frankel, I have heard many of you mention, and others.  Even Harry Potter.  Just finished book 7.  So many great take aways! 

Thanks for sharing what works for you.  I am glad for you.  Glad you are feeling good about yourself.  Hope some day to get to the point where I dont have to argue with myself over worth anymore.  Where my boundaries protect me and where I feel safe in the venturing outward.  Feeling loved and filled up through books and music...it is a great concept!

CB,

I am a Little House fan as well.  I think I have the series memorized.  Looking for that parenting example too. My H makes kindly teases me a little, but I still tear up at certain episodes!
 

[Certain Hope]

Thank you all for this. I hadn't recognized that "Little House" is still so deep in my heart.
Seems like it was someone else who treasured that series so... first the books and then the television program... but she's still there, within me. Those characters were more real to me than any of the people I knew personally. Ma didn't go shopping up at the general store to buy dresses for herself that she brought home and secreted away in the closet... and Pa talked with Laura and Mary, not taking offense at the education his girls were getting, but actually conversing with them with interest, like they were real people... amazing.

NPD-ex drove the music and reading out of me.
How many choruses of "When a Man Loves a Woman" can one hear before wanting to vomit?
All he wanted to hear were drippy, sad, Dean Martin style love songs.... except for one - "Don't Worry, Be Happy". And so I dutifully disappeared, into his interests and likes... and dislikes. After all, that's what I was trained to do - to disappear. 

Yesterday I sat down at the piano because my daughter is interested in it.. she just learned the bass cleff (not applicable to her alto sax, so this is new to her.)  We got out some old instruction books from my childhood and I played a few simple studies from one that was dated, still with the little star and snowflake stickers, showing that I'd completed them way back then... when I was 9 years old.
They were brand new to me this time. New as in fresh and appealing... enjoyable even, in their simplicity. My "I need to start from scratch with this" over-ruled the shame of being back so far in the process. I want to learn again... this time of my own desire, not because my mother is standing nearby with her yardstick to keep me at the bench. I want to learn everything again... with my new eyes and ears.
And I realized... I don't know when it began, but when I used to play the piano, I always held down the pedal rather than making my hands do the work of the slurs and the breaks... everything blurred together, just like my thinking... just like my life. This time, my foot had no desire to use the pedal. I only wanted to hear the notes, each one, and to see the phrasing as it is written and heed it. My choice.

I just finished reading (from the library) The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Mr. Stevens' preoccupation with what he considers to be his "dignity" is much the way I think my mother views herself.
Since I don't believe in coincidence, I'm convinced that it's a "God-thing" that I happened to pick up this little book the last time I took my kids to the library. Here's an excerpt:

"And of course, any butler who regards his vocation with pride, any butler who aspires at all to a 'dignity in keeping with his position'...should never allow himself to be 'off duty' in the presence of others. It really was immaterial whether it was Miss Kenton or a complete stranger who had walked in at that moment. A butler of any quality must be seen to inhabit his role, utterly and fully; he cannot be seen casting it aside one moment simply to don it again the next as though it were nothing more than a pantomime costume. There is one situation and one situation only in which a butler who cares about his dignity may feel free to unburden himself of his role; that is to say, when he is entirely alone."

Yup. My mother is entirely alone. I hope she feels unburdened... but I don't think so.

Love,
Hope

[motheroffour]

CH,

Love the gentle love I see you putting toward your mother. It is a beautiful thing for you to empathize with her postition even though she hurt you so badly. 

--mof4

[motheroffour]

Trying to process this stuff.....I feel determined.....

I think I have got to separate my worth from the stuff I do.  Constantly feel like I am trying to guess what the other person wants and needs and then I try to be that for them......and fail.  Then I beat myself up for not being myself and selling out.  Watch myself do it.  Feel like a trained monkey.   I  knew as a young child that something was wrong in my family.  Didn't know what is was.  Started to figure it out when I was in my teens.  Always bucked against the pressures and pulls of the dysfunction.  I became the "trouble maker" in my family.  I didn't try, back then, so hard to make everyone happy.  I remember really just going for it and being myself.  I remember so many experiences that for one reason or another taught me that it was not safe to be myself, to think my thoughts, or to participate freely in the world.  My course changed to a more protective position.  I think I decided that I was no longer worth showing to the world.  That I had some kind of defect, if not universal defect, inside of me.  Perfection and performance!  And I had success with this!  During college, I had a lot of success with this.  I had lots of friends and I dated an awful lot. I was successful in my endevors and got a lot of praise.  I kept seeing the success ..... and then feeling the emptiness at the same time.  Resented some of these guys who were "so in love with me"  who really didn't even know me.  After that, I decided that I would only be myself.  So, then came the loneliness.  No interest from anyone. Not family or friends.  Then I married and thought my prospects had brightened, but then came more pain than I  had ever faced.  The N culture and the world of addiction hit a very vulnerable target -- me! I saw how happy all them were with friends and family always around and what looked like such deep and rich relationships.  I thought I hit the mother load!  Thought God had finally brought me to a place where I would be safe and where I would find acceptance.  I was so so so wrong!  Boy, I sure became that trained puppy.  Jump when I say jump!  Being spun and spun like that top!!  And the searing disappointment that what I though was love was so far from that.

