Lived Experience Forum

[Powderfinger]

@Maggie 

Thank you. Yes, sometimes there is too much and you can't speak. Words are useless and flimsy. So, the still and quiet is better. 

2 more days and I'm in therapy. I dread it and welcome it at the same time. I know I need a lot of help and extra support. 

I am going to my first novel writing group with the writers association where I live today. Hopefully that will distract my mind for two hours into something I enjoy. 

In saying that, there are no words for what I'm going through. I feel bad when others have gone through things and I'm talking about my stuff. I know where it comes from. Courtesy of being attuned to my mother's every need when none of my needs were met. Therefore my needs and me simply were not important, more of a hindrance and inconvenient for her. Well now she no longer has me. Not that it would mean anything to her. She'll find someone else. 

[Maggie]

@Powderfinger  I understand the welcome, yet the dread of starting therapy.

Have you ever looked at any information around ‘ insecure avoidance attachment ‘ ?

I too was my mother’s keeper, plus others in my family, so I understand the loss of any possible childhood. I have gone into caring relationships, unexpected, it comes so naturally. Anyway, just passing, wishing you the best with you first group meeting today.

Take care.

[NatureLover]

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@Powderfinger wrote:

Then hit a really bad turn this afternoon/evening. I felt as if I was right back at the start. I sobbed for quite a while. I was feeling no relief from anything and I couldn't cope at all. Things have gone from very bad to ten times worse with me. I can't even think about work at all now, where as that was my distraction when I could manage. I'm really struggling to hold on. 

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I'm sorry to hear this, @Powderfinger ...I hope things feel a bit better today, and you have a good time at your novel writer's group today...

[Powderfinger]

@Maggie 

I'm sorry to hear you had a similar experience to myself. Spot on at loss of any childhood. My development from child to adult as a result never went well for me at all. It is very complex and not my fault it went that way for me. I was a child, not an adult but got treated like one. I've now learnt that caring for someone is not being responsible for them. Logic and reality that is, hard to undo the conditioning and prior learning. It's always, without it who are you. The loss of a false identity that got given to you, yet it is not your identity. How very confusing for one to hear initially. The damage of her choices, at this point I'm unsure if some of it is reversible. It went in for 34 years. 

I have not looked at 'insecure avoidance attachment'. I do not doubt I fit the bill really. I guess I may look at it one day. For now, I will leave it as there is just too much to contend with. 

At times I feel incredibly angry that I'm the one sitting in therapy because of someone else who never got therapy. 

Thanks for always listening. 

[Powderfinger]

@NatureLover 

Thank you, not much better today. I'd go to the group. Put on the I'm fine face for two hours. The mask we get used to putting on. The facade we live. Those days. It's just easier sometimes because it's like we'll written lines you know inside out. Lines you have read and heard thousands of times over. I went, it was ok. I don't feel much. Good enough that I went and didn't talk myself out of it. 

[Maggie]

@Powderfinger  I understand the anger about being in therapy because of someone else’s problems. I’m sorry you are going through this.

Finding my voice was a turning point. Realising I actually had a right to a point of view, even if it was different. It’s hard breaking away from familiar thinking patterns. Hard and scary, freedom isnt as easy as it sounds.

But people do come through these challenges. There’s always someone to help us to keep pushing through, because YOU are worth it.

I hope today is manageable. Take care.

[NatureLover]

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@Powderfinger wrote:

@NatureLover 

Thank you, not much better today.

...I went, it was ok. I don't feel much. Good enough that I went and didn't talk myself out of it. 

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I'm sorry yesterday wasn't good...well done for getting out of the house and going to your novel writer's group anyway. 

I hope today is a better day for you... @Powderfinger 

[Powderfinger]

@Maggie  I feel so ropeable today. This time around I'm not pushing down how I'm feeling or reprimanding myself for feeling what I've been told is negative and bad. More suppression. No, I'm done. It's there for a reason. Its fine to feel this way and I don't need approval to feel it. It's years of suppression of a shit childhood and life. I feel immense anger about the abuse and neglect. I am finding more and more that I'm not connected to any of them anymore. I've never felt connected, even as a child. As a teen I started to wonder if I was adopted. I seemed to have nothing in common with any of them. I'm not adopted. I just never felt any connection. The connection I did have wasn't real, it was toxic, abusive and unhealthy. I just feel anger. 

I start therapy tomorrow and I feel like punching my mother in the face right about now. 

[NatureLover]

In a way I'm sorry at what you're going through, and in a way I think it has to come out, like you say, to get a healthier you in the long term. 

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@Powderfinger wrote:

I feel immense anger about the abuse and neglect.

...

The connection I did have wasn't real, it was toxic, abusive and unhealthy. I just feel anger. 

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I think anger is an appropriate reaction to the abuse, like you say.

I'm here listening and hearing you. @Powderfinger 

[Maggie]

@Powderfinger  Anger is normal, and........healthy. Yes, healthy.

You are not bad, what happened to you is bad. It’s hard to get the hang of that deep down, but tomorrow you start to take care of yourself. You start a journey of recovery.

Hearing you. Take care where you can. Caring incoming thoughts.