Author Topic: struggling very badly.....  (Read 4036 times)

spyralle

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Re: struggling very badly.....
« Reply #15 on: August 05, 2008, 04:13:58 PM »
My mother just rang.  I told her how depressed I was and how ugly I felt.... she said..... "I WISH I WAS DEAD...."

I just put the phone down...

Spyralle

changing

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Re: struggling very badly.....
« Reply #16 on: August 05, 2008, 04:55:33 PM »
Hello Spy-

I go to Domestic Violence group and have a wonderful counselor. One of the exercises that she has all of us do, young and older alike, is "mirror work." It sounds silly, but give it a try for a few weeks- it is very powerful. Every time that you look in the mirror, look at yourself, smile  and say "I LOVE YOU" It may seem strange at first , but after a week you will be programming a new reaction to yourself and a new sense of yourself from the inside out.

Eventually, you will be able to see the unique beauty that you possess- right now you are feeling something like what an anorexic feels- a false sense of self imposed from without, when they willing to starve to death because they are ashamed of being "fat" - actually there is no fat, only unreal beliefs.You are lovable, and must start with loving yourself- when you do, the false labels form without will burn away, and you will be able to commune with people who se the real you, instead of shying away and bonding with those who resonate with the false images...

When you see yourself clearly and love yourself, you may not have any further patience with fools who do not value you as they should...and you may become attracted to a new guy who sees the real and beautiful you , and tells you so... Of course, the most important thing is that you know yourself as the lovely person that you are.

Keep the mirror work up for a few months so that you reprogram your reactions !!!! Be sweet to yourself!!!

Love and Peace,

Changing




spyralle

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Re: struggling very badly.....
« Reply #17 on: August 05, 2008, 05:58:05 PM »
I have to say Changing that that terrifies me.. I have been staring in the mirror all night..  Just mesmorised at everything that is wrong with me.  I can't see past that.. but I wil try

Spy x

Gaining Strength

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Re: struggling very badly.....
« Reply #18 on: August 05, 2008, 11:53:43 PM »
Spyralle - I am thinking about you.  I am very glad t here about your therapist.  Sounds like you have a good one and you deserve it.  You deserve to be surrounded by people who love you and encourage you and who can mirror for you the beauty that you no longer can see.  The wounding you have experienced has damaged your self-understanding, your self image.  What you see when you look in the mirror is a complete distortion.  You see one thing and everyone else sees another. 

It is time that you get a new mirror.  You deserve that.  I am thinking of you.  Love - Shame Slayer.

James

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Re: struggling very badly.....
« Reply #19 on: August 06, 2008, 01:30:41 AM »
Spy.......If you like to read I recommend a book by Alice Miller, "For Your Own Good". The moment I read it I realized I had just witnessed the truth about my life, a watershed event. It has taken 3 yrs since then for me to achieve a great deal of healing which has transformed my life. Many people will not read her work b/c of their Fears. I will not kid you, this work can be very painful but the results are amazing and lasting. These are very real because they are based on facing reality rather than denying it............James

Ami

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Re: struggling very badly.....
« Reply #20 on: August 06, 2008, 07:27:59 AM »
Dear Spy,
  Only now, with Alice Miller and an Enlightened Witness(someone  who will let you feel your deepest pain and be there ) have I started to break the back of the feelings you describe.
 This has just happened. I can see that it was my M who was the hollow person . *I*  HAD to think I was horrible in order to survive with her.
 I know, intimately, your feelings of self revulsion and disgust. I am moving away from them,now, as I feel the deep painful feelings.
 It does work .      Ami
« Last Edit: August 06, 2008, 07:33:08 AM by Ami »
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.        Eleanor Roosevelt

Most of our problems come from losing contact with our instincts,with the age old wisdom stored within us.
   Carl Jung

gratitude28

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Re: struggling very badly.....
« Reply #21 on: August 06, 2008, 08:24:38 AM »
((((((((((Spy))))))))))))))

When you look at other people, do you ever think they are as ugly as you think you are? If not, that will be a great indicator that what you are seeing is false and controlled by your mind.
I can't believe your mother put her selfishness ahead of your pain. No wonder you are feeling so confused.
Spy, look around you. Don't you think all things are beautiful in some way? If they are, how can you not be???????

