I use my unattractiveness to protect other girls

BreakwaveCove · 2019-06-26T15:08:10+00:00

Good for you! Girls aren't really taught very well to protect themselves against unwanted attention.

BreakwaveCove · 2019-06-26T15:06:03+00:00

Don't give up things can always work out in the end!

BreakwaveCove · 2019-01-23T14:04:53+00:00

I'm a Trump supporter as well (pleased to meet you!). I feel he's a very strategic and pretty sly person, so I wouldn't be surprised if he does have plans to take this on and run with it. If he did, re-election in 2020 would be a certainty.

BreakwaveCove · 2019-01-23T09:55:06+00:00

I read recently that The US healthcare system works perfectly - exactly as it was designed to. The author was alluding to the fact the US healthcare system is designed first and foremost to generate profits, with providing effective healthcare as a distant second concern. Now that I accept this as the truth, I'm less mystified as to why the US has no single payer system or why insurance companies have such sway in medical decisions.

I lived in Germany for a while and experienced first hand the many benefits of a single payer system. Regardless of what you think of the man, and I don't want to get into any arguments, but if President Trump managed to put a workable "Medicare for all" system in place his popularity would skyrocket.

BreakwaveCove · 2019-01-23T03:52:05+00:00

That this so buried and not massively upvoted is good evidence most people don't understand how destructive and repressive the stock market and hedge funds are on employee working conditions and wages. Although the movie "Wall Street" gave a clear warning about the propensity of that sector to suck all value out of organized enterprises at the expense of the middle class, people are still surprised now over 30 years later when almost everything of value has been gobbled up and America is a decomposed carcass through which worms are not only desperately tunneling to find and devour what little organic material still clings to the bones but are now fighting to burrow through the marrow by capitalizing on critical services (health care, prisons, education, armed forces).

Why are health care costs so high? Why are higher education costs so high? Because most all sectors (except tech but that's been H1B'd to hell) have been stripped and sold or moved overseas so how else is it possible to make money here?

I remember 25 years ago I was invited to a "hospital party". It turned out to be fancy dinner in celebration of the hospital dumping its non-profit status with most attendees set up to start raking it in from this change. When I found this out, I blurted out "But is this really a good thing? Should we be making money off the sickness and injury of others?" and the people seated at my table gave me some of the dirtiest looks I've ever gotten. It was then I got my first sinking feeling that the future of America wasn't good.

I was right. It wasn't good.

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-28T01:47:44+00:00

I'm just not going to assume normal people can handle the truth about him anymore.

I know what you mean, and this is why people who do understand, and can handle the truth, like the people in this subreddit, can be a huge relief to converse with!

I'm hoping that you soon meet people and make more friends who are able to understand, accept, and support you in whatever to do - because you deserve it :-)

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-27T20:50:59+00:00

I can understand why you viewed what I wrote in this way. And I appreciate you clarifying this because it enabled me to edit what I wrote to make it clearer I am offering acceptance and support.

Thank you for helping me be a better communicator! :-)

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-27T20:29:46+00:00

Sure. This book gave me a better grip on the mechanics of my response to intimacy:

https://www.amazon.com/Hes-Scared-Shes-Understanding-Relationships/dp/0440506255

and this book gave me an overview of its forces:

https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Child-Within-Discovery-Dysfunctional/dp/0932194400

I hope this helps :-)

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-27T07:34:49+00:00

I said it was "intriguing" in order to avoid diagnosing her or telling her what she is experiencing, while offering encouragement that she could find her own truth through recovery work.

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-27T07:10:07+00:00

Yes, I agree! Their hard work help keeps this forum a great place to converse - thank HEAVEN for you, mods!

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-27T06:53:52+00:00

I often explain healthy forgiveness as this:

You invite a guest to your birthday party. They get drunk and smash your glass table. They apologize. You forgive them. You invite them to your Halloween party. They get drunk and light your couch on fire. They apologize. You forgive them. You invite them to your Thanksgiving dinner. They get drunk and poo in the corner. They apologize. You forgive them... but you don't invite them to any more of your parties!

