Self-Care and Self-Educating, ch.1

[tea-the-artist]

almost didn't want to write today. i'm definitely back in the place where I feel like I should feel bad for feeling upset that my feelings were hurt. my dad's doing his usual cold shoulder/non-acknowledgement thing outside of needing me for something. that's cool i guess.

the other day I had asked them for permission to stay out overnight with friends and it was just about a replica of a conversation we had earlier this year and typical parental concerns came up which i understood but it turned into this feeling of hopelessness that I was trying to genuinely get across. i may have been in an EF and i was thinking about that during the lecture but I wasn't able to calm down. that translated into him thinking i was taking sides and blah blah..

it's frustrating to know the world is dangerous but have no one providing any real tools to make it through and be independent. i really do have to figure this out by myself bc my parents prove to be useless. i can't just be afraid of everything yet they instilled that in me from a young age.

dad triggered some hopelessness as well as emotional abandonment feelings that i couldn't pat down while i was getting lectured. he was just emotionless as i got upset. even if it didn't make sense to him, there was no concern. i keep daydreaming about still sitting there for hours but then bringing up "i feel like you don't care about my feelings" to him. i donno how that would go.


what's also related is i had a dream last night where i was with Pansy and MG and a bunch of other students and some coach talking to all of us. towards the end of the dream, the walls around us disappeared and everyone was rushing out to the fields and i panicked looking around for my friends but I couldn't find them.

my dad has this way of making me feel like my friends will never be there for me... and that somehow my family will. it's practical to grow up able to not 100% rely on friends, but it hurts to have a parent make you feel like everyone's going to abandon you.

I guess in a way, while that stems from childhood trauma, I am bigger now and I know my friends wouldn't? at least I really try to believe that. i trust them because I can see in their actions and the way they speak to me and things they've said about me. apart from my best friend of 11 years (i forget the name I gave her here, now it'll be Daisy), my friendship with them and Rose has been the longest and most fulfilling. i cherish that. but * triggers "remind me" that it won't last forever. for whatever terrible and probably untrue reason.


to help with some of this, I bought The Body Keeps The Score and Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents to read on my phone so that's pretty promising. I still haven't finished Pete Walker's From Surviving To Thriving yet. I struggled with that but I'll find my way back to it.

I just can't get fully out of coasting.. I bought so much art supplies this week, setting myself back a bit in terms of savings. this happens whenever there's a setback in moving out or when it feels like it'll never come. it's annoying, i don't like feeling like I shouldn't try, when i could at least try for my IC if not my adult self. i've been thinking about her a lot lately. not enough though but that's something i'm still working on too.

[AphoticAtramentous]

I'm sorry to hear about what you're F has been doing... Sounds so unpleasant and all so familiar to me.
Strange how parents seem to tie us down all the time but when you hit a certain age they suddenly expect you to be able to manage everything on your own. That's my experiences at least. It can be frustrating.

I hope those books will help you out by the way.
Hope you're doing well.

[tea-the-artist]

thanks aphotic the irony really is something...

[tea-the-artist]

****TRIGGER WARNING - self harm****


last week I had a troubling memory return to me. it fairly rarely comes back and usually when it does it's a glimpse and gives me a gross, repulsed feeling. but last week I was thinking about the time i was sexually "intimate" with a guy. i think when i thought of it, I felt like i was assaulted and I still don't really know if that's the case and whether it's something I want to analyze in that way.

but a few days ago i felt like it leaned more towards self harm. and the way i looked back on it, the way I was in a daydream in therapy and feeling all sorts of shame and skin crawling feelings. i just feel like it was an action i took because i didn't know better.

i remember telling peach about it a few months ago. how i did it to "be different" than who i was. to be a better woman. to be a maturer person. to not be gay. i think that's why i feel like it was more self harm than assault. i know in my heart now and back then that I didn't want any part of it. [hidden] the thought of being in his house, in his bed, on my knees, both times. i feel really embarrassed and nasty. years ago when i was in college i felt so humiliated looking back and remembering it clearly, being 17 and just feeling like i had to do that. like i had to say yes. i think in a way i'm grateful it was never penetrative and that he stopped before it got there. in a way i'm grateful. i hate him, feeling like i got dragged into it regardless. i DID NOT want any part of it. i really truthfully didn't and it always brought me anxiety knowing that i did something sexual and how disgusted i felt afterwards and how i felt like i couldn't get the taste out my mouth. how nasty it was. how i just wished it was over. i wish i had said no. or just not responded to his message when he sought me out from one of my * male friends.

i think i'm still pushing it down just by habit. it was the lowest time of my life before i became an adult. the worst point in my life, where i felt worthless as a person, so much that i guess i resorted to fawning in a harmful way.

it was the time my parents, particularly my dad, proved to be incredibly useless to me and proved that he had no intentions of ever being there for me. my school counselor thought i was harming myself (but by cutting). i resented him so much for that and for calling my parents. i guess he was right, but it wasn't harm in the way he thought.

my dad yelled at me for hours and called me a psycho. even after last year and the drama with an old relationship, i don't think i'd ever felt so worthless, on top of being left by that guy, who'd made loose threats to hurt himself, making me feel so incompetent and incapable, like i should have done something. like it was my responsibility. i couldn't talk about that.

