|
Post by g on Jul 30, 2010 16:03:02 GMT -5
Just had a realisation. My mother already had 3 children when I was born. My closest sibling was just over a year older than me. And there was another sibling just over a year older than my sister before me. 3 kids in 2 and a half years. My mum must have been exhausted and my eldest sister, who was 5 yrs older than me, was already in a caretaker role from the age of 6 or seven I think. How could my mother have wanted me? How could she possibly not have resented getting pregnant again? And what must she have been saying to my dad about making her pregnant again? She's always talked about sex in a very negative way. It was something dirty and shameful within wedlock, and my goodness God forbid any of her daughters having sex before marriage! I wonder what was being discussed in my presence when I was a small child? I know abortion was out of the question because of something that happened years later when my youngest sibling was born. But what if my mum was praying for a miscarriage or something? And of course there was a language barrier because I didnt really understand my parents' language/dialect. How many mixed message must I have been getting about sex, unwanted pregnancies etc. And we were so poor God knows what else my parents were arguing about. Money, sex being taboo and sinful with disastrous consequences , being unwanted... This is making me cry. Something in this for sure Maybe that's why I've always tried to be perfect - to prove that my conception and birth weren't just a terrible mistake? G
|
|
|
Post by primrose on Jul 30, 2010 18:11:59 GMT -5
Sounds painful and powerful G, am so sorry you're feeling all of that, but it sounds healing to let it all out. I worked Bradshaw's Family Secrets and learnt so much about the unsaid things in my family, it's amazing how much children know without being told. P.
|
|
|
Post by iwillsurvive on Jul 31, 2010 13:16:23 GMT -5
Greta, excellent thread and post. My heart goes out to you. And, I'm especially feeling empathy for you as an infant. One thing I've noticed about you is that you seem to have a lot of grief or deep sadness. Perhaps this IS a piece of that. To feel unwanted and to essentially believe you had to be perfect to be valuable is an awful way to enter this world. Sounds like part of you needs to hear that you ARE wanted and that you are valuable no matter what you do or do not do. You have intrinsic value. I'm praying that God would write the truth upon your heart and that you would know that he always wanted you to be born and he always thought you were precious and valuable. We see ourselves through a mirror held up by our parents, but the real mirror we need to look into is the one held up by our higher power.
I can relate to a lot of what you wrote. I was also the fourth child. My parents had two boys and a girl but for some reason wanted another boy. They were so convinced that I was going to be a boy that they only came up with a boy's name. My mom told me that my dad didn't come to the hospital when I was born and that the woman in the bed next to hers came up with my name. So, I was rejected at birth and for years felt incredible sadness around my birthdays. I think my father, the narc, despised women and really didn't want daughters.
OMG, I just recalled that my first husband was so fixated on having a boy and that I was relieved when my son was born. When my second child -- a girl -- was born, he refused to have anything to do with her and eventually signed away his parental rights in a stepparent adoption with my second husband. History repeated itself. Uggh. I so want to stop my POA ways. Enough.
|
|
|
Post by trout46 on Aug 1, 2010 9:14:41 GMT -5
Great thread Greta and IWS. Important work.
One aspect of my childhood circumstance sounds like a wonderful arrangement to those I share it with. I was the first grandchild born on both sides of my family. In the U.S., I was first born (of eleven cousins and sibs) by five years among my maternal grandparents' extended family. In Greece, where the other half of my family lives, I was first by nearly the same period of time. I had the undivided attention of an entire cadre of family members, and was lavished with incredible love and attention. I did not lack for attention.
On the other hand, I lived in emotional turmoil, the product of a terrorizing rage-filled father. My fear for, and avoidance of, my father transcended everything else in my childhood, including the loving attention of a huge ethnic family system. My earliest memories are of my father yelling and screaming uncontrollably, moving violently through our home, throwing and breaking things as he unleashed a fury that I could not even begin to understand. I would cling to my mother, crying uncontrollably in her arms. Since beginning to focus my attention on my inner child, I have been able to get in touch with that experience, and recently gained the insight that my mother was equally terrorized by my father. She did what she could, but not even my mother could protect me from the devastating effect my father had upon me.
