Not PND - children are too old! But feel completely worthless!

[soleil]

I don't really know how to put this, as it's extremely painful (hence my pseudonym...)

I think I've always been quite unlikeable and seemed ridiculous to people. I KNOW this isn't entirely true, but as a child I was pretty weird and often bullied, and as a teenager I was a twat/clown. Even now I find the cut and thrust of relationships exhausting as I always think people are going to "find out" about my past as a ridiculous person, or indeed discover that I am still ridiculous now. Even with people that I consider close friends I am not relaxed, not "myself."

Even now, when I am in a very stable, loving relationship, and have two adorable children, I
am sometimes crippled by these feelings of being completely ridiculous and worthless. I think I can't be a good mother. I have dreams about people from my past laughing at me and ridiculing me and then for the next few days I am full of self hatred and loathing.

I am in my early thirties - surely time to put the past behind me. has anyone else managed to overcome such feelings? I have had lots of different therapies in my life, and at the moment we can't afford for me to have any more. I wonder if I should try something like NLP or something. I am NOT a self-help-aholic, in fact I am quite skeptical about most of it, but I am really desperate to move on as I fear it is making me a bad mother and a miserable partner and it is also impeding my happiness.

Thanks for any advice.

oh soleil,what a sad posting,my heart goes out to you,i will post later when i have collected my thoughts on this(hopeless at typing and thinking)in the meantime,im sure you are not at all a bad mother,you just sound like a sensitive soul who has been bullied and had your self worth taken away,a pretty normal consequence of your treatment in earlier life.will post soon this evening,love,yoko.

Hi Soleil
Have you though about asking your GP to refer you for Cognitive-Behaviour theray? I had a course of this in my mid 20's when I had a lot of the feelings you describe, linked into a quite severe depression.
It was the best thing - I still use a lot of the techniques I learned to keep me positive and if you can get it it is free on the NHS.
May be worth havinga chat to your GP anyway. You could be 'ordinarily' depressed and if you are feeling like this it is always worth getting checked out physically for other things that could be wrong.
Hope you feel better soon.

Hi soleil,
I don't know if I can offer much advice on therapies etc - what is NLP by the way - but I just wanted to say that I have felt like you do in the past and things can get better.
I was bullied when I was very young, one of my earliest memories is of playing with a bunch of little girls in our street in one of their gardens and having them tell me I wasn't "good enough" to walk on their garden wall and had to walk in the dirt. I was about three. It sounds silly looking back but I can still remember how hurt and embarassed I felt. I wasn't bullied at school but had a very unhappy time as a teenager, was a bit overweight and very shy and had great feelings of lack of worth and being different from everyone else. Despite being married and having lovely kids these feelings persisted, on and off, probably into my early thirties.
I don't really know what started to make me feel better about myself, possibly just the passage of time. Also, doing things, like setting up an after school club, which made me feel that I could actually achieve something worthwhile.
I wish I could offer you more practical advice, but I just wanted to let you know that it is possible to come out the other side of feeling like this.

Soleil
I've had a similar experience with bullying as a child. I was more of a teenager when it happened, so it was more phsycological (sp?) bullying. It does leave it's mark, it really does, and I can sympathise.

I stupidly left my details on the friends reunited site - I've been bombarded by people wanting to know how I am, what I do etc. - and THEY were the ones who did most of the bullying! I've decided against replying to any of them...

What I DO concentrate on is this:

1. I have a normal, well adjusted son who I love to bits.

2. Someone out there married me. He loves me still, and that proves that I am someone worth loving. He knows my past, but he still loves me.

3. I have good friends now who take me for what I am. They don't know the anguish I went through as a child, but that means that I am judged on the "me and now" and not the "me and how I was".

Does this make sense? I hope you feel a "better person" soon, although, from what I've read, you sound pretty good to me

As susanmt says, CBT can be very effective, particularly if you are troubled with persistent, unwanted thoughts. It has been shown to be excellent - indeed, the single most effective therapy - for changing the way you think and behave. It doesn't look at your past really, but concentrates on improving your present. It is also usually cheap because it is designed to work as a short course, where you work with the therapist on clearly defined goals. To find a therapist you can ask your GP to refer to you, and if you prefer to go privately you could contact the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy on 0870 443 5252 or the British Psychological Society on 0116 252 9500.

I think most of us feel like frauds at some time and suffer from insecurities like yours, but if your feelings are spoiling your life then I think you are very wise to look for a solution.

Good luck.

Soleil - this could have been me posting. I totally empathise with you. I still have feelings of self-loathing, and tend to analyse things too much. If people seem to like me, I can't just let it be, I have to analyse all the things that they said etc.If people say that they are looking forward to seeing me, I find it hard to believe. No advice, but I know how you feel. Counselling did help me. It is true when they say that people won't like you until you like yourself.

Thank you everyone so much.For your suggestions and your good vibes. It does make a huge difference......

I have tried counselling,including CBT,a few times. I think my dp would say it has made a difference -I can in the main convincingly act as someone who hasn't been bullied/doesn't loathe themself - but it hasn't changed the core of me into someone who accepts themself and I wonder how many grand it would take before I did. Maybe I should give it another bash. But I just wondered if there was a more self-help way, a more holistic way (and a cheaper way...)

The thing I find hardest is the utter violence of the emotions, they are completely overwhelming. Today as you can see I'm OK, but each time it happens, Whoosh, I'm completely floored - and surprised, as if I can't remember the last time.