Messages

Thank you for your replies.    It means so much to know I'm not alone.

I'd like to reply to everyone individually but I'm getting overwhelmed and starting to overthink everything.  I'm feeling right now.  I'll come back later for the rest.  I do appreciate that each of you took the time to read and reply. 

I'm sorry you're struggling. I feel like a one-off that doesn't fit in most of the time too. I hope you really, truly understand that it's not true. It's your Trauma lying to you the same way my trauma lies to me. The way I see it, my trauma voice is still alive and well and stuck in 1970, which is when I really didn't fit in because of bad parenting and abuse from my classmates. When I asked my parents for help learning how to fit in, they told me the same BS. "Just ignore them all" and "they're all jealous." My parents didn't want to deal with my problems. I was more of a family pet that needed to not make too much noise than a human being with social needs.

That's bad parenting from many years ago, but the voices are still in my head even though the message is outdated. It still hurts. I don't have a great solution to offer, but I really do hope you fully grasp the truth that it's trauma—not truth.

I'm pulling for you!

I'm sorry that happened to you too. Yes, I can see how it would be my trauma lying to me.  That's a helpful way of looking at it.  Thank you for sharing.  It helps, I feel less isolated and strange.  I appreciate you pulling for me .

Being able to write about how much it hurts to be left out is huge IMO.  I wouldn't admit that for decades so it suggests to me you are moving forward even if it doesn't exactly feel like that at the moment. 

Your post is brave Julia and I for one am glad you let us see that part of you.   

Thank you - this may be the first time in my whole life where sharing my feelings has been labeled as progress!  It made me cry, in a good way, to finally have what I consider the "right thing" done.  (sorry, words are hard, I know there's more than one right thing).  All the therapy, all the therapists, and none of them have ever told me that sharing my feelings was a good thing. 

I feel like no matter where I am, I just don't fit in.
It hurts on so many levels.
I don't fit in. I want to. I want to connect, I want to belong. I know I'm having an extended flashback right now but that's knowledgeable is not helping me today. The tools I have are not helping me today. Even the memory of feeling like I did belong on Sunday isn't helping.
How do I help myself feel like I fit in?  Words are hard. Communication is one of my sticking points- many reasons for that - and it just keeps me feeling more isolated.
My m, I've begun to recognize is a covert narcissist. She would say things like, "they don't like you because you're too pretty and too smart. Just smile and try harder," when I begged her to tell me why the kids at school hated me. 
This is one memory I've had my whole life but never put to emotions. I knew it, but didn't feel it.
Others have crept in along my healing journey.
I know it's her undermining me, but again, that knowledge doesn't help.
I enjoy learning, figuring things out, problem solving and knowing the why has generally helped me navigate my life.
The thing is, when it comes to emotional stuff, knowing what isn't the same as knowing how.
It hurts to feel left out. It hurts to feel like I don't belong. It hurts and I don't know what to do about it because - I can't teach myself that I'm worthy of human interaction. Only other people can do that.
On the other hand, only I can take the step to try to trust enough to see if I'm okay just the way I am.
What do you do when you feel similarly?

Hi Juliaguarde, welcome to the forum.     I'm sorry to hear about the abuse you've suffered, and the challenges you are experiencing.  Being without safe and supportive relationships among the people in your life is really difficult... it's something I struggle with too.  But I believe OOTS is a safe place, with good people who just want to help, so I'm glad you are here.

It looks to me like you have done a lot of work to understand yourself and the trauma you've been faced with.  That takes a lot of courage, and is very commendable.  I hope you'll be able to continue to build on that foundation and find the peace and acceptance you're looking for.

I wish you all the best, and hope to see you around the forum. 

Thank you so much. I feel very moved.
I'm so sorry you struggle as well.
Hello 

HI and a warm welcome to OOTS Julia   
I was thinking of Alice Miller when I read your post, a well-known and beloved trauma professional whose son accused her after her death of abusing him and his sister.  I personally believe part of her wanted to be a healthy parent, but the trauma she experienced in the war seeped into her family life and parenting, she could not hold it back. She knew intellectually, intuitively about trauma but emotionally not so much.  Her son wrote a book about her and a blog article here https://www.outofthestorm.website/guest-bloggers?offset=1568418617016.  It might help shed some light on your M's behaviour.

I hope you find info and support you're looking for here 

Wow, just, wow  Yes, I see now how it could have been like that.  His way of describing his own narrative helped me understand it in a way I hadn't before.

Hey back. Thank you  😊  :cloud9:for the welcome

I'm so scared to "mess things up," that I think I'll just get started by being honest about that.
I'm currently undiagnosed but when I read about relational trauma, my symptoms fit like a glove. It's interesting to me that so many of us seem to use the same phrase.  It's the one I used, at least, even before I'd seen anyone else use it.
I don't have safe enough relationships irl, at the moment. I'm hoping I can find that here.
It's my greatest hope and, therefore, my greatest fear.   
I'm terrified that I'm going to act out. That I'm going to need to post here and hurt someone inadvertently, or show my immature side, or I really don't know...
Potential tw




I was in therapy at 40, for "fibromyalgia", anxiety, and my therapist would only say "trauma".  This therapist recommended that I ask my mother for a break. After a few more months, I finally did. 
My mother had been upset with me - I had figured out (again) that she didn't love me, you see?  She couldn't love me because she didn't see me, hear me, or know me. I called her on it, believing that she would hear me, and try to change.  I was raised to believe that she knew and believed in therapy, 12-step, and wanted me and my brother to be able to "break the cycle." 
She relapsed (alcohol) when I was 16, got sober when I was 17, made amends, and we moved forward.
She encouraged me and my brother to go to Alanon and therapy regularly throughout my life.
I'm so confused- even now - why would she encourage us to get help when she didn't really want us out of her control?  It was another mind game is all I can think of.
It was 2 years later that I began to see that she not only didn't love me, she was deliberately cruel and manipulative. Someone asked me if I'd thought about her having a personality disorder. It clicked and finally, I began to see the truth.
End tw





