strawberrycat's journal

[strawberrycat]

Hello, I'm not too sure how I should start one of these, but recently I've been looking around on this board for a little bit and I have a general idea of what I can write about in my own recovery journal. I've been journaling on a mostly consistent basis for around six years and have both physical and digital journals; but I've never had one like this where other people can see what I write and respond back, so I am kind of nervous about this. I feel like it's something I need to do though in order to practice opening up since I've been so closed-off for a long time; and I hope I can actually commit myself to posting on here.


It's obvious to me that I've gone unheard my whole life - I don't think there is anyone who really knows my whole story or the extent of all the psychological pain I've been through. Actually talking about myself beyond surface level things and letting someone get to know me on a more intimate level feels like one of the scariest things I could ever do. It'd require that I trust another person enough to feel able to share all of those sensitive things - my deepest thoughts, feelings, and childhood wounds. I still don't know if I could ever do that, although the more I progress in my healing, the more I think about opening up to the idea of it more, as a risk I will have to take if I'm ever going to have a healthy and real emotional connection with someone.


In my introduction post I mentioned how I had experienced a few different trauma re-enactments all online a handful of years ago, and how it may make me reluctant to interact with the other members of the forum. I'm still trying to move past all of it and not let my fear control me so much, but I get the sense that this fear might always be with me in some form; of course I'd like to avoid being retraumatized by people I meet on the internet all over again, or just people in general. However, I've come to the conclusion that talking to people on here, even if we're all anonymous and technically strangers to each other, feels a lot more safe and controlled than talking with someone one-on-one in an online setting. The chances of being invalidated, rejected, or dismissed definitely don't feel as high - I'm still a little cautious though, since nothing is full-proof.


I will probably write about my trauma history in segments instead of all at once in one super long post, so as to not overwhelm myself or anyone who decides to read my journal. The main bulk of my trauma is emotional/psychological in nature, so I don't think there will be any super graphic descriptions of anything physically or sexually disturbing, but I will put trigger warnings throughout just in case. I don't know how much detail I'll put, but I still feel a bit weird to be telling what feels like my life story to a forum on the internet, but I suppose that's a given lol. I said I would write about things in segments, but my posts will probably still be pretty long and may feel like one essay after another, as I have a lot bottled up inside of me. Of course, no one is obligated to read anything I write here and only respond if you want to.

[Chart]

I'm here strawberrycat. Take your time. Do what feels right and natural. I've found its a growing process for me. Looking back and remembering and rereading my journal I can really see how I've changed. And the support and advice the whole time from others is inestimable in value. It's never easy, but for me at least it has saved my sanity, if not my life.
 

[NarcKiddo]

I hear you.
 

[strawberrycat]

Hello Chart and NarcKiddo, thank you ^_^

[sanmagic7]

we're here strawberry cat - so glad you took a leap of faith to write here.  this place has been very caring and nurturing for me.  i hope you have the same experience.  sending love and a hug filled with hope, if that's ok.

[StartingHealing]

Hi strawberrycat!

I experienced the same trepidation.  Other folks can read?? 

I've found that the folks here "get it" they savvy. They have a level of understanding and kindness, that to me is amazing.  I honestly at times have no words to express it adequately. 

Some of the tips and tricks I've picked up from others here, have helped my healing journey a great deal. 

Wishing you all the best

[strawberrycat]

Hello Sanmagic7 and StartingHealing, thank you for your warm replies

[strawberrycat]

So a bit about my family of origin or "FOO": my mother is most likely an emotionally abusive covert narcissist and my father is the emotionally unavailable/absent bystander parent. A rather insidious combination; death by a thousand (invisible) cuts type of cptsd. I suspect there is generational trauma at play in both sides of my family, but I don't know a lot of the details - just things I've picked up here and there.


Mother's side: Definitely "sweep it under the rug" type of people - because if we act like nothing bad ever happens and there's never any problems, then it must be true, right? I've noticed my mother's mom (my grandma, technically, but I don't like calling her that for some reason) has this pattern of getting with weird and predatory men (who most likely don't treat her well), but it's never actually talked about out loud. I wasn't exactly told a whole lot about her upbringing, but she's always had a sort of strange vibe about her? I never really got that close to her, either. However, I do know that my mother's father has been addicted to drugs for a long time and wasn't exactly present as a healthy-and-functional father figure. My mother's siblings all have different dads that I don't really know anything about - but when I put bits and pieces together, it becomes more and more apparent to me that there's some deeply ingrained patterns of dysfunction that none of them have really untangled or healed from.


