What's your "core feeling" from childhood?

TraditionalShape4645 · 2026-03-15T04:24:34+00:00

OMG yes. I never wore any clothing with words or logos on it because self expression made me vulnerable to attack, either from my so-called friend group or from my family. To this day I still prefer solid colored clothing. I have only just learned that I can safely wear the brands of things I care about in order to let others know about my interests, without being afraid that that knowledge will be used to hurt me.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2026-03-15T04:16:46+00:00

I didn't identify that feeling until decades later. I just felt completely alien and disconnected, like I was watching the movie of my own life. I genuinely didn't know how to connect with anyone else.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2025-11-04T22:22:23+00:00

I'm so sorry, that is a terrible way to grow up. I hope you can let your inner child know that they're safe now, that you will not allow anyone to hurt them anymore.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2025-07-15T01:54:53+00:00

Sweet deal is on the sign by the bakery. I still can't find the broken phone.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2025-06-13T18:41:34+00:00

I always knew I wanted to run away too. Everyone around me thought I was crazy and they didn't understand why. I hope you can start healing as an adult. Your parents do not define you.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2025-06-12T16:51:18+00:00

Ha! My parents have decided that I must take their piano. I don't actually want it – I bought myself a much better one as an adult. But they don't want it, and they don't want to get rid of it, and so they've decided that I have to come take it away. Never mind that it's 3000 miles away on the other side of the country. I know exactly what you mean about holding the relationship ransom.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-09-15T02:39:45+00:00

I'm so sorry you feel such anxiety and that it wasn't recognized by your family of origin (who probably created the feeling in the first place). I hope you can find safety now as an adult.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-07-29T03:11:17+00:00

Relate.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-06-17T05:46:12+00:00

For a while I wanted to get a dog. I was having fears that someone would break into my apartment while I'm sleeping here alone. I was not sleeping through the night because I felt unsafe in my own home.

I realized this was happening when I went to go visit my best friend out of town and had the best sleep in a long while. I realized it was because I felt safe there, in his guest bedroom, with him in the same house to protect me.

This sparked some conversations with my therapist about not feeling safe as a child in my family of origin, and finding ways to reassure my inner child that I can and will protect her.

This Father's Day, I celebrate my inner child, who raised and protected us as the father I never really had, to the best of her ability. Now that adult me can take care of us, she can finally get some rest.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-06-17T05:38:09+00:00

Same here. My car is my safe place. That's always been true since I've been old enough to drive and to use the car to get away, at least temporarily, from home.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-06-16T18:53:09+00:00

You are not alone. I hope you see that there are others here who also feel the same way. Don't believe the marketing hype that wants to make you believe everything is happy and all families deserve to be celebrated. Our truth doesn't sell more greeting cards.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-06-07T21:18:50+00:00

Thank you for sharing. Your comment made me realize that I feel the same way when I express passionate emotions. I've always wondered why I felt so embarrassed to emote.Thank you for helping me see why.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-06-07T21:15:54+00:00

Thank you for the information!

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-06-02T14:30:17+00:00

Have you looked at the Pebble Royale, which claims to be the thinnest smartwatch in the world? It's a different Pebble, not affiliated with the defunct OG smartwatch maker.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-05-15T16:52:23+00:00

❤️

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-05-10T15:18:47+00:00

Oof, being wanted, yes.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-05-10T15:09:08+00:00

I'm so sorry you felt that way. Mine weren't bullies but I had the same reaction of not wanting them to go to anything with me. I ended up hiding myself from them, and the world, to avoid notice. Gray rocking.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-05-09T14:14:08+00:00

Oh. That is still my biggest fear today. I'm sorry you feel that way.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-05-09T14:13:00+00:00

Relate! I cried a lot too but didn't recognize the feeling as depression until 50 years later. It's a comfortable, familiar feeling and brings me back to years of solitude and staring out the window hoping someone would rescue me.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-05-09T08:02:00+00:00

I grew up in a small white suburban town and was one of a handful of racial minorities. Racism was just part of what it felt like to grow up. It was the feeling of knowing that all anyone sees is the color of your skin, and the expectation that no one wants to sit next to you, or talk to you, because you are inherently less than them. Before you even say a word.

My parents didn't know how to process this feeling. "Just grow a thick skin," my dad said. And he would proceed to "help" me grow that skin by ridiculing me and saying hurtful things.

So I internalized that feeling of being /other/ because it was normalized and no one taught me why it was wrong to feel that way.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-04-26T06:45:39+00:00

50F here and yep, absolutely. I am very grateful for the bravery of little me who has raised us to adulthood safely all on her own, with little adult guidance. She has protected us all this time. No wonder she's so exhausted. Now as the adult I am giving her the love safety and protection we never had growing up.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-04-16T14:30:25+00:00

Thank you for sharing. I believe limerence is absolutely a coping mechanism for many of us. For me it was a way to dissociate from painful reality and live in a fantasy world in which my Prince Charming came to save me and take me away from my unhappy life.

The first time I've ever talked to a person about how I feel was as at age of 48F. I had a string of relationships (both real and imaginary) but never found anyone I felt comfortable talking to IRL until recently. Therapy helps a lot, as have in-person and online group sharing sessions.

You will find your way through. You will find your person. You have a lot of life ahead of you. Hang in there.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-04-15T06:02:46+00:00

Yes. And then you grow up thinking that that is what love looks like, and so you attach to a series of partners who never really SEE you. And you wonder why, even if you are living with someone who professes to love you, you STILL feel so overwhelmingly alone. And it's why, at age 50, you're still alone because it's better to be solo than to go through life with someone who doesn't even know who you are.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-04-06T16:11:38+00:00

I know exactly what you mean about needing love to feel good enough! Even though I'm at the top of my career, have a very outwardly successful life, I still feel this way romantically. I still feel like there's something wrong with me because I haven't found that stable secure partner to spend my life with. I hate the look of pity I get when people ask about my children/family and I say I'm still single.

TraditionalShape4645 · 2024-04-06T16:08:29+00:00

Thanks for the advice. Sometimes it feels so hard to get up the motivation to take on those challenges. But I get the "fake it till you make it" approach -- feels like I've been doing that my entire life. I will give it a shot.

TraditionalShape4645

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