I'm closer to 45 now and I'm not sure I'm ready to connect, but I do know that I want to.
My story is very long so I'll just end for now.
I'm grateful to all of you for being here. Jazzy, thank you for your Welcome Guests post. Kizzie, thank you for moderating and creating this group. Others, for privacy I won't name, thank you for sharing. You have helped me normalize myself more times than I can count.   
Psychology isn't evil, it's helpful, but, for me at least, it's been used against me far too often.  My own mind uses it against me. Even down to the 13 step flashback management. I've found that - here - there are ways around that trap in my mind. I'm relieved and grateful.
For support, this is the place I need to spend my time right now. Finding acceptance with where I am and who I am in the moment.

I'm just looking for a place free of judgement...

Welcome and thank you Lokasenna. I too, am looking for a place free of judgement.  For myself, I'm still uncertain if any place would truly be. I appreciate your courage in speaking up. You are not alone.
To everyone who replied, thank you as well.  It's becoming more and more clear to me that judgment is the last thing I'll find at OOTS. 
Warm regards to all my fellow travelers

Welcome :-). I am glad to see that you are not giving up. 

Today I bring a magic pot of soup. It is never ending, self cleaning, and will pour you the bowl of your choice.  I feel afraid but I long for community.  Here in this porch, I can bring comfort and find it for myself as well. 
I'll be off eating my chicken tortilla soup in a sunny spot in the woods. 
Please take some warm comfort for yourself, if you'd like to. 

I've come to realize, slowly, that I do (did) not make my own choices.  I model my behavior after those around me. At work, it's my lead worker. When I'm on my own it was a mix of psychobabble that I believed and learned from my covert n-mom, plus either trying to please her, trying to escape her, or rebelling against her.  The final mix in was the independence I held to firmly and the stuff I picked up from my husband. When I realized that, it was extremely frightening.  I didn't make life choices, I did what I was told, or rebelled against it.  I have no sense of self worth at all.  That is how "they" were always able to take things from me.   "They" was anyone who I felt knew better or more than I.  Things could be my beliefs, my thoughts, my private thoughts, I'm not putting my finger on it just now.  I went to my therapist and told her excitedly about my epiphany. I asked her how to teach myself to trust my instincts.  She did so by refusing to answer me directly, pushing back when I stood firm, and not answering my question.  I said, "direct question, direct answer T,". I as so proud of myself.  I told T that nmom had manipulated me into my 40's and I did not want my trusted T to do it to me too.  She didn't budge, asked me to return this week.
Yet, I lost 3-4 days again and it took me another 3-4 to remember where I had been, healing wise, after that session.  I realized the next day that she had been keeping me in the fog for over a year. The pun isn't intended but it works too.   Now I've lost another year to another manipulator.  I still don't care yet that's she thought she knew best.  This T denied me the right to make informed decisions by not answering my questions over and over.   I don't trust her and I won't see her again.  That's all over explaining, as I tend to do, to say is this, learned and subtle behavior modeling some kind of attachment disorder?

Saylor, if you do start a video conferencing group, for all locations, I'd like to join.  I wouldn't know where to begin sharing my story in other group settings. I'd just recently decided to spread around. Group support for my codependent behaviors and my su spouse, here for more private and trauma related things, friends for day to day stuff, and so on.   I'm soured on therapy too.  My last 2 therapists have behaved unethically.  I'm now looking for a spiritual advisor, of sorts, interested in nature. 

I enjoyed reading this thread.  I too laugh often at my difficulties. It's a lot easier to laugh off the small stuff than to get all tangled up and angry about it. 
I told my spouse yesterday that I knew he loved me, it was one of my other personalities that needed to be reassured too often.  We both laughed like loons.    It eased the pressure of my fear a whole lot. Plus, we're we with friends, no one would know I wasn't entirely joking. 

I return to this lovely porch today in need of comfort and peace.  Much has happened in my life over the last month and a half.
I take a blanket of comfort and sit in a supportive glide to watch the wind blow through the trees. 
I feel afraid but there are safe people and safe places. I'm here to remind all of me of that.

 
Hello Heart. Welcome

...and welcome Julia, haven't seen you here before but glad you found our lovely  safe space here 

I feel warm and welcome.

Tonight I'm wearing comfy clothes, wrapped in a blanket, sitting at the fire while feeling comforted by hearing my friends around me chatting quietly.

Stay comfy. There are comfort blankets over by you if you should want one.

 
I have intermittent but overpowering social fears that can keep me from even opening this forum for a few days.
I don't know, since many probably also share my difficulties, whether to post in the checkout area or not. I understand it to mean more than a few days of a break.  Is that the understanding of the forum?
Thanks

one of our former members would say 'breathe, just breathe' whenever one of us was feeling lost and lonely and topsy turvy.  may i pass those words on to you?  sometimes it really helps to clear things in our heads.  then, maybe, it'll be easier to prioritize just what you need to do for both yourself and your work.  whatever you decide, it's going to be just what you need at this time.

sending you love and a hug filled w/ calm

Thank you as well Sanmagic7.  Yes please. I breathe but I often forget the just part. 

I did call CPS, yes. I have not heard back yet. However the young man did thank my so and asked him to pass the thanks to me as well.  It's helpful to know that.