Today's Hurdles

[Gaining Strength]

I am facing a huge hurdle today and I must come here to deal withit.  I know what it is and I know that I have been through this process many times before and with significant success.  But I am afraid and the fear is real, but it is different from the fear I have faced in the past. It is not the same debilitating fear that I have encountered at other turns and yet it feels more insurmountable.

I am simply working this stuff out here because this is a safe and comforting place for me to be.  This place takes place of the family security that I never had.

Something came to me the other day.  When I was given assignments in my childhood home and left to deal with them on my own sometimes I wouldn't know how to do it, other times it was a pain to do and other times I just needed another human being to be there with me.  But if I didn't get it done correctly then what happened was it either got done without me or I got the wrath of heaven screaming and yelling until a broken, devastated humiliated child got it done.  She felt very Cinderella like in the way the step mother and step sisters treated Cinderella when she was cleaning.   Either outcome in my past was terribly negative.  I am still waiting for the fairy godmother to come and help me - not to do it for me but to help me, to be there with me, to encourage me, to care. 

When ever I got things done or didn't I received criticism and never praise.  I didn't deserve any credit or any encouragement.  I can tap into that shaming and rejection that I experienced as a child.  It is more painful than I had remembered.  Thanks for letting me share this.

[Gaining Strength]

TWo Insights:

still punishing myself for being abandoned

self-hatred connects me to my parents abusiveness b/c I fear their abandonment and sure death.

If I flourish then I will be abandoned.  If I fail then I can continue to receive their contempt. their contempt is necessary for me to live.  BREAK THIS CURSE!

[Izzy_*now*]

Hi GS aka WK

Do I know you? an EDIT--

Are your parents still alive? Are there any other people with whom you deal who are exactly like your parents, or is this awful feeling one you have not rectified within yourself even in calmer surroundings.

That is awful for a little girl in her growing years to receive that abuse. However, you were not to blame. There could be many reason but I can think of only, were you too young to do these chores? were you never told how to do these chores?

For those two reasons alone you can tell yourself that you were asked to do the 'impossible' and therefore begin to try to let go of the feeling of being at fault.

We cannot cry over spilled milk, literally. My sister as a little girl was told to carry a large pail of milk from the barn to the house. I can just picture it, the big pail banging against her leg and milk slopping out on her little fat leg...as I had such orders as well, other times. She made it safely to the kitchen door,,,,,,, then tripped on the doorsill. I was on the far side of the kitchen and the milk ran all over the floor and straight at me. No way to replace it. The cows had been milked and the bucket set aside, as all the rest was fed to the pigs.. For a parents such as we had who yelled and screamed and beat us and never let us forget, that is the ONE time they didn't. I was about 3-4 years old.

No one ought to be felt shamed, inept or humiliated when learning something for a first time that requires more assistance and knowledge.

As growups now we try to find a way to tell this to ourselves and believe it; perhaps by repetition' repetition works for me.

do you have a thereapist to talk with, or someone else.

How are you doing now with your work and play jobs?

You are living in fear that is not there!

We all deserve credit, a pat on the back now and then, a 'good for you'. I never received much of anything until I left home, went to work full time and I was given planty of praise. That, alone, didn't heal me, as I had other issues, but I came to realize all the positive things I could say about myself regarding work:
punctual
a good worker,
stuck to it until the problerm was solved,
was rewarded with a pay cheqye
was rewarded with postive words from my superiors.

There is always some place to start...

Good Luxk
Izzy

[Gaining Strength]

I am in touch with huge amounts of anger/rage.  I want so much to find out what is underneath it.  The rage has to do with being left out, over and over and over, with being pushed away and belittled and laughed at for needing my parents.  I am so angry about that.  I hate witnessing people setting people up to be laughed at.  Because ithappened to me and I am in excruciating pain from it.  Until I connect with the original pain I am stuck in the anger and rage.  This is the only place I can come to talk about it.

I'm angry and filled with resentment. These feelings come from deep within and have a long history.  They have been present with me my whole life.  They have colored my outlook in everything. I don't want to be a slave to them anymore. 

