HoP,
thank you. This was very validating for me and helpful today. It conveys much of my hurting heart.
A friend said just the other day that when he tells his mom about something bad that happened to him, her response usually is, "So what did you do that caused that to happen?" He said he has gotten to the point he just hangs up on her when she gives him that response, which has caused her to back off. But, gee, the very next day I got the same B.S. from MY mom --- and realized that yes, this is a pattern.
My mom has done the very same thing to me, over and over again. As a child I would come home from school telling her a story of how some boy or kid was mean to me but that I cared about them like Jesus says to just care, however, it still did not take away the pain that I felt or the feelings of sadness and cofusion that I need to have validated, or at least just her protective arm around me to show me tenderness, that I was still little and just learning.
It was a form of gaslighting, her telling me that I did something to provoke it or that I must have been bad or wrong to elicit responses from other kids that were, looking back, just being kids, bullies.
So you not only get kicked in the teeth by life circumstances but then you get kicked in the teeth by the person you are seeking solace from.
Exactly. I am healing now from ever feeling solace or comfort from humans, except others like you who too have had to grow up with N's, the invalidation, the abuse, the confusion, the bewilderment that they leave you in. As painful as it is it is forcing me to reach into prayer and to trust my own thinking, my own perceptions, no matter how much confusion that I have to push through in prayer. It is making me stronger in ways that I still cannot see or understand, yet.
I don't get it. How can a person that has lived long enough to be considered ELDERLY, not get that 1) bad things sometimes happen and they happen to everyone no matter how careful you are, and 2) even if you could have prevented X bad thing from happening, it doesn't give other people the right to screw you over just because you slipped up, and 3) how is this making anybody's life better, to kick them while they're down?
This was so helpful for me to read. It was helpful for me because I still believe the lies that bad things only happen to bad people and that I attract bad stuff to happen in my life, which has some truth to in in that I will work out the unfinished drama or pain of childhood by unconsciously attracting those kinds of people and circumstances into my life. This I do not mind so much as it shows me what I still need to work through, a sifting of sorts to get me free from unhealed baggage. But it does not mean that I am bad, that is clear.
As I look back on how good I was at times in my life, a vision came to me of how I was noble, really honest at times in my life with others but that kind of courage and truth seeking, revealing of my real self was too much for others, who cannot live in that kind of courage, to take it unless they can take it from you in a perverted form - it made them hate me and hurt me.
THAT WAS NOT MY FAULT. This is all becoming more and more clear to me as I work through the very old tangled web and tightly bound lies in my soul that speak to me about my badness, which was never true. I was not bad for needing, wanting and seeking as a child, not bad for being a child. I was not bad, therefore it was NOT my fault, the pain and suffering. It was as you say, sometimes bad things just happen to good people.
