I Am

[sanmagic7]

you know, bach, my D has often talked about the idea that her generation was told they could do or be anything they wanted, and they grew up believing that, only to fall on their butts time and time again cuz the reality was something totally different.  and they blamed themselves for the most part, and are not very happy. 

you were not given the tools nor the support or encouragement to reach your full potential.  that's not your fault.  yeah, if you'd gotten any of that, your life might have been different as far as 'success' goes.  but you didn't, and that's not your fault, either.  however, your intelligence, determination, and willingness to look both inside and outside yourself is intact.  you are writing here trying to figure out how to move forward from all that happened to you.  that's no mean feat, certainly not easy.  still, you persist, and for that you deserve all kinds of credit.

i have a lot of the same feelings that you mentioned about how different my social life could have been if i'd had some awareness of the positive qualities i possessed, how different my relationships might have been, how i could've recognized all the harm being done to me and stopped it much, much sooner in my adulthood.  instead i'm left with an empty feeling of 'could have been's', especially that i could have been much happier throughout my life if i'd only been given what i'd needed as a kid/adolescent.

it totally sucks, bach, but i get it. it did happen, and we're left with the aftermath, trying to live the best life possible under such a heavy shadow of neglect and abuse. i wish it weren't so for either of us.  love and hugs

[Bach]

Oh, san, thank you so much for your reply and for your understanding.  What you've written here is exactly what I'm talking about.  It's such a huge burden, that we have no choice but to carry.  So unfair!

About a year ago, I got some positive self-talk tapes (well, not really tapes, digital files, but Gen X thankyouverymuch), and have listened to them nearly every single day.  Of course I knew better than to believe that "You can change your life in just 30 days!", but still, I would have hoped for more improvement than I feel I've gotten after a whole year.  I've thought about putting the script into first person and making a recording of it in my own voice, but I'm afraid that if I did it would not sound sincere and that would make me feel even worse about myself.  I think the very phrase "self-esteem" has negative connotations for me.  I think that in my household it was sort of a putdown, like saying someone was egotistical.  And then there's the word "esteem", with which I realise I have a certain history.  Here's a weird one:  When my stepfather and my mother were first married, he gave me a copy of his Pulitzer-prize-winning book about something-something-American-history that he had inscribed "to (my name) With love and esteem, from (his name)".  What a strange gift to give to a small child.  What a strange thing to inscribe it with.  I was maybe 6.  I didn't know what "esteem" meant, although I understood it to be positive.  I know that when my mother and stepfather got married, she told me that he was excited about us being a family because he had three sons and had always wanted a daughter.  I think from these I got the notion that I would be appreciated and treated kindly by my stepfather.  Which of course I was not.  So perhaps I associate the word "esteem" with a broken promise. 

[sanmagic7]

perhaps, indeed, bach.  those word associations are strong.  usually, 'esteem' is a positive, from all i know, but i can see how it could've gotten twisted for you.  that's too bad, really.  actually, till you just wrote this, i never connected 'self' and 'esteem' in quite that way - how much esteem we have for our self.  to me it was one of those phrases that was always connected and just meant something about how well i thought of myself, what kind of regard i had for my 'self'.  that kind of thing.

i hope you can either delete that neg. connotation from the phrase 'self-esteem' or replace it w/ something that works for you.  and, i've never thought of self-esteem as being connected to being egotistical, but, again, sounds like it got twisted for you.  i've thought of 'arrogance' as thinking too much of oneself, as in 'better than' in some way - that's got an egotistical ring to it in my mind.  aaaah, the power of words.

we've been dealt some rotten hands in our lives.  as kenny rogers said, we've got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, know when to run.  and that's good advice, as far as it goes, but sometimes those hands are so attached to us, it's hard to get away, walking, running, flying, folding, whatever.  we're still at the table tho, for what it's worth, still making decisions about what to do with what we got.  i give us a lot of credit for that.  love and hugs

[Bach]

My idea is that if I liked myself more I'd take better care of myself. But maybe that's backwards. Maybe it's that if I took better care of myself I'd like myself more. Chicken/egg? I long to take better care of myself, but, plans, resolutions and positive self-talk notwithstanding, I just don't seem to quite be able to do it.

