Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Overcomer on July 02, 2007, 11:32:55 PM
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For the first time in my life I think I am the only one at work who sees things clearly. There are at least two factions at work-them against them. I used to lean more to one side but now I believe I see it both ways. I am bothered by the in fighting. I think maybe the years of analyzing and reading psych books I can identify dysfunctional behaviors. I cannot agree with my mom because I see the other side but now I see the other side is thinking in blacks and whites. Anyone else feel that?
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I see it. Ummmmm consider this a bit of a rant warning, lol.
In my experience, the faction fighting at work was usually about the stronger personalities dominating the weaker employees, and maybe employers too. The dominant personalities required compliance on the part of their underlings, no matter, and usually got it. Typically, the fighting was about transferring aggression onto office workers, not about job performance or anything tangible, but about small minded things and abuses of power.
The amazing thing was that they would always lie to the fair minded employers about their behavior or get backing from the unhappy bitter employers. It was high drama on a highschool scale, really.
For the most part, I was always trying to avoid taking sides in the offices I worked in. I didn't want trouble from either side.
My last office job went up in a door slamming BOOM!
I was the door slammer.
The secretarial pool had just lost a little meanie and been replaced with a fair minded secretary, who also worked for the top dog attorney/employer man in the office. He was a fair minded bad boy who probably wouldn't have given a hank about any of this if he wasn't a bad boy, KWIM?
Part of my job was to help out the secretaries if they fell behind in their work.
The new (fair minded) secretary would run to her boss who would tell her to give me something to do so that when the mean secretary made her way up the hall to my desk (with some legal description laughably difficult to follow) That tract or parcel being of the northwest most southernly corner of the northwest most southest portion of said tract.... and on and on it went for pages, for me to TYPE on a typewriter at the time. The secretaries had word processors and could easily make corrections. It was crazy! It didn't take long before I was walking that back up the hallway and plopping it back onto the meanie's desk.
As it turns out, the head hancho, are you still with me here? The head hancho attorney had slept with 2 of the female attorneys and numerous employees. The female attorneys didn't like me bc they were afaid I'd sleep with the head hancho. The secretaries were just small minded mean spirited unhappy people. (Sidebar, when I was hired, the female attorney interviewing me told stories of sex a pades in the office with the bad boy attorney and said that she didn't want me f*cking him) Ummmmm... why was she telling me all this? Yes, she'd slept with him too.
It would have never entered my mind if they didn't keep bringing it up!
Anyway, little meanie secretary told her big meanie boss, who'd slept with bad boy too, about my little walk and plop ploy and she descended on me with a calm shaming dressing down about how I had had to do my job blah blah blab transparent tripe blah blah. Just too too much. They ended up with another job opening over silliness. The job I took was open bc of something that happened with the bad boy attorney, who'd guess?
I phoned the bad boy.... bc he was now openly supporting me,but making it look like he was standing against the meanies. I think he really enjoyed the catfighting and I think he really wanted to be bad with me but he was frightened of the fallout in the office. HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN AFRAID!
When I phoned him to inform him that I was leaving... take that meanies!.... He said that he had another job for me and to just get my things and go. I was so mad I did, and that's when I said something not too clever, slammed the library door with both hands and walked out, but not for the last time. ::groan::
I ended up coming back on the arm of the head hancho for that year's Christmas party. The meanies had insighted the very thing they were afraid would happen. Yup. Take that too....::nodding::
I was still so angry at the women in that office I wore a terribly innapropriate dress (borrowed and dispicably expensive) tres tres revealing (Poor my mother's husband, who also attended the party with my mother and kept wanting to cover me up) My mother just laughed because she knew exactly what I was doing and understood why I was doing but it was awkward bc the attorney I'd slammed the door on was one of her very good friends. Insanity! But terribly satisfying in a very twisted way I can't explain now. Poor mom just couldn't explain why her buddy had acted that way but she did tell me story about her sleeping with the bad boy and wanting marriage and all that. Summed it up for me but it would have been nice to have my mother tell her to back off her daughter, it wasn't appropriate or fair, etc. Never happened. Mom just kept her head down and dived for cover when paths crossed. There was food in every office and everyone was coming and going..... more high drama.