Lots of love,
Beth
"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable." Douglas Adams

sKePTiKal

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Re: struggling very badly.....
« Reply #22 on: August 06, 2008, 10:52:57 AM »
Spy, I agree with SS - you need a new mirror!  :D

But the exercise that Changing recommends IS do-able - no matter what you see physically about yourself in the mirror. Love doesn't care what you look like... how old you are... whether you snort when you laugh... none of that stuff matters when YOU love someone else... and it shouldn't matter when someone else loves YOU, right?

So if you are practicing loving you, in front of the mirror - the very first rule to really, really look at yourself. DON'T COMPARE what you look like to anything or anyone... just try to see what REALLY is your face, physically. Draw your own self-portrait (doesn't matter at all if you can draw) without using the mirror and - THEN compare - what you see in the mirror looking at your own face...

... with how you drew yourself. Did you get the shape right? Are the eyes level? BIG QUESTION: were you able to accurately see yourself in your own mind's eye? Is the scale right? Is something more emphasized than others - is that accurate?

You'll find LOTS of clues in your drawing and it might help to take it on your next visit to your T and explain what you did and what you think/learned from doing it.
Success is never final, failure is never fatal.

LilyCat

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Re: struggling very badly.....
« Reply #23 on: August 06, 2008, 02:47:52 PM »
Spy,

I am so glad you posted here. This is the place to come. We all know it; we've been there. It took a lot of courage to write that post, and I commend you.

...just a few weeks ago I 'fessed up to my group mates (and therapist) that the night after the meeting for the first harassment charges my N pastor levied against me, I came very, very close to taking a bottle of pills that I had. I had felt that way many times in the past, but it was in the distant past -- 15, 20 years. I'd felt I'd made such progress ... until this N "pastor" (I now realize the pastor part is just as fake as anything) came along.

But after I counted out the pills I looked at the label, and there was my doctor's name, and he is such a good man and a good doctor, and has been wonderful to me. I couldn't do that to him. I knew he would take it hard. So I put them away.

It took me a year-and-a-half to tell group; I still haven't told anyone else, nor will I, most likely.

I remember how relieved I felt when I told them, and how it helped far beyond my expectations. (Actually, someone elicited it out of me, I wouldn't have volunteered it on my own.) They didn't so much give me sympathy, as just really listen to how powerful the feelings were behind the urge. It helped me enormously and, I can't say it turned things around, because what I'm going through now is just too huge for that, but it certainly helped. I'm finding that the "battle" is day by day. I look for what I can and savor that as long as I can.

So, I hope sharing this with us has helped you as sharing helped me.

You are not ugly, my dear. HE is ugly. Any man that makes you feel that way about yourself is ugly. Ugly, ugly, ugly. He/they are ugly for not inviting you. He is ugly for the way he handled this. He is ugly for the way he treats you.

Beautiful men make you feel beautiful (not that I would know...) and ugly men make you feel ugly and unworthy (THAT I do know). And sometimes ugly men make you feel beautiful so they can manipulate you. (That I know also.)

I've had the same issue all my life, so maybe you'll let me share what I've learned. First, my looks have never been validated by my parents or men. For 20 years my best friend has been trying to hammer into my head -- with no success -- that I am very pretty. Recently one of my gay men friends -- gay, mind you, the critics of all critics and the final word on beauty -- was expounding on something -- oh, I know, he was trying to tell me I looked like Natalie Wood, which I don't, at all, but it was such a great thing to hear -- when he blurted out, "Let's face it. You are a beautiful, beautiful woman." Of course, I was in shock, and I don't believe it. I think he is just incredibly sweet and probably doesn't see many pretty women!!

My parents never validated this (or anything except that I was bad/inferior, whatever), so I never internalized the good part ... and as a child, I told myself I was ugly because that explained my parents' awful behavior toward me. After all, they were my parents. They were perfect (in a child's eyes). Yet they seemed not to love me. So it had to be me. And it had to be because I'm ugly. (That's about all a child knows.)

