What can I do?

[TheMorningAfterTheNightBefore]

I'm going to try and keep this as brief as I can, because there's just so much of it.

I've been here for a while now under one name mainly and I've talked quite extensively about the emotionally abusive childhood/adolescence/adulthood/relationship with my mother. My dad was also emotionally abused by her and his frustration/anger about this manifested in physical abuse against me.

Typically dysfunctional family; I was the scapegoat, my younger sibling was the Golden Child with all of the shit that goes with that too.

My mother spent my entire life criticising me. From an early age I knew I was a disappointment and an embarrassment. I couldn't tell you a single thing my mother/parents liked about me, but I could fill several sides of A4 with everything they didn't like. Everything from every aspect of my appearance, intelligence, personality, character traits, just everything about me. It would seem that I didn't have a single redeeming feature.

I've been NC with her for about 4 years. My dad died 6 months later.

I have posted about this on the feelings it has left me with many times. People reply, but I still can't change how I feel. I can't afford therapy, I can barely afford to meet my essential monthly outgoings so there is no room to forgo a night out or whatever to cover it.

I have had a series of physically, emotionally and financially abusive relationships as an adult. When I told my mother about the first one, she told me I was lucky anyone was willing to take me on and I should be careful not to provoke him in future because he might dump me next time (instead of hitting me). I was 18 at the time and so it continued.

One thing I really struggle with, is that I have never been loved. I'm now completely on my own. I have two children 10 and nearly 18. I work full time, but I work on short term contracts because I can't handle the feelings of inadequacy that go with having a permanent job.

When my marriage ended 4 years ago, I didn't have a single real life friend. I knew a few people, but I didn't know any of them well enough to even tell them my marriage had ended. In absolute desperation, I reached out to people IRL and built up a small 'friendship group'. I put that in ' ' because I've never really felt that they are true friends. I struggle to trust and let people in. There are a couple of people who have seen beyond the 'self' I show others and have worked out some of the issues I have. They have told me that I do keep people at arms length and that, unfortunately, it works. I was very saddened to hear this because I've tried very hard with these people.

This friendship group is made up of about 10 - 15 people. It's not a close, in each other's pocket, group, but there were a couple of people I was closer to than others and we were mostly long term single (between 8 and 12 years). Unfortunately, the single people in the group have, over the past 12 months, found partners. And I have found that once again, I don't have anyone.

I feel utterly bereft. I have cried almost constantly for the last month. And not because I'm miserable or wallowing. I'm fine when I'm with them, or my children, or at work, but as soon as I'm alone, my eyes literally start leaking and I can't stop it. The sadness at the feeling of loneliness and being alone is overwhelming me.

I don't have the resources or the opportunity or the time to start again with new friendship groups. These people are linked to my hobby. I love my hobby. I have another hobby which is important to my physical health and mental wellbeing but isn't really useful for meeting others, and I don't have the time or the money to start another. And, at my age (41), it's not easy to start again anyway.

I just feel utterly, utterly heartbroken. I've concentrated on trying to get to know people, build trust and friendships over the past few years and now feel that, as they socialise more in couples and just with their partners, that I am cast aside. Most of them have no idea how I feel, so it's not that they are avoiding whining, miserable me.

I've always been told that no one would like me/want me/love me whatever and I've tried so hard over the past few years to reprogramme my thinking. I look for evidence that people do value me in their actions. I'm kind but not a pushover; I'm considerate and positive, I challenge, I make people laugh, I remember things about themselves that they tell me, I'm not 'wrapped up in myself' and it makes no difference.

I know I keep a lot of 'me' to myself. My upbringing left a terrible legacy of anxiety and feelings of inadequacy. I don't expect to be liked so I know that as soon as someone is unavailable or has made plans with someone else, I take it very personally. I never say anything, because on one level I think I'm being over sensitive, but I can't stop the voice that is telling me it's proof that everything my mother said is true.

I'm single and can't see that changing. I don't meet men generally, and rarely ones I'm attracted to, but it doesn't make any difference, because no one is attracted to me either! I don't ever get asked out. Men don't even make an effort to come and speak to me. I tried online dating, it was rather unsuccessful. My experience was that men are looking for someone younger and prettier than me so... I have no desire to try it again.

I take care of myself, I could probably stand to lose a stone, but I'm a size 12-14, I think I've got a 'nice' figure, I'm nothing special to look at but I'm not hideous. I smile. My hair is nice.

Whenever I read about the things I need to do to attract people, I do all the things. I'm positive and I don't moan; I publicly see the bright side; I stop to appreciate the world around me; I'm very much a 'see the doughnut and not the hole' person.

Yet, I'm still not likeable and I'm still not loveable.

The sadness is huge. I just wonder sometimes if she might have been right and people don't like me/find me attractive/love me because they can see all the things she said and maybe she was right after all.

I just don't know what to do.

I have posted on here before, it's just that every few months it becomes a huge issue for me again and I just don't seem to be able to get past it at all. There's part of me that just needs someone to tell me that, actually, some people are just intrinsically unlikable/unlovable and then I can work on just trying to accept that I'm one of them. At the moment, all i have is people telling me it's not true but that contradicts my lived experience and I'm just getting stuck.