::wiggling eyebrows:: I can't believe I had the moxy to do that, lol but if anyone had it coming...... they did.
I never worked in another office again.
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I lived in denial for so long-thinking my family was normal. When I think about the realization that I know more than my T about N, I guess it makes sense. I watch one person be passive-aggressive, another playing the victim, and of course we have Queen Mom who doesnt have a clue but pretends she does. But the problem is that even the most rational has become part of the problem-frustration has given way to anger and now she doesnt see how her behavior is irrational. What am I to do?
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I thought your mother was being more reasonable lately? Are things really bad right now at work?
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Wow Lighter! I did the same slam the door thing to my mother. I try to tell myself that no matter where you are there will be drama. It does remind you of junior high. My high school was too large but my daughter goes to a small school and they have fights a lot. I never experienced that kind of drama in the restaurant business although I did have discrimination dumped on me being the only woman. we are all 40-60 Year old women and that seems to be a very catty Age group!
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yes she is being better but that does not mean she does not have her hit list. It is funny-people that any at her feet can do no wrong-even though they do-but people who are awesome t their job but do not any or happen to have a tatoo or a piercing are dogged constantly by her need to feel important and in control. that is what I mean about being the only one who sees it. I can see past the hands people play to what is really happening. I see the victim trying for sympathy.
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Bow not any
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I don't think your mother's behaving better. I think she threw you a bone to calm you down and keep you there, under her, controlled.
Every time they open their hand and offer something.... the other hand is holding something terrible behind their back.
I could wax on poetically about what I think's in that hand but..... I don't think it would helpful.
You're mother isn't improving, she's just being less terrible.
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Yes but I also think there is a bit of fear involved with her less terribleness-She knows she is losing her edge and hopefully she is starting to bow out before she makes a fool of herself-whoops too late-but she does not see it. Here is a funny mom story. She took the new growth of a spider plant and put them directly in the dirt-we told her she had to put them in water first until they grew roots. She poo poo us and sure enough the plant died. Only an N would think the plant would obey!
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I believe you lighter-throwing me a bone is the term I often use when refering to my N mom. She could make my life easier but she keeps me under her thumb by giving me just enough to appease me, however, I do not allow her to give me any stuff-I shut her down pretty regularly.
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Funny story about the spider plant refusing to obey.
Being thrown just enough of a bone to keep you hanging around is a sore spot for me. I'm still so angry about the rediculously impossible situation I was in during my marriage and the crazy crazy crazy expectations of my N.... I can't even see straight reading about it happening to someone else.
I don't know how we get past this stuff. I wasn't even involved too terribly long with my N. I just know that
Run.
Go!
NOW!!!!!
is the best and only advice when dealing with N's.
I couldn't think of any alternative advice to give, honestly, to someone dealing with one.
We can't win. We may feel we can control our feelings or the damage they do but.... having tried, I don't believe that now.
Not when it's someone besides an outsider, like a boss or co worker, doing it to us.
If it's a parent, sibling or spouse..... it's just too close and too damaging NOT to be a source of continued trauma. Unfathonable loss on a rediculously unecessary battlefield. I can't even understand why there has to be a battlefield, I'll never be able to defend it. I don't want to be ON it.
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I would like to hear about what you think she has behind her back.
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Dear Kelly,
I am so sorry for what you are going through I see under the heading of N mothers never change,but we always have a sliver of hope. Eventually the sliver of hope becomes a club and beats us to death Love Ami.