I don't believe my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other family members had any idea of exactly how intensely angry and scary my father actually was. There was a time, years later, when I was at least 10 or 11 years old, when my father's angry temper was provoked while we were gathered with extended family for a major holiday. I well remember the dead silence that fell over the entire scene following my father’s outburst. Everyone in my life seemed to fear my father's rage. In addition to my acute fear, I was humiliated with my father.
This juxtaposition in circumstances--being the darling grandchild of attention while having been terrorized by a violently out-of-control father--produced in me a range of intensely felt, conflicting emotions, and a perpetual state of acute anxiety. Clearly, the violence overpowered the affection lavished upon me. But both of these aspects of my life combined to produce an intensely emotional child. Emotionality ruled my lived experience. Emotionality and high anxiety.
When I fast forward to the breakup with the POA, I better understand the extended period of relentless obsessions, the dark abyss I spoke about in my very first post back in April, and my utter inability to allow my rational, thinking mind, to have any impact or role in my consciousness. I saw this for the first time a couple of weeks ago when I was visiting my best friend in NYC. I shared with him the fact that my response to the breakup, including my endlessly obsessions, were pure emotion wrapped in on ongoing anxiety attack. My rational mind was utterly out of the picture.
This very realization seems to have had a freeing effect on me. From the day we had this conversation, my rational, contemplating, thinking mind gained the permission necessary to participate in my unfolding reality. At the same time, my recovery work was moving forward with all deliberate speed. Within a week of my return from NYC, I broke through the veil of the narc-POA, and I was free of the bondage that had me in its grips for many years.
I spoke to my inner child yesterday for the first time ever in my life. I felt him, and felt his repressed fear and anxiety, but also his sweetness and tenderness. I spoke words of comfort and protection, and I could feel his calming. This work continues.
|
|
|
Post by g on Aug 1, 2010 14:27:45 GMT -5
Thank you IWS. I really felt your warmth in your post. Thank you so much. G
|
|
|
Post by g on Aug 1, 2010 14:35:37 GMT -5
IWS, I suppose my parents were hoping for another boy if anything at that stage too.
My mum often talks about my brother perching a bottle on a chair and sucking from it as if he were a calf because she had to feed my sister and me. Sad eh? She talked about that a lot after he died (age 18) G
|
|
|
Post by iwillsurvive on Aug 2, 2010 4:00:32 GMT -5
You're welcome greta. I couldn't help but feel for you. And, of course I can relate to not feeling wanted. So sad that these situations have such a negative impact on our lives. The bottle perched on a chair for your brother is a strong visual representing how your mom was overwhelmed and resorted to extreme measures to meet you and your siblings' basic needs. Sounds kind of like an assembly line not a warm family experience. Sorry you went through such deprivation.
Trout, I think I told you before that our fathers may be twins separated at birth. Like you, I was terrorized by my dad the rageaholic. Glad you're discovering what lies beneath your love addiction. Sorry that you went through so much as a child and recently with your POA. It's good that you are "talking" to your inner child. He needs to be reassured of his safety and that you will protect him.
|
|
|
Post by quinn on Aug 2, 2010 10:38:12 GMT -5
Trout, The situation you describe of being lavished with love and attention from one group of people, while at the same time being terrorized by your rage-filled father reminds me of Prim's birth—being pulled to move forward, while at the same time realizing she will die if she does.
I think these kinds of opposite experiences create an unbearable anxiety in us as children. There's no way for us to make sense of such contradiction with our limited child minds. How is a child supposed to deal with: I'm special and adored, but that's also going to get me killed?
It makes perfect sense we would need, later in life, to hook up with someone who at times seems to be crazy-in-love with us and at other times be completely dismissive and hurtful. In other words a NARC. Being with a narc feels just like home when you have grown up that way.
