Messed up

[TheHoneyBadger]

I know i'm only going to manage to write a line or so here now and hope i'll come back to it later and give details but want to start something so that my need to reach out is 'out there' before i shove it away again.

I'm in a muddle at the minute of feeling like part of me is screaming out HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! at the world and part of me is loathing myself because help won't come and even if it tried to i wouldn't know how to let it.

What I meant was that if you set a boundary and people (In this case your family) don't recognise that, then that's their bad behaviour and not for you to feel guilty about.

I think my mistake was to connect your man to this.

We all have emotional history. I expect he has some emotional quirks. I know I have!

in a nutshell annie - yep - that about sums it up. and i'm tired of it being so tiring.

do you know what i mean when i say there's no safe place to fall?

being so tired almost leads me to letting them back in but in reality they're the source of the exhaustion itms.

Have you looked into Gestalt counselling OP? I think it can be very helpful and does go beyond the "now you understand that a is connected to b you should feel better" type response.

I think it's really good that you are letting it all tumble out, don't worry what order it comes out in or what you say, just get it out...

You have every right to go NC with your family (and frankly, I think it's best you do!). I am sure it's hard when they don't respect your boundaries, but you put them there anyway, you ignore their contact, you call the police if you have to, what you don't do is let them creep in again because you aren't sure you should be creating the boundaries. You should, you can & you would be better off if you did it (again).

This man of yours... it's hard to say without knowing him, but if what you have said is an accurate portrayal of him and how he makes you feel then I would let him in, little by little. When it comes down to it, you have to really. If you let him in and he turns out to be an arse, it's not because you have let him in and you will find out at some stage what he's really like - might as well be now really.

He might be your safe place to fall - along with us of course :) x

did a few email exchanges with a family member today and whilst bringing up hard feelings and wobbles of guilt, am i awful, am i selfish/a terrible mother etc they also reconfirmed for me just why i cannot - i just CANNOT go back. reading how she had interpreted the series of changes i've made in my life reminded me of exactly what their perception of me is and how little bearing it has, or desires to have, to reality or bothering to know me. i realised there was no way i COULD have made this series of changes if i had been surrounded by that negativity and putting down and demanding justification of my every move.

it is hard but it is right.

egarti - thanks, i have a book on gestalt counselling that was on my reading list (along with 'against therapy') for 'pre-reading' for the MSc i was accepted on to complete my training. (i decided against it in the end for many reasons and feel confident that was the right choice.) i'll try and make time for a read of it.

today's email exchange - which is finished and wont' continue by the way - has really reminded me so tangibly though that there is no escape from their 'projection' of me with them itms. who they say i am and what role i fit that they need me to play would always TOWER over and beyond who i actually am. nothing would change it, nothing would stop them treating me like the dirt they think i am, nothing i did would alter it and if it was too hard for them to twist that achievement into their messed up version of me then they'd simply ignore it and pretend it never happened as always.

i can't go back. i just can't. i'm susceptible to the emotional blackmail, i'm susceptible to hearing i have made them phsycially ill etc etc etc BUT i must not go back or i'm sealing my fate and future.

it's also really clear though that i'm going to have to physically move to another part of the country if i really want peace.

If you make them ill, then do them a massive favour and take your horrible self out of their poor innocent lives :) If they try to suck you back in, just say you've finally seen the light and you are doing it all for them.

Do you have to move a long way away though? Will that mean definitely not getting it together with the nice man?

the man is rather far away actually.

no it's the 'mystery' of why on earth i would cut contact when they're such wonderful perfect people that has made them physically ill apparently.

oh and me cutting contact with them, deciding to home educate my son, starting a business that's working out well and other changes made over a whole year has been interpreted as evidence that i'm unstable and chaotic and clearly having some kind of breakdown and apparently all of these things happened at once re: me being reckless, irresponsible, having some kind of tantrum etc.

the funny thing is i don't think my parents would even be able to tell you what i studied for my first degree or what professions i'm qualified in. that 'stuff' doesn't fit their perception of me as a monstrous useless child so they refused to 'know' about it itms.

it is actually madness.

Wow, you did all that amazing stuff with the tacit disapproval of your family! That's good strength of character! Well done!

I am pleased that this small amount of contact has proven to you that any contact with them is a bad thing.

It is regrettable that your non contact makes them ill, but they've brought it upon themselves. You can't allow that to manipulate you into remaining in contact with them.

How unsettling for you and your DC would a move be? What support do you have where you are? What would you miss?

in all honesty i have next to no support here chilling. of course it would be unsettling to move (and bloody daunting when you've accumulated so much crap lol) but no, there's not much i'd miss or be leaving behind.

it's almost sad actually because people will say oh but it's really hard to move somewhere new and lose your support networks and not know anyone etc and you're not quite sure how to break to them erm actually i don't really have any support network or much contact with people who 'care' about me or know me currently.

these might be people who knew me years ago and both they and i have ended up moving back to this area of the country and perhaps they assume that i have loads of support here because they do having moved back close to family and having husbands/partners that share some of the load of childcare therefore allowing them to rebuild their social connections here. not that necessarily - that's unfair of me to assume. maybe it's as simple as this part of the world has positive connotations for them which in some ways it does for me too obviously as i grew up here BUT mine are overshadowed somewhat.

i don't know.

thank you! it does help to say all of this albeit on an internet forum

in 'real life' it's often so easy to feel like the strangest alien in the world for having a family so dysfunctional that it's impossible for you. and it is so alien for people to even conceive of the idea of a mother literally hating her child and showing it for that child's whole life. i think people don't even want to open their mind's to that possibility.

i've re-read my posts and one thing that strikes me is that there's a double bind of having had these experiences and dealing with these feelings AND feeling a need to protect others from them because they're too not nice for them.

even with counsellors.

another note on counsellors i've found is that they have no training in personality disorders or understanding of how vastly 'outside/alien' the reality and modus operandi (spelling) of such people can be. which makes you feel like a liar or like you have to explain and educate or they'll assume these are child fantasies or archetypes rather than um no actuallly some people really are like this.

