Unable to ask for / accept help

[Southbound]

June 26 I replied openly to a thread by a FOG member, indicating we'd had previous contact. I also sent that member a PM, because our histories (as discussed on FOG) were so similar. It was uncanny how often we ran in parallel.

June 28 someone called me lovable and I replied: "Lovable Leah, that's me." That was my username on FOG and I had nothing to hide.

So my first PM was from my sister Soul Who Understood on the other side of the world -- and my second was from the Cperson.

C. to Southbound on: July 04, 2015 

Hello Southbound,

I've consulted w/the moderator team and there's a concern that since you've joined OOTS your posts have not adhered to our member guidelines.  Specifically, the guidelines about flooding, due to the length of most of your posts.   Also, you were banned on OOTF.  Since both sites work closely together that is concerning.  However, this is a new board and a fresh start.  I encourage you to review and follow the member guidelines.  I appreciate your enthusiasm and interest in healing.  Thank you.

C.

"You talk too much and you have a Record." Ouch!

I signed up to the forum in June, soon after discovering my father had died a couple of months earlier -- and no one had told me. I felt pretty bummed out by that. I had been preparing for yet another legal battle over the fraud that deprived me of my home and retirement income 15 years ago, but that had to be put aside. The forum was light relief for me.

Next thing was pulling out of university in my third and final year. My concentration was shot. If I carried on, I was going to bring down my GPA at best, slog on to outright failure at worst. I agonised over the decision but it was an immense relief and I haven't regretted it for a second, particularly as I can return in February if I want to.

September 2 younger sister The Phantom showed up, was Put Out to discover I was aware of our father's death in April, and vanished after a please-go-away riposte. I've been forced to play defence all my life, doing great harm to relationships and career while moving from one place to another.

Couple of weeks later, the bike accident in which I got the right side of my head bashed in, risk of post-operational blindness, disorientation from concussion. The day after the accident, as a surgeon told me about the procedure: "You'll want to talk this over with your family." Right after surgery: "You'll need to take a step back and let your family care for you for a change." That would be because I had (and still have) the concentration span of an ant and wasn't safe to light the gas, presumably. What I didn't have was the kind of family who would give a toss about me going blind, or step in to prevent me inadvertently setting fire to my home.

At the end of September my T got an email from The Phantom, one she apparently wrote with her mouth full of marbles and a stick up her arse. It began: "I have reason to believe you may be currently treating my sister, Southbound.  [...] I continue to be very concerned for Southbound's wellbeing, and a recent email exchange I had with her hasn't allayed those concerns."

She writes posh, eh? You don't need to be the world's best T -- which mine is -- to feel your bowels move at Phantom sincerity.

There was a paragraph telling my T (from 2000km away) about her own troubles, then some gems:
"I know Southbound struggles on a number of fronts and I really would like to help her." Please, Phantom, you've 'helped' me enough.
"I don't want anything to impact negatively on your therapeutic relationship with Southbound, and believe it wouldn't be good for her to know I've contacted you." It wasn't great for you, I guess, but it was fine for me and T.

My T gave it to me and I knew it wouldn't be the end. It never is, with The Phantom. Block her, she escalates. Ignore her emails, she escalates. Reply to her, she escalates. Show any sign of distress, she escalates. I changed my forum signature to remind myself Little Sister would be dogging me here indefinitely.

Sure enough, four days after I got out of hospital following surgery for a compound zygomatic fracture, and while I was still 'eating' through a straw, I got a brief sinister email taking issue with a specific detail I'd posted on the forum. I had a lot to talk about, I couldn't get out to go to my T, and I was making 100 old-person-with-dementia jokes a day all by myself.

I and another writer of long posts discussed our survival strategy, as children, of explaining every little detail. Some members get away with long posts; others don't -- and the cperson had her eye on me from the day I self-declared. It had been a while, and any feeling of security naturally puts me on my guard, so I wrote that I hoped the mods wouldn't simply pull the plug on me one day.

Freeze/Disassociation topic
« Sent to: Southbound on: October 27, 2015»

Hello Southbound,

I wanted to let you know that I went ahead and deleted the part of this response where you mentioned being warned by mods and hope to be let know before pulling the plug.  Please know that yes, of course you would be notified of any concern.  Also if you have questions or concerns w/the moderation of the board the appropriate way to communicate would be to do so in a PM, not publicly in a thread.  It's important to keep a sense of community and safety for everyone. 
+blah blah blah

C.

