Thanks for listening but please do not feel obligated
pray for strength
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: New England
Posts: 2,414
Thanks for listening but please do not feel obligated
Yak's thread inspired me to write tonight. Thanks so much to you all and I did not wish to hijack.
This is the beginning of something that I need to get off my chest. Right now is a good time for me as I realize that there is healing in being right here. Not in finding another book on the shelf but in recognizing that exactly what I feel at this moment is right and true. It is real and not make believe.
One of the biggest revelations since I stopped drinking almost one year ago is that I cannot outrun the things from my past that I do not understand. I do not need to know the exact reason why I start to weep when I watch my girls play. I weep and feel like I myself am once again a kid in the moment, feeling pure happiness and enjoyment. My heart aches and I feel once again like an outsider (on the periphery?) of my own life. I cannot understand this.
Both of my parents are ACOA and both have passed on to me a horrible contempt, disdain, shame, guilt and who knows what else - along with the good, of course. When I was 10, I recall seeing a photo of my father as a child, sun-soaked face with freckles, playing on a swing set with his brothers, my uncles. I cried and cried because I could see that he was once a child as well - without such a hardened heart. He was beaten down and has never told me exactly how. But it was bad. Apparently my grandfather experienced even worse treatment. Unspeakable. I know all of this only from whispers over a lifetime.
They are so wounded, as are we all to some degree. Why do I always feel like an outsider looking in? Since I was a child I have felt like what I sense and what is spoken are totally mismatched. This will really **** with a kid's head. When I think of myself as a child it is frequently like a dog with ears perked and head cocked to the side. Trying my best to figure it out. And it is rarely ever about what I actually see, feel, hear, taste, touch. Something else. The unspoken.
For about 4 months now I have found myself crying in situations with intense stress or emotion. No anger. No fighting. Just tears. So embarrassing. But not really embarrassing because I am beginning to accept that this is who I am right now at this very moment. Your **** is yours and mine is mine.
In the last few months I realize that I am part of a generation that traded one type of abuse for another. How is it that a kid can recognize that she is really fortunate to have only been neglected and not had the complete **** beat out of her an a regular basis? Slight but not total expectations of perfection and superiority.
Inside there exists significant anger and resentment. For one, how could she pass that **** on? And two, allow her children to experience unnecessary pain and suffering while at the same time expressing righteousness and indignation? Over her child? Why me? How young was I to first recognize that I was better off having a helicopter drop my food in the middle of the pine grove in the yard and a sleeping bag and pad to rest my weary head and heart? Just to have the silence and absence of confusion.
I find myself knowing only how to express love in parenting and experience abject fear of my own disciplinary voice. I cannot tolerate hearing my own voice express anger. And I am stuck. Parenting feels so unnatural at the moment. Painful. It feels like I am yelling at and correcting myself and I hate it.
At least I am at the beginning and finally understand why I sometimes wake up crying. This feels like the biggest gift. Thanks for reading and may you have the sweetest of dreams. Tonight I pray for healing.
This is the beginning of something that I need to get off my chest. Right now is a good time for me as I realize that there is healing in being right here. Not in finding another book on the shelf but in recognizing that exactly what I feel at this moment is right and true. It is real and not make believe.
One of the biggest revelations since I stopped drinking almost one year ago is that I cannot outrun the things from my past that I do not understand. I do not need to know the exact reason why I start to weep when I watch my girls play. I weep and feel like I myself am once again a kid in the moment, feeling pure happiness and enjoyment. My heart aches and I feel once again like an outsider (on the periphery?) of my own life. I cannot understand this.
Both of my parents are ACOA and both have passed on to me a horrible contempt, disdain, shame, guilt and who knows what else - along with the good, of course. When I was 10, I recall seeing a photo of my father as a child, sun-soaked face with freckles, playing on a swing set with his brothers, my uncles. I cried and cried because I could see that he was once a child as well - without such a hardened heart. He was beaten down and has never told me exactly how. But it was bad. Apparently my grandfather experienced even worse treatment. Unspeakable. I know all of this only from whispers over a lifetime.