I always have this idea that "maybe tomorrow it will be different." Tomorrow I will feel better, do better, be better. I need, of course, to start making "tomorrow" into "TODAY". It could happen. Maybe that's what my theoretical positive self-talk tape needs to say.

[Nearlythere]

Hi Bach,

I'm new here, I haven't read the entire thread of this chat though I do recognise the general frustrations as I have suffered much too. You might want to read 'Transforming the living legacy of trauma' by Janina Fisher. I found it very helpful.

[Chart]

however, your intelligence, determination, and willingness to look both inside and outside yourself is intact.  you are writing here trying to figure out how to move forward from all that happened to you.  that's no mean feat, certainly not easy.  still, you persist, and for that you deserve all kinds of credit.

For me the "measure of success" is not where I'm at, but how far I've come. I have a list of things I'd like to accomplish, but I also realize it may never happen. And it's exactly there that I have compassion, understanding and forgiveness for myself. A kid who inherits their parents wealth travels far less along the road of development. Those with Cptsd can in contrast cover millions of miles more in realizations and awareness. Though the world will likely never know our names, we have nonetheless already succeeded in the love and touch of comprehension for what it truly means to exist and share and comprehend.

As such we are gold-medal champions.

I think you are spectacular, Bach. Keep going. Love what you are, and enjoy as much as you can. For the rest, breath and forgive. All will change, transform and grow. There is no end, only eternal beginnings but often on terrible paths. Which we progress upon against all odds.
 

[sanmagic7]

and, maybe tomorrow WILL be different, bach.  chicken/egg, but hope springs eternal.  just last nite, my D and are were talking about how much weight we've gained during her cancer battle, especially eating so much while she was doing the radiation treatments.  we're both aware, both know what we need to do to rectify the situation, but as we both went for late-nite food last night, i said to her - i guess it's not time yet.  she agreed. 

there is no set 'time' in my mind, when we'll be able to care for ourselves correctly and constantly.  we're still wounded, injured, wrestling w/ terrible thoughts about ourselves, memories of what's been done in our lives, and it's such a slow, sometimes painful process to settle any of that down.  all we can do is grab opportunities when possible, make changes when possible, and do 'good' for ourselves when possible.  and remember it's not a straight line from there to where we want to get to.  we are only human.  love and hugs

[Hope67]

Hi Bach,
Sending you a big hug of support     I hope that parts of your day will be better, and that they will become some good parts of today.

Hope

[Bach]

When I was very young, my mother and her parents (who were a very big part of our lives, enmeshment) were very big on the idea of children being "mature" and "sophisticated for their age". I'm not sure exactly how I know that was prized by them. It might have been something I heard said about my brother, when he was being discussed among my mother and any of the other adults in our orbit. It was possibly even said about me at times, but I think that my brother was better at the act than I was. He was a little older and probably had more of a grasp on the concept. In any case, I was thinking about it today and  thinking about how I was never properly a child, but nor have I ever properly grown up. I think the thing that hurts most about my life right now is that on some level I am still back there, stuck waiting for some kind of permission to grow and achieve and become my own person that I've never really been able to understand.

[NarcKiddo]

Yet again a post of yours resonates hugely with me.

I think these people value their version of maturity because they don't want to deal with all the ramifications of an actual child who might have needs that require them to do something. On the other hand they don't want the child to grow and achieve and become their own person, because that adult person might not conform to their mould. Might challenge them. Might point out their flaws or show them up. So they will never give that permission to you. Basically it seems to me that they just want a little automaton or doll that they can show off if it reflects glory on them or abuse and shove in the back of the cupboard when they feel bad about themselves and need to blame someone else.