Soon to be followed by a PM from Kizzie that surprised me, after the warmth of her previous ones.

You have received a warning
« Sent to: Southbound on: October 28, 2015, 05:33:57 AM »

Leah - Your signature line has been removed. You were given an informal warning about bringing moderation issues to the forum by C and your response was to include a signature line about Big Sister watching you which would be viewed by any member reading any of your posts. Once again this violates the same guideline and as such, you are now being issued a formal warning. 

Kizzie

My signature had been up before C. bopped me over the head again, and it took 24 hours for the penny to drop. My signature wasn't about The Phantom, misuse of government files or me, it was All About C. Of course, I should have guessed. 

I thought I had a happier relationship with Kizzie, but she didn't even quote my signature right. Little Sister, not Big Sister. I suspect C. had already removed it in a fit of rage, then wanted Kizzie to give me another warning. Or, ironically, to tell me why I was being !Watched.

Basically a rerun of my eviction from the FOG Forum, where I pointed out that the word cperson had proliferated all over the forum overnight like mushrooms, and that a post of my own now informed another member: "You're not a person, of any kind." Yep, someone (maybe a person? lol) had taken exception to the word loser.  I got muted for giggling in school. I should have sent a PM to the mods rather than point it out in the open -- as if other members wouldn't notice their own posts saying they were "getting cperson to a resolution" or that they wished they lived "cperson" to their Significant Other.

At the time I was leading a series of scapegoat threads that were mighty fun, drew lots of responses, and took up hours of my time each day. The threads concerned were
LostLeah's recovery journal http://outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=24572.0,
Recovery for the family scapegoat http://outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=26118.0
After the last straw http://outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=28215.0
When scapegoats fight back  http://outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=29446.0
... and the scapegoat walks free http://outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=30337.0
Scapegoats: where's the exit?  http://outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=30678.0
Scapegoats who know who know the truth http://outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=31117.0
Ground Control to Major Scapegoats http://outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=31566.0
FOO scapegoats. Is recovery possible? http://outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=31828.0
and Scapegoats finding our way home http://outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=32276.0

I cared about all the people on those threads. While muted I was still able to change my username, I just couldn't post. Changing it to Muted Member was the only way I could let the rest of the goatherd know I'd been stood in the corner and was having the equivalent of a kindergarten time-out. Please carry on, my loves, I'll be back some day soon.

First thing every morning is forum time for me. After I'd made my coffee and booted up the next day, this is what I saw:

Sorry Muted Member, you are banned from using this forum!
Various Guidelines infractions. Trying to bait the mods into a public squabble.
This ban is not set to expire.

"Trying to bait the mods into a public squabble"? Only a person could dream that up then blame me for it. Not just blame me, ban me ... for life. As an interpretation of my motive it fell a very long way from the truth. And, of course, it left my online friends thinking I'd abandoned them for ever, as can be seen in the last of my scapegoat threads there.

No difference in what's happened on Storm: C. convinces herself the signature below must be All About Her, has a hissy fit and gets Kizzie to warn me again.

OOT-anything forums are as psychologically safe as quicksand full of crocodiles. Your motives are interpreted for you. You're thinking and doing what some Cperson says you're thinking and doing. Your name change (when you could do nothing else) was "baiting the mods". Your signature was having a pop at her. You must be shut off from all your cyberbuddies for fear of contamination.

Sound familiar? It's pretty much what happened with a covert N-mother in my FOO.



_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Big Brother may be watching all of us. I know for a fact that Little Sister is watching me!

[Dutch Uncle]

I would like to join you in this. It's one of the #1 issues I'd like to have a better toolkit for.

I've probably had this all my life.
I remember when I moved into this house (15 years ago), at some point I called a friend for help, out of sheer desperation.
He rushed over, we did the job (we laid a floor) and he told me: "Well, when you called I knew: "this is really necessary, Dutch never asks for help, so I better make a move fast". "
In contrast (to the friend) I had my parents over a couple of days before. I asked my father to paint a door, and he came up to me four (!) times to ask me how he should do it, until at last I yelled at him: "Just paint the bloody door! I have to move in here in five days! Can't you even paint a door by yourself?! Can't you see I'm busy here?!" (I was not couch-surfing at the time  )

So yeah, I have issues with asking help, and issues with accepting it too.