Across the years of dealing with these issues I have learned that the words come to me before the freedom from them.  The feelings intensify and take on a life of their own.  There are loops in these issues in which the resentment throws me into anger and on and on. One memory leads to another and each and every one angers me more and more.  I want out of this loop.  I want out of the anger and resentment.  I want out of the sloven life and paralysis.  I want to be able to move forward and leave all of this behind.  I am tired of being angry and tired of being resentful and tired of being reactive and tired of being left out.  I want in.  I want to participate in this American life.  I want to work and make money and have a life. 

I believe I will but I must get to the bottom of this rage and resentment.  I must touch this deep seated pain - all the way down.

Tired of being helpless, hopeless.

[Gaining Strength]

I have more to write.  I am at another significant hurdle in this healing process, one that promises to bring more healilng, more freedom.  I know the board is slowing down but I am sad that noone has posted an encouraging word.  I feel so lonely in this process especially sharing it here and not hearing anything back.  But that can be the nature of this place as well.

The dark side of my childhood is growing larger and larger.  This has happened several times before as a large issue works its way to the surface.  All kinds of stuff from the unconsciousness is pushing upward and connections are being made.  I'm in touch with the fear and the profound sense not experience of being unwanted and rejected over and over in my childhood only to be told that I am loved but that I don't appreciate all that I receive.  I'm told that I am not appreciative when I want to be close and included and I am given "things" instead to mollify me and to avert my attention from wanting to be in on the activity gong on between my parents and brothers.  From the time I was 3 I was told that I was too young.  Thing is - I never got old enough.  The other thing is there was only 20 months between me and the middle brother and 38 months between me and the oldest.  It had nothing to do with age.  I was left out from the get-go.  And I am still experiencing the very same reactions that I did as a toddler.

I feel the rejection and get a shot of adrenaline - fear, panic, frantically try to adjust my behavior to get included and become apoplectic and tantrum about being rejected - it feels like my life is on the line.

Problem is - insight this morning - on a profoundly unconscious level I expect the rejection and/or humiliation whenever I encounter others.  That expectation sets me up to get what I expect. 

I have no idea how to get a new process except to do what i have done in the past to deal with shame and other issues.  I must absolutely plunge myself down into those memories and experiences and let the pain work itself out until the alternative options open up.

The abandoment and rejection are so painful and I have lived a life of it.  It hurts. 

My memories of 5 and under all have the feature of being leftout or treated differently and being punished if I complained or ridiculed if I acted out.  And the ridicule would go on for years - the tale told over and over.  Even now I cannot share with you the stories because the shame is far too great eventhough I can clearly see that none of you would see that aspect in the story themselves.

That pain is horrendous. I just wanted to be loved.  I didn't ask to come into this world but once I did I needed to be loved and cherished and nurtured.

[Gaining Strength]

Writing out things here that I am dealing with internally helps me in a way I  would never have believed.  Since I last posted (a couple of hours ago) I have made a substantial connection - being connected/included (the opposite of abandoned) is the lifeblood for me but early in my life being connected got twisted up with condemnation and self-punishment.  In the dark recesses of my unconsciousness I have made self-condemnation a pre-requisite to being connected/living and a consequence of this was more condemnation and rejection - a wretched, horrid cycle that I have lived in and lived out.

I pray that making these connections either breaks the spell or leads to the path that breaks the spell and that I can get out of this loop and find my way out of this forest at last.  I know life outside is worth living.  My life right now is not.  I truly want out and I want to help others find a way out.

[gjazz]

WK:

The cycle of feeling left out, rejected, shamed, and then trying to control your environment by self-rejecting and anticipating that the pattern will play out in all future relationships must feel familiar to many people here.  I can relate to it, absolutely.  My NF now, officially, in front of others, actually blames me for being treated "differently" as a child because I was female.  I do not recall selecting my gender, but that is beside the point.  He will never accept responsibility.  He will not change.  Yours may not either. 

But you are changing.  You have changed.  You are willing to face the hurt head-on and move into strength and peace within yourself.  It may seem like that goal is a long way off, but if your journey is anything like mine, it's not really a destination.  It's a process.  I feel great when I have only one or two rage attacks a week.  They still come.  How could they not?  But they're fewer and farther in between and not debilitating like they used to be.

Your future is, truly, in your hands.  You do have the power to limit or completely eradicate someone's influence in your life.  It may seem impossible at times, at least it does for me, but I try to keep my eyes on the prize, that being peace of mind, joy, freedom. 

[Hopalong]

I have made self-condemnation a pre-requisite to being connected

Wow.

