Being sexually abused as a child severely fractured me and distorted my image of what relationships should be like. I grew up pretty clueless. And since my abuse went unchecked and like many sexual abuse victims I kept it hid. I buried it and blamed myself for it happening. I never felt like I deserved to be loved. I truly felt unworthy of having anything good or wholesome in my life. It's sad for any child to grow up feeling like that. At the time I didn't have the foresight to see the direction that was going to take me and no one seemed to want to enlighten me. As I got older, I did drugs to numb me and then I became promiscuous, but strangely enough I never connected the dots. I always gravitated to men who wouldn't love me like I needed to be loved or deserved to be loved. I lived a self-fulfilling prophecy to prove my unworthiness. If any good guys paid me any attention, I passed them by like they had the plague. I just wasn't interested in what they were selling. I found nice guys boring and sedate. What I thought I needed was something that was going to set my hair on fire and make me teeter on the edge of insanity. What a waste of time and energy that was! I should have gone with the dude offering the house and the white picket fence instead!
I have spent a lifetime proving to myself that I'm not worth anything. I'm not worth loving. I'm not worth having a decent relationship with because I believed I'm not a decent human being. That really makes me sad that I have done that to myself, but what makes me sadder is that the people who love me...my family never have questioned why I have done this to myself. Or why no therapist has ever questioned it? Why hasn't anyone simply said STOP IT? Just stop it and try something different because your way isn't working? Now, I'm afraid I don't know how to start over and do things differently. I don't know how to feel differently or be different. I know I should. I know anyone who has put themselves in timeout for 17 years has a HUGE problem, but here I sit. It's safe! No one can hurt me. I'm isolated!
Recently, I started to do the online dating thing, but only to find out that 95% of the people on the site aren't even who they say they are. The other 5% may be the nicest people in the world, but for one reason or another just don't appeal to me. Let's face it! We all have preferences. So for now I put that great idea on hold! I'm not going to say my time has passed because I don't have a crystal ball and I can't see into the future. But I do know I am a bonafide freak magnet and until I can figure out how to curb that and how to trust my own choices in what appeals to me then I need to stay in time out for a while longer.
wow. great post that I am certain a lot of women can relate to in various ways. What piece stuck out for me is that you said a therpist didn't touch on this. Even when you said what you said here about not deserving etc? Wow, bad therapist, it's not you! I think I'd try again.
ReplyDeleteMy hope for you is that you BELIEVE you deserve it! because you do woman!!
It's weird, but I've spent my whole life feeling dirty and less than everyone else and now coming out on the other side I see that my life could have been much different with different tools. I can't really blame any therapist because I held so much info back in therapy. I started going when I was a kid because someone recognized something was amiss but it never got much further than that because I was pretty belligerent and closed off by then. I didn't trust anyone.
DeleteHugs. I am very, very certain that many of us will relate (strongly) to this post.
ReplyDeleteThank you to my sister from down under. Maybe I just say the stuff other people won't say or can't say. I really like it when people relate to the things I write.
DeleteMy heart aches for the good that was stolen from you.
ReplyDelete