My own horrible behaviour

[elderflowerlemonade]

This is a really difficult post, not least because no one likes having to really look at themselves and conclude they don't like what they see but that's what I am doing.

I have been responsible for a great deal of hurt and unhappiness in my family for some time now and I am not deluded enough to think it's all my fault or my responsibility but it's certainly there.

Now that I have said that I don't know where to begin! I was only 18 when met my DH. My mum had died when I was in secondary school and my dad met another woman quite soon afterwards and moved in with her on a sort of ad hoc basis, which meant as I did my A levels I was almost constantly alone. That was quite hard for me (obviously) as I was lonely and grieving and I threw myself into my interests - music and horses mostly - which meant I was quite isolated. DH was a few years older than me and seemed very together (he was 23; I know 5 years is nothing but at that age it was.) I clung to him like a limpet because he was sort of the one constant in my life.

Anyway, I have made such a mess of things I hardly know where to start so I'll do a list:

1. I have messed up career wise, I was a teacher and the first school I went to was awful - really, really bad. So I got a new job quite soon afterwards and I liked it there and initially I did really well. But then I got pregnant and I had terrible sickness and exhaustion and then I went back part time and I now realise I got really lazy. I left, when we moved and I got another post which was a small promotion but I had a horrible time of things there and I don't know, I look at people now who have a strong network of people they work(ed) with and wonder why I was never good enough to stick at anything, to have that. I've been a SAHM for a few years now.

1. I resented my dad for years for leaving me (as I saw it) - he stayed with his new partner until after I'd had my DC1 which was in 2007. I was stroppy and unpleasant with him and I just wasn't someone he could be proud of. He died and the week before we'd had a massive argument and I said he was useless and all sorts of things - I am still not entirely sure I didn't cause or at least contribute to him dying as he'd been perfectly healthy before.

1. I am so selfish. I do exactly what I want to do and I expect other people to sort out messes I make. I don't do this intentionally but I had a thread the other day about losing my phone (have now found it again!) but this is typical of me; I lose stuff or forget to do important stuff and it's like I haven't got a proper handle on being a grown up. Then I tell lies to get myself out of whatever mess I've created. I'll say I've done something when I haven't, or been at home when I've been shopping.

I need to really be firm with myself and honest with myself too about the impact my behaviour has had on those I love but it's hard. I had counselling after I had DC2 last spring and I liked it but I don't think the counsellor quite understood how selfish and lazy and spoilt I have been and just seemed to think I was too harsh on myself but I'm honestly not. Sometimes I wake up haunted by the stupid things I've done and mistakes I've made and how badly I've treated people.

I don't dislike everything about myself. I like my humour. That's never fully gone which is one reason I have managed to get through as I generally can laugh at myself. I know I can have a very sweet caring side which sometimes shows itself but I have to admit to my husband and to my dad when he was alive I just wasn't nice, at all.

Has anybody ever had this experience of forcing yourself to change and how do you start?

If he is really willing to change then maybe couples counselling could help.

I think part of the problem is ( and this is me taking him at face value): that he acts like a parent because "someone has to" but this forces you into the role of child and doesn't allow you to "grow up" and take on the role of adult.
You need to both act like adults, or it isn't helping you.

Oh jack, the connection I feel with you is second to none!

And I know most people would insist that I am really nice, but they don't see what I see and DH sees.

Mummy, sort of, I force him into it as that feels safe. I take his love for me and use it to my own advantage, I will post more later as the baby is crying.

Agree, MrsDeVere.

I had that experience - my teens were like walking a tightrope with no safety net. Even very small wobbles are terrifying if there is no safe ground to catch you if you need it.

I'm not remotely insulted, MrsD - it's spot on (I clicked on 'threads I'm on' and saw the first part of your message which just said 'without wanting to sound ...' and I thought 'oh no!')