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Well, Ami, I do hope for slivers. But I realize that her "slivers" are her way to keep me under control. In a way. And I can play her game. But sometimes she just gets to me. I just ignore her. I am sure that drives her crazy but I just do not give her my valuable time. She is a very frustrating woman. I talked with our bookkeeper and she just wants to leave - her frustration level is over the top. I told her I was smack dap in the middle. She is the one who was once rational and has gotten sucked into a frustration abyss and she can barely function without sarcasm and very direct speech. Of course my aunt, the victim runs right to Queen Mom and complains about bookkeeper who has led our business to a profit......so........what do you do?? I have been working 2 days a week. Five hours a day. Where else can you get those kinds of hours and get paid big bucks? No where. So it is hard to swallow but I will keep doing this and keep praying that something happens which forces her out the door toot sweet!
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I would like to hear about what you think she has behind her back.
Eh.... it's usually all about a little short knife and how they twist it up under our rib cages and prick our hearts, then tell us we'd best not wiggle lest we hurt OURSELVES!
Or..... they're ever so polite and cordial while trying to get us to bend over just so..... that they may reach a cerain sweet spot they've been angling for.
I could go on and on but it's always about a knife held in the one hand while the other one pets and calms us.
Something so dreadful insidiouse about being calmed by one hand while the other inserts a cold impersonal blade made tres tres personal by proximity and the position of trust they expertly exploit, shamlessly, from every angle.
Something awful and sick and dead and broken about being held down and injured, asked to remain in a prone position, (calmly in a prone position) while thanking them for the knifing.
"Thank you mama/daddy/husband, may I have another?"
I can see people on the ground trying to deny their reality while flecks of blood and spittle cover their faces..... they're trying not to struggle, trying to deny their reality..... trying not to upset the angry sociopath sitting on their chest, twisting the blade and asking for another compliment, another thank you.... another reassurance that they aren't hurting anyone. Just awful!
So sick that the people......
who're supposed to be protecting us........
are preying on us.....
demanding we allow them access to our entrails then sneering at us.....
treating us poorly bc we gave them access.....
and confirmed for them what they feared...
that we're too weak too stupid too trusting and gullible to be special on any lasting level they can appreciate.
It's no way to live and I actually feel sorry for them when I remember how it must really suck to be them: /
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I do not see my mom doing that exactly-it is all about her and the only time her fangs come out is when I have the audacity to question her.
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Hi Lighter,
What a powerful, excoriating image...I can relate to many parts of it. If anyone ever wonders what the betrayal of love looks like, there it is.
The only thing I stumbled over was:
we're too weak too stupid too trusting and gullible to be special on any lasting level they can appreciate
I think for me there's an aspect of liberation in no longer wanting to be special. Once I question specialness itself, I feel a sense of freedom.
I want to be loved and appreciated and enjoyed. I think that's enough though.
Hops
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I have been working 2 days a week. Five hours a day. Where else can you get those kinds of hours and get paid big bucks?
OC,
When did this happen? How long have you been working these few hours? Why do you suppose your mom is paying you so much for that amount of hours?
CB
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Well she really didnt "let" me, I told her I was going to but back to two days a week during the summer and it has been hard for me because I feel like a slacker but it is my way of keeping power over myself. I have gotten to the point where I inform her of what I plan on doing and do not le her looks or suggestions sway what I choose. It has not been that way for long but I am serious about not caring anymore . I dont!
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Hey OC - I can relate to this - "I think maybe the years of analyzing and reading psych books I can identify dysfunctional behaviors." I think living with an N also teaches us to be hypervigilant about watching body language and listening to nuances of language. In my case, I trusted what I saw and how something was said more than the actual words I heard (by-product of excessive gaslightling I think). So, I think maybe we see at a different level than people who did not have to be hypervigilant as children (can be a good thing and a bad thing)!
Lighter - you have an incredible gift with words. I have read so much about N on the Internet – that is, by far, the best description I have ever heard of my parents.
Peace
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With X, I used to tell her to her face "I feel like I'm a cat and you always dangle a fish in front of me and then yank it away right when I feel like I'm getting close to it. (in this case, it was with a relationship with God...I came to believe that nobody could attain such a close one, other than her, cause she'd tell me I needed it, tell me anyone could have it, imply that there was some info she knew about it that I didn't, but that I could have if I just tried hard enough...and, all that time, I kept wondering what it was that she had that I wanted and why I didn't have it yet and how I could get it...then, when i'd out and out ask her "why does it feel like you are "keeping something from me?" She would look dumbfounded and ask "whaddaya mean? There's nothin, girl." I'd be left to keep striving and wondering...not ever knowing what I was wondering about.
