When people say 'No-one can make you feel bad...'

[Pruni]

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m2pw does this apply to children?
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so when a child is repeatedly told something bad about themselves, are you saying they can choose how they feel about it?

sorry, unicorn, I didn't realise the thread was about children, I thought it was about adults. I don't think a child can be expected to handle their emotions in the same way as an adult can.

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Life Experience.

Are you saying you have learned nothing in your life - that all you are now you were when you were 5?

Have you not learned tact, diplomacy, how to budget, drive, negotiate, or a million other basic life skills?

Childhood is for learning. Adulthood is for implementing!!!!

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I think when I said childhood is for learning, I should have said developing, because that's more accurate. You are learning life skills, fine tuning and developing into an adult. When you reach adulthood, you take those skills you have learned / developed and implement them in order to function independently in society.

But as an adult you do not blindly follow all the same patterns of behaviour from your childhood. You learned at 5 to handle something a particular way - does that mean that at 30, you are still doing it the same way? At no point in your adult life have you looked at yourself and, with the benefit of your continued life experience, thought - come on, it doesn't have to be like this, I'm not a child any more. You filter. This I keep this I change

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it takes something quite extraordinary to become aware of, and then overcome the negative messages many of us recieve in childhood and the vast majority of people don't come anywhere close to doing so.

Very well put, soph. 'Becoming aware of' is, IMO, the key phrase as everyone's childhood is 'normal' for them.

You have a choice, you can be the victim your whole life, or you can make the changes.

Yes, it takes more than someone telling you to stop allowing people to make you feel bad. other people can say that until they are blue in the face and it wont change anything because you have to do it yourself.

I was told I was weak, it was the big family 'joke', M2pw, weak, easily manipulated, even when older - never learn to drive - never be safe, are you sure you can live alone, there's no shame in coming home, admiting you can't cope ...... ha ha ha, so funny, lets all have a laugh at how daft M2PW is.....

The constant message - weak willed,a pushover!!

I had a choice. I could be that person, or I could change. I chose change.

It wasn't easy - isnt!! but I will be buggered if I am going to be anybodys bloody victim for the whole of my damn life.

Sod them all. NOBODY is going to make me feel anything about anything. I am in control of my life and my emotions, good or bad.

I can recognize myself in your last post, M2PW.

I was the youngest of three and the only girl.

I was cast into the 'Daft Bubble' role, but have managed to get away from it. It hasn't been easy and it took me a good few years to recognise the role I'd been given and reject it.

I have quite a difficult relationship with my mother as a result. I've been a parent governor for the last three years and when I started she said.. 'You???'

And, of course, none of this compares with an abusive childhood where the cycle, quite simply, has to stop.

I know what you mean! My mother STILL tries to manipulate me - she has been dripping poison for 15 years about my dad's family - she thinks she is manipulating me into not having contact with them, bless her - I just snigger about her efforts behind her back to my dh now!!!! I see it for what it is and that gives me the control! She can do or say what she likes, it's up to me how I feel and deal!!

didnt see your last post bubble. People who suffered an abusive childhood are the ones who are most in need of help to make the changes we have been talking about.

but at the end of the day (!! ahhhhhh!!!)

if you can say noone can make you feel bad... well.. that is to do with you and noone else.

Of course people can make you feel bad.

Perhaps those who don't feel bad, are 'less sensitive' to other people... and can egt on with life regardless of what people think.

However...

When you are a 'screwed up' adult.... people can and frequently do make you feel bad.

Some people actually enjoy making people feel bad - how about that?

I would say that some people enjoy making rude remarks that they hope the recipient will react badly to. They can't enjoy making you feel bad because they can't force feelings upon you. The way you react to a remark comes from you, not them. You can choose how to handle such remarks and not give the reaction that they are looking for.

someone walks up to be and calls me a stupid fat cow.

I have a choice. I can get upset and cry in front of them, they feel satisfied. I can ignore them, denying them the pleasure. I can get abusive and argue or fight with them, and I'm sure there are lots of other things I can do. They wouldn't make me cry any more than they would make me hit them. My reaction is my responsibility.

When I come across someone who seems to get pleasure out of being rude, I see it as their problem. I wonder what is wrong with them or so bad in their life that they have to try to make themselves feel better by lashing out at others. Once you understand that they are the one with the problem you can see how miserable and irrelevent a creature they are, and it just washes them away iyswim.

I mean, this is just me, but I am not going to gift wrap my self esteem and hand it out for the entertainment of others!

don't get me wrong, I'm not some super woman, I'm a depressed and weepy mess a lot of the time, but I understand that I have total personal responsibility for my feelings - and for making changes in my life.

I was thinking about this while I was bathing the kids and just wanted to add to my post that I can and do get angry / upset as my response to the behaviour of other people. I'm not trying to say to anyone that choice of emotion/response shouldn't ever include anger, frustration, upset or whatever, just that they are your (my) response and not forced on you (me) by someone else. Saying that you are responsible for your own feelings is not saying that you should not have any! But personally, if someone is setting out to try to hurt me, that is the time I am most likely to withhold that response from them, iyswim.

Interesting thread. I think saying that someone is responsible for their feelings doesn't excuse the responsibility we all have not to be gratuitously hurtful, unpleasant etc.

I also think there is a big question about how an adult who has been terribly abused in childhood can grow up to take full responsibility for their feelings and/ or behaviour. There is plenty of evidence that children who are not loved and nurtured fail to develop certain neurological pathways which regulate the production of various hormones governing behaviour (crap way of putting it because I'm not a scientist, but doubtless someone else will come along and explain it properly). In which case, if these adults haven't been equipped with the bits of the brain needed to take responsibility for their behaviour, how can we expect them to, anymore than we can expect someone whose legs haven't developed to walk?

Being told to take responsibility for your own feelings when someone has deliberately set out to upset or damage you does seem to be a popular concept these days. For me, the problem is that it suggests you don't have the right to object to someone being downright nasty or cruel - that it's your problem, not theirs. OK, in a sense it could be about recognising that you do have power; the power to reject someone else's behaviour or assessment of you. But I think the way it is used in everyday conversation is often about shutting people up.
It's equally true that 'giving offence' has become a new bugbear. We do often seem to be tripping over ourselves to avoid causing offence - breastfeeding being a prime example. There's got to be a middle way, where people who are genuinely trying to insult or demean others can't get away with the 'well, you are responsible for your own feelings' line but others who are seeking out the opportunity to be offended are not indulged. For instance, the play that was taken off ? Bheti? ? because a lot of aggressive demonstrators claimed it offended them. That was actually downright sexism, IMO, but the mob was allowed to claim 'offensiveness' as a legitimate reason for censorship.

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