Satine
Well-known member
Hello all of you! I'm new here, so I suppose the best place to start is to give my history and the reason I'm here on this forum.
My history:
I live in the UK and grew up here. My early years weren't easy as I suffered a lot of bullying, which I tolerated for all the years I was in school. It took me a long time to get past that and start living again.
My mum however, was the worst problem. She is a manipulative woman who channelled all her insecurities into controlling me, my brothers, and my dad. She has also pushed away friend after friend after friend on the basis that they either:
1) 'aren't very intelligent', or
2) 'have mental health problems'.
It's always one of those two. I've watched for years as my dad has struggled to keep his head above water, I've heard him in tears during their arguments. Arguments of an intensity I hope I never, ever have to hear again. To that end I chose a partner who hates arguing too, and the closest we get to arguing is sulking at eachother, and even then very rarely. I'd much rather that, frankly, than the titanic screaming matches I've heard in my time.
I grew up with such a skewed idea of how to treat other people that I repelled potential friends and partners for many years and I still haven't got 'being normal' down pat yet. And I'm 26. None of us kids: me, my eldest brother Simon or our middle brother Scott, are in regular contact with eachother because not one of us trusts eachother enough; any one of us could easily be in cahoots with mum and betray eachother. That I find gut-wrenchingly sad, but it's that way regardless of anything I can think of to do.
One thing that did help was going to a Christian school as the last 18 months of my education. I found the pupils and teachers there kind, caring and much more of a 'family' than I had experienced before. They put me on the road to knowing how to trust people again. Although I couldn't quite get into the idea of God being real, I tried very hard to become a Christian because that's what seemed to make so many of these people happy. Eventually I gave up trying and became an Atheist.
And my mum? She still hasn't changed; she's every bit as manipulative as she ever was. I have forgiven her a few times in the past but she always, within a few months, betrays me again. I've now learned it's safer not to forget, but keep her past actions and motivations at the back of my mind in all my dealings with her, and I cannot forgive because she doesn't understand what she's done wrong, she's been doing it since she was a child.
If I dig deep enough under the surface of my own mind I'm still angry. Very angry indeed: that woman wrecked my life, and she still attempts to do so if I let her get close enough. All in the name of being in control of her relationship with me, because that's the only way she can feel safe. I've tried broaching that subject with her but that invariably starts a tirade of screaming and shouting at me, and a dozen or so phone calls over the following days until she's pestered me enough that I say I was wrong just for some peace and quiet. And that's if I'm lucky. And yet, being that angry wasted 20 years of my life, and I'm not prepared to let her prompt me to feel that way any more.
Therefore there are some things I can do to put the problems right and some things I cannot. And one of them is to file my anger away so that it only registers when it can come in useful: when mum attempts to lie to me, or to ask too many questions again.
That anger raises its head when another person gets closer to me than I'm used to and I try to look at it then; to learn its shape; and perhaps one day, I will be able to sidestep it effectively and have what I would consider normal relationships with other people. Because for now all I see is a mixture of:
1) This person's probably going to screw me over,
2) I'm a burden to know. Don't get too close or lean on them at all or they'll see me for the worthless/annoying/needy individual I am.
Sometimes that tires me out. But I can't give up. No, literally: I actually can't stop working away at the puzzle; my survival instinct won't let me. I've tried, but I always catch myself looking for solutions again. Somebody once said that the greatest battle one has is with oneself; I feel it's more like looking at a treasure map, complete with (very) cryptic clues. I haven't deciphered them all yet.
One of my ways of dealing with all of this is to be lighthearted: other people seem to like it and it helps me distract myself from the anger that I finally decided to bury. And that anger is no good to me when trying to make sense of others, it is just a hindrance.
These days, emotionally, I feel an odd mixture of youthful exuberance (I still feel freer than I ever was as a supposedly 'carefree' child) and a sense of having been through too much. I can finally feel and actually be free! I could never do that under her. I can now, and I intend to make the most I can of it.
Because of that strange mix of being so old so young, I feel incredibly strong. Although I resent mum for putting me in such a position that I had to become like this (or die, really), I'm thrilled that I'm here, with this mindset, in this place. I'm incredibly strong and self-sufficient, and I've been through enough that I have found a place here as a mentor for adolescents. I am very comfortable in that role and grateful that I can finally make good of all the bad that happened to me: I guide teenagers and young adults through their hardest time. They benefit, I feel that those years weren't wasted. At last. And as before, it is optimism and lightheartedness, not anger, that is often the productive action.
If I'd have known that getting to this stage would require so much hard work, so many mistakes and humiliations and rejections, I probably would have killed myself years ago. It's only the lack of insight I had at the time that made me keep going.
I'm glad I did. Life's very much worth living now, but I still wonder how much farther there is to go. I've no doubt I can go much farther than this, but... Oh, I don't know. It'll come. It'll come.