There was something she used to tell me a lot about something, a box hanging over my head...next time, that it was shaking, the lid was coming off, and that I"d find out what it was when it was revealed in the right time. I always feared leaving the relationship, because I'd never know what that something over my head was. Now, I will never know anyway, cause X is history and the mystery remains eternally.
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Aww, RM, I hate that.
The mystery was NOT special secret only-the-enlightened spiritual knowledge that only she had and you could never have access to.
The "special" knowledge she had was her extraordinary gift at manipulation. Toying with you because she sensed you didn't have enough faith in yourself to believe you were free and clear to indentify what was good and healing on your own.
That's what she was manipulating you about. She did not, and does not, know anything more than you do.
There's no mystery only "special" people know.
You're as special and spiritual as anyone else, there are no priests, only people wearing robes, and other like you who yell, The Empress has No Clothes.
Grrrr.
Hops
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HEAR THAT, X EMPRESS! THE BOX WAS NOTHING MORE THAN YOUR MANIPULATION OF ME! The mystery is SOLVED!
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Ami... I didn't figure it out. It was the "feeling" I had when I was trying to stop puking around my N.
The disparity between what he was doing, and saying, was so extreme, his demand that I ignore what he was doing and listen to what he was saying so apparent, I felt pregnant for months and couldn't stop the feeling of sickness.
There was no other way to reconcile it but to simply admit what was happening to me and stop trying to deny it or leave it unsaid.
FInally, telling him how I saw it, finding my voice, made the feeling go away.
It was holding the feelings inside that was making me sick, not his behavior.
It was the way I dealt with it.
I was in so much distress and pain, I had to admit what I was feeling.
I didn't figure anything out.
I just accepted the truth.
Does that make sense?
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I am in Atlanta for a business trip! Is is almost like the scales fall off of your eyes and you see clearly-it is so horrifying to realize the trauma you have been through.
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The scales are off (darnit)
and
it's
scary.
Not overwhelming ALL THE TIME
anymore,
just
scary.
I don't want to grow up LIKE THIS, lol!
I don't want to have to fight someone I put in place to protect me.
I married an N(fox) to guard the hen house (marriage/self/life.)
HOW IRONIC IS THAT, lol!?!??
I invited this struggle!
Set it up, engineered it on some level and I KNOW THAT!
I am SO HATING life right now.
Not only do I have to accomplish the things I always struggled with when I was just me, on my own, which I did but it wasn't pretty......
I have to do them AND PARENT AND FIGHT AND STRUGGLE AGAINST a lying criminal sociopath who's bent on bending me to his will. "Ow, you're standing on my neck, ummmmm... excuse me, could you please get off my windpipe?" Figuratively most of the time, lol, of course.
Along with worrying about money resposibilty and keeping up with bills and schools and the emotional wellbeing of wonderful little human beings who depend on me solely...... I have a lifetime of defending an indefensible position with this N crazy person who's as cool as the Terminator around other people! Maddening! And he's a very good liar and thinks that's a compliment!
OK..... I'm flipping the switch to living in the moment.
::CLICK::
See how that works, lol?
I'm now enjoying the perfectly brewed cup of coffee I notice on my bedside table, because I stopped to look around. MMMMmm whipped cream.
I touched my newly waxed and detailed car and changed a load of laundry over a minute ago. Both enjoyable tasks. The scent of my favorite laundry soap on clean bedding. The way my fingers glide accross freshly waxed car paint. I used to enjoy the walking meditation of detailing my car but.....
I'll get into the shower and hope I enjoy it as much as I have 3 or 4 other showers that I wished wouldn't end.
I can't always decide what makes one shower great and the others a dissapointment.