Father's side: I currently live with some of them, and I know a little more about my grandma on this side, since I was closer to her while growing up. Although now, she's more difficult for me to be around as she's almost always complaining about something and being pretty negative a lot of the time - not to mention her major road rage issue (among other things). With her, it's somewhat more obvious to me that she has some unresolved childhood trauma and that none of her children's fathers were good people. I feel like I know even less about my real grandfather on this side; I think I might have briefly heard that he was an alcoholic that ran away from the family? I'm not completely certain what the story is there, but it does seem like there's a similar pattern going on in both sides. My father and his two sisters all grew up into...questionable people, to say the least.


I've also heard that both of my parents apparently grew up poor, so that might also be a contributing factor in things. There's definitely more I could say about all my relatives, but I don't want to accidentally overshare or make it too much to read. I'll probably be writing more about some of them later on in here if I think it's relevant enough. I don't exactly like anyone I'm related to though, so most of it might come off as "badmouthing", but I have my reasons.


I've also recognized that I have a small part of me that feels unsure and doubtful about using my recovery journal on here in this way. Like I'm doing something that I'm "not supposed to" and that I'm somehow going to get in trouble for exposing my parents and relatives or for sharing too much or something like that. I've been holding back and "keeping the peace" for my entire life though. The constant invalidation and gaslighting made me believe that I can't trust my own feelings or experiences. I think it's probably just a result of being silenced for so long and now I'm worried that I'm doing something wrong. I know most of the members use their recovery journals in a different way from this, but I don't think anything I put here will go against the guidelines? I'm probably just overthinking all of this like I do with everything else .-.

Note: I forgot to mention this in the first post, but I write all my posts in google docs a little bit before I actually post them on the forum, just for organizational purposes.

[Chart]

I've also recognized that I have a small part of me that feels unsure and doubtful about using my recovery journal on here in this way. Like I'm doing something that I'm "not supposed to" and that I'm somehow going to get in trouble for exposing my parents and relatives or for sharing too much or something like that. I've been holding back and "keeping the peace" for my entire life though. The constant invalidation and gaslighting made me believe that I can't trust my own feelings or experiences. I think it's probably just a result of being silenced for so long and now I'm worried that I'm doing something wrong. I know most of the members use their recovery journals in a different way from this, but I don't think anything I put here will go against the guidelines? I'm probably just overthinking all of this like I do with everything else .-.

Strawberrycat, Your doing nothing wrong. This is your journal, your space. There are some practical rules (trigger warnings, swear words, respectful language towards others...) but otherwise you say what you're thinking and feeling and want to say. It's about sharing your unique experience. No two people on this forum are the same. We've all experienced things in different ways and come here with a perspective that is our own. Often (and I'm speaking for myself) the things I've experienced in my life affected me in a particular way that I thought was the true reality of the situation. But through the reflections of others and reading others' experiences I realized my own perceptions were influenced by ideas forced upon me by my family members. The process of realizing has been for me an enormous catalyst for change. I honestly feel I've evolved more into my true self (or the person I dream of actually being) more in the past three years than the entire rest of my life (I'm 56). I give enormous credit to the Forum and the incredible members here for this. The connectings and support have been nothing less than life changing. I cannot emphasize this enough. I am here to understand your experience because it enriches my own. When you share your life and what you've been through, it helps me immensely. But of course you share yourself in your own unique way, you share yourself how it's beneficial to you. And sometimes it's hard, very hard. But we've decided to start facing the truth. And the truth is not often easy.

I'm mixing up you/I/we a little too much perhaps. :-) I have to be careful with generalizations. Anyway, all that is my perspective. It saddens me that you think you're somehow "doing it wrong". I'd like to respectfully suggest that is a conditioning from your past.

It is exactly in circumstances like here on your space/journal that you can recognize this and begin the (often) slow but sure work of changing those ideas into something healthier and more validating for you.

I think your writing lovely. Thank you so much for sharing.

Hugs, chart
 

[Hope67]

Hi strawberrycat,
I really like your name, and I'm glad you are starting your journal here - I hope you'll find it to be helpful, and I'd like to send you a hug of support, if that's ok 

[sanmagic7]

hey, strawberrycat, as chart said, this is your place, your journal, your space to use the best way that is helpful for you.  may i say that i had a similar feeling about 'exposing' the people in my life by writing about my experiences with them, that i, too, was doing something 'wrong'.  we've been taught so well to keep things hidden, sometimes even from ourselves, and that speaking our truths about others is some kind of betrayal, or like we're 'snitching' on them.

over the years of being here and discovering that truth is reality, nothing more, it's made it easier for me to heal on many levels.  i hope you'll be able to find that for yourself as well.  sending love and a hug, if that's ok with you.

[NarcKiddo]

I was heavily conditioned by my FOO never to tell anyone anything about the internal workings of the family. So I totally understand the really difficult feelings around starting to unburden oneself to others. Take it at your own pace - but know that you are not doing anything wrong. You are not betraying or snitching - this is an anonymous forum so nobody has the faintest clue who you are or who you are talking about.