[arpy1]

ha! yup. i put my hand up to this one. 

many of my financial problems would be solved in an instant if i only had the guts to ask my dad for some help, becos, say what u will about him and how he treated mum, the one thing he has said to me is, 'if you need any money you only have to ask' and he means it. but can i ?? no. becos a) my sister is the one in the family who has always sponged mercilessly off the parents. and b) my brother has made it very clear that, even tho i am sick, and not working, that if i ask dad for more money (he has helped me out a few times - offered... not sponged by me) he (bro) will kick up. i think he is worried about  his 'inheritance...' tho dad says 'it's my bloody money i can do what i like with it'  i don't have the energy to face that partic. battle.
so i continue to struggle and will do till i am desperate enough to eat humble pie and face the consequences. i hate being beholden to anyone. and i am damned if i am gonna give my bro ammunition for his self righteous, arrogant, judging attitude......

ok, that touched a nerve. rant over. sorry 

[tired]

me too even here

[woodsgnome]

I think I just developed the habit of figuring I'd always be misunderstood. In my schools, if I looked at someone in a FRIENDLY way, it was cause for suspicion. Although the real feeling was constant fear no matter what; *, if they didn't catch my sins, the g-man up in the sky would. At home, I was always frightened of the m and knew the f was nicer, but very conditional.

So, being continually misunderstood, but needing to function, required lots of travail and somehow enough gumption to survive, let alone ask for practical help. However, as an adult, this pattern continued; I continually ran into people I trusted, then they let me down big-time. I'm so bad I have trouble asking someone via a simple anonymous phone call ("are you open Sunday?") I fear the judgement always set to come my way. My childhood lesson writ large: Love hurts, trust kills.

Frustrating? More debilitating, but I'm old enough not to worry about it anymore (so I say, but only halway believe). Being mindfully aware I go from there, and give up grandiose schemes to "improve". Do what I can, is all.

[arpy1]

doing what you can is enough, dear wsg. be easy.

[tired]

It's a bit of a control thing for me, to be the one helping but not getting help.  I get to keep my problems to myself but feel powerful helping someone else.  Getting help feels like a humiliation.  Which makes no sense since I don't actually look down on people I help, when I do. 

When I don't allow help it feels like I'm being very self absorbed and not treating others like human beings that want to interact with me. It's when I feel distant and blocked.  Maybe this is what narcissists do I don't know. 

[arpy1]

Southbound:

I feel guilty for accepting a government pension. I hate it that I'm a charity case with my few remaining friends, that I'm always in the position of having to thank people graciously ...

oh yeah, same here. i hate being on the sick for so long. hate that i know realistically i can't begin to think about a job until i can cope with going out and being with humans.
one thing i hated my brother accusing me of was of sponging off the State. until i pointed out the half a million or so i had saved that same State by not putting my disabled husband in a care home (£1000 per week) but caring for him 24/7 for the princely Carer's Allowance of (at its highest) £52 per week. that shut him up for... oh at least 6 months.. grrr i feel angry just thinking about him actually!

and

Do you have much contact with him? Would you consider putting yourself geographically and emotionally where his attitude can't touch you?

after the last row, (fortunately he lives the other end of the country) i told him not to contact me again unless there was an emergency. he hasn't, thank god.

Tired:

Getting help feels like a humiliation.  Which makes no sense since I don't actually look down on people I help, when I do. 

i really relate to this. the humiliation thing.

i know there's a certain grace we can give to each other by receiving. i'm not sure that not being able to do that is what narcissists do, though. they just suck what they need out of everyone regardless.  i think not being able to receive is more about humiliation and shame. and not feeling worth anything. Maybe? don't really understand why that should be.

[woodsgnome]

Arpy1 wrote:

"i think not being able to receive is more about humiliation and shame. and not feeling worth anything. Maybe? don't really understand why that should be."

Arpy1, I read your cult recollections and this dovetails with what you wrote there. It's a time when your trust was manipulated and twisted to where you didn't recognize it as anything you'd want, or if you did once, not want anymore. So if you were made to feel that way once, it sets up the fear that "here I go again"...once the trust bond is broken, it's hard to receive it without that inner shame/humiliation memory colouring your reactions. I was probably in the same state with religious schools I was in--I trusted (even when I should have known better) and wham--the shame was total.