It's the same with massages though I chalk that up to the fact I have painful deep tissue work done and it's rare that I have any work done that's not got me on the edge of crying out. It's a matter of honor that I not cry out, btw. Don't want him thinkin I'm a milk toast. And why do I care? ::shrug:: Ouch.
I look forward to celebrating the little things though.
I realize that's the road to my personal redemption.
Sometimes I look around and I realize I'm lying on the side of the road, lol.....
so I get up,
dust myself off and get back on the path.
Till I find myself laying in the dust again,
and I know I will, lol.
I don't beat myself up about it, for God's sake....
I can barely navigate the path with my goodwill.
Whatever would I do if I was letting the negative voices in my head,
which are pretty quiet these days,
have their way with me?
I wish that for everyone here.
Think positively.
Think constructively.
Keep making moves that lead to a better place.
Have a plan and get familiar with it so you can refer back to it when you're in the void and everything's dark and overwhelming.
One good feeling leads to another.
Feeling better is a matter of consistently making better choices and changing our thoughts and habits.
I feel this in my bones.... I'm on to something; )
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You are definitely on a roll-it does not feel good to live with psychos does it?
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Lighter,
I have to respond to another post of yours I forget where.
For here, just...keep rolling. You are a powerful person and there's nothing to lol about in that.
Hops
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HOW IRONIC IS THAT, lol!?!??
I invited this struggle!
Set it up, engineered it on some level and I KNOW THAT!
Dear Lighter,
It is my belief, based on everything I've read, that we all invited the struggle with the N because WE were set up as prey for Ns.
Our upbringing made us easy pickins for Ns. We were attracted to Ns (and they to us) because Narcissism was modeled to us when we grew up. People who grew up in healthy families don't pick Ns.
So, you didn't set yourself up, rather your upbringing set you up.
I love that in the depths of despair, you hit the clicker and then you're living in the moment. I did that too today and it worked for me. Said to myself that yesterday is gone, I only have today, I only have this very moment and I refuse to polute my thoughts with thinking about all the wrongs that the N did to me. Then, I concentrated on the beautiful day, sunshine, etc. I felt better.
Lighter, I love your posts, especially the one you wrote about "they did their best". Think I'll print that out.
Hang in there.
Love,
sally
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dear Lighter,
You are encouraging me to "go within". That is where my answers are. That is how you get the wisdom that you do. You go within-- with honesty.
How I got "destroyed" by the N mother was her taking away that route to my heart and core. She threw a nuclear bomb on it.
God had other plans ,though. He made me to be the person I was BEFORE she interfered.that is who I am- not this blob of mess with N thinking.Thanks for reminding me of our "birthright. Love Ami
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Thanks for all the responses Hops, Overcomer, Sally...
and Ami:
What I've got niggling in my gut for you is.....
that your mother shamed you and manipulated you to the point where just being honest with yourself promotes more shaming cycles inside yourself. At least, I fear that's the case.
it's an interesting place to be when you realize there isn't any privacy or hiding these dark things from those around us any longer.....
if we're to let the sunshine in and disinfect the familial infections.
You just have to start telling.... you're aunt is someone you can tell,l I believe..... and know that the shame it brings up will pass and that in itself is cleansing. Just to speak your truth and find that it doesn't kill you after all.
TELLING is part of the healing process.
More than anything, I think we see telling as betraying those we spent so many years protecting and trying to please. That's a big obstacle for healing.
We're such trustworthy nice people, used to keeping secrets and taking abuse till we're on the brink of bursting..... that we have to finally BURST before we protect ourselves out of the despair of realizing we won't EVER EVER EVER be able to be loved or valued, no matter what we do.
::whew!::
Then, of course, we don't look exactly sane bc we're so angry and horrified and wounded it's difficult to express all these stuffed emotions in a cohesive manner that doesn't come accross as unstable.
Well..... we aren't exactly stable by the time we get to this point, are we, lol?
Nope.
Calm and steady, sit with the overwhelming HUGE feelings and just be with them without reacting to them.
