Hello all. Again, haven't been able to log on for a few days and so many new posts, I feel overwhelmed.
Thank you to Bop and Rose for your comments. Bop I know what you are saying in your post, all of it, fri 22:47, and I appreciate your comments to me. It is very hard to find a good therapist and I agree that as I go along on this journey I have become much more aware as to the kind of therapist I need. My biggest problem is that I have so many restrictions on when I can see a therapist, it really narrows my options.
Muffin, I wish I could give you a hug. Hugs are good for the soul. From what I've read, your DH sounds lovely and supportive can you talk to him, just a little? I talk to DH now and then, not very much, he doesn't really understand, but it helps sometimes. But I know the feeling of wanting to die. Because every which way you turn there seems no way out of the nightmare and so the only option does seem to die. I can only speak for myself but the only thing that has kept me going at times are my DC's. In the sense that I know how utterly devasted they would be to lose their mother (not that I am a great mother by any means but I'm the only one they've got and I love them with all my heart) and I cannot leave them like that. But that really is my only reason for carrying on sometimes if i totally honest.
I met a friend at the weekend and she said some things to upset me, entirely unintentionally. I realise now it was partly my own fault in a way. I had let my guard down, because she has been very supportive and understanding about what I'm going through and she actually seemed to understand me. But the reality is she doesn't understand at all really and that was obvious by the sort of questions she was asking me. What I am annoyed about though is my own response to her questions.
She was asking me things like why were my sisters continuing to have a relationship with my parents and how far would I take cutting off my parents in the situation if one of my aunts/uncles died for example, would I go to the funeral knowing my parents would be there? And the worst thing she came up with was effectively trying to understand my mother's pov as to why she did nothing to stop my dad when he was abusive. She knows my mother was abused as well by my dad and she was trying to imply that my mother was unable to stand up for me because her own self confidence and self esteem had been destroyed by my dad as in the classic marital domestic violence, And perhaps to some extent I think my friend was right, my mother's self confidence had also been destroyed by my dad by the time he started abusing me. But did my friend then mean that I should forgive my mother because she was effectively too damaged herself by my dad to be able to stand up for me?
I know my friend was asking all these questions out of ignorance really, she has no experience of abuse herself, her parents are clearly very kind and loving, I have known this friend for around 25 years and so know her parents a little as well.
I felt like I was having to justify myself to her ie why I had cut off my parents and my sisters hadn't. I felt like she thought maybe I was lying/being oversensetive about what my parents had done/was exaggerating how bad it was etc simply because it is only me that has cut off my parents and not my sisters. I did tell her that me and my sisters were all treated very differently but I could see that she couldn't really understand how this could be. She has no knowledge or understanding of the concept of one child being the parent(s) poison container/scapegoat whilst the other children are not so obviously targetted etc.
And she also knows my mother quite well, or to be more accurate, she knows the public face of my mother. And I can see she simply cannot reconcile my story about my mother and the fact that I feel she has completely failed me as a mother, and her own perception of her based on her own interactions with my mother. I can completely understand her dilemma as i know how my mother appears in public. It is ironic really as she portrays herself in public as almost the exact opposite of who she is in private.
I have a dilemma now as to what to do about this friend. I know she means well and is certainly not out to hurt me in any way, but she simply doesn't understand the complexity of the situation. How can she? It has taken me nearly 3 years to understand and become aware of all the nuances and subtleties of it all. I don't want to stop seeing this friend and nor do I actually want to stop talking about the situation with her as, besides some of her upsetting questions, she has shown me some care and compassion. In email communication she seems to show a lot of understanding, it's only when we meet and speak face to face about it all that there are problems. Or perhaps when we are emailing if she does say/ask something upsetting I am much more able to respond as I would like whereas in face to face communication i find it virtually impossible to express my true feelings especially is she has upset me by a particular comment/question. When we were chatting at the weekend and she asked me some of the things that upset me, I remember almost physically 'pushing down' my true feelings of hurt and covering them up with a false happy/ok expression and answering her upsetting questions as if i wasn't in the least bit hurt or upset or bothered about what she had said/asked me.
And this is one of my biggest problems. That when somebody/anybody says something hurtful/upsetting to me in real time ie face to face or perhaps on the phone, i simply do not know how to respond in the moment. I seem to automatically cover up how I really feel and act and respond normally/as if i am not hurt or upset. But then later on I go away and at a later stage I realise how much I have in fact been hurt by the other person's words but I still cannot seem to feel the pain emotionally. Instead I find my eczema worsens or i notice some other physical symptom eg a new spot or something.
I need to learn how to respond to hurtful comments in the moment. But it is very hard as I don't actually even notice or realise that I have been hurt at the time. All I feel is a little tiny bit of 'discomfort' and that is my only sign to myself that my feelings have been hurt. It is always much later, when i am able to go away and have a bit of time to myself, that i start realising what things were said that hurt me and how i was hurt by them.
I remember reading quite recently about somebody else who seemed to be having a 'delayed reaction' to i think it was contact with her family. I wonder how common it is amongst us to have delayed reactions like this?
It doesn't take much thought on my part to work out how i came to develop this habit. I clearly remember many many many many occasions at home with my family when hurtful things would be said to me and I never ever showed I was hurt or responded with my true feelings. I would always always always hide the hurt/pain i must have felt at my dad's/mother's/sisters actions/words and respond usually with anger. I don't think I have ever, not even once, shown my true feelings of hurt to anybody in my family.
I have a feeling that this will be one of the hardest habits to break from my childhood. I wonder whether it is even possible to break it at all. Right now it seems impossible for me to consciously realise that I have been hurt and know how I have been hurt, and to feel and show my hurt, at the moment when it occurs as a result of another person's words/actions.
The only time I seem to be able to do that is when I have time to think about what the other person has said and to think about my own response and that only happens with emails or texts. In any 'real time' situation I'm hopeless, I just revert to my old childhood habitual ways.