I was looking at a bit of Walker's book again tonight, and hit one of the frequent reminders that recovery is slow, requires patience, and hey, we end up with advanced understanding of human nature en route to picking up the pieces of our lives. But Southbound said it even better:

"Can we at least agree not to dwell on what hideous miscreations we are or might be? Probably not, but I think it could be somewhere on the list of goals."

Agreed.    Swap out "miscreations" for "humans" and that's a good start.

[Dutch Uncle]

I am pretty sure that for me the whole issue is tied to co-dependency.
I'm not sure how, but I'm pretty sure it's there.
I do know why, because of the bloody FOO, but I don't want to get to deep into that here, there's plenty of other threads where I'm dealing with that. Which isn't to say I'm going to completely block it out here.

What i've learned about co-dependecy is that, apparently, need is the substitute for love (affection, compassion). I think the phrase used was: "as long as they need me, they won't leave me". And that is mostly the implant done by the dysfunctional parent. These ungiving creatures had me (us) thus constantly giving them, supplying them. As long as I gave, they wouldn't leave. Well, no such luck in the end. I'm still required to only give, supply their need.
That's why I, like you (plural), have no problem in giving, helping others, even as Southbound has said: at my own discomfort. *, it's almost a given that helping is a discomfort. It has always been a discomfort. (thankfully there's plenty of people/times where helping does not require discomfort)
The flip-side of the same coin is not being able to ask for help. See the example of my dad painting my door: He's not helping! I need to help him with how to paint the bloody door! The help is first offered (sure, we can over and help paint the house) but when he shows up, instead of having the task of painting that door myself, I now have the task of telling him, time and again how to paint a door. I might as well do it myself, thanks. This is just one example, but my life is riddled with it: seemingly help is offered, but when I have asked it's not been given.

Now, that's still all theory, and no substance.
Sorry to have bothered you all with it. 

But I think I need to look for clues how to break this spell of not being able to ask for help, in breaking the spell of deeply ingrained co-dependecy. Possibly deep down, unconsciously, I tie asking for help in with being needy, and I know what horrible price these 'helpers' will have to pay for my neediness. But probably I'm not like my parents at all, and the helpers I ask will be rewarded with genuine gratitude by me. I bet I can learn that at least. And that I can learn that many people actually do help out of kindness, just like I often do, and that I too am worthy of receiving it. No puppet-strings attached.
It will be a job, a project. But I think it's feasible.

edited to add:
I suddenly have the flash-thought: I should switch the co-dependecy for co-operation. I used to be able to that, in my 'good times'. I love co-operation. As a team-leader that was my main focus: to make sure the team co-operated with each other. And co-operation definitely requires asking.

[Dutch Uncle]

I have to say that in the meantime so much is posted that strongly resonate with me, I'd have a huge job quoting them all, so I'll leave it for now by just saying: we're all of a kind.
Thanks brothers and sisters. 

[stillhere]

All I can say just now, in response to D/U's post, is yes, me too.  I'm amazed, over and over, at all the commonalities.

Thank you all for the work you do.

[arpy1]

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Nice story, Southbound. 

This is why we don't ask for or accept offers of help, right?

You mean this?

If a man fixes your bike (small favour) how much time do you owe him? If he takes you to hospital and back (big favour) do you have to follow him into his lair for a "cup of tea"?

And by that I mean: you now feel obliged to do something back?

At least I think that's for me the underlying issue: "How can I possibly do something back to him/her?" with the basic assumption added I'm a no good, period, so what do I have to offer.

Quite possibly (but I'm not sure) you already returned the favor by simply acknowledging his e-mail to you. Or you did by chatting with him so long (and nobody ever listens that long  .
But I digress.

Well done for asking help, Southbound, and well done for getting it. 
Bike fixed, transport to the hospital arranged. 
Met the 12 year olds. Awesome. 

[Dutch Uncle]

You tell me, Dutch. If a woman asks you to do favours, listens to you, smiles at you... what are you expecting to happen?

Companionship. But perhaps that's just me. Being a committed bachelor and having cPTSD.

Having said that, just trust your own instincts. 
Safety first.

You iz funny. I hope they never surround me like that again!

They are just jealous.