Write write write about the feelings then read and re write it all down again and again until you've internalized and understand.
THEN you can discuss anything calmly. Rationally. In a cohesive easily understood manner.
I get that now.
It takes time and feeling better is worth it.
We're worth it.
We're the people other people seek out to be with.
It's time we become our own good advocates and company in our lives.
You're right, Sally. We are chosen by the N's because we make life good and easy and better.
We have the ability to be our own good companions. Self care. Becoming comfortable in our own skins, Ami.
It's work and time, discovery and creating new habits. Losing old thought patterns that keep us mired in fear and shame.
::sigh::
I'm planning on having a great day today!
I already am and it's only going to get better with pirate mustaches and the best pirate costumes I can creatively put together! Whoo HOO! I'm livin in the moment, guys!
: ) hee
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that your mother shamed you and manipulated you to the point where just being honest with yourself promotes more shaming cycles inside yourself. At least, I fear that's the case]
Lighter,
This is so big that I am speechless. This is my problem. I feel ashamed of any honest emotions or thoughts. My God, I am so sick that it is scary.
This makes "beaten down" look good. I am so beaten down that beaten down is a step up.
This is the answer for me.
What I want in life is simple and free. I want to regain my gut and my core that my mother and father stole so viciously. I want to be honest inside my head and not feel ashamed of every thought, emotion and reaction.
I am just " struck with awe" that you gave me the answer.i want to write more ,but I am just struck silent with my whole life pain distilled to a sentence. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
Lighter
P.S> WHERE do I go from here?
Love Ami
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Ami
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Demand much from yourself, little from others and you will prevent discontent.
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Is that quote familiar?
I sense you can understand what is required of you to have a happy life, but you don't know how to look after yourself (P.S> WHERE do I go from here?
Love Ami[/b]
You hand back to your mother all the toxic shit she has piled onto you and live your own life with your children. you do this with anyone who is upsetting YOUR applecart. You have No Contact with any Ns at all! Find a therapist!! and follow her guidance. If you cannot afford one, then follow the guidance that fits you, from what you glean from this group.
you have an N husband? Hand him back all his toxic shit, the same as to your mother and now you are on your own!
Do not despair! God is with you as you have said so many times, and perhaps you might call on Him more often even than on this Group, since you so believe.
If God is telling you one thing, in your heart, but you see "something better in writing" which advice are you going to follow?
Make lists and stick to them: otherwise you might be flying all over the map in your endeavour to heal.
Make any sense?
Love
Izzy
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You tell. Co Dependent people keep secrets. Tell the alcoholic you will tell people about his behavior. Ask the N if it would be alright to let your pastor know what they just said-or when someone walks by ask them if they knew whatever the N just said to you. You will shut up an N by exposing them.
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Dear Izzy,
I can receive tough love,but do you have to use my own words to bite me in the ass(lol)?
Guess what, everyone- my aunt called me. I will call her back tomorrow when I am on the exercise bike. It is easier for me to talk to some people while I am exercising.
I have no expectations. . Love Ami
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i have to add something to "What do I do now?" It is a serious question. I have been like a brainwashed person. Many of us have. I feel like I have been indoctrinated by a cult(NPD mother) I,literally, gave up my perceptual filter at age 14 and let her program me. I remember the moment I made that decision. How could my" beloved "father lie to me?He told me that she was fine. he was the only kindness that I knew( beside my grandmother). I never could have faced that he would lie to me on such a heartfelt and life changing question. I thought that I I must be the most awful,untrustworthy person in the world to see this 'normal" mother and be imagining all these crazy things.I,obviously, could not count on my reality.I ,also, was a horrible, shameful person inside to be seeing these things and thinking these thoughts about her when she was normal . Then, since I could not trust myself I thought that I needed her to show me the way.
All the twists and turns of life with her- throwing myself away little by little in order to think that she was O.K.
I just woke up - today. Rip Van Winkle--from Hell.
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Good morning Ami,
Nice to see you awake.
now we have heard your story quite often and now we want to hear ONLY about you. What you are doing for yourself?