They are so wounded, as are we all to some degree. Why do I always feel like an outsider looking in? Since I was a child I have felt like what I sense and what is spoken are totally mismatched. This will really **** with a kid's head. When I think of myself as a child it is frequently like a dog with ears perked and head cocked to the side. Trying my best to figure it out. And it is rarely ever about what I actually see, feel, hear, taste, touch. Something else. The unspoken.
For about 4 months now I have found myself crying in situations with intense stress or emotion. No anger. No fighting. Just tears. So embarrassing. But not really embarrassing because I am beginning to accept that this is who I am right now at this very moment. Your **** is yours and mine is mine.
In the last few months I realize that I am part of a generation that traded one type of abuse for another. How is it that a kid can recognize that she is really fortunate to have only been neglected and not had the complete **** beat out of her an a regular basis? Slight but not total expectations of perfection and superiority.
Inside there exists significant anger and resentment. For one, how could she pass that **** on? And two, allow her children to experience unnecessary pain and suffering while at the same time expressing righteousness and indignation? Over her child? Why me? How young was I to first recognize that I was better off having a helicopter drop my food in the middle of the pine grove in the yard and a sleeping bag and pad to rest my weary head and heart? Just to have the silence and absence of confusion.
I find myself knowing only how to express love in parenting and experience abject fear of my own disciplinary voice. I cannot tolerate hearing my own voice express anger. And I am stuck. Parenting feels so unnatural at the moment. Painful. It feels like I am yelling at and correcting myself and I hate it.
At least I am at the beginning and finally understand why I sometimes wake up crying. This feels like the biggest gift. Thanks for reading and may you have the sweetest of dreams. Tonight I pray for healing.
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,369
(((Verte)))
I'm not sure what to say except - you are worthy of all the goodness grace and peace this life has to offer - and I hope you can find a way to lay the burden - that others placed on you, and you learned to place on yourself - down.
I'm not sure what to say except - you are worthy of all the goodness grace and peace this life has to offer - and I hope you can find a way to lay the burden - that others placed on you, and you learned to place on yourself - down.
Member
Join Date: May 2013
Location: east coast
Posts: 1,332
thank you for sharing your story. I hope you find healing. I understand how confusing it can be to " guess what normal is". Neglect is a powerful form of abuse. Don't ever discount it. Love your inner child and teach the child that anger is ok. It's a powerful but fleeting emotion and used properly it can be good.
Member
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 456
I too would like to thank you for sharing your story.
I was able to relate to many of the things that you said. I was also the child who whould try to listen and watch for the subtle things not being said out loud in my family. As an adult I would also do this in social situations and it was exhausting.
Getting married and havng children sort of pushed me to work on my recovery. I can still remember the day when I realized I was emotionally withdrawing from my children similar to how my own mother did with us. It was a painful realization but it also pushed me to try and create a different type of childhood for them and a different type of family for us.
Congratulations on your sobriety and best wishes as you continue with your path to healing.
db
I was able to relate to many of the things that you said. I was also the child who whould try to listen and watch for the subtle things not being said out loud in my family. As an adult I would also do this in social situations and it was exhausting.
Getting married and havng children sort of pushed me to work on my recovery. I can still remember the day when I realized I was emotionally withdrawing from my children similar to how my own mother did with us. It was a painful realization but it also pushed me to try and create a different type of childhood for them and a different type of family for us.
Congratulations on your sobriety and best wishes as you continue with your path to healing.
db
Member
Join Date: Jul 2013
Posts: 350
Thanks for sharing.
Personal experience for me:
I grew up in an alcoholic home. Dad worked and provided, but was also not present. At least I didn't feel his presence. His anger, sure. But not the real him. Tough to see - tough to experience. Even though my father is a "functioning" alcoholic and what I experienced "could" have been worse, I have been diagnosed with PTSD. I get angry unexpectedly sometimes - or very sad. I am trying to live in the moment and not relive my past.