I agree with Chart's suggestion that maybe your feeling of "doing it wrong" is conditioning from your past. It is also possibly coming from any discomfort you feel as you start to write about your history.

Just take it at your own pace. I think it is really great that you are sharing about areas where you are feeling unsure and doubtful and are thinking about why that might be. Good for you. Usually we can learn the most from things that provoke a difficult reaction in us. It is an important part of healing to recognise the reaction and explore it rather than push it away.

[strawberrycat]

Hello Chart and NarcKiddo, I would agree with both of you that me feeling like I'm doing something wrong is conditioning from my past. Growing up, it was considered bad to mention anything "not nice" about another person, any negative feelings I was having, or just anything that was bothering me. But the truth is, there's a lot of not-so-nice things I can say about the people I'm related to, and I have plenty of negative feelings and things that bother me. Talking about all of it does make me uncomfortable because I'm not used to it, but yes I am trying to go at my own pace. Thank you for your responses.

Hi Hope67, thank you for the hug of support

Hey Sanmagic7, I agree that we were taught to keep things hidden and that our truths are our realities.

 

[strawberrycat]

I took a break from writing anything new for a couple days, and now it feels like I'm about to throw myself into the deep end haha...I figured it'd make sense to try to write about stuff in a chronological order (kind of), but I technically only know when my trauma started based off context clues - I don't actually remember. I'm not working with a whole lot, but I'll try to string together what I do know into something coherent, hopefully.


TW: Implied emotional abuse

So I have a couple of vague memories of my M telling other people about how awful and terrible 3 year old me was. I don't know how often she would do this, but whenever she did in front of me, I can sort of remember how I'd just freeze up and feel this shame wash over me. In the moment I didn't realize that she was pretty much publicly humiliating me and that what I was feeling was called toxic shame - all I knew is that she'd like to bring up these stories about me having the "worst temper tantrums ever" and that'd it make me uncomfortable in a way I didn't really understand. My M talked about me like I was some sort of monster that was impossible to contain. It was obvious she saw 3 year old me's difficult emotions as something shameful and embarrassing and that I was treated with contempt and disdain every time I broke out into one of these temper tantrums. Apparently, according to her, I got so bad in public places that she'd have to lock me in a public restroom stall with her until I "calmed down" - whatever that means. As far as I know, she didn't hit me, but it's not like I can say anything like that with complete certainty either, since I can't directly remember any of this. Either way, I know that my emotions were harshly rejected and I got the message that me having and expressing negative feelings was not acceptable and that I was a "bad child" for crying, getting angry, ect.

End TW


That's about as much as I know in regards to how it all started. I guess my M likes babies, but I became a problem once I started walking and talking. A toddler starting to gain their sense of self and experiencing big feelings that they don't know how to regulate were my first crimes, apparently. It's gotten more obvious to me over time that this was a big attachment disturbance for me. As soon as I was in elementary school and around other kids, I had these persistent jealousy issues. I didn't know why at the time, but while I was growing up, I always felt like I needed one person all to myself - a best friend who considered me to be the closest person to them. If they had any other friends that they were close to, this would upset me and I'd get desperate to be the most special to them - I'd even lash out a little sometimes about it. By the age of 10 I started to get the sense that there was something "different" about me compared to the other kids, something I just couldn't pinpoint. It felt like there was this invisible wall between me and everyone else, and it frustrated me that I couldn't figure out what was "wrong" with me. Eventually, between the ages of 13-15, I ended up re-enacting this early trauma with people who all had their own unresolved trauma. My feelings, needs, and problems became a burden all over again; I was rejected, invalidated, dismissed, and emotionally abandoned all over again. I started seeing myself as this otherworldly monster for having these difficult emotions, unmet needs, and psychological issues - just like my M did all those years ago. I feel like I'm beginning to ramble, but back then I loathed myself so strongly; I believed I was inherently unloveable and that there was something deeply wrong with me that could never be fixed.


Anyways, that's all in the past now, and I'm not in that terrible headspace anymore, although I am struggling with various other things. I could go on and on about my M, but this already took me long enough to finish writing, so there will probably be other posts of me ranting about her sometime in the future.

[sanmagic7]

SC, i can totally relate to having a mom who loved babies but was at a loss as to what to do w/ them once they became autonomous, experiencing the world and themselves in it.  i think all she wanted was to love and be loved by these little critters, but when it came to dealing w/ real emotions, no one knew what to do w/ them - not me, not her, either.  so, i get it.  we weren't given much of a chance to become rounded human beings, were we!

that emotional residue lingers a long time.  i'm glad you're getting some of it out.  i hope it helps.  love and hugs