I think if you keep repeating the same thing, age 14, N mother, I hate myself, it is like the needle stuck in a record groove. It must be nudged over to the next groove to make any sense.
Another thing is when you respond to someone with advice, don't tell that person your story. It's a backward step for both, especially you. Think carefully about the person to whom you are responding and think hard on your advice and is it advice that can also help you? YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can help yourself two ways!
Love
Izzy
Edit: I meant to say that when I first left the N, all I could do was talk about what he did to me. I was at a gal's place, who used to be a customer of his. She does Reflexology and all the while I bitched about him, on an on and on, and one time coming home from there I heard myself and what I must sound like to someone who didn't even understand N-ism and likely thought I was making up things. After that I decided I would stop the repetitive monologues and try to think of another topic. If was hard after years with him, but eventually I was able to put him behind me. ---that is what makes me wonder if your going over and over the details is preventing you from moving forward???
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that your mother shamed you and manipulated you to the point where just being honest with yourself promotes more shaming cycles inside yourself. At least, I fear that's the case]
Lighter,
This is so big that I am speechless. This is my problem. I feel ashamed of any honest emotions or thoughts. My God, I am so sick that it is scary.
This makes "beaten down" look good. I am so beaten down that beaten down is a step up.
This is the answer for me.
What I want in life is simple and free. I want to regain my gut and my core that my mother and father stole so viciously. I want to be honest inside my head and not feel ashamed of every thought, emotion and reaction.
I am just " struck with awe" that you gave me the answer.i want to write more ,but I am just struck silent with my whole life pain distilled to a sentence. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
Lighter
P.S> WHERE do I go from here?
Love Ami
::Sigh::
I'm just glad you aren't focused on your Nhusband any longer. Sorry sorry sorry..... one of my triggers right now, lol.
OK..... I think that hurt baby/child Ami has some work to do. I think that you have to go sit in the shower and wail like a wounded animal while pretending you're 3 and 4 and 5yo and telling your mother and your father (in your wounded child's voice) how much they hurt you and how you felt when they did the things that gutted you and feel so so so so sorry for that little child.
She needs to be heard.
She needs you to know how badly she hurts.
She needs YOU to validate her feelings.
Don't suck in air or hold your breath when you're crying. Just wail and cry and carry on. Plan it. Don't have anything else to do the rest of the day and go get in that shower and sink into the despair and sadness. Be puffy be pink and concetrate on exploring the pain. It won't be easy. You'll HATE it but it WILL make you feel better IF YOU CAN GO THROUGH IT and stop avoiding it and trying to push it down. You're mother always told you to stop sniveling and stop feeling sorry for yourself and stop trying to blame her.....
well......
I'm giving you permission RIGHT NOW, to do just that. Talk to her. Be 3yo again and tell her everything. Be 12you and tell her everything. Be that confused hurt vulnerable tender child and talk about how they made you feel. Tell them everything and don't hold back the tears or the feelings or the hurt or the anger or the sadness. It's ALL VALID. It's all necessary.
It might look something like this....
"Mama, when I was little and I needed you, when I was crying and alone and you left me locked in my bedroom with a bladder infection, burning and screaming..... I was so sad and so small and I needed you so much... I didn't understand anything but that you were my world and I hurt so badly and you won't come you won't come you won't come and it won't stop hurting and daddy won't come and I'm so alone and frightened......"
You need to sink into the heartbreak and let that little girl be heard because she's trying to speak all the time, even as you try NOT to hear her.
It's like being tapped on the shoulder all the time.... like being haunted. Like having unfinished business that will ruin your life if you don't address it and hear it and let it speak and ONCE YOU DO......
She'll feel better.
She'll have more peace.
You'll keep working on your coping strategies and self care rituals.
You'll find a couple very good friends and a group of people to share things with.
People who don't requirethat you sacrafice yourself so that they can feel better about being sick and broken and living in a state of altered reality that requires people to mutilate their true selves.
Gaining your voice means you honor yourself.