There is probably a long history in my family as well, but UTTER secrecy around it. I call my aunt up one day out of curiosity and I find out that one of my great grandparents killed their spouse and themselves (which means my mother grew up with a parent who experienced that trauma). I know little of what her childhood was like - her dad hit her with a shovel once. Umm...there's no way to spin that to sound good. If it was just a tap and caused no injury, why would it be mentioned? My aunt married an alcoholic - left him and is with someone new and appears happy. One cousin passed away from suicide. Another cousin suffered from drug addiction. There's probably MORE to learn. Anyways, the point is, it's in my family tree.
It is a mountain of past, history, genetics, etc - I want to BREAK MOTHER-F'ING FREE from it ALL. I don't want those tragedies and heartbreaks in my life. I don't want my children to grow up with it. I can't control my disease (I'm an alcoholic as well - almost 3 years sober!). I go to counseling every single week, attend 12-step meetings (2-3 times a week), and write/read on SR. This stuff is working for me. Maybe with a lot of work and awareness - a priority being transparency (no whopping secrets!), I could break the cycle. I am not required to follow in the foot-steps. I am not required to pass-down abuse (even if it's less abuse - it's abuse all the same).
That's my challenge. BREAK THE CYCLE.
Personal experience for me:
I grew up in an alcoholic home. Dad worked and provided, but was also not present. At least I didn't feel his presence. His anger, sure. But not the real him. Tough to see - tough to experience. Even though my father is a "functioning" alcoholic and what I experienced "could" have been worse, I have been diagnosed with PTSD. I get angry unexpectedly sometimes - or very sad. I am trying to live in the moment and not relive my past.
There is probably a long history in my family as well, but UTTER secrecy around it. I call my aunt up one day out of curiosity and I find out that one of my great grandparents killed their spouse and themselves (which means my mother grew up with a parent who experienced that trauma). I know little of what her childhood was like - her dad hit her with a shovel once. Umm...there's no way to spin that to sound good. If it was just a tap and caused no injury, why would it be mentioned? My aunt married an alcoholic - left him and is with someone new and appears happy. One cousin passed away from suicide. Another cousin suffered from drug addiction. There's probably MORE to learn. Anyways, the point is, it's in my family tree.
It is a mountain of past, history, genetics, etc - I want to BREAK MOTHER-F'ING FREE from it ALL. I don't want those tragedies and heartbreaks in my life. I don't want my children to grow up with it. I can't control my disease (I'm an alcoholic as well - almost 3 years sober!). I go to counseling every single week, attend 12-step meetings (2-3 times a week), and write/read on SR. This stuff is working for me. Maybe with a lot of work and awareness - a priority being transparency (no whopping secrets!), I could break the cycle. I am not required to follow in the foot-steps. I am not required to pass-down abuse (even if it's less abuse - it's abuse all the same).
That's my challenge. BREAK THE CYCLE.
Member
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 10,912
Hey Verte.
I've been wanting to respond to this post of yours for two days and am finally getting to it. I read your OP twice, on two different days, and each time the first thought that crossed my mind was: do you have a good therapist? Someone to "work with" more in long term rather than some sort of quick strategy. The feelings, fears, and mental states you describe really sound to me as stuff that could perhaps be best addressed in a committed and safe therapeutic relationship... at least to me it sounds like that.
I don't have ACOA issues and history of abuse within the family, but I have others that have influenced and interfered with many parts of my life... Including old and ingrained patterns of relating to others especially in close intimate relationships. I'm now finally getting into these things really deeply... Well, I have been for over a year now, but more recently I got a new therapist and I'm just starting to truly understand what it's like when it's a best fit. I thought I already had a very good "match" with the previous therapist and it was very helpful in quite a few areas of my life, but with the current one, the involvement and depth I'm experiencing is... something else. It's kinda insane at times... it's like my mind is capable of loading almost every kind of interest, motivation, and feeling into this construct with him. This is something I always wanted to experience in a therapeutic relationship, and I was quite certain I could, but.... again, living it is something different. What I am talking about is the possibility and practical opportunity to sort of experience (re-experience) aspects of many of those old emotions, relationships, as well as my current reality and feelings, the whole scale, in a setting that I value and now trust enough to be willing to drop defenses I've been wanting to drop for a long time but did not know how. It's the ultimate experience of vulnerability for me and sometimes it's not easy at all to say the least, and sometimes I get angry that it's a therapy thing and not something "real" in another area of my life, but getting through this frustration is essential part of the healing process of which I'm really just at the beginning in this current format. But knee-deep in it. No, sometimes it feels like the tip of my head
I guess this initial intensity will pass and even out with time. Or maybe not.