This also seems to be me to be a prime example of generational trauma. I am not trying to let your mother "off the hook" here, but if her parents were like that then she, too, is probably stuck in some child limbo. I remember reading a travelogue about a group going on a guided hike in a country far from home with a guide who spoke English, but not proficiently. The hike went on and on. And on. The guide was all cheery and confident, but the author started having misgivings. For no obvious reason, because they had not yet overrun the designated time period for the hike. He just felt internally, with no proof, that they were going round in big circles. When the time did overrun the group started asking questions. The guide remained cheery and confident but something in his eyes confirmed to the author that the guide actually did not have a clue and they were hopelessly lost. This story felt to me exactly like growing up with my mother. I had no proof she did not have a clue. I had no choice but to believe she knew what she was doing. She would never admit she did not. But I was being brought up by a giant, vindictive toddler. Sounds like you might have been, too.

Anyway, I'm rambling now and have no insights or answers to your conundrum. But maybe a hug could help a bit. 

[Bach]

NK, I appreciate you so much 

[sanmagic7]

i so agree w/ NK, especially about parents not wanting to have to deal w/ autonomous children.  my mother loved babies, but once they got to toddlerhood, she didn't really know much about what to do with us.  i saw it happen w/ my own D1 - no matter what i said about not allowing my children to have sugar, every time she babysat, she'd always walk w/ my D1 to the corner store, buy her all the candy she wanted, and kept a drawer of candy in her kitchen for my kid to dig into whenever she wanted.  she didn't want to discipline or in any way have my D1 get angry at her or dislike her.

so, parents put their own set of expectations on their kids.  it sounds like you had an instance where they might not have been told directly to you, per se, but you learned about them nonetheless thru osmosis or something.  those lessons sit just as hard w/ us, just as unforgiving, as if we'd been told outright.  i can't tell you how many young people i've seen who have body issues mainly because of watching their moms struggle w/ their own eating and dieting issues.  it doesn't have to be direct words to us.  by example is just as strong.

not a child, nor a grown-up - at times that's exactly how i feel.  thank you for putting that here - i thought i was being foolish, stupid, lacking something that i should be doing or a way to think.  no, it's just another residual from trauma.  love and hugs, bach

[Bach]

The boiler that was installed brand new after the first flood in December of 2023 crapped out on Friday.  I should have figured it out in the morning when the heat wasn't on, but I wasn't paying very close attention and didn't snap to it until Friday afternoon.  Thankfully, it wasn't too late to have someone come out and look at it, but it WAS too late to have anything done about it before Monday unless I paid a whack of extra cash, which I decidedly can't spare on top of the already hefty price tag of the repair.  On Friday night, we put a space heater in the room where our parrot sleeps.  That night when I was in bed going to sleep, I was irrationally worried that it might not actually be safe to leave that space heater in the room with her.  I knew it was an irrational fear and was able to talk myself through it without getting up, but then I woke in the night to go to the bathroom, and then was thinking about it again and could not go back to sleep.  I didn't want to scare her or disturb her, but it was burrowing into my brain and finally, I had to get up and go check on her.  She was fine, of course.  When I lifted the edge of the sheet from the front of her cage I could feel her indignation at having her rest disturbed.  I was able to go back to sleep after that, but it stirred up many feelings about responsibility and worrying, about not being good at taking care of things and not wanting to have to.  I wish that I was a person who enjoyed nurturing and took pride in taking good care of things.  I think that all the ways in which I fall short in my own eyes boil down to that. 

[Blueberry]

   Bach!
I so resonate with all that boiler stuff plus worries about different heat source in with a pet and responsibility and lying awake half the night...

Just our particular version of cptsd I believe.

Further upthread you mentioned that if you liked yourself better, you would take care of yourself better. Well  yesterday I didn't think I was taking good care of myself at all and saying how hard it is for me atm. A few fellow bearers of cptsd said to me: It is CPTSD that makes it so incredibly difficult and exhausting!
So I'm passing on that gem to you now.