I am sharing all of this below today (and no one needs to read it-- I am writing it for me) bc I read something this morning and realized that all week on this site, much like I did for years with my AH and my family, I have let someone else's words about me impact how I felt about me. Sick (me). I can have 100 people tell me something positive or tell me something in a respectful way but if one person says something nasty, that's what I cling to. It's insane. I've done it my whole life and I did not expect that I'd do that here bc I naively thought that behavior like my AH's and my family's was isolated to them. How crazy is that?!
I appreciate all that I've learned here-- and even those people whose words have been triggering bc of how much they have sounded like those of the abusers in my life, I appreciate (though I don't like how it was said) the opportunity your words/behaviors have given me to recognize what issues I still need a LOT of work on. Not letting others define me, not letting others opinions when they aren't based on the whole picture impact what I know is true and not letting my self esteem be wrapped up in what others say to me are all lessons I have struggled with my whole life and this week here I've realized these are still major issues for me.
When I first registered/came here I came here feeling like a mess... I came here being unwilling to utter the words "my AH is abusive" bc no one sees it but me and I feel and have felt tremendous shame about this. Shame that I am educated and "let" this happen. Shame that I worked with DV victims and somehow was dumb enough to let it happen to me. Shame that I had children with this man.
Over the past month or so I've gotten a lot of help and advice and info from people who are ahead of where I am and I applied a lot of it to my life and I made some big decisions (big for me that is) and changes. I started to feel SO much stronger and felt better about myself than I have in a long time. Getting to al anon mtgs is hard for me- I go once a week but other than that my support has been my therapist, my sponsor and lately, here. I've been really grateful to this site and have found such hope and strength here in both others' stories and in the advice I've received.
Over the past month as I started to feel stronger and better about myself and started to believe that I really had not caused the abuse or the alcoholism (neither of which I believed) I started to feel really really hopeful about my future with my girls and I (alone!) and started to imagine all the things that I had to look fwd to that I've stopped doing, ignored, etc... bc AH wanted me to drop friends, hobbies etc... and "be there for him" and I did. I started to feel good about who I was and that is not something I have felt EVER.
I didn't let losing my job a few weeks ago result in a complete meltdown like it would have a few months ago and instead of sitting and panicking I took immediate steps to come up with a solution. I told my family the truth about my marriage (and from my sister and mother got told "oh you're suchhhhhh a victim, get over yourself"). I told AH I was done and meant it. I told my best friend what has really been going on in my home and found each time I told the truth it took some of the shame away. And coming back to SR each day has helped keep me feeling strong enough to keep doing this. As recently as Easter I was told by my mother and one of my brothers (not the one who works with AH) that I should look at what I've done to cause AH to drink and treat the girls and I badly and that before I "throw away" our family I should think long and hard about the consequences of my choices. I haven't shared these remarks here. I've tried to not let them bother me and focus instead of the positive.
But today, after a few days of thinking about why it is that I am letting the words of a few people bother me so much I realize that I am really struggling. I have enough other people in my life telling me I am the problem, telling me I am full of myself, that I am full of it, that I am a "victim" (when I do not see myself that way) etc... I've tried hard to tell myself that AH telling me this or my mothers telling me this is bc of their "illnesses" of addiction, but truthfully, I've believed this about myself for my whole life bc its been beaten into my head and it's hard to push that away. I came here and felt I was starting to be able to push those messages away bc so many people shared the same experiences that it couldn't be "my fault".
But then this week, I find, in a place where we are supposed to all respect and support each other (and no that doesn't mean telling each other what we want to hear-- but it does mean being respectful) that I've been told pretty much the same things my AH spews at me when he is trying to keep me stuck and afraid. And I am confused and don't get it. I don't think sooooo highly of myself, I don't think I am a victim, I don't relish the victim role, I am not high and mighty or anything else I've been told I am. But because these things are so similar to what I have been told by AH and my mother for years, I AM having a hard time not defending myself and not letting others' words impact me. And I am finding that the hope and strength I felt building for the past few weeks has all but gone away. I feel crummy, I feel I need to defend myself, I feel I better not share my struggles or my accomplishments bc I will be judged by a few around here for either being a "victim" or "thinking too highly of myself". I am just a human who is trying to be honest about my ups and downs and I guess that's triggering for some. And unfortunately, the words being thrown at me- or the accusations rather, are triggering for me. There are a few phrases that I've lived with my whole life that have hurt a lot, that are intentionally chosen to be hurtful (by AH and my mother) and a few too many of those have been thrown my way this week and it's hard to take.