I don't know though ... My mum was very strict with me in some ways, not so much in the sense that I'd be grounded or hit or have items confiscated but she was unbelievablely stifling. I wasn't allowed to choose my own clothes or to buy makeup she didn't think was 'nice.' I remember my brother, who was 3 years older than me and working part time so we must have been around 14 and 17 buying me a white knitted cardigan with a hood and a zip and NYC in blue on the front really tasteful obviously, but everyone had one and I loved it and my mum went mad about it saying it made me look fat 'like the Michelin man.' I had no confidence when it came to choosing my own stuff and it was easy to default to a tomboy setting if you like as I was (and am and proudly so!) a horse lover.

I've gone off on a complete tangent there but I guess what I'm trying to say is that our parents had us both on a very tight leash but they used emotional control not physical or even just general 'strictness' - in fact in a lot of ways they were a lot more lax than the parents of many of my friends and definitely after my mum died I could and did do what I wanted. And did. I remember the night before my mock history A level my dinner was Quavers and chocolate and diet coke and I stayed up all night. The next day I was exhausted and had awful stomach pains. Before our English Lit A level I stayed over at my friends and her mum made us a proper dinner - think it was shepherds pie or something - and made sure we went to bed before midnight at least.

Now I sound all 'pity me pity me.' It's just left to my own devices I'm a bit rubbish really, at most things - I am good with the children because I think I am "still" a child and I can see the world through their eyes. Even DH at his most critical will grant me that I'm a good parent. But I'm not good with babies and they annoy me.

I tend to do one of two things when I fuck up; I either file it in my mind as 'didn't happen' - and sometimes inevitably DH WILL find out and WILL bollock me, why didn't I tell him straightaway blah blah, or I will realise it probably wouldn't have happened to someone else of my age and education; I can't describe the number of times on these boards someone has (I imagine!) screwed up their nose and said incredulously 'you're a TEACHER and you didn't know/you did/you can't' and every time they do it feels like agony because that's how I always feel - different and weird and odd.

I can't convince you you are a normal person because you don't believe this, but your estimation of how everyone else is compared to how you are is seriously wrong. I feel exhausted, my house is messy and I shout at my kids, but I am one of the 'career' people you would look at and imagine it is all sorted.

It is also no coincidence you have chosen a parent figure for your husband, in this case unfortunately a controlling one that tells you off and reinforces your feelings you are useless, just like a child (not even a teen I don't think).

I haven't read anything on here that suggests you are uniquely worse than other people or indeed better, most people are a mix of positive and negative traits, most people present themselves favourably if they stuff up (my husband would tell an occasional lie in this situation, I probably wouldn't) and most people don't have smooth straight career trajectories if they have kids- most mums don't work full time for a start.

I think a lot of your unhappiness probably stems from having a difficult controlling partner, for which you also blame yourself (why? who could be perfect? no excuse for being controlling).

Interesting. My parents were both very strict and very unforgiving, and - yes - stifling. She wanted me to want to be like her, I think. Being 'me' wasn't enough. If I liked something that didn't interest her she'd be very scornful and make me feel stupid for liking it. But after my dad died my mum kind of lost interest. So then came the permissive time when I did what I liked but got very little attention, positive or negative. Praise was tempered with some other comment - like - 'Oh, you've tidied up..... Now I won't be able to find anything'.

Napoleon thank you but honestly I don't think this is DH (which isn't to say he's perfect!)

My incompetence definitely is above average. And I can't even seem to hide it very well. It's not just the house it's the fact I always look scruffy and somehow the more I spend on clothes and makeup the worse I look and then I get told off for spending too much. And the fact that I break stuff. I had an expensive handbag I bought and spilled stuff all over after a week. I really am on a downer on myself today and I know it's me not DH.

Ok, but I don't get bollocked by my husband. I just don't. I sometimes screw up. But I don't get told off and I certainly don't get told off for breaking stuff or spilling it- that's not deliberate! You are absolutely stuck in a child/parent relationship where you are doing normal things like dropping/spilling stuff! I dropped a bowl of cereal yesterday myself, should I expect to beat myself up about it? No, your thinking is distorted, I'm not sure if it is through depression or the life situation you are in, but honestly, it is not normal to beat yourself up or for others to tell you off all the time.

It's the exent to which these things happen though - anyone can drop or spill or break something but with me it's constant through my own disorganisation and my own stupidity or something I suppose.

