Letting down the defenses and the 'Verbal Diarrhea' that follows.
Weird title I know... but I felt the need to blog today after a really stressful and emotional therapist appt with Mom.
For those who know me I haven't been doing well and I haven't really told anybody HOW badly I really have been doing. Certainly not telling my online friends who have enough of their own issues to deal with and don't need to hear someone else's' problems. Can't tell Ron nor G-pa what's happening because they are men...lol. I also can't tell Mom because she has more than enough to deal with in her life. She deals with the family, her job environment isn't the best and she has her own depression; with that in mind I'm not telling her everything.
Fast forward to today; this was the therapist that both my Mom and I see together. We're talking and I'm just not wanting to be there and not being receptive to anything and Kevin tells me that I need to 'look toward the future' to help relieve some of my daily stressers that don't change.
I made the mistake of saying that I was unable to do that since anytime in my life I got my expectations up for anything something would come along and completely trash them. I have had my dreams smashed during my first marriage and after finally allowing myself to realize them again; I had them smashed yet again. I explained how after a while of banging your head against a wall you stop doing things that only hurt you. In effect; I don't get excited over anything since it usually turns to shit.
Saying that was a BIG mistake; I let down my carefully built defenses. I allowed that little bit of stuff to come out and what followed can only be described as 'verbal diarrhea'. Before I could put those walls back up all this anger came flowing out and it was directed at my mother.
I basically blasted her for not validating ANYTHING I felt as a child. She had no frame of reference to what I was going through since her childhood was much different. She couldn't wrap her mind around how school was such a bad experience for me; bullies going after me, being ridiculed by teachers in elementary school and other issues. She never had that problem so she couldn't understand why I was having a problem.
I can't deal with people who are my peers. Peers being age wise. I have no idea how to make friends and do things with people my own age. I have no problem hanging out with much younger or much older people but get me around my own age group and I'm lost. Why? Because I was the only child in a household of adults; no siblings, no friends. My mom said 'you visited with these kids', to which I replied, that it was only once a month and that might have been fine for you (these were children of her best friends who we visited with) but once a month is NOT enough time for a child to form understanding with their peer group. The look on her face was priceless... she had no idea. *shakes head*
I just blasted her to the point that Kevin got uncomfortable and was about to stop it; but Mom told him it needed to come out. I got to the point that I was almost crying and I KNEW if that happened I was SCREWED to the extent that the night would end with me going in-patient. When I took a second to get some control I finally was able to voice what I was really feeling. Intellectually I understand why things happened the way they happened; my dad's death from cancer when I was three, the major depression my mother had as a result of his death along with her anger at him; why my g-ma was like she was and g-pa was like he was.
I get it, but inside of me is a needy child. The child that I was and still am today that never got what was needed from the family around me. I keep that needy creature inside a cage within myself. A cage that I NEVER let this creature out of. This creature is full of need and anger and those emotions AREN'T productive so instead of reliving them I keep it locked up in this cage. Every once and a while when I let my defenses down; this creature rattles the cage. It shakes from the force of it threatening to break but I know if it does break it means nothing but trouble. Today it shook the cage for all it was worth and I almost couldn't keep that cage intact.
And this is where one of my problem lies. I believe that I am not allowed/or is good enough to feel these emotions; that I am a BAD person for feeling the anger and need. I believe that with every fiber of my being. Problem is that it's okay to feel those things and it doesn't make me a bad person but I just can't convince myself of that.
As the session came to a close, Mom brought it full circle and we (her and I) were okay with what happened; though I feel GUILTY AS HELL for allowing that creature to rattle the cage as hard as it did. I think she gained some more knowledge into why I felt so emotionally abandoned as a child.
On the drive home we talked some more; she said that when I was born while Dad was still alive she did really good and once I became a teenager we actually started having a real mother-daughter relationship but those years in between did a lot of damage to me.
It's going to take many more years of hard therapy work to try to get some sort of balance for those 'missing years'. I just hope I can survive long enough to be able to do it.
For those who know me I haven't been doing well and I haven't really told anybody HOW badly I really have been doing. Certainly not telling my online friends who have enough of their own issues to deal with and don't need to hear someone else's' problems. Can't tell Ron nor G-pa what's happening because they are men...lol. I also can't tell Mom because she has more than enough to deal with in her life. She deals with the family, her job environment isn't the best and she has her own depression; with that in mind I'm not telling her everything.
Fast forward to today; this was the therapist that both my Mom and I see together. We're talking and I'm just not wanting to be there and not being receptive to anything and Kevin tells me that I need to 'look toward the future' to help relieve some of my daily stressers that don't change.
I made the mistake of saying that I was unable to do that since anytime in my life I got my expectations up for anything something would come along and completely trash them. I have had my dreams smashed during my first marriage and after finally allowing myself to realize them again; I had them smashed yet again. I explained how after a while of banging your head against a wall you stop doing things that only hurt you. In effect; I don't get excited over anything since it usually turns to shit.
Saying that was a BIG mistake; I let down my carefully built defenses. I allowed that little bit of stuff to come out and what followed can only be described as 'verbal diarrhea'. Before I could put those walls back up all this anger came flowing out and it was directed at my mother.