One of the things that I've lived with a lot from AH is that almost each time I have shown I feel good about myself, or I show that I am not sticking with the status quo, he knocks me back down to size-- tells me I have an inflated head, tells me I can't "see myself accurately". My self esteem has been in the toilet for years. In the past couple months it's started to get better, though when I get into circular conversations with him or try to explain, justify or defend why I feel as I do and am making the choices I am making for ME, he still has (or I still allow him to have) the ability to smash whatever self worth I had started to develop and I question myself all over and feel ashamed for thinking that I had any right to change.
I am still struggling with the above and the LAST place I need to be insulted is on a board where I am coming to try and get OUT of the patterns that have kept me stuck.
I think people ought to be aware on here that we DON'T know the whole story-- that all of us have a lot more to our stories than the rest of us know and we might want to try and use a bit more tact at times than we do (or some do) when talking to each other. I don't think anyone is actively trying to sound like my AH or knock me down, but some of what has been said has been really triggering bc it is almost verbatim the same stuff that AH and my family have told me my entire life to keep me in the role they want me to play bc it keeps them from having to deal with their issues.
I have gone from feeling strong and wanting to stand up for myself and change my life and feeling like I have a RIGHT to all of this to feeling like I shouldn't bother bc maybe AH, my family and a few select individuals around here really have been right all along about me and that I am the one trying to delude myself. This feeling is one I have been fighting for months. It's a mentality I've tried to stop believing and I am angry that on a site where we should be supporting each other, I am finding that I feel worse than I have in a long time bc I am fighting the same SICK accusations that my AH and family have spewed at me for years.
A few days ago I was feeling better about myself and more like I was on the right track (even if at the beginning of the track!) than I ever had. And I've let the words and accusations of strangers who really don't know me at all impact that. And the only person I can blame this on is me. That said, I now feel like I ought not share any accomplishments or things I am proud of bc I fear being told (as I already have been) that I think too highly of myself. I feel I shouldn't share when I am struggling bc it will be interpreted by a few as me just whining and not being willing to make changes. I felt like this was a safe place to come, a place to get support, advice and be treated with respect. I really really hate that I am feeling pretty much like I have felt with my AH for years. Feeling like I need to filter what I share so that I don't have what I say dissected and misinterpreted. I feel like I have done something wrong to "bring about" the remarks that have been sent via pm that are just totally out of line.
Throughout my marriage when AH has treated me horribly I always found myself asking what I did to cause it. Same with my childhood with my borderline mother and narcissistic father. These 3 people told and tell me how they view me and I believe(d) it and then would try in vain to prove myself innocent of their baseless accusations. Overtime it didn't matter whether they told me I had 3 heads-- I'd still try and defend myself. The madness was that I was never able to say "say what you want but I know my truth" and let it go. NEVER. But over the past few months I've started being able to do that with AH and it's been liberating. And it's been heartwrenching to find myself in this same pattern here this week. Defending myself, feeling that I HAD to explain more clearly so that people would see the "real" me. What I am realizing (thank you therapy!) is that I don't think AH or my parents ever saw me as they claimed they did. I think that they SAID a lot of things they knew were untrue bc it served a purpose for them and since I showed that I'd let it impact me I was an "easy target". I started to figure this out in therapy but clearly didn't figure it out well enough to apply it to the world outside of my AH and parents... I guess I should.
For years, my mother, father and then AH would take my words, spin what I said and make what I said fit their argument/perspective. It was maddening. I was constantly afraid to speak freely for fear of how whatever I said would get thrown back at me and I have to say that I feel much like that right now about posting here. I am worried about my word choice and what I share bc I fear how it might get taken, twisted and thrown at me in a way other than I intended. That's a crappy feeling and this is not a place that kind of behavior should be happening.
I am sick of being told that just bc I stand up for myself and tell people when they are distorting my words, that I am "only interested in hearing what I want to hear". It's not true and if it were then I would not have gotten anything out of being here and I have gotten a ton from a lot of the healthy and wise people on this board who I am grateful for. I don't understand what my problem is with needing to try and prove myself to others- first my mother and father as a kid, then my AH and now people here.
I am still really stuck in caring way too much when others spew things at me that are untrue and I spin my wheels and try to defend myself. I thought I'd gotten better at doing this with my AH and I think I have. But I did not expect that I would have to practice that same lesson here.... Maybe it's good that I get extra practice though... Is this a HP lesson?
Bottom Line: There is a LOT of history that we all have that we don't all know about. Before you decide to jump all over someone, judge someone, use less than tactful language, consider that no one of us knows the whole story of each other and you never know when you might be re-creating the very dynamic that people are here trying to get away from.
I think that a little bit of tact, compassion, humility, lack of judgement... goes a long way.