In 2015 alone I've dropped and smashed my phone to bits; I've broken a laptop; I've bumped the car; I've ruined an expensive handbag; I've trashed my own home. I look a mess. I sometimes wonder what my parents would think of me and they'd be utterly disgusted.

I skimmed read the thread - sorry haven't got time to read the whole thread just now...but one thing that struck me in your OP. You are describing symptoms of ADHD. MY DD1 has it, I am pretty sure I have it too.
Girls are traditionally very good at covering it up - conforming to social norm and especially with a 'stifling' family life the obvious things - like problems at school might just not have been allowed.
Did you have problems concentrating whilst at school? Have you always been forgetful -lost things etc.
Have a read around and a look at the book 'You mean I'm not lazy, stupid or crazy?' can't post a link just now but it is available somewhere as a free pdf -makes interesting reading about the ways people with ADHD cope - and lots of people get depression as adults because they think they are 'crap'.
As DD1 said on diagnosis (at 14) it isn't an excuse it's an explanation.
I compare it to trying to race up a hill - you are surrounding by people who are miles ahead. You can do it but you are trying your absolute best and you can't keep up and they are making it seem easy. Why are you so useless? Then you realise you have your legs tied together. Having a diagnosis doesn't cut the rope but it does make you accept that getting up that hill is a lot harder for you and you are actually doing fantastically well. Good luck.

elderflower I am not going to post too many more times because I think your thinking is probably beyond what I can help you with, but I don't think you are thinking straight about yourself- you may be depressed. You do seem to be making 2 and 2 into 5 here, with lots of catastrophic thinking and global disaster- everything is part of this huge narrative of how bad you are whereas individually none of these things seem terrible to me at all.

Some people are quite clumsy, I am very bad with electrical items and have lost my phone this year (and my husband had to retrieve it from 100's of miles away, don't ask), have broken electrical items, can't work any of the TV's/laptops properly (my kids or husband do it for me), ruined a top by washing it wrongly and so on. My house is messy. But I haven't turned this into a narrative about how crap I am! I actually think I'm doing just fine, and I'm quite clever to have found someone who is good at electrical things when I am not! Your thinking is all about blame, blaming you and this is not coming from a rational place.

I very much doubt you 'trashed' your house, I suspect you have a messy house as you have a small baby, like 10000's of other mums and dads around the country.

I strongly advise you to see your GP and ask for counselling, and to tell them how you think and feel about yourself. Your level of self-blame isn't about self-reflection and being aware at all, it is being used as a stick to beat yourself with. Good luck with it all.

unlucky you may be onto something there, hope you get it sorted OP.

You're not in any way responsible for the death. If we could piss people off and have them drop dead a few hours later my boss wouldn't be making my life a misery right now... She'd be on a slab. :)

Painting this doom scenario is a form of self protection for you - it's much easier to slip into the "everything is terrible and it's all my fault" thing than it is to say " well, I haven't had the best time for the last few years have I? A lot of it was outside my control but x and y I have learned I could do better so I'll work on that."

Only 3. Is something you need to work on and that's solve able with new habit forming training. I'm guilty of never knowing where my keys are - have one place you always put them and train yourself to put them there. Tackle one new habit at a time. This week I will train myself to always put my keys on the hook by the door.

Your thoughts are disordered - magical thinking, catastrophising etc. I've suffered from major depression myself - I know how hard this is, but I will tell you it's within your power to make some changes in your life that make you feel better. I'm not a proponent of cbt as a cure for everything, but this kind of disordered thinking it IS good for.

Five years ago I was incredibly depressed. I really believe that a good part of depression is a natural reaction to bad situations. I left the relationship I was in - that made me feel a bit better. I went to my GP and told her I was at the end of my tether. She gave me antidepressants and I took them. They're a crutch. They help get that little chink of light in so that you can see a bit more clearly and take action. Then I took stock of the rest of my life. I hated my job, so I made plans to move abroad (my brother lives in Germany.) randomly I then met my husband and moved to a different country entirely but that's not really relevant here ;)

Every change I made made me feel more in control. I'm not saying throw everything to the wind and run off to Guatemala - but look at what makes you feel shitty and change it a bit at a time. You're disorganised? Ok, write lists. Stand up when you feel lazy and do something. Soon it becomes a habit.