That
is
HUGE

kudos, WK,

Hops

[Izzy_*now*]

hi W

My memories of 5 and under all have the feature of being leftout or treated differently and being punished if I complained or ridiculed if I acted out.  And the ridicule would go on for years - the tale told over and over.  Even now I cannot share with you the stories because the shame is far too great eventhough I can clearly see that none of you would see that aspect in the story themselves.

K

It's strange how this is the story of my life, things I mentioned when I came on board, over 1½ years ago, and it was the root of all my problems,  that I was always leftout or treated differently , and this was from as far back as I can remember and still. I was ridiculed and taunted by my siblings and father and there is much more, but this goes to show that until a person recognizes it in one's own life, someone else saying the same thing does not 'ring a bell'.

Yet I didn't have to wait to remember. It followed me all through my life, as a live memory that could not be approached or the response would be "Stop living in the past."

Izzy

[Gaining Strength]

Wow - to come on line and see three responses felt like I had come home and found some friends had come over for a surprise visit.  It felt great!!! Thanks guys.


Gjazz, your words make me feel like I belong, that others know the pain.  Boy is that a good feeling. Thanks so much.  I am astonished that you father would actually say acknowledge out loud that you were left out b/c you were a girl.  That happened in my life but my father would never say it outloud.  He would find a way to blame me for anything bad that happened.  He always did that.  It's painful - that's for sure.  I'm sorry you experienced that but jeez - how bizarre that he thinks that's reasonable enough to admit!!!!

Thank you so much for your encouragement.  That alone is the food I need to push forward.  I didn't get it and cannot get it still from my family but I need it and it is more significant still because you understand and have been through similar insanity.  I definitely keep my eyes on the prize.  I believe anything is ultimately possible.  When I wrote above that it was like having friends drop by - I thought, "Wow wouldn't that be nice to even have friends who COULD  drop by." and I realized - it is - it is possible - don't ever give up. I believe. [the other day I was walking around in the kitchen preparing dinner talking to myself when my son said, "What do you believe Mom?" because what I was saying to myself was, "I believe, I believe, I believe ...."]

Thanks Hops - it really is huge.  It helps so much to make that connection.  I also see that I have isolated in order to avoid the pain of the whole cycle.  I hope that I can now tune into how I opt for self-condemnation and stop doing it. 


You know Izzy, my memories are not new, I've always had them but what is new is how it all connects.  I've never seen how I got stuck into a passive pattern of waiting to be "helped" out of my dilemma.  I've never seen how I have participated in the condemnation and criticism - that I carried it around with me in my own head and how I could not/would not do what I needed to do to get out of my predicament out of some bizarre responsibility to their demands/condemnation.  It's too bizarre to make sense out of  and yet unless I attach this understanding to these memories I will never be free.  All too weird to fully understand.  Just glad you guys would allow me to share with you.

[gjazz]

Hang in there.  People here understand.  And yes, my father said it, but mostly because he was drunk off his ass.  The argument went like this: you weren't treated differently.  Me: OK.  Him: well you think you were treated differently.  I listed a couple examples.  Him: well that's because you deserved it.  Why?  "A girl."

OK, Einstein.  Whatever.

[Overcomer]

Isn't it stupid GSWK?  Our parents do not control us now but we think they do because we have been hard wired that way.  I have gone through classes and heard it said that you HAVE to undo it by replacing it with positive words.  Actually saying them outloud.  Boy, I pray and pray that God would take this cup from me.  Do you?  I just hold you up!!

[Gaining Strength]

Slowly but surely OC I do feel that I am getting to that original wound and finding my way out.  It is painful to be sure but not nearly as horrid as the life I have lived.

Here is a memory from age 7 that came up this morning:

My family was on vacation at a resort.  My father's sister and her young children met us there.  The first day my middle brother and I went to "The Playhouse" where there were supervised children's activities (no parents accompanied us).  While there a boy took my sweater and put it under his shirt and would not let me have it back.  My brother stood up for me and got it back.  It was the only time in my life that he stood up for me.