i think this is the first time i'm actually talking about that. i dont even think i told my school therapist from college.

i didn't deserve any of that. i didn't deserve to impulsively do whatever a guy asked me or wanted me to do. i didn't deserve to have trauma that made me feel like i had to say yes to everyone, otherwise i was being abandoning them or hurting them.

i didn't deserve to feel violated, humiliated. 17 and i felt smaller than ever, i didn't deserve to feel like that.

i don't know if i ever blamed myself for it. maybe i did, in an embarrassed "shouldn't have done that" way. but ever memory of it, long and detailed or a short glimpse, makes my skin crawl for a reason. the same reason all the pain of my past causes me current sorrow.


what would i have done if i was my parent back then. i'd be furious. with the guy. i would want to know what got my child's self worth so low that she felt like she had to do that, even though she said she didn't really want to.

• I know why I did that. I felt like I had to please everyone, including him, to be a good person. make everyone happy. But my own happiness is important too. Doing that didn't make me happy at all. It made me feel gross, unpleasant... nasty. It made me feel wary to be around him, even though he wasn't posing a threat, even though he wasn't mean. But his demeanor doesn't matter.

• What matters is that I did something I didn't want to do. That I knew I shouldn't have done. That I wish I never had done. That I wish I'd never met him, that I trusted my feelings about speaking to a student I didn't know and agreeing to meet him, even if he was a friend of a friend. I know I didn't have to say yes, but my experiences prior to that day, prior to that year, prior to starting high school, middle school. My experiences made me feel like I had to say yes. That's understandable. That's not my fault.

I already know that fawning and freezing aren't the best mix of trauma responses to have. I was wired to serve and not talk back. My dad wired me to fear him through physical punishments. My mom taught me how to not fight back, to never develop a sense of self-preservation. My brother, with the help of my parents, taught me that there was nothing more that I was allowed to feel other than happiness. and that any step beyond that was reason for their resentment.

They together taught me how to see myself as worthless. How to put my feelings and needs below others'. There wasn't any sympathy. There wasn't any care, beyond basic needs. There weren't any attempts to understand my feelings, and change behaviors accordingly.

There was no making me feel emotionally safe in the homes I grew up in. There was no family for me when I needed them. No emotional support, no reciprocation of emotional care and labor.


They really made their choice to leave me alone. They left me alone. In ways that still don't make sense to me. They let me be alone. They let me feel like I would always be alone. They taught me to believe there would always be someone who would abandon me. But they never really stuck around to remind me that they would always be there for me.

That was their choice. They didn't have to make that choice. They could have gone their whole lives without resorting to abuse. That was their final choice in the end.

This isn't really the beginning, but I know I've got a lot of choices of my own to make.

[Sceal]

*offers a hug*
I can relate to what you're talking about today. It's awful feeling you have to submit to someone else just to please them, please everyone. To do things that you don't want to do, just to make sure everyone else gets what they want - even if it costs you your health and dignity. You're right, you didn't deserve that. You did NOT deserve to be abused, to be manipulated and to be yelled at. It's a big step you are taking by talking about it. I hope that it's the first step you can take in order to heal from these truly awful events and emotions.

[AphoticAtramentous]

Sorry to hear about that tea, what a rough part of your life that must have been.
You have my sympathies.

My dad wired me to fear him through physical punishments. My mom taught me how to not fight back, to never develop a sense of self-preservation.

And this resonates with me so much. I understand how hellish it must have felt for you.

I hope you're doing okay. ^^

[tea-the-artist]

thanks sceal and aphotic

[tea-the-artist]

I think I'm done recounting my trauma. I know what the past has and still is making me feel. I want to push forward a bit and move to a different step.

Living at home still feels unbearable, still feels like a disservice to Little Tea since I have the access to move out, just not the confidence or emotional capacity to yet. Staying dedicated is really tough and I have goals that I want to accomplish. I don't know if I'll come back to read this journal again. I've reread a few entries and the feelings I'd felt back then felt really powerful, even now I'm tearing up remembering how small I felt a year ago, even just some months ago.

I think I made enough excuses about struggling to read so I'm going to spend however long it takes getting through the books I bought and learning about what my past means in general and ways I can move forward without sitting and remembering all the details, triggering myself.

I don't want to be the classic domestic violence victim, the fawn-freeze that can't realize they need to make the change to get to recovery. I really don't want to be stuck here, in this house and in the midst of emotional flashbacks and retraumatization. I do want to be stronger.

I know the facts of my family. I know my perspective. I know my feelings. I know the loneliness and sadness and quiet anger and misery and false-happiness. I never deserved any of that. I don't deserve to keep feeling like things were my fault, like I deserve my current treatment, I don't deserve to tell myself that in the back of my mind.

I don't deserve self-invalidation.
I don't deserve self-hate.
I don't deserve a family that never stood up for me.
I don't deserve people who would never change if it meant the betterment of everyone.
I don't deserve to have my feelings invalidated.
I don't deserve to feel worthless.
I don't deserve to be alone, by myself, neglected. I didn't deserve to be the girl who sat in her room by herself, whose interests and loves and dislikes no one cared about.

That's what I know.