tjt Posted May 8, 2014 Posted May 8, 2014 Hi everyone. It took me a long time to realize that I was wronged as a child. PROPAGANDA: I used to think my dad was virtuous, considerate, and had my best interests at heart... he was always right. I thought my mom was sweet and shy. TRUTH: I grew up with an emotionally abusive/manipulative, dictatorial father and a passive, guilt-ridden mother. It took me a long time to realize the truth. Forever, I thought "my childhood wasn't that bad, and when it was it was my own fault." I would reject myself and side with my parents. What really helped me break this POV was empathizing and sympathizing with myself. So, I thought it would be helpful to share tips for starting to empathize with ourselves when we are carrying around toxic shame from our childhoods and are prone to self-attack and self-rejection. If you have a tip, feel free to share it! Since I couldn't just say "wow, I had it rough and it wasn't my fault," I began to think of my child self as a seperate person. First I paint the picture--I was a skinny little girl with coke-bottle glasses which I had since the age of 2. I was very timid and incredibly anxious. I was afraid of adults and would avoid speaking to them. Ok, once I get an accurate image of my child self, I kind of seperate this little girl from myself. Then I replay a memory with her in place of me. Here's one: I imagine my dad after a fishing trip grabbing this little girl by the arm to hold her in place while he spanks her for wetting her pants at the age of 4 (because she was too shy to go to the portapotty alone, too scared to tell her dad she had to go, and her sister wouldn't go with her). My dad made this girl geniunely believe that she ruined his fishing trip. Then I reconnect and realize it was me who went through this and I was wronged. What about you all, how do you enable yourself to feel empathy for yourself and fight through the propaganda of having a "decent" childhood with "good" parents?
MysterionMuffles Posted May 8, 2014 Posted May 8, 2014 lol coke bottle glasses are cute... anyways good job on this revelation. It's hard for people to come to this realization that none of their trauma is THEIR fault. When people talk about their childhoods and blame themselves for their punishments, it always makes me uncomfortable because they are revealing how little compassion they have for themselves. Sorry to hear about your experience, especially with getting hit for simply wetting yourself...I cannot imagine what kinds of dysfunctions that has caused you or could've caused you. To be hit for something you couldn't control in your body ontop of the psychological shame of being too shy to go to the portapotty alone. My experience with having more compassion for my child self well...long story short: When I was very depressed just 7 years ago, I would hate seeing photos of my child self. I would get jealous that he had it easy and that he ruined it for both of us by being shy and insignificant. Once I learned the true reason behind me constantly skipping school as a child and a teen, I started to have more compassion for all of my selves, my adult one included. I was wronged. I felt lonely for not having friends between grade 1 and 2. My best friend was a girl in kindergarten but she moved away. Grade 1 I roamed the playground alone but my teacher was nice enough so I put up with going to school. In grade 2 though my teacher was a bitch and I STILL had nobody, so I ended up skipping up to 40+ days of school just to stay home to draw comics and play video games under the supervision of my grandparents. I journalled about that whole arc between the ages of 2-8. I don't want to get too into detail about anymore because it's still painful to think about, but basically I had to stop in the middle of my writing so I could cry. I had to mourn the loneliness I felt and the helplessness I felt with my mom forcing me to go to school and not providing any curiousity or compassion as to why I was skipping school. It was her way or the high way. We shared a tight bond up until I was 5, but things changed. I became too intellectually challenging to her in the realm of religion and we stopped praying together. I felt betrayed by her. Despite of all the time and energy she put into watching over me when I was hospitalized for open heart surgery, she had become a horrid bitch in later years. To this day I work towards repairing my relationship with her. It's been a rocky road. It's not the best, but it's the best it has been in years once I started applying philosophy and honesty in my relationship with her. It used to take intense screaming matches, but now I stick to facts and feelings. RTR works wonders... Nowadays I parent myself. I give myself the compassion and guidance I wish I had from my real father, but could not and cannot because he is less of a simple man.
dsayers Posted May 9, 2014 Posted May 9, 2014 Congratulations on being able to take such a crucial step. The more honest we all can be about the relationships we had with our parents, the sooner parents will have to up their game to meet the needs of the customers. It is tragic how many people can not take this step if only out of fear of how their peers will receive them for crossing the narrative that the titles of "mom" and "dad" equate to necessary and infallible.
