I didn't really know how to come back here, so I really appreciate all of your replies. I got upset after reading all those harsh words being exchanged. It's not the first time I've felt that way here, either - or even the first time I reacted the way I did. I had to stop and think about why, and I was stuck until I read wondering's post about interrupting others.
Reading those exchanges forced me into a kind of emotional inventory. Keys? Check. Ticket? Check. Passport? Passport? Do I have my passport into the world of healthy human interactions? Are there things I'm still doing and just don't realize it? Yes, sure, but now they're more benign. I hope. Are they? That's what it is. Those words just threw me into deep self-doubt.
I used to interrupt others all the time, too (still do sometimes). It was the only way I get a word in edge-wise with my parents (still is). After years of this, I became very aggressive and dominating in conversations - afraid to let the mic go for fear of never getting it back again. Only, most people never interrupted me the way my parents did. They didn't know the rules of the game I'd learned to play. So I kept talking and talking and talking...I didn't know how to shut myself up - or even have a real conversation. My parents shut me up. Conversation was a battle, not an opportunity to get to know others. I regret the fact that for many years, I did to others what my parents did to me by blabbing endlessly and not really listening to others. But I had to learn their rules in order to live with them. In order to have any chance of being heard.
And keeping people at bay. What if I start hanging out with someone and find out I don't agree with them? Forget the harder scenario involving ending up being around someone mean. How about simply disagreeing with someone? I was never allowed my own opinion...what does it mean to allow others to have theirs? If I allow them their own opinion, does that mean mine is sacrificed? At home it sure did. I literally had no idea how to be different and myself with others. I had no idea they didn't care to turn me into them. I had no idea they were able to like me because I was different from them. All I knew were the battles with my parents - or the ultimate submissiveness. Nothing in between. So I mimicked others. I tried to be like them. Or I bullied them - because I couldn't let them run over me. Sometimes I did this with the same person. It must have been so confusing, even hurtful, to be around me. But I had to learn these extremes because if I were always aggressive, I'd be punished severely all the time. If I never spoke up and fought back (and I mean fought), I wouldn't have had food or school supplies. And I never would have been let out of the house to be with my friends. There were no in betweens at home.
But the mean words. The harsh words. Yeah. I'm really familiar with those. I used to be completely obsessed by the idea that if my parents just knew how much they were hurting me, they would stop. I spent so much energy (energy I could have used to study for school, get my homework done, learn how to get along with the other kids at school), trying to figure out how to get through to them. Sometimes, maybe often, my answer was to hurt them back. Sometimes, the only way to get them to stop hurting me was to hurt them back. But it would have to be quick- before they set up their guard. It'd have to be something so bad that it would break through their barriers. Catch them off guard. So hey, if I happened to get close to someone who wasn't my parents and they hurt me, I had no idea how to handle it other than to retaliate with words that would cut through the thickest of skins. I didn't know that all I had to do was say, "that hurt, please don't do that". If I said those exact words to my parents, one of my parents would go into a rage and the other would talk about how much of a victim she was. That's the worst of it to me. Whether or not I had a choice, whether or not someone else in my shoes would have found better ways to react (isn't that always the question, though? could I have done a better job with them? was it really all my own failing?), I learned to be mean. And manipulative. I had to be manipulative, I know that. I probably even had to be mean. But boy has it been hard to forgive myself for that.
I've said a lot, but these are the three things that jumped into my head when I was thinking about wondering's responses. What did I have to do? What did I do that I hated doing? And for the first time in my life, I'vebeen able ask myself (and start to forgive myself in the process) - why did I have to do it?
What did you guys have to do? What did you hate the most? Did you do some of the same things but for different reasons?
Wildflower
