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meaning in YOUR life

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lynn:
Hi all,

A while back Portia posted a topic about exitential issues in our lives:  Death, Isolation, Freedom and Meaning of LIfe.  

I am interested in knowing how you would describe your Meaning of Life.  I'm not looking for THE meaning of life.  Instead, what gets "you" through the day.  What makes YOUR life meaningful?  

As I get restarted in life without an NH, I find a big gap.  I've thought about it a lenght and I believe that part of the reason I married my NH is that I was searching for meaning.... I was adrift at the time and he had a very clear idea of what he wanted.  I easily fell into the support role.  It gave my life meaning.  I was the emotional support for an N.  

Of course, I realize now that this was not REAL.  The value I "thought" was there was fake, unreal, untrue.  I was fooling myself.

So, now.... I am drifting again.  More experience and perspective and wisdom this time.... and I have a certain patience with this discovery.  

Which brings me back to the original question... What is the meaning of YOUR life?

Warmly,
lynn

Ellie:
Hi Lynn,
I started with a therapist a few months ago with the same issue. I know how to make everyone else happy, but I do not know how to make ME happy. I do not know what the meaning of MY life is about. That's when we started discovering the issues I grew up with - both N parents. She said I needed to start thinking about making me happy and stop trying to please everyone else as I was still attempting to make my parents approve me by making others happy since I could never make them happy. It started the process of remembering lots of painful issues. As I work through them and take over control for my life for the first time ever, I start to find a more meaningful life. I still do not know what makes me happy, but I have a better path now that I realize I cannot change the Ns in my life.

It's so painful to realize that in the whole scheme of it all, the people that I thought I mattered to for so long, never saw me as meaningful to them - only as objects to use.

So now my meaning for life is to enjoy what I can get out of it, whatever that may be. But I  must spend the rest of it trying to be there for myself and my very functional immediate family (H and 3 kids) and trying to be happy.

Yuki:
For me, part of being "voiceless" is not having a meaning in life.

My purpose in life was decided by my N mother before I was born, I believe. I was there to make her feel better, and to make my father be more responsible. She purposely got pregnant and brought a baby into a physically/emotionally/verbally abusive marriage with an alcoholic... she did it for herself, not for me. My happiness and well-being in life wasn't a high priority - my reason for being there was.

When your entire meaning in life, for as long as you can remember, has been someone else... talk about feeling empty. When I first moved out of her house I felt so lost and completely worthless. I didn't even know how to know what I wanted or how to decide for myself what the meaning in my life was.

Now after about 5 years of therapy I still feel lost. Just drifting. But I'm vaguely starting to get a sense of how to develop things like meaning in my life and my own worth.

I'd say, for now at least, my meaning in life is to BEAT THIS. What I mean by that is to get over my depression and anxieties and the voicelessness and all of the other negative feelings and ways of living that were created by my N mother and the emotional abuse I went through in my childhood. And to NOT REPEAT IT. I will not repeat this cycle with my own children, if I ever have any.

On a more day-to-day level, the thing that I think about to get me through the day is to focus on doing the healthiest, most healing things that I can, and making my well-being and feelings my top priority.

Anonymous:
Great topic.

Meaning of life for me is to be a mensch and be nice to children.

bunny

lynn:

--- Quote from: Ellie ---It's so painful to realize that in the whole scheme of it all, the people that I thought I mattered to for so long, never saw me as meaningful to them - only as objects to use.

So now my meaning for life is to enjoy what I can get out of it, whatever that may be. But I must spend the rest of it trying to be there for myself and my very functional immediate family (H and 3 kids) and trying to be happy.
--- End quote ---


Ellie, I feel for your realization.  It's jolting, shaking, crumbling to realize that they did not see you as meaningful, in the same way that they had meaning to you... I hope that you can be there for yourself and that you find ways to identify, to know, what makes you happy.


--- Quote from: Yuki ---I'd say, for now at least, my meaning in life is to BEAT THIS. What I mean by that is to get over my depression and anxieties and the voicelessness and all of the other negative feelings and ways of living that were created by my N mother and the emotional abuse I went through in my childhood. And to NOT REPEAT IT. I will not repeat this cycle with my own children, if I ever have any.

On a more day-to-day level, the thing that I think about to get me through the day is to focus on doing the healthiest, most healing things that I can, and making my well-being and feelings my top priority
--- End quote ---


Break the chain.  You can do it Yuki.  I empathize with your feelings.  Sometimes it feels that the best I can do is to Beat it.  How do you focus on healthy and healing things? How do you make yourself your top priority?




--- Quote from: bunny ---Meaning of life for me is to be a mensch and be nice to children.
--- End quote ---


bunny, sometimes I wish that you signed on as bunny so that I could send you a personal email. I love your comments.  What exactly is a mensch?  From your comment I gather that you feel that your life has meaning :)  ?

Great comments.

How do you get through your day?  What gives your life meaning?

Searching,

Lynn

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