darknova Posted May 9, 2014 Posted May 9, 2014 tjt and Rainbow Jamz, those are really awful things to experience. I'm so sorry Thank you for posting this thread. Making the emotional connections to experiences from my past has been very challenging, as I'd assume it is for most folks. Maybe this method of viewing the experience as an outside observer first will help me start breaking through that.
tjt Posted May 10, 2014 Author Posted May 10, 2014 lol coke bottle glasses are cute... I know, how could you hit a kid in general, let alone one that wears big ol' glasses!? My best friend was a girl in kindergarten but she moved away. Grade 1 I roamed the playground alone but my teacher was nice enough so I put up with going to school. In grade 2 though my teacher was a bitch and I STILL had nobody, so I ended up skipping up to 40+ days of school just to stay home to draw comics and play video games under the supervision of my grandparents. If only your mom and my dad would have been more curious and cared to know what we were thinking. Why wouldn't my dad just ask me why I was so afraid to go to the portapotty alone, or why I wasn't comfortable telling him I had to go? Shoot, I'd be a totally different person today if he had. I think it's important to replay these memories and consider how parents should have reacted, because it breaks the photo copy machine and allows for progress. I journalled about that whole arc between the ages of 2-8. I don't want to get too into detail about anymore because it's still painful to think about, but basically I had to stop in the middle of my writing so I could cry. I had to mourn the loneliness I felt and the helplessness I felt with my mom forcing me to go to school and not providing any curiousity or compassion as to why I was skipping school. It was her way or the high way. We shared a tight bond up until I was 5, but things changed. I became too intellectually challenging to her in the realm of religion and we stopped praying together. I felt betrayed by her. Despite of all the time and energy she put into watching over me when I was hospitalized for open heart surgery, she had become a horrid bitch in later years. I'm so sorry to hear about how your mom treated you... it's not right. To value a lie over something real (the love of your son). To this day I work towards repairing my relationship with her. It's been a rocky road. It's not the best, but it's the best it has been in years once I started applying philosophy and honesty in my relationship with her. It used to take intense screaming matches, but now I stick to facts and feelings. RTR works wonders... It's nice to know that you can make progress with parents who have wronged you in the past. I don't know if this means anything, but did you notice how you wrote "I work towards repairing my relationship with my mom"? Rather than "we are working on our relationship." It might just be how you decided to write the sentence, but I couldn't help but wonder if you are carrying the load or if your mom's also working as hard as you are. Thanks for sharing your story too, Rainbow Jamz, I've gleaned a lot of good insight and I'm sure other readers will.
MysterionMuffles Posted May 10, 2014 Posted May 10, 2014 thanks for the kind words, but that word difference did get me thinking...I need to mull that over a bit. Thank you.
cynicist Posted May 10, 2014 Posted May 10, 2014 Here's one: I imagine my dad after a fishing trip grabbing this little girl by the arm to hold her in place while he spanks her for wetting her pants at the age of 4 (because she was too shy to go to the portapotty alone, too scared to tell her dad she had to go, and her sister wouldn't go with her). My dad made this girl geniunely believe that she ruined his fishing trip. Then I reconnect and realize it was me who went through this and I was wronged. Holy fuck. That's one of the most selfish and horrible things I've heard in quite a while. I can't imagine the kind of mental gymnastics required for your father to come up with such a fucked up, narcissistic conclusion. Interesting topic but I'm afraid I'm too pissed off to think about it at the moment, maybe I'll add something later when I calm down...
tjt Posted May 10, 2014 Author Posted May 10, 2014 Holy fuck. That's one of the most selfish and horrible things I've heard in quite a while. I can't imagine the kind of mental gymnastics required for your father to come up with such a fucked up, narcissistic conclusion. Interesting topic but I'm afraid I'm too pissed off to think about it at the moment, maybe I'll add something later when I calm down... Wow, I really appreciate your strong reaction! Thanks for getting angry. Yet another reminder that I was wronged... And another tip just developed - to begin feeling empathy for yourself as a child, objectively tell about a memory in detail about how your parents "disciplined" you, and see how people react. Although I guess this can be difficult, because if you're telling your family or friends the story, they might defend the abuser. If you can tell it to someone who will be completely honest (a total stranger, haha like you cynicist, or a virtuous friend) and they are shocked and appalled, then you better get more serious about empathizing with yourself. Oh, and I just wanted to share that I haven't spoken to my dad in about half a year. I have no plans of having a relationship with him again (and he doesn't seem to mind either, as he's never tried to call or email me). He is incredibly intelligent and masterfully manipulative, so our relationship cannot be salvaged. Were I to practice RTR with him and try to "work" on our relationship, he would have taken advantage of my feelings and used that knowledge to control me further. So the ball is in his court (or rather I think the ball is completely flat at this point).