Honey I'm sorry that you don't have a support network and friends where you are, that you would miss, on the other hand, it does make moving a bit of a no brainer doesn't it! I'm all for things that help me make decisions as I'm a bit of a perfectionist/procrastinator!

Counsellors/others - the need to protect those others... it's not good, but it's natural I think. As is the need to protect oneself. I suspect another part of your reticence to tell others the whole story is that it's embarrassing not to have the loving family that people seem to think everyone has, great family, brilliant friends etc - people feel things like that are a reflection on them when they aren't. They feel unlovable & unwanted... when actually it's not down to them. ... and yes, I expect a lot of them don't have any comprehension, whatsoever, of the 'reality & modus operandi' of people like your family and are unable to comprehend it.

Leave your family to wallow in their own self pity and start a brand new shiney life somewhere :)

So. It would make little sense to move further away from 'new man with potential' so roughly which direction are we going to start house hunting? Buying or renting? City or country? Your life is about to get a giant kickstart - embrace it :)

"also i've found counsellors as much as anyone else seem to really resist and have some major block at being able to accept that some of us just WEREN'T loved by our mothers. they're not immune to needing to hang on to certain rocks that they can't go beyond i guess."

Just to say I really agree with you on this. It's true of the majority of counsellors/therapists I personally have come across.

I think the idea that all mothers really do love their children is a myth sustained at every level of society, across every culture; it's such a taboo to challenge it. Makes it especially hard to be the child of a mother whose love is lacking.

But... There are therapists/counsellors who do have the will and the courage to move beyond these "rocks" and I would suggest that if you could find and work with one of those, you could see real changes in your life.

Counselling as the universal panacea is absolute guff, I agree, but when you have been so badly failed by your parents, having the support of someone who really does get it and won't shy away from the really hard, painful truths of your experience is invaluable.

thanks chilling made me cry a bit but i was already there anyway on the tearful front after reading a lovely but hard to read email from an old professor i've stayed in touch with for years and years and was sharing his view of the me he knew and how different it was from the me they see me as and the me i've been kind of reduced to at some levels since i came back here.

and thanks talking - i don't disagree but how you separate the wheat from the chaff i don't know and sometimes the chaff have leaned towards 'more harm than good' ime.

hard night of frequent waking and vivid dreams. one awfully panicky stage where i believed it all again and i was the most selfish terrible awful person and totally deluded and my poor son etc but i got past it.

massive awareness i NEED to move but so daunting and hard to know where to start.

i always moved and studied between areas in the south (i'm about central now) but everywhere is SO expensive it's daunting. as if of course the idea of moving and making decisions etc etc.

i did have the brainwave (i know it's not rocket science but it hadn't really occurred to me and i didn't realise how cheap it could be) of storage and how that could free me up to not have to give up everything or spend an absolute fortune relocating somewhere that might not be right. i know i have to leave but i don't know where i want to be - the two were inseparable whereas somehow the realisation about storgage seems to provide a space between the two and being able to do one without yet knowing the other itms.

It took my sister about five attempts to find a counsellor who 'got it' about our family.

It's lovely you keep in touch with your professor, someone to remind you of the you that you were :) We all change and none of us can 'go back' but we can re-find our core again and rebuild from that x

I don't know how you separate the wheat from the chaff, asking around first then trial and error I suppose. It's really difficult too because one person's hero is another person's nightmare.

Sorry you had such a bad night, vivid dreams really shake you up don't they. I used to have one reoccuring one and all of the next day I felt like crap abut it, even though it was 'just a dream', but you did well to get past it.

Moving - OK, so it's a decision then? It's going to happen? Next decision - when? You are renting aren't you? How much notice do you need to give on your place? How much will moving affect your business?

Are you near me then? I'm sort of Reading way.

Yes - a storage facility would certainly allow you some freedom while you decide where you want to live. A damn good declutter and organised storage and you can get a lot in a small unit.

Liney (it's ChippingIn here in my halloween name change outfit) how many sessions did you sister have with each one to determine they weren't the right one? How are you now? Seems like ages since we 'spoke' - is D still around? x

what was angela's message? i'm paranoid a family member has found me and chipped in.

Oh no it's fine Honey, it was just one of those spellcaster shite spam ones, don't worry!

thank you! [need a phew emoticon]

after yet another day of property porn and daydreaming i seem pretty settled on somerset.

i slept better last night thankfully. i think i am settling down again from my acute 'allergic reaction' stage.

I reported it. It was some twaddle about contacting some man by email who can solve the worlds problems. Nothing personal towards you - just some spam.