You have to figure out what Ami likes to do.
You've been focused on what mama wants Ami to be... on pleasing her.
What does Ami want in this life for herself?
What interests do you think you might want to explore?
That's where you start and before you know it.....
you'll have things to do and places to be and not so much time to post on this board anymore, lol.
Maybe you drop by and help other people who remind you of yourself not so long ago.... a lifetime ago?
You share your lessons and you find that only drives the lessons home for you.
It solidifies your life's lessons in concrete ways that allows you to LIVE them, rather than try to incorportate them in abstracts you can't really FEEL yet.
All the sudden you're FEELING better. You're feeling whole. You've found your core and you're sharing the real Ami with others.....
and yourself.
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Thank you,lLghter
There is a lot of good information ,here. Love Ami
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lighter
That was absolutely wonderful!!
and so sensible!
Izzy
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This is what I mean about snapping out of it. You do not remove your scars by denying them however you get no where by replaying the offenses over and over and over again. I used to do that and you end up making yourself sick by reliving the hell. The first step is to set major boundaries and the second is to tell and the third is to tell yourself that it is over and you will do whatever it takes to not be the victim anymore. It is easy to obsess and think about all the injustices in life!
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Thanks Izzy.
Ami... you're doing great work and at some point you won't feel the need to talk about what your mother did you so much. That's when you'll have let the little child inside have her say and get it all out.
You haven't done that yet and/or if you have..... then maybe you've become stuck in the role of victim? Not really sure but no one here wants Ami to be a victim. We want you to be triumphant in the posture of "survivor."
You'll get there..... bc there are those ahead of you, lighting the way.
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Dear Lighter,
I get what you are saying. At this moment,though,, I feel so very alone . Facing that my "dreams and "life' were a lie makes me feel so vulnerable. I feel so, alone . I am facing the world all alone. I just want to cry and cry . I have not faced 'real" life since I was 14. I was in a shell of illusions.I covered myself with sickness, worry and longng for my mother. It was a comfort. It was like hiding under cotton .
I know that I am "it". I have to be my friend. I have to be my support. I have to learn how to take care of myself and to honor myself.
It just feels so over whelming .Does everyone go through this even if they don't have an N mother?
Love Ami
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I think everyone goes through it, Ami.
They just call it "carving their own niche."
I guess self discovery can be painful for anyone, esp those with abusive childhoods.
You have a very difficult path and you deserve to feel sorry for yourself. Go ahead and do that. You truly are entitled to feel those feelings and MUST in order to move through and past them.
Just know that you'll find yourself in that lonely place you're in.
The VOID.
How scary and dark and alone it is.
For everyone who goes through it.
And everyone does.
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Ami...
I don't know.
But I think you could scream WHY ME? 1,000 times and it might help.
How about reading the book When Bad Things Happen to Good People, or some philosophy, or some Holocaust survivior stories?
Especially, how about reading Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl?
I think you need to discover that your life has meaning and that you have an identity that is more than pain.
You do.
Hops
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WOW,Hops. I need to see that I have an identity aside from being my mothers daughter !!! Love Ami
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We ALL do! I am sick of being known as X daughter. She it so desperate to stay in the spotlight that it is easy for her to kick me aside. I think she looks silly. But when you are 47 It is time to have your own identity!
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Wow Ami, Kinda feel like so much of what you have said in this conversation is me. And thanks to all that responded. I have lots to think about. WISDOM! Think I have been stuck in the cycle of rehashing the pain. Same song played over and over.... Also feel the void that should be where my "self" should be. Wonder if my inner self is so covered by shame. Feel like a fraud. Like I have been trying to play the part of a "healthy, strong, or good" person. Want to find a place where "me" is enough and even more than enough.
Ami, do you feel like you know who you really are or of your value? Do you know yourself but feel that you just haven't talked for a while? or do you feel like your inner self didn't get developed? or maybe that you don't know where to find yourself? I don't really have much in the way of wisdom to share. But you sound like you are hovering between the past pattern and the future freedoms.
Mof4