This gradually expanded into telling myself I'm ugly when anything goes wrong. I would probably be doing it more now because of the N fallout, except that every woman I know or suspect he's been involved with has been very attractive, most even "hot." (I am NOT hot!!!!) So at least he gave that to me -- I feel a little prettier than I used to.

I once read that for a woman, beauty is power. I know I have a great deal of trouble accepting that I am powerful -- it cannot be, according to my parents I am not allowed to be powerful (internalized), therefore I cannot allow myself to look as well as I could.

...and perhaps the biggest, and this is what I'm really suggesting to you, is that when I tell myself I'm ugly, or unworthy, or any big self-criticism, I am taking the anger I feel toward someone else and turning it onto myself. I know I'm afraid of anger, and I have lots of trouble expressing it, and I always feel like the responsible one (at fault) -- so there are plenty of reasons not to own the feeling and feel it. It's not that I feel anger is wrong (although that was the message from my parents), but I think I am so much more deserving of punishment than others.

So, when you start telling yourself you're ugly or giving yourself similar messages, stop and ask yourself who you're really angry at, and why.

I bet Mr. Ugly comes to mind, as well, I suspect, as your FOO.

I'm struggling with this so much right now. I lost at least 40 pounds, possibly 50, between Feb and this month. But lately I am struggling a lot with it. I have been self-soothing with food (and completely zoning out on weekends with DVDs), and I don't like it. I don't want to lose what I've done so far (or, I guess I should say gain it back.)

So when I get the urge to stuff my mouth -- which is fairly constant, when it hadn't been at all -- I try to stop myself and say "feel the rage" -- because that's what it's all about. This N raped me psychologically. What he did was heinous. But if I have trouble with anger, just think how hard it is to acknowledge the rage (which my therapist has been digging for for 15 months, and now so is the pastoral counselor).

It's the same thing with wanting to kill yourself. It's anger turned inward. So when you get these thoughts, ask yourself who you're angry at. Don't be surprised if there's a whole long list.

And BTW, here's something for you to think about: anyone who's contemplating plastic surgery wants to live, not die. So capitalize on that will.

Spy, you are beautiful, inside and out.

I wish I had the ad copy I once wrote for a skincare product. It talked about Marilyn Monroe, and her vulnerability, which was so appealing. It talked about how we now had so many ways of helping people with therapy, that perhaps she would have found the help she needed.

The bottom line was: Because women are beautiful at any age.

Spy, you are. You are, you are, you are. !!!!!!!!!

Spy, recently I read something that my pastoral counselor wrote:

God intends for and imputes to each and every individual, honor that every human being is meant to wear from the very point of birth or even before.

That is so true.

Go claim your honor. We'll all be here with you to hold your hand and walk with you.

xoxo,

Lily

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Re: struggling very badly.....
« Reply #24 on: August 06, 2008, 05:18:55 PM »
LilyCat - thank you for sharing such an intimate and personal experience.  That takes a lot of courage and a lot of compassion.  There have been a numnber of times in my life when I felt that life was not worth living.  It was very difficult to get through those times but I have not given up on believing that the healing is right around the corner.

I want to say more to express my appreciation but the words just don't come.  I do hope that you Spyralle, can see that there are people who are willing to stand with you, to go out on a limb because you are worth it.  There have been times in my life when help offered by strangers was not meaningful.  The only help that would have made a difference was from those who I finally acknowledge were abusing me.  The double bind is that it was the strangers (as we are to you) were offering a way out, they were offering real love and the people I wanted it from were actually only offering abuse.  But I could not see it then. 

I so hope you will take our love and hold onto it until you are strong enough to let go of the unkindness this man gives you, until you are strong enough to believe you are worth a good person and that you will receive love from loving people when (and only when) you know and believe you are worth it.  You are worth it. 

You are receiving words of truth here.  I know you probably would like to believe them.  Follow your heart and accept the gift that is being offered you here and from your therapist and others who see the real you not the negative you.

Love to you both - Spyralle and Lily Cat.

LilyCat

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Re: struggling very badly.....
« Reply #25 on: August 07, 2008, 12:58:39 PM »
(((((SS)))))  ((((((Spy))))))

...20 years of group therapy gets you somewhere... (able to share) LOL!