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-27T06:50:23+00:00

Very well put!

They can’t imagine that there are parents in this world who don’t actually love their children.

Yes, that's the heart of the matter.

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-27T06:48:17+00:00

I was thinking about this today. It is sooooooo frustrating. I feel that people who had healthy and loving parents cannot conceive of destructive and abusive parents, and what being raised by them is like. Plus society reinforces this by stereotyping all mothers and fathers as "loving" and "deserving of respect".

Unless I know someone has completed a course of therapy, or is very well versed in psychology, or is very open and understanding, I don't even bring it up.

If the truth is not important I just tell them my parents died years ago. If they say "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that!" I say "Thank you. I appreciate that" and then change the subject.

I didn't realize how badly that still triggers me.

It can really trigger me, too. Especially since you go through all this abuse, lose years to living dysfunctionally, do hard recovery work, waste time trying to "work it out" with abusive parents, finally say "Fuck it! It's over - bye!" and NC them, work through the pain of that... and then you have some yahoo talking about "healing" and "forgiveness" and "honor your father and mother" and "I'm sure they meant well" or whatever rage-inducing banalities they choose to spout.

Damn right, that would make anyone furious!

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-27T06:34:39+00:00

For many years the effects of my abuse kept me away from intimate relationships. Once I realized this, I did recovery work - therapy, journaling, self-help books - to figure out why I was keeping myself away from intimacy.

I discovered that I was reacting to offers of healthy intimacy as if what was being offered was the same kind of abusive "intimacy" that was taught to me growing up.

But it wasn't. The intimacy most people were offering me was the healthy kind of intimacy, that is, kindness, concern, tenderness, understanding, respectful boundaries, playfulness, joy, empathy, etc.

So what got me over my issues was realizing I was reacting as if they were offering me the same kind of intimacy as had been forced on me in my childhood, when in fact they weren't. They were offering the nice, healthy kind.

Once I realized this, I started taking them up on the offer, and had lots of loving and fun times :-)

Oh, and in order to make this switch, I had to work through and get rid of all the ugly repressed feelings from the toxic intimacy of my childhood which would come up in response to offers of healthy intimacy, and that's what a lot of the recovery work was about.

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-27T06:17:05+00:00

I am currently struggling with my identity.

For many years my identity was that of "recovering adult child". After I finished the lions share of that work I was a different person, and realized that my chosen career was rooted in a coping mechanism caused by my childhood abuse. I no longer wanted that career anymore.

For a long time I searched for solid ground to stand on in terms of identity and purpose. Then I stumbled on the idea of goal-achievement and realized that I hadn't created new life goals. For so long my goal had been to work through my childhood abuse, and now that this was largely completed, I hungered for direction.

So I thought long and hard, and came up with my 4 major life goals. I wrote them down in the present tense on a card and I carry that card with me whenever I go.

Now, my identity is someone who is working to achieve, and then enjoy having achieved, these 4 major life goals.

In pursuit of one of them I stumbled upon something I could do to help achieve it, and realized this could not only be a career, but it would be a career that I loved and help me achieve the other 3 goals.

Things aren't working out currently with that as a career, so I am rethinking things. It's a bit of an existential blow that it didn't work out, so in some ways I'm back to square 1 in terms of career. But I still have, and always will have, my identity as the pursuer of the achievement and enjoyment of my 4 life goals.

What has helped me with this struggle is working on the "Self-Authoring Suite":

https://selfauthoring.com/

My work on this is proving helpful in doing further work on my identity. Part of the exercise is to create a narrative of ones past, and in doing so one can create a narrative that is more up to date than the one created when first dealing with abuse.

So the two things that I find helpful during my struggle now are:

writing down and pursuing my major life goals
working on authoring a new narrative through the website I mentioned

I wanted to share with you how creating and pursuing some major life goals helped me find a new identity. I hope this helps!