I'm just so sad.

I read your post and it actually made me feel so uncomfortable about how I feel myself that I had to come back to it later.

I think I am at a different stage to you.... I am negative, I have zero positive and nothing to offer anymore. I don't even try. I sit on the sofa and watch Tv and eat food and drink wine, alone. The blank feeling I have now is better than the grieving stage of bereavement of losing something you aren't sure you ever had, it's so conflicting and uncomfortable. I have kind of emotionallh detached so it is easier to cope. I don't have anything to offer anyone. I am unattractive and although it makes me feel horribly uncomfortable to have changed physically part of me did it on purpose. I was so sleazed on before, it was like the Devils temptation to me. My low self esteem led me in every single time. So I have taken that option away. No one wants me now.

I have one friend I can confide in, sometimes I have just told her I feel lonely. I am lucky for her. She's the only one I don't feel embarrassed to tell. I sometimes think I will never see someone smile at me with love, never hold someone's hand, never have my hair stroked. I will just carry out my life alone. Then other times I am ok with this. I allowed so many men abuse my trust, money and body that I don't even know if I want another one near me. I dip my toe in the water sometimes then run off scared. I am not good enough and now no longer believe I can give someone anything they need.
I hide all of this from my DC.
They are amazing.
One thing that keeps me going is the idea of just flowing all my positive energy through them, not wasting it on someone else. Part of me hates my parents for not giving me any positivity when I was a kid. They put themselves and their feelings first. I did that for some time with my DC when I was young and confused but now what keeps me going every day isn't their dependency, it's because it's what I was made to do. Be a mother, like you. See them grow into wonderful loved adults. Let them be your anchors, don't burden them emotionally but see yourself through their eyes from time to time. That's who you are. A wonderful mum. Xx

Another thing to think about is giving. yy we are so depleted we don't feel we have anything to give - but that isn't true. Although I have struggled with codependency and have to be measured about how and when I give, there are many bona fide ways to give that don't compromise ourselves. eg I work a lot with the homeless and it is strangely impersonal: the org needs as many pairs of hands as possible and I'm able to supply that. It is truly a win/win situation: the people who need it get what they need on a purely practical level; it is good for me to give. And I'm involved in a collective project, working as a group toward the same goal - essential to help assuage feelings of aloneness. I also hesitate to say it but I recognise the dearth in the lives of the people we are working for - but for the grace of God etc.

Because pp's are right that we can crouch over our wounds and become inward looking. Not a criticism - it's hard to look outward when we have some serious wounds going on: we feel compelled to 'sort it out' and it can become our overriding focus. Meanwhile, life is flying past us...

sans yes, what you have described is very much how I feel. I do know that I need to be sorted in, and for, myself. I'm just very much struggling with the idea that I am fundamentally unloveable. And that whilst I can improve things, I can't change that.

As far as the faking it till you make it goes, that's definitely what I've been doing it for the past 4 years. And I am more outwardly confident than I was before, and I do have a bit more of a 'fuck it' attitude and if I want to do something I will do and I don't worry too much about what other people will think of me for doing it. But I don't think that has made me anymore likeable/loveable. And it certainly hasn't changed how I see/feel about the core Me.

Perhaps 4 years just isn't long enough...

springy thanks. Yes, I've had a fair bit of counselling/therapy over the years. Some of it gave me good strategies that I still employ now, 20 years later, and some of it just wasn't 'effective' or deep enough really. Or I hit a brick wall and the counsellor lacked the skills to enable me to get over it.

I get what you're saying about the loneliness too. I can deal with it most of the times and just get on with it, but there are other times that I just can't get past it. I'm going to a gig on my own on soon. It's an intimate, outdoor thing, lit up with fairy lights and good beer and the like. I'm quite happy to go on my own, but a little sad that I have no choice. If that makes sense.

Oh, the one person I have confided in completely has told me I need to do the mirror thing! I don't know how anyone does it! I haven't been able to bring myself to do it yet...

I'm sorry to hear about your current situation, I hope you're recovering well, and yes, I do tell myself regularly, "This too shall pass".

I'm going to start being more mindful of the small good stuff, I think. I think what you've said is very important and useful. A lot of the validating stuff I get is from children I work with. And that comes almost daily. I need to acknowledge that more... So thank you

Thanks, Lesser. It's the 'rewiring' your own brain that I'm struggling with. Believing whole new things about yourself when all the evidence so far points to the contrary. But I also know that, to a degree, it's a self fulfilling prophecy. I find it very difficult talking about myself in even vaguely positive terms. So perhaps springy's ideas will help with that.

I was chatting to someone recently just generally about being single (and being upbeat and positive about it's good points!) and he asked what I would be looking for from a new relationship. In a nutshell, I want to be loved, cherished, respected and desired. I've never had that, and it's what I want. But I just clammed up and mumbled, "oh I don't know, I want someone who is nice to me, I suppose" because I don't feel I have the right to expect those other things and in that split second worried he'd be laughing to himself about my unrealistic expectations.

