My mother and father are shite but I am okay now...

[Nemofish]

It's me again. The mner with a bonkersly innapropriate mother with narcissistic personality disorder and the bizarre, recently found Canadian father aka The Father Of Silence. (eg. he is blanking me and pretending I don't exist).

So. I am the offspring of two people, both with huuuuge egos, and I have turned out okay. Rather well in fact.

Don't get me wrong, I had the years of depression, anorexia, drug addiction and I'm still getting through the anxiety years, but bleedin hell I could have turned out worse.

I have one friend who was horribly abused as a child and teenager, and he is, bless his heart, barely held together by various types of medication. I love him dearly and I am sad for him as I don't think he will ever feel able to achieve his full potential. (very talented musician, who is too afraid to look out of his front door). You could almost say with good fucking reason though, life has been awful for him.

For me it comes down to this. Trying to go through life feeling awful about yourself is pretty crap. You make bad relationship choices, bad friendship choices, you feel a failure (probably as you chant 'you're a failure' in your head 1000 times a day).

So, that isn't an option. So regardless of how shit you think you genuinely are, it is far better to develop some self esteem, as life will be better that way.

I, for instance, have a face like a bag of spanners. Rather than get depressed about it and long for lots of plastic surgery anymore I decide to cut my hair short and funky, dye it and wear nice earrings. Result, I know people are looking at my funky pink haircut and not my face like a bag of spanners. A hint of boobage helps too... (as they are less likely to notice my muffin top)

Now if I can just pull that off with the inside of me I will have fucking cracked it...

I have no idea what the point of this post is, just wanted to share

Feel free to chip in!

Good for you Nemofish, you are a very strong and spirited person!

CJCregg, I used to be on the Stately Homes thread and I apologise if I was on there when you tried to join and failed to say hello.

I think people do have to go through a bit of a self absorbed phase and dwell on how bad they feel for a while, to process the feelings, but I think you are right, this should be planned as a temporary stage with the aim to find ways of moving on. Has anyone read Dave Pelzer's book, Moving On? I like it.

I was reluctant to see a therapist because I had had 2 in the past and felt they encouraged me to dwell on feeling crap but didn't feel they were helping me move forward. When I saw the last one though, I was feeling desperate, so I looked for a good one and went into it with the aim of finding new ways to think, feeling better and then leaving rather than becoming dependent on it.

My attitude is don't let those fuckers who are inadequate themselves ruin your whole life and make you inadequate! Don't believe what might seem to be their judgement of you (that you are crap) because why would you value the judgement of people you know are crap themselves. You know they are crap because you know that if you treated your children the same way you would feel like you were crap. Don't let their crapness win! Fight against it and get the negative patterns of thinking they put in your head OUT!

You don't have to be perfect to still be good and I think you have got it so right Nemofish by making the most of what you have got rather than worrying about what you haven't. Nobody else is perfect either. Striving to be perfect and have a perfect life makes lots of people so unhappy (because it is impossible to achieve). I think people with crap parents may be more prone to this striving for perfection because you felt if you were more perfect they might show you some approval.

At some point you realise that whatever you do though, they won't be much different to how they have always been. Just because they were incapable of loving you properly, because of their own problems (like the Larkin poem says), doesn't mean you are unloveable and that other people can't feel that for you.

Good post, SAHM. I really identify with that bit about not letting them make you feel like crap because they are crap. I think this is why having children can prompt a lot of that change.

At the risk of being a bit Stately Homes, when I was six (close to DD's age) a large chunk of my hair fell out due to stress-related alopecia. I now know that it coincided with my Dad starting to sexually abuse me. But it was just this hilarious family joke about me looking like a monk with half my hair missing.

There was no interest in what might have been causing it. Looking back, I don't feel hurt or angry. It just leaves me speechless with laughter because I just can't get my head round anyone 'normal' thinking that making fun of your child is the way to deal with it.

Now how can I take their opinions of me seriously?