Kirsty

Ever since I was kid ive suffered from depression - because of the dynamcis of my enviroment I was too scared to express my feelings and was the scapegoat of my family. I then internalised all the hurt and anger and took it out on myself, blamed myself for everything. I would stare in the mirror too and mentally tear myself apart. I thought I was really ugly, fat and stupid, I still suffer from feeling like this today.

Today im doing alot of work on myself, im obsessive in my recovery about getting better. But I still suffer from depression. Has others suffered from depression because of their past circumstances but found that recovery has been able to lift this? I do believe I suffer from it because of all the hurt and anger I internalised as a kid and just really hope this will lift once I start to recover from the past.

I do feel really vulnerable and fragile just now but I reckon that this is because im healing and getting better?

GingerM

My guess is that someone taught you to think that about yourself. You are hearing the old tapes of whoever that person(s) was being replayed in your head.

I once came home after work and did something really dumb. I said out loud "Sheesh, I am such a moron!" My husband said "You don't really think that about yourself. That's not your voice talking." I asked how how he knew that, his reply was "Because you'd never say that about someone else." He was right. It was my own old tapes running through my head.

If you were truly stupid, you would not be seeking help. You would, instead, be numbing the pain by some other method. So you can scratch "stupid" off the list of things to call yourself. And if you wouldn't call someone else fat and ugly, then that is someone else's voice ringing in your head like a bad 70s song that got stuck and you can't get rid of it.

Yes, most of us go through some form of depression or severe anger (or both) when we start working on ourselves. We do feel vulnerable and fragile as we start to look at what we lived through and stop pretending it never happened or it "wasn't that bad" or whatever coping mechanism we used to survive the situation. When we start seeing things for what they are and how they impacted us, it does leave us feeling vulnerable.

You are not alone, and many are here who can and will support you.

If you start feeling overwhelmingly fragile, remind yourself that you lived through horrible times and are here now - you are not nearly as fragile as you think, or you would not have survived in the first place.

NewBeginnings1598

Hi Kirsty. I do not have a lot of insight yet as I am new to recovery but I will tell you that depression is a very common thing for us ACOA's and most family members of an A. Please try to do things that will take your mind off of all this. I know that I force myself to go out sometimes just to try and push through. After I finally get out of the house I feel so much better and actually wind up having a little fun.

As far as the anger, that is quite common too. I know that I am at the anger phase now and have been for some while. I use the anger as a cover-up for all the other emotions. Please know that you are a normal and beautiful person. You are beautiful and smart because you admit that you need help and you are getting it. True beauty is on the inside. Do not let other's words make you feel any different.

dothi

Absolutely yes! But it takes a lot of work. And at times, bearing the load of how we were hurt/neglected/betrayed by our parents can be too much for us to take on at once. In my own recovery, I found I have gone through phases with each aspect of my childhood abuse. One year I was brooding over all the times my AF showed up HOURS late to pick me up (he would be at the bar drinking). The next year I was brooding over the physical abuse I got from my codie mom. Stuff that I didn't realize I was even angry or hurt about started to come up, but usually because (a) I've lifted off some other piece of anger that was burdening me, and (b) I was finally strong enough to face it. Although I still have some frustrating days, my life overall is much MUCH better than it was a few years ago, before I seriously committed myself to dealing with all this BS!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirsty

I do feel really vulnerable and fragile just now but I reckon that this is because im healing and getting better?

IMO it's the combination of finally letting yourself be "exposed" (being honest with yourself about all this baggage) and still learning how to replace those old dysfunctional tools with newer, better, adult-appropriate ones.

For example, Ginger mentions playing those old tapes. How about some new tapes (or "tools"). Instead of "I look really fat today", how about, "I look like I've worked hard today," or, "I look really strong today." I sympathize on the "fat" comments, as my AF often commented on how he couldn't figure out why all the women in our family were "so fat" compared to the stick-thin men. I have done a lot of self-work to reassure myself that if he thinks I'm fat it's because (a) I'm female, (b) I have hips, (c) I'm physically active and somewhat athletic, and (d) he honestly doesn't seem to understand that unless you have a high metabolism, stick-thin models are NOT healthy!

The key here is that you actually tell yourself these things. Otherwise the old tapes keep playing instead of being replaced. Just telling yourself or jotting it down will help to rewrite those old records. I tell myself everyday that I look awesome. As vain as that sounds, compared to how well I took care of myself before, I really do look awesome now. Since it's the result of the healthy choices I've made for myself, why shouldn't I feel good about it? Even worse, why do I think I need permission to enjoy it?:wtf2

You may think this is just playing with words, but do consider all the people in the world who your family would genuinely call "fat" who don't waste their time telling themselves how fat they are. If that BS isn't slowing them down, why should it slow you down?

EveningRose

Yes, I have gone through a lot of depression. I have been reading self help books since high school, which bit by bit have had their effect. I have pursued things I love. I have done my best to live my life with integrity. All these things have helped.

Bit by bit, as my children have gotten older, I have seen that I do not treat them as my parents treated me, and it's really helped me to see objectively that they were the problem all along. (I, too, am the family scapegoat; my dad even went so far as to blame ME for his marital problems in the wake of beating up my mother. Go figure.)

I have learned to look at the things they did that used to be more hurtful and throw me into tailspins, and say, Wow, *I* wouldn't do that to someone, and to finally believe internally as well as logically, that their behavior is bad, period, and it has nothing to do with me.

I have learned to see how they treat other people differently and have different standards for me, and it's helped me internalize that I am not, and never was, the problem.