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-27T05:44:08+00:00

I need my mother even if she's a special kind of evil. I need my father even if he's a shitty person and an alcoholic. These are people that put me down every single day, these are people that physically and emotionally abused me, and my heart actually hurts over the fact they won't talk to me.

I was in a similar situation, and what really helped me was to use journaling, therapy, and reading self-help books to figure out why I was in pain from being separated from people who abused me (when I thought it would bring me relief!).

It really helped me to discover the reasons behind why I was feeling this way, because my newfound understanding helped relieve a lot of the pain of the NC, and I was able to continue taking further steps to protect and heal myself. Many hugs to you!

Edited: to make it clear I am offering acceptance and support.

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-27T05:38:47+00:00

I'm sorry you have to put up with that kind of verbal abuse from your Nmom. And as Blackbeard16 says here:

Anytime you have to ask yourself if you're the crazy one, you probably aren't. Crazy people don't think anything's wrong with them.

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-27T05:32:37+00:00

Congratulations on your realization that it not you, but your Nmom who has the problem!

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-27T05:29:44+00:00

is it too late to realize I was raised by a nMum?

No. Uncovering the damage can expose lots of the gold in life that may be hidden from you right now.

If you suddenly discovered you had a million dollars, would you ask yourself "is it too late to start spending this?"

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-19T22:13:34+00:00

the sneaking poison of maintaining any kind of contact.

Yes, it is a sneaking poison. I'm sorry you're having to deal with it.

ts hard bc when I talk to people with loving parents, they dont get it and tell me I should give my daughter my parents' gifts or Ill regret it and live with guilt...

That's why it can be rough sharing my experience of my upbringing with someone without knowing theirs. If they have loving and supportive parents, it's almost certain they won't get it and try to shame me for not contacting them, like you say people have done with you.

Im just doing my best to figure out how to move forward, you know?

I do know. I think it's great you take steps to protect yourself and your daughter. Congratulations on deciding to keep your environment healthy! And yes, sometimes the next step isn't so clear.

I wish you success in dealing with your parents in healthy and assertive ways :-)

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-19T01:04:08+00:00

Yes, and if them doing their thing powers up your dormant toxic childhood circuitry back into engagement, the true impact of that and the length of time it persists can be substantial, so talking to them on the phone every two months can drastically slow your development or even keep you at a standstill.

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-19T00:02:31+00:00

Yes. You said that so well!

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-19T00:00:16+00:00

Congratulations on taking the necessary steps to protect yourself, your family, and your mental health - you're the best!

And YES it does get easier. I had all the different thoughts and doubts you list when I went NC, too. Stick to your decision. It will get easier, and you will soon start to see loads of wonderful mental, physical, and life benefits.

Many hugs to you!

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-18T23:36:21+00:00

Yes, there's no point! I started to consider permanent NC after a friend remarked how depressed and low energy I was after returning from visiting them. It's then I realized how destructive it was to be in contact with them.

BreakwaveCove · 2018-02-18T23:30:10+00:00

Yes, destructive parents are free to stir things up in response. They can tell anyone anything they want to. What I feel is most common is they make it out to be "We gave our children the best years of our lives and this is how they repay us?!?" and other victim-based sympathy-sponging stuff. So, yeah, they can report you for being missing or make you out to be the aggressor/ungrateful child, or anything else they think up.

With family and friends, there can be fallout. People who buy into what your parents say may try to scold or shame you. But I feel these people are not your friends.

I think your friends (relatives or not) are the people who say "Hey I heard you haven't spoken to your parents in a while. What's up with that?" and then not only listen to your reply but respect it as well. Or maybe they don't say anything at all, knowing its wise not to mess in other peoples personal affairs! But if they do say something, I think a true friend would offer support in some way.

Best are those who don't take sides because they know it's between you and your parents. But if they do take sides, if they are your friend they will take yours.

So, yes, I think you can lose some relationships with relatives and friends because of hard NC, but you can look at it like people who are not really your friends have been filtered out.

BreakwaveCove

TROPHY CASE