Anyhow, I just wanted to share that I find this a great way to get into emotions and process them in new ways that I could never achieve on my own, no matter how introspective and insightful I can be about myself. It's also great for me since normally my thinking and activities are more focused on my processing things in more rational ways, and I really appreciate having a "place" to let those crazy feelings flow and I don't criticize myself for it. Well, I'm learning to not criticize myself but I often actually feel guilty now for leading all this on one person, even though I know that's the purpose of doing the work.
What led me to this thinking reading your post was the parallel you make between your old experiences and current challenges in parenting, and how these things likely interact in your mind. See, this is exactly one of the things I find most valuable in my current therapy: what I mentioned about sort of re-experiencing my patterns of relating such that it becomes material for analysis and insight, as well as the starting point to hopefully develop new strategies and behavioral tendencies, perhaps even values. Definitely healing that is worth the momentary pain and confusion a million times for me.
I wish you all the best, my friend. Deep emotional work and trying to change the way we process things and handle things is never easy
I've been wanting to respond to this post of yours for two days and am finally getting to it. I read your OP twice, on two different days, and each time the first thought that crossed my mind was: do you have a good therapist? Someone to "work with" more in long term rather than some sort of quick strategy. The feelings, fears, and mental states you describe really sound to me as stuff that could perhaps be best addressed in a committed and safe therapeutic relationship... at least to me it sounds like that.
I don't have ACOA issues and history of abuse within the family, but I have others that have influenced and interfered with many parts of my life... Including old and ingrained patterns of relating to others especially in close intimate relationships. I'm now finally getting into these things really deeply... Well, I have been for over a year now, but more recently I got a new therapist and I'm just starting to truly understand what it's like when it's a best fit. I thought I already had a very good "match" with the previous therapist and it was very helpful in quite a few areas of my life, but with the current one, the involvement and depth I'm experiencing is... something else. It's kinda insane at times... it's like my mind is capable of loading almost every kind of interest, motivation, and feeling into this construct with him. This is something I always wanted to experience in a therapeutic relationship, and I was quite certain I could, but.... again, living it is something different. What I am talking about is the possibility and practical opportunity to sort of experience (re-experience) aspects of many of those old emotions, relationships, as well as my current reality and feelings, the whole scale, in a setting that I value and now trust enough to be willing to drop defenses I've been wanting to drop for a long time but did not know how. It's the ultimate experience of vulnerability for me and sometimes it's not easy at all to say the least, and sometimes I get angry that it's a therapy thing and not something "real" in another area of my life, but getting through this frustration is essential part of the healing process of which I'm really just at the beginning in this current format. But knee-deep in it. No, sometimes it feels like the tip of my head
I guess this initial intensity will pass and even out with time. Or maybe not. Anyhow, I just wanted to share that I find this a great way to get into emotions and process them in new ways that I could never achieve on my own, no matter how introspective and insightful I can be about myself. It's also great for me since normally my thinking and activities are more focused on my processing things in more rational ways, and I really appreciate having a "place" to let those crazy feelings flow and I don't criticize myself for it. Well, I'm learning to not criticize myself but I often actually feel guilty now for leading all this on one person, even though I know that's the purpose of doing the work.
What led me to this thinking reading your post was the parallel you make between your old experiences and current challenges in parenting, and how these things likely interact in your mind. See, this is exactly one of the things I find most valuable in my current therapy: what I mentioned about sort of re-experiencing my patterns of relating such that it becomes material for analysis and insight, as well as the starting point to hopefully develop new strategies and behavioral tendencies, perhaps even values. Definitely healing that is worth the momentary pain and confusion a million times for me.
I wish you all the best, my friend. Deep emotional work and trying to change the way we process things and handle things is never easy
Currently Active Users Viewing this Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