I basically blasted her for not validating ANYTHING I felt as a child. She had no frame of reference to what I was going through since her childhood was much different. She couldn't wrap her mind around how school was such a bad experience for me; bullies going after me, being ridiculed by teachers in elementary school and other issues. She never had that problem so she couldn't understand why I was having a problem.
I can't deal with people who are my peers. Peers being age wise. I have no idea how to make friends and do things with people my own age. I have no problem hanging out with much younger or much older people but get me around my own age group and I'm lost. Why? Because I was the only child in a household of adults; no siblings, no friends. My mom said 'you visited with these kids', to which I replied, that it was only once a month and that might have been fine for you (these were children of her best friends who we visited with) but once a month is NOT enough time for a child to form understanding with their peer group. The look on her face was priceless... she had no idea. *shakes head*
I just blasted her to the point that Kevin got uncomfortable and was about to stop it; but Mom told him it needed to come out. I got to the point that I was almost crying and I KNEW if that happened I was SCREWED to the extent that the night would end with me going in-patient. When I took a second to get some control I finally was able to voice what I was really feeling. Intellectually I understand why things happened the way they happened; my dad's death from cancer when I was three, the major depression my mother had as a result of his death along with her anger at him; why my g-ma was like she was and g-pa was like he was.
I get it, but inside of me is a needy child. The child that I was and still am today that never got what was needed from the family around me. I keep that needy creature inside a cage within myself. A cage that I NEVER let this creature out of. This creature is full of need and anger and those emotions AREN'T productive so instead of reliving them I keep it locked up in this cage. Every once and a while when I let my defenses down; this creature rattles the cage. It shakes from the force of it threatening to break but I know if it does break it means nothing but trouble. Today it shook the cage for all it was worth and I almost couldn't keep that cage intact.
And this is where one of my problem lies. I believe that I am not allowed/or is good enough to feel these emotions; that I am a BAD person for feeling the anger and need. I believe that with every fiber of my being. Problem is that it's okay to feel those things and it doesn't make me a bad person but I just can't convince myself of that.
As the session came to a close, Mom brought it full circle and we (her and I) were okay with what happened; though I feel GUILTY AS HELL for allowing that creature to rattle the cage as hard as it did. I think she gained some more knowledge into why I felt so emotionally abandoned as a child.
On the drive home we talked some more; she said that when I was born while Dad was still alive she did really good and once I became a teenager we actually started having a real mother-daughter relationship but those years in between did a lot of damage to me.
It's going to take many more years of hard therapy work to try to get some sort of balance for those 'missing years'. I just hope I can survive long enough to be able to do it.
Thanks... and sorry if I don't talk to you about sh*t more often... but I explained in the blog why I don't
I understand. I'm quite the same way. It's probably why I understand what you're going through all too well. There's times when I bottle up like that, as far as it is from healthy because you are in a state of mind that it's acceptable and it's a way of life. It's how you make it by, etc.
And it's alright, if you ever do need to talk to me about anything, you know I'll listen.
Insurgentes, May 4th, 2007 at 11:10:33pm
{{{Serena}}}
Thanks... and sorry if I don't talk to you about sh*t more often... but I explained in the blog why I don't
Banach95, May 4th, 2007 at 10:41:18pm
No Kurtni... I agree that's it's not healthy... I just can't convince myself that's okay. My Intelligent mind knows it's unhealthy to bottle but my emotional self says it's 'normal' behavior. It's a VERY bad catch 22 I find myself in most of the time.
Banach95, May 4th, 2007 at 10:40:33pm
You might totally disagree with me, but that's ok. That cage that you've built up around your emotions is bad. It's gotten to the point to where they're so compacted and condensed that you can't control how they're expressed anymore. There isn't such a thing as a productive or unproductive emotion, it's how you apply them. It's perfectly ok to feel all that anger created by your past that wasn't what you needed as a child. If I exploded on my mom like that, I'm sure I'd feel guilty too. But not for expressing how I was feeling, just for doing it in a way that upset her. Allowing her to see how you were feeling wasn't wrong, it was completely correct. Caging emotions doesn't stop or change them. I hope I don't sound like some stupif therapist or something..
Kurtni, May 4th, 2007 at 10:12:46pm
Wow, the more I read this, the more I see how similiar some of our problems are. A lot of what you have described in here, reminds me of things I've dealt with and still do to this day. Sometimes parents get too wrapped up into their own lives to give their child the attention they need. They become needy for the attention and it later detriorates into this.
I know how you feel as well about the peer group thing. All my friends are either a lot younger or a lot older. I s'pose you could say it sometimes goes with the territory because you have to adapt to the lack of attention and it gives you the neediness of a child, or an older person. So these people tend to understand you better than people of your own age group.
It's amazing what just the little things a parent can do in their child's younger years that dictates how they will turn out as an adult. Too many parents don't realize it and more often than not, don't have the time nor patience to give the much-needed attention.
Hopefully now that the problem is out in the open, you can start to feel a little better about it and make attempts to remedy it and treat as best you can. I know there's no way to completely reverse this kind of thing, but the least you can do is make the best recovery possible.
Insurgentes, May 4th, 2007 at 10:08:49pm