Daisy that makes a lot of sense. I do kind of know that, but practising it isn't easy! I just forget when I get caught up in the inwardness of it all...

Saltfish Yes, I am aware of it, I have a huge problem with object constancy. If i don't hear from someone for a day or they don't reply to a text within the same timeframe as they usually do, my panic goes into overdrive. Rationally, I know they're just busy or eating dinner, or out with another friend, or working or whatever and I'd never let on to them how I feel (!) but emotionally it destroys me every single time. And yes, it is important if they contact me first.

I've been overthinking hugely over the past couple of weeks and it just tipped me over the edge this weekend. My close friend was away for the weekend too which meant I couldn't talk any of it through with her. Left to me own devices, I'm just all over the place. It came as a bit of a shock to be honest, to realise how bad I am when I really thought I was past the worst of it

I am on fb, but I also deactivated for about a year. I'm much more at ease with it now. I also don't surround myself with things that make me unhappy. I'm much better at taking care of myself in that respect.

OnTheRise I hadn't considered that; that once you're in 'the system' they might refer you on to something more appropriate. thanks.

MyUsername I can tell you what I did to get me from a similar place to where I am now, if you like? It's not easy. I think what I'm struggling with at the moment is that it doesn't feel like it's made a huge difference to me/my life, but actually thinking about questions posed/comments by other people on here has made me realise I have made huge inroads. I'm just not at the end of the journey yet.

springy so right again. I have volunteered a lot with disadvantaged and vulnerable people. Largely in the area of education. My mother used to be really critical of me and accused me of intellectual and educational snobbery (I have 1st class degree and PG quals, nothing special though) and I could see that that was wrong because I have devoted my working life to improving outcomes for other people. I'm passionate about ensuring other people reach their potential and it breaks my heart to hear children tell me that they're just not good enough. Because I know how acutely painful a self belief that is. Besides, I was an adult when she started saying that, so I could see that she was wrong and she was just projecting her own thoughts. I have tried to use this knowledge to rationalise my other thoughts, but it only has limited success.

When I'm around other people, I'm a very different person to the one I am at home with my own thoughts. Although, not as different as I thought, because other people have noticed. I just worry that people pick up on these as 'red flags' and will avoid me as a result. And it all just becomes self perpetuating.

If they avoid you then they're not want you want. But yy we have to 'kiss' a lot of frogs...

I've recently realised my oldest (and most cherished ) friend is in fact my frenemy. So far so choosing the same type of people we grew up with! The abuse I had as a child was verbal, definitely, but it was predominantly toxicity slithering around under the surface, hard to grasp (why it took so long to work out I had been abused). Although I've certainly had my work cut out to address all that toxicity, like being poisoned by chemicals, the verbal attacks have stuck deep down like barbed wire right at the core. My heart goes out to you that horrible and decimating words were spoken over you repeatedly as a matter of course. It isn't surprising you find it nigh impossible to rise above it. There was so much of it.

Anyway, re frenemy, I am realising how much my 'friend's' words (and intimations) have affected me. The key effect has been shame - shame for who I am. That's no good is it! Her stuff, of course. As another friend days, that's someone putting their shame on you.

I suppose in my long travels to address this stuff I have been convinced that I am loveable. Not perfect, not to everyone's taste - but so far so the same as the entire human race! Your mother poured [predictive typed pooed there..] her shame into you with a funnel: her stuff. HER STUFF.

This talking into the mirror thing is apparently to do with the hypothalamus - which is, apparently, literal. You are the ideal candidate for this kind of self talk also affirmations because it was words that were used to score you: perhaps it's words you need to even up the balance.

I well remember how hard it was to look into my own eyes in the mirror - not hard but impossible. It took a long long time to do it. In group therapy I have also seen others struggle mightily to do similar exercises. Perhaps see it as talking to your hypothalamus - to get out rebooted. Sans your mother's shame (and vicious shaming).

Re therapy and courses eg cbt, as I said above, I get something new every time. I do a LOT of courses, a lot of them refreshers. Because I can so easily slip back into the default 'i am shit'. How could we not? We were conditioned to believe that in our crucial developing years. It takes a lot of - ongoing, lifelong imo - work to counteract all that. Doing these courses, re- reminding myself, is a regime I stick to as an essential to keep myself whole. I was damaged at a crucial stage and this is the price. I'm grateful it's available these days - back in the day it wasn't... and those damaged souls poured [pooed again.. ] their damage onto the next generation.

I'm just on my way out so will read and reply properly later, but I love that predictive text! So accurate!

Thought I'd revisit this, because nothing has changed in a week. Obviously.

I'm thinking about the therapy. What is it like? What is it about? I've had counselling and 'talking' stuff but it's not been effective. I use a lot of cbt techniques anyway, but don't find them very useful very often as I fundamentally don't trust the alternative viewpoint.

Also, I don't understand the whole 'learning to like/love yourself' stuff. How do you do that when you are so flawed and all you can see/hear are the things that are 'wrong' with you?

Last week has been very difficult.