Later that afternoon we were at the pool.  There was a low brick wall between the pool and the outside cafe.  I jumped over it and cut open my shin.  My parents took me to the infirmary and they bandaged it (no doctor to stitch it).  I was not allowed to swim the rest of the week.  Two parts of this memory stand out: 1) my father said I deserved the cut and the consequential missed swimming for jumping the wall and 2) I still remember the smell of the bandage when I got home 6 days later.  The smell was putrid.  There was sand in the wound and the bandage was wet from bay water for days and days.  My mother humiliated me for the state of the bandage and my leg.  I still feel the humiliation.  But as an adult and as a mother I realize that what happened is that she couldn't be bothered with changing my bandage - the whole week!!! and she blamed me and humiliated me for that. 

Both of these memories are incredibly painful and relate to much of what I brought forward and lived out.

The loneliness of these memories in almost unbearable.  To deserve all the bad that befell me with no sympathy at any time is a form of condemnation that has kept me down.  It has been a weight that I could not rise above.  It has been so oppressive and it has lead directly to the mess I live in.  Because what I learned is that I get what I deserve and all the bad is what I deserve so I cannot undo it.  I deserve it.  The pain of all of this is incredible.  I so hope someone here will understand.

[teartracks]

Hi GSWK,

still punishing myself for being abandoned

This struck a chord with me.  I carried a deep, abiding inner feeling of guilt for so long.  I can't remember when it began.  When I tried to explain it to a friend, she thought it sounded like shame.  I said, No.  It's guilt.  The thing is, I didn't know what this unidentifiable feeling of guilt was about.   In other words, I knew about the freedom that confession and divine forgiveness brings.  But what was I to confess?  Why couldn't I identify it?  Later during one of my 'seclusions' deep in the Kentucky mountains, it came to me.  It was  about the guilt I felt for abandoning my own self as a child.  (not saying it was justified guilt, but it was in me and I needed to deal with it)  So then, as best I understood how, I in essence apologized to and begged forgiveness of myself.  The guilt went away.  I know this sounds convoluted, but it was real.  I was carrying guilt about having abandoned my own self.  I expect this may be a  necessary part of inner child work.   I think it was at this point that I began to remother myself.  Learning that principle helped tremendously on a lot of levels.

tt

[Gaining Strength]

I have come here to write today because I am in so much pain - excruciating pain and have been for several days now.  The pain is not new.  It has been with me a lifetime, building and building and building.  But for the past few days the mask on this pain has come down and I am no longer repressing it, no longer masking it and pretending it is not there, wishing it away. 

As I feel it I see things about it.  I am seeing how in feeling the pain I have felt venomously towards people who have been unkind or who have shut me out or excluded me.  In a dream I was in a church for a non-worship service and I was making my way into the 4th or 5th pew.  There was a young girl there who was down syndrome.  She was with her family and I sat next to her.  We started chatting until the program began.  After it began I found she was leaning into me and in front of me.  I felt claustrophobic.  I felt a rage and a sharp searing pain.  By befriending her suddenly I was left alone and everyone else was turning the cold shoulder to me.  In an instant I knew that I had befriended her because it was the right thing but it wasn't because my heart was in it.  I had anticipated being praised for it and instead got rejected.  But the rejection was not b/c of anything I did but because noone else wanted to be bothered, wanted to sacrifice their time or their small talk connections. 

On the surface this seems like small potatoes but what I get from this is something about a lifetime of actions and values. I didn't connect with her because I connected with her and was drawn to her heart but because it was the right thing to do and there would be a reward for it - but the reward was not forthcoming - the whole experience was suffocating.

My whole llife has been about "doing the right thing", following some list of "shoulds" rather than being in tuned with and following my heart.  Ironies abound here.  My NF has always followed "the rules" and "the shoulds" and been very legalistic.  There was never any real love, only shoulds.  In recent weeks I have been connecting with my little boys heart rather than doing the shoulds and it has had a healing effect on us both.  And a third irony has to do with this human spirit who comes to me in the night and holds my broken heart while it spews forth pus from a life on infection and she never tires and never "reacts" to the pain and the need.

From this dream and other images that have come to me in the night I have seen how common it is for people to run for the hills when others are in pain and in need.  The strongest image that comes to me is one of drs. and nurses coming into the patient to adminster procedures and medicines but not love and care - no real concern and connection.  The connection is where the healing is. 

I am living in faith that experiencing this pain - more acutely than ever - is leading to a real healing, a groundedness that I will have the strength and courage to move out of, to live out of and where joy and flourishing can about, where there will be connectedness and friends and love.  I am believing on faith.