The Next Version Of Me

[milkandhoney11]

Hi Bach,
so sorry to hear that you caught covid, I hope you are feeling a little bit better now. I know how much this can affect you (both in terms of covid itself and in terms of triggering trauma issues), so I am certainly feeling for you.
I also wanted to say how brave you are and how much admire how you are able to handle the situation with the memoir. It can't be easy to deal with this, but it's wonderful that you can see it in a "positive" light and just focus on the material you can get for your own therapy
Sorry for the way your mum is still treating you, hearing all these insincere apologies can be difficult but it sounds like you are handling them quite well

[Bach]

Thank you for the replies, milkandhoney11.  It's so hard to write about this stuff, and it helps to know people are listening.

Trying to figure out who I want to be and if it's even possible.

[Bach]

I think there's a mechanism somewhere very deep in my somatic programming that causes me to get sick when I start developing positive momentum.  It's happened too many times to be a coincidence. 

[Papa Coco]

Bach,

I'm really tracking with your mother's memoires story. I know that feeling of wanting an apology but being angered by them when they come, too little, too late. It's an inner battle I've also fought for decades. To me, your curiosity is not ghoulish, it's a daughter still wanting love and attention from her mother.

When my far less than brilliant older brother decided to write his "letter of truth" that he spent a full week on, he was already deep in the clutches of our sociopath sister. He was her Man Friday. He did her bidding for her. When she said jump he jumped. And I had known for years that he was a compulsive liar himself, so I expected his letter of truth to be nothing but tainted versions of the truth, meant to put all the misery of his life onto me. But I was so emotionally fragile during that time in history, that I was literally terrified of the letter. So when he finally posted it online, I immediately deleted it, unopened. I then went into my deleted folder and deleted it from there. The computer kept asking me if I was sure I wanted to do this and I kept selecting DELETE again and again until no trace of it could ever be recovered. I assumed that the letter was written explaining why he and his devotion to our narcissistic older sister, were the two most abused people in the world. In order to do so, I was sure he'd have to make sure and place all the blame for his poor victim life onto me. So I was so close to suicide at that time, I knew I had to delete it. I couldn't just leave it in my inbox unopened, because I'd be like Poe's, A Tell Tail Heart, where I'd be obsessed by just knowing that poison was still within reach. Taunting me from beneath the floorboards of my inbox. When i hit that last delete button, I felt the weight of its presence leave me. I knew the rest of the world was reading it, and since I wasn't going to be able to deny any of his claims, I knew I was now the outcast. I estranged just weeks later from every man, woman, and child who might ever read and believe his lies.

I will say, that now, almost 13 years later, and estranged from them for 12 of those years, I am finally feeling curious enough that I kind of wish I'd have kept a copy of the letter so I could read it now. Now that I have the support of people on this forum, and of my own, stronger version of myself, I do wish I could read it.

I can see the conflict within you through my own lens as well. It's not ghoulish to want to know what your mom has the guts to say in her memoires. It may anger you to read it, and you may choose to stop reading if it's triggering, but it's not ghoulish. Not in my opinion. You want love from someone you know you'll never get if from. Been there! So many parts of me are still there.

And to your comment about the sexualization of your childhood, even though you were not physically assaulted. Sexualization from words, exposure to nudity and sex that you're not ready to see, is considered sexual abuse.

[Hope67]

Dear Bach,
I was interested in what you wrote about noticing there's a mechanism that causes you to get sick when you start developing positive momentum - as I read it, I really related to it (from some part of myself) - but I couldn't put a finger on why, or what it meant - but it seemed meaningful.  I think you've noticed a realisation, and I really hope that it enables you to work out why.  Sorry - I'm getting tangled up in words. 

Anyway, I popped over to your journal to say 'hi' and to send you a hug (if that's ok) 

Hope 

[Bach]

I'm so full of self-hatred right now I can't even stand to be visible.  I look in the mirror every day and hate my $%^& face.  I look at pictures and see a squatty disgusting little troll.  I feel the urge to self-harm with an intensity that I thought I left behind at least 15 years ago.  I'm a piece of filth and my life is a burden.  I shouldn't have had to be born.

[milkandhoney11]

oh, Bach, it sounds like you are in a bad place right now and I just wanted to tell you that I am feeling for you.
I know what it's like to struggle with extreme self-hatred (I always try my very best to never ever look at myself in the mirror because I simply cannot bear the amount of negative feelings I get flooded with) but I am not quite sure how to get out of this situation, so I can't really give you any advice, I am afraid.
All I can say is that (to me) you are a wonderful person and not at all disgusting. I am grateful to have met you through this forum and your understanding has been a great source of healing for me, so you are most certainly not a burden and I honestly appreciate you as a person.
Sometimes it is hard to accept that as we our our own worst critics and that is totally okay, but I hope that someday you might be able to see you with the same love and gentleness as we see you.

[paul72]

I hope that someday you might be able to see you with the same love and gentleness as we see you.

sending as much love and positive wishes as possible Bach. 
Please know how important you are to me, and I am very sure to so many others.
I sure wish it was getting easier for you and I sure wish I could help somehow.

[Armee]

  sending so much love and encouragement to you. You are beautiful and perfect just as you are and you have every bit as much right to exist here and breathe here as anyone else on earth. I'm loving you intensely right now. This massive massive EF will end. Just keep your self safe until then ok?

[Bach]

milkandhoney, phil and Armee, thanks very much for the support. I'm pretty useless right now and trying to find some way to relieve the pressure inside that makes me want to hurt myself. But I couldn't respond to encouragement and kind words yesterday and I can today, so I guess that's a little glimmer of some kind of light.

[Armee]

I don't know if it works but I've heard of twisting and pulling a cloth when those explosive feelings need a release. I bet those feelings against yourself are really pent up anger at people who hurt you that it wasn't safe to express. You don't really want to hurt yourself but that anger needs a release.

[Bach]

The other day when I wrote about hating myself, it made tears fall from my eyes.  It was good to get some tears out.  There weren't enough of them, though.  I need to get more of those chemicals out.  I'd like for there to be a way I could get to those tears that would be gentler and more healing than by leaning in to my self-hatred.  Even if it actually worked every time, which it doesn't, who has the energy for that kind of thing anyway?  So the chemicals just stay in here and I stew in them, stumbling through my life ineffectually and with a bad attitude.  I am so tired of all this.

[Bach]

Whatever the anger is, does it really even matter, I need to release it so I can nurture and care for myself and live my life.

[Papa Coco]

I agree.

Whatever the anger is, it's anger. Anger isn't meant to stay with us. It's meant to get us out of binds and then release. So if anger is still pent up within us, we are wise to find ways to release it.

For me, I was taught by my family and church that anger was a sin. Mom taught me that protecting myself offended her. (How could I be a good little servant if I stood up for myself, right?). So, in cases like ours, the anger itself is the issue. Doesn't matter what caused the anger. It needs to be released.

It's a big task, but with help and with giving ourselves permission to be angry, even though we were originally trained to bow down and take the abuse, the way to inner peace is accepting our right to be angry, loving our angry selves, and releasing our anger in safe, appropriate ways.

I'm with you on this. I support your right to feel and release anger, no matter why it's there.

[sanmagic7]

bach, i'm so with you as you go thru this.  may i just sit w/ you, drink something warm and comforting (i love hot cocoa), read your favorite book to you?  or, i'll read mine - alice in wonderland - just to escape to a magical marvelous place for a little while.  i think escaping from those dark places is the best medicine at times.  if not for you, please know i wish i could do more to help ease this distress.  sending love and a hug full of care and compassion.