See your GP - it is no weakness to take the pills. It's still you doing all the work! Get some cbt for that disordered thinking, then assess what needs changing in your life.

And no self flagellation - that gets you nowhere.

Just popping back in to say, with what you've described about your mum being quite stifling, you might benefit from checking out the book "Homecoming" by John Bradshaw. It can be quite tough to work through but I have found it very helpful in healing my wounded inner child and overcoming the negative scripts I was given as a child/teenager.

This might sound a bit hippy dippy, but I think inside you there is a young girl who was bereaved and then emotionally abandoned and who had never been given the life skills that she needed, and is still grieving, lost and afraid. If you can connect with that younger self and make her feel safe and loved and nurtured, I think that would be a great starting place to making the changes in your life that you want to happen.

We all make mistakes.
We all break things, some of us are clumsy, some are dyspraxia - what makes it far far worse is if you are stressed. Such as when someone will tell you off for breaking stuff, especially if they keep bringing it up.

My DH never tells me off. Never!
Sometimes he moans. Sometimes he is fed up. But he'd never tell me off. We are partners, so he treats me like an adult.

You seem very resistant to either: getting help or accepting you are not worse than other people on MN. And I can assure you there have been posters who are worse in every single area you beat yourself up about, at one time or another.
Why are you so reluctant to give up the label of being "bad and hopeless"?

You are not a child. You have a successful career, that you can take a break from and come back to (the country is desperate for teachers).
Take small steps: go to see your GP (showing your posts would be a good start)
If the mess is getting to you, then get one place tidy, and make it somewhere you can sit and relax.
Talk to someone about how your husband talks to you.
Do something fun for you and your DC.

Thank you. Napoleon I know I must sound quite negative and defeatist but I just feel like I've messed everything up.

ADHD is something I've toyed with from time to time along with ASD (my brother had it) - I don't know though. I know I am doing wrong but can't seem to stop it.

I do have good qualities but they get lost in mess and ADs make it worse as I get fuggy and muddled.

Pocket so very true.

He doesn't speak to me like I'm an idiot exactly - I can handle him usually and I often end up getting the upper hand. This is what people don't see - I am as manipulative in my way as he is.

elderflower I've seen a few of your recent posts and really feel for you! I have similar issues - never feel I have a proper handle on life, everyone else can 'grown up' better than me, I'm incredibly negative about myself. My big difference to you is that I have a husband who is supportive.

I'm known dyslexic, suspected dyspraxic and I wonder if there's other stuff going on....maybe ADHD? ASD? I'm waiting on an assessment. What I'm trying to say is, actually, I'm not sure you are 'normal'. I think you may have some sort of neuro-diversity. There's a thread in special needs here which you might find interesting/helpful :)

Thanks, I'll take a look

"Why are you so reluctant to give up the label of being "bad and hopeless"?" asks a poster.

Because that would mean growing up and taking responsibility, and that means giving up the hope of being loved unconditionally as a child by ones parents

possibly = sorry realise that sounds very dogmatic, there was meant to be a ?? at the end of it!

That's really interesting jack.

I don't think I am 'all' bad or hopeless. I'm such a mixup of stuff. This is all very self indulgent - sorry!

Here are the things I do well. I am bizarrely sensible and pragmatic especially in a crisis. I am articulate and can be really very funny when the mood takes me and I have a great sense of humour and irony - am able to laugh at myself. I am quite talented in some areas - literature and musically - and have top qualifications marking this talent (I got a 2:1 from the famed MN RG university with not a huge amount of effort.) I can be very sweet and compassionate a lot of the time and I identified earlier many aspects of motherhood came naturally to me. I bought 'how to talk so that' on a recommendation of a poster here and to my surprise discovered I was doing pretty much everything the book recommended naturally.

However my fatal flaw as it were is laziness and I will go to lengths to avoid things I do not like doing. I have an amazing ability to stick my head in the sand - 'that's not happening.' I do also have a real desire to be looked after and hand the reins over to others with relief.

Now I just sound arrogant.