My history:
I live in the UK and grew up here. My early years weren't easy as I suffered a lot of bullying, which I tolerated for all the years I was in school. It took me a long time to get past that and start living again.
My mum however, was the worst problem. She is a manipulative woman who channelled all her insecurities into controlling me, my brothers, and my dad. She has also pushed away friend after friend after friend on the basis that they either:
1) 'aren't very intelligent', or
2) 'have mental health problems'.
It's always one of those two. I've watched for years as my dad has struggled to keep his head above water, I've heard him in tears during their arguments. Arguments of an intensity I hope I never, ever have to hear again. To that end I chose a partner who hates arguing too, and the closest we get to arguing is sulking at eachother, and even then very rarely. I'd much rather that, frankly, than the titanic screaming matches I've heard in my time.
I grew up with such a skewed idea of how to treat other people that I repelled potential friends and partners for many years and I still haven't got 'being normal' down pat yet. And I'm 26. None of us kids: me, my eldest brother Simon or our middle brother Scott, are in regular contact with eachother because not one of us trusts eachother enough; any one of us could easily be in cahoots with mum and betray eachother. That I find gut-wrenchingly sad, but it's that way regardless of anything I can think of to do.
One thing that did help was going to a Christian school as the last 18 months of my education. I found the pupils and teachers there kind, caring and much more of a 'family' than I had experienced before. They put me on the road to knowing how to trust people again. Although I couldn't quite get into the idea of God being real, I tried very hard to become a Christian because that's what seemed to make so many of these people happy. Eventually I gave up trying and became an Atheist.
And my mum? She still hasn't changed; she's every bit as manipulative as she ever was. I have forgiven her a few times in the past but she always, within a few months, betrays me again. I've now learned it's safer not to forget, but keep her past actions and motivations at the back of my mind in all my dealings with her, and I cannot forgive because she doesn't understand what she's done wrong, she's been doing it since she was a child.
If I dig deep enough under the surface of my own mind I'm still angry. Very angry indeed: that woman wrecked my life, and she still attempts to do so if I let her get close enough. All in the name of being in control of her relationship with me, because that's the only way she can feel safe. I've tried broaching that subject with her but that invariably starts a tirade of screaming and shouting at me, and a dozen or so phone calls over the following days until she's pestered me enough that I say I was wrong just for some peace and quiet. And that's if I'm lucky. And yet, being that angry wasted 20 years of my life, and I'm not prepared to let her prompt me to feel that way any more.
Therefore there are some things I can do to put the problems right and some things I cannot. And one of them is to file my anger away so that it only registers when it can come in useful: when mum attempts to lie to me, or to ask too many questions again.
That anger raises its head when another person gets closer to me than I'm used to and I try to look at it then; to learn its shape; and perhaps one day, I will be able to sidestep it effectively and have what I would consider normal relationships with other people. Because for now all I see is a mixture of:
1) This person's probably going to screw me over,
2) I'm a burden to know. Don't get too close or lean on them at all or they'll see me for the worthless/annoying/needy individual I am.
Sometimes that tires me out. But I can't give up. No, literally: I actually can't stop working away at the puzzle; my survival instinct won't let me. I've tried, but I always catch myself looking for solutions again. Somebody once said that the greatest battle one has is with oneself; I feel it's more like looking at a treasure map, complete with (very) cryptic clues. I haven't deciphered them all yet.
One of my ways of dealing with all of this is to be lighthearted: other people seem to like it and it helps me distract myself from the anger that I finally decided to bury. And that anger is no good to me when trying to make sense of others, it is just a hindrance.
These days, emotionally, I feel an odd mixture of youthful exuberance (I still feel freer than I ever was as a supposedly 'carefree' child) and a sense of having been through too much. I can finally feel and actually be free! I could never do that under her. I can now, and I intend to make the most I can of it.
Because of that strange mix of being so old so young, I feel incredibly strong. Although I resent mum for putting me in such a position that I had to become like this (or die, really), I'm thrilled that I'm here, with this mindset, in this place. I'm incredibly strong and self-sufficient, and I've been through enough that I have found a place here as a mentor for adolescents. I am very comfortable in that role and grateful that I can finally make good of all the bad that happened to me: I guide teenagers and young adults through their hardest time. They benefit, I feel that those years weren't wasted. At last. And as before, it is optimism and lightheartedness, not anger, that is often the productive action.
If I'd have known that getting to this stage would require so much hard work, so many mistakes and humiliations and rejections, I probably would have killed myself years ago. It's only the lack of insight I had at the time that made me keep going.
I'm glad I did. Life's very much worth living now, but I still wonder how much farther there is to go. I've no doubt I can go much farther than this, but... Oh, I don't know. It'll come. It'll come.