It's such an amazing feeling to have the veil finally lift and to see that the narc we thought was our whole world, our savior, our HP, is actually made of clay—not a bad, evil person (I'm working on stopping the demonizing of POA) but one that is seriously impaired and not capable of real love.
|
|
|
Post by knowlove on Aug 2, 2010 13:33:14 GMT -5
Trout I too had a rage filled mother who mad eit clear on many occasions she did not like being a mother and felt we were in her way. I did have extremely loving grandparents on my father's side and since he was an only child, my sister and I the only grandchildren and they doted on us. I thank God for them every day because I feel, if not for them, I would be so much more damaged. Trying to figure out how I can access all these deeply hidden painful memories. Right now I feel like I am on the edge of losing my sanity. I look fine on the outside, but on the inside a lot of emotions are going on all together and combined with care taking for my grandchild and dealing with my H's whining and constant bitching I really feel like I am being hel together by loose stitches and they are bursting now, like I am rotting from the inside out. I am realizing how all this trauma and pain has been buildling up for years and I feel between my parents neglect and then my being molested at age 12 then dealing with H's infidelity it is all coming to a head now, like my brain and soul are on overload and can no longer hold it all in.
|
|
|
Post by iwillsurvive on Aug 2, 2010 16:02:15 GMT -5
Knowlove, it does sound like you are on the verge of breaking through to some of your hidden and painful memories. It's like the floodgate will no longer hold them back because the pressure is too great. I hope and pray that these memories and related feelings come to you gently and that you feel more freedom as you process them. A rage-filled mother is a tough thing to deal with. And, the rejection of her motherhood and of you and your siblings is very hurtful. So glad you had grandparents who stepped in to help you.
Hope you can fall into the arms of your higher power and "download" your problems onto him/her. I get the impression that the weight of these issues is too heavy to carry. Only a loving and compassionate higher power can handle what is humanly impossible to handle.
Like you, I am a molest survivor and the effects of the wounds are far reaching. Compound that with neglect from your parents and your h's infidelity and it's no wonder you're overloaded.
The only way out is to surrender. Let go. Your higher power will carry the load that you can't carry yourself. I'm praying for you. Sending virtual hugs your way.
|
|
|
Post by trout46 on Aug 2, 2010 16:06:27 GMT -5
Great insight Quinn! My childhood was crazy, and I was also very anxious. I dealt with the oppositional realities and the resulting anxiety by eating. I was very heavy as a child--obese actually. I literally fed my pain. It wasn't until the age of 15, when my interest in the opposite sex kicked in, that I lost the extra weight (65 lbs. in one long summer while staying with my family in Greece!), and changed that part of my life.
Yes, IWS, the father thing has come up before. I believe that a narcissistic woman was the closest thing to my father I could find to be attracted to as an adult man trying to (subconsciously) "fix" the situation with my father. How about you?
|
|
|
Post by knowlove on Aug 2, 2010 16:35:21 GMT -5
Thank you so much IWS for your very kind words and support. I love reading your posts as they are always filled with wisdom! I do feel something is coming but it doesn't seem to WANT to come out. I wish I could just easily access it and deal with it but it will not come forth and I cannot FEEL anything except it knocking at the door waiting to come out. I need to find how to open that door so I can work on all these issues. Yes, being neglected, hurt, emotionally abused by my mother then molested by a stranger at age 12 then my H letting me down as well, it was almost like is there no one I can trust? ? No one who will ever take care of me like they are supposed to? I feel as if everyone who was supposed to love me and take care of me in my life has let me down (except my grandparents). Ive looked into the Primal therapy (thank you Greta) as I was left in the hospital for a month after being born breach, losing oxygen and only weighing a bit over 3 lbs). I am learning that this alone could have been just the beginning of my long road to becoming an LA and learning to separate myself from the pain.
|
|
|
Post by trout46 on Aug 2, 2010 16:54:52 GMT -5
It sounds like you feel overwhelmed with all the emotional issues knowlove. Feeling as though there are things (feelings, issues) that want, or need expression, but which are not accessible, might require some help. I know that in the past, when I was plagued with father issues, but couldn't identify exactly what was going on with me emotionally, I benefitted from the assistance of a therapist. Such an individual might be able to help you sort things out and begin to discuss them in a productive way.
Will keep you in my prayers.
|
|