cynicist Posted May 10, 2014 Posted May 10, 2014 Wow, I really appreciate your strong reaction! Thanks for getting pissed. Yet another reminder that I was wronged... I'm hesitant to get involved when a parent 'disciplines' their child for 'misbehaving' even though I hate seeing it (still working on my courage there), but if I saw someone do that to a child for being afraid... well I'm glad I haven't because I'm not sure my response would be helpful. Let me ask you, did you have any trouble recalling these memories? I can imagine how the one you mentioned would be difficult to forget, and I have several that were like that, but a lot of what I went through was neglect. Most of my history as a child is a blend of monotonous moments, just being herded from one place to the next like a farm animal with no consideration for my preference. So outside of a few outrageous moments it's hard to point to specific negative events, the absence of positive ones is more noticeable. It makes things more confusing, but maybe the 'lack of positives' is a thing I can empathize with as well...
tjt Posted May 10, 2014 Author Posted May 10, 2014 I'm hesitant to get involved when a parent 'disciplines' their child for 'misbehaving' even though I hate seeing it (still working on my courage there), but if I saw someone do that to a child for being afraid... well I'm glad I haven't because I'm not sure my response would be helpful. Let me ask you, did you have any trouble recalling these memories? I can imagine how the one you mentioned would be difficult to forget, and I have several that were like that, but a lot of what I went through was neglect. Most of my history as a child is a blend of monotonous moments, just being herded from one place to the next like a farm animal with no consideration for my preference. So outside of a few outrageous moments it's hard to point to specific negative events, the absence of positive ones is more noticeable. It makes things more confusing, but maybe the 'lack of positives' is a thing I can empathize with as well... No I have no problem recalling these memories, and there are lots of them (I've heard that memories are especially vivid if the event is rare, but all of my memories are very vivid). I wasn't really neglected so I can't speak from experience. However, my SO was neglected as a child and the way that we've been able to analyze it and get angry is by talking about two things: - The direct and indirect results of being neglected - These are the things that you ended up having to do because no one was there to spend time with you. For example, having to scrounge for some terrible, preserved after-school snack laced with MSG in a cardboard box in the cupboard because no one was home to make him a fresh snack and his parents were too busy to buy perishable groceries on a regular basis. A second example, he became friends with a very troubled boy who had horrible parents... in their teens this boy began experimenting with hard core drugs and eventually became addicted to meth. We are so fortunate that my SO never went along for that ride, but he wouldn't have been anywhere near this boy if my SO had attentive parents... so their negligence put him in dangerous situations. - And what was out of sight (or what went unseen by the child being neglected) - Think about what your parents were doing while you were being shuffled from one thing to the next, and what it was that was important enough to take attention from their child. For example, his parents would leave the kids to go to fancy business parties, without leaving any kind of healthful meal for them. I think it was kind of like "If you kids get hungry, there's frozen pizza in the freezer." Well no duh they're going to get hungry, it's dinner time and you're leaving to eat some extravagant meal while leaving them behind to eat poo! Sorry my examples are centered around food, but I think health and diet are important and related to mental health and development (and I'm eventually going to make an argument that they are also tied to bad parenting). Maybe this will help you think of the negative things, but a lack of positive also shows that you were wronged as a child.
cynicist Posted May 10, 2014 Posted May 10, 2014 No that's fine, I really like having those two approaches. The first one was along the lines of what I was thinking but the second, looking at what my parents actions from the eyes of my younger self with the knowledge and awareness that I have now, that's something I didn't think of. Thank you! I'm sorry to hear your SO went through something similar. I know how surreal it can be... it's good that he has someone as self-aware as you to clarify things.
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