Now, I don't want to believe that love only comes with compliance.  I want to believe that there are people in the world who do look beyond the surface and see the worth of souls is great!!  And as I wish for the friends who will really see what I am about.....and like me anyway, that I learn to be that kind of friend to myself.  Maybe it is that quiet work that I must do with God at my side.  I am reminded of a children's book about a wooden puppet named Punchinello who lives in a town that gives stars to those who are "good" and "dots" to those who are not.  Punchinello is covered with dots.  He meets a girl of whom the dots and starts don't stick.  She teaches Punchinello that she gets her worth from the Carver...the one who created all of the puppets in the first place.  She takes Punchinello to meet him.  He figures out how to make the dots and stars NOT stick.

I am also reminded of a John Mayer song called, "I'm in Repair".  One line says, "I'm in repair.  I'm not together but I'm getting there."


--mof4

[Hopalong]

Iphi,
I utterly relate to this:

I experience books as loving and inclusive: they include me.

The next thing is music.  Same thing - I feel like the composer and the musicians are putting themselves into it and giving it out there and it can be received.

Thank you so much for expressing it.

Hops

[lighter]

Love isn't about compliance, MO4.  You're certainly right about that.   

::Sending you support::... I'm in your corner.

[Ami]

Dear Mo4
  What you said in your post above was what I was trying to communicate to you .        Love  Ami   

[Certain Hope]

Dear Mof4,

This business of separating self-worth from what I do is a huge one for me, too. Felt like I'd pretty well accomplished some major changes in this, as far as recognizing that it's not my role in life to make others feel happy or complete, regardless of the cost.
And yet there's a constant struggle to simply relax, to rest in peace... because if I don't accomplish tons of stuff in a day, I wind up feeling like I goofed off and must somehow make up for it the next. Lately, in setting out to make lists of all the things that I could choose to do and to prioritize those items...
I realized that in checking items off my list, I was still feeding that old notion that who I am is summed up by what I can accomplish.
So here's my revised list:

1) Spend time alone in communication with God... not just talking in a frantic prayer full of requests and apologies, but genuine conversation, where I'm still at times (that's a tough one) and just listening (reading the Bible and then allowing for long pauses to hear that quiet voice).

2) Share that stillness of spirit which I receive from that time spent with the Lord with my husband and children and friends. In that sharing comes more refilling, as opposed to the draining which happens when trying to relate to people who only want to drain me dry.

3) When faced with a challenge from difficult people and circumstances that threaten to drain me, I immediately close the gate and ask questions later. I stop the pleasing/doing/working-cycle short, before it begins spinning out into a life of its own, and go back to step 1 for refilling.

Anyhow, my lists used to be miles long, but they're really short these days... and they don't include every single thing I can think of that needs doing, fixing, organizing, and re-arranging around my home or in my life, because out of those two items above, all the rest flows... almost without any thought.

Feels like I'm learning the lesson Punchinello learned. That's such a lovely story and I wanted to thank you when I first read it here, but my emotional puddle was drained.  But I've been thinking on it ever since, and wondering... to stop the score-keeping & all the comparing of dots to stars...
what is the glue that makes them stick, after all? To me, the glue is the notion that there is anything in this world we can do to make God love us any more than He already does, in Jesus Christ. It's His love which washes off the glue, so it's God's love in which I want to steep myself first, and then others, in order to remain free. I don't know the song "I'm In Repair", but I do believe that you're getting there... and me, too. Thank you again for sharing your heart here.

With love,
Hope

[motheroffour]

Lighter,

Thanks for the support!  Really you are doing well and that life if giving you the solutions or respites or support you need.  I am unfamiliar with your situational details...since  I am so new here.  But I have been thinking of you.

Wishing the best things to come to you and peace in the interim,
mof4

[motheroffour]

Hope,

You are a gentle soul!  You feel to me like the stone that has been rubbed smooth by all of your bumps!  Your children are lucky!
Thanks for listening with such a gentle attitude.  So happy for you and your progress.  Thank you for sharing these thoughts with me.

much love,
mof4