My name is Toria and I don't really know how to say all this, but I'll try.
Growing up my parents argued, constantly, my father was rarely home, he worked long hospital shifts, in a hospital in another county so left home at 6am and came home about 9pm. He spent the majority of Saturday and Sunday in the pub. Once every few months he would take me on a day out somewhere (or to the local). He shouted a lot, and I remember always feeling that I had done something wrong.
I was spoiled rotten as a child, there is absolutely no denying that, I never wanted for anything, and if I asked for long enough I usually got what I wanted, when I wanted it. I was an only child, my mum had a few miscarriages, so I understand why she was he way she was, she poured everything she had into me. But I think this masked some of what was going on, if I was crying people assumed it was because I hadn't got my own way, and yeah, some of the time it was, and some of the time it was because my dad had just told me I should know better, or hurled abuse at me for sitting outside the back gate with my neighbour instead of inside it (enclosed courtyard type thing)
Looking back I remember more and more things that happened that have since struck me as just not being right, most notably, my dad once told me, upon finding a broken toy (that for once wasn't even broken at my hand, I was and am very clumsy) that I didn't deserve nice things.
My parents split up when I was 13 and my mum remarried, I threw the traditional strop about it but truth be told I get on well with her and my step-dad but wanted someone to blame for the divorce.
As I got older and into my late teens I began to see why mum left my dad. He has said, on more than one occasion, in front of his friends, that he can still reduce me to tears with a phonecall. He is proud of this fact. He bullied me into performing in an open mic night in a pub, when I was terrified, and when I broke down in tears and said I didn't want to it was him that was embarrassed and he was only proud of me. In the end I called mum, she told me to go home, which I did.
At my wedding he got blind drunk, insulted my husband, mother and step-father, behaved inappropriately with my mother and cousins and eventually passed out on the floor on the bar, after spending half an hour hanging from my neck while I was trying to say goodbye to my guests. His speech was all about him, about how he'd had some hard times in his life and did not mention me or my new husband once. The next day he said I was overreacting, he wasn't drunk and that it didn't matter anyway.
I'm now in my mid twenties and I hear from him once a month or so, he always tells me he loves me (which he had NEVER said before my wedding) and he takes an interest, but I have lost count of the number of times he has promised to come visit me and then either cancelled or just not turned up. Once I called him to ask him something and he was so drunk he didn't know who I was.
He talks a lot about moving up here to be near me, and the thought terrifies me, I don't have children (currently TTC) but when I do I have no idea how I'm going to stop him being a similar influence on them. At the age of 17 I was in an abusive relationship with someone two years older than me, and I spent the entire year thinking it was my own fault and that I couldn't do any better. Even now, I have horrific dreams sometimes about my husband leaving me, cheating on me, even beating me, and in the dream all I can think is "But what will I do without him?" (for the record, he wouldn't do any of those things, he is one of the few people I trust implicitly)
I have abandonment and trust issues, which I have received counselling for, that I can now put down to my father, who was supposed to love and protect me, never being there, and when he was, finding more things wrong with me than right. I am convinced people will leave me, so I try to please them, even when the relationship is abusive, to the extent where I now have friends who I haven't seen in six months who spend all their time complaining that I never visit them, which I feel guilty for, when in actual fact not one of them has been here, in fact, when I threw a party last month, to which they were all invited and all offered a bed for, only two or three even bothered to tell me they weren't coming.
We moved almost a year ago and the day I found out we were going I burst into tears, my husband and I regularly have arguments where I tell him I'm no good at making friends and no one cares about me anyway and I see him getting angry while he tries to tell me that that's not true and I argue with him until I'm blue in the face.
I do have two or three close friends, who regularly tell me good things about myself, but I don't believe them either.
Whenever my husband tells me anything even slightly derogatory, even if it's that I folded his shirt wrong or overcooked the carrots I get angry and defensive, become convinced we're going to fall out (which we do, because I'm sabotaging myself), and in the early days, I "knew" that he was planning to leave me. He has the patience of a saint.
I rarely feel like anything other than a massive failure and disappointment. I started teacher training two years ago this week, and failed the first placement and was told to reconsider teaching. So I did. I left the college. But now I am plagued by what ifs and ways I could have been better, I later joined a scout troup that my husband was running and am now working towards becoming a cub leader, I am having more success with these kids, and this week even felt like I managed to teach them something and make progress with them, but still I constantly compare myself to the other leaders (who are all teachers) and convince myself I'm failing.
In reality, I know I'm not a failure, I have a degree, a job (which is not related to the degree at all but which I am damn good at), I am happily married, and I own my own home, but at the same time I am never good enough. I replace my dad on a regular basis with people who make me feel awful about myself. To the extent that a few years back people were convinced I was having an affair because I spent so much time with a male friend who was so bad for me that when I finally did see it I had to cut him from my life completely, and even then I felt bad for leaving him.
I feel bad about everything, all the time. I have been on ADs (which I called knock me out and drool drugs) I've tried herbal rememdies and I'm now having reflexology which had the added bonus of pulling up some possible fertility issues, so that's one more thing for me to fail at. My body image is a poster child for low self esteem, I'm constantly tugging at my clothes to try and get them to fit better, despite having lost a stone and a half in eight months, leaving all my clothes too big for me. I'm pierced and tattooed, which I suspect is me trying to exert some control over my own life. I've finally stopped ripping my nails down to the quick, though sometimes I catch myself starting to pick at one and have to find something to do.
I don't know if my father is the root of all my problems, I suspect my mother didn't always help, but she has been there for me in my later life where he never has, and I'm pretty sure I probably picked up some issues all of my own. But writing some of this down has helped immeasurably.