Hi Im new
This is the first time I have asked for help so publicly and I suppose it does feel good to know that there are so many people in the same boat and that I'm not the only bad person on the planet. I have read every self help book under the sun and although it makes me feel better and more positive for afew weeks I soon slip back into my old ways of negative thinking and becoming terribly insecure about everthing, my looks, my marriage and things in general. I have this incredible fear that haunts me and I am just so scared all the time that people are going to take my husband away from me. He is the first person that gave me alot of love. Even the most innocent interaction between my husband and girl makes me feel physically sick with fear and jealousy. Most of this fear relates to anything he does even if he is just on the phone to a family member. When im feeling like this I cant stand to see his family and feel realy jealous of how close they all are. I also feel so scared they are going to find out what im really thinking and what a horrible person I am. I want to control everthing and lose it if something is out of my control but other times when i feeling good i can be perfectly ok.
As a child my parents did not say a good thing about me and I was always made to feel invisible and inadequate. I had no confidence and i think this is what has made me fearful of adults and social situations for no reason. People geniunely get on with me but i dont want to see them as i think im not good enough. I want to start to address these issues as i am starting a family next year and my husbands parents are moving nearby so im going to have to deal with the way i feel otherwise it will put a massive strain on my marriage. At the moment im scared of how much involvement my husbands parents wil want with their grandchild! i know its ridiculous.
I heard about benjamins new book and have ordered it and as there has been so many good reviews. I feel as if reading it is going to change my life but then I think can a book do that? I suppose in the recent months i have started understanding where this irrational fear is coming from and its a step in the right direction as before i could not understand why i was acting like i was. I used to get terribly depressed after a night out with friends when we had enjoyed ourselves espeically my husband as i thought he would start liking others company more than mine.
Has anyone else felt the same? Benjamin can you help? What is wrong with me?
Page 1 of 1
whats wrong with me?
#2 Guest_DC_*
Posted 13 November 2005 - 06:51 PM
Hi,
How sad that you have been going through this so long and still haven't found an answer. You sound as though you really want to be better which is important. Your first sentence pretty much sums up your problem. You have been convinced that you are a bad person and you refuse to accept any evidence to the contrary.
You seem to be suffering from an extreme lack of self esteem which causes you to believe that no one can love you for yourself. This probably stems directly from your parents, people who were supposed to give you unconditional love. I wonder how you would feel if you could confront them now that you are an adult and don't have to listen to or believe their garbage? Tell them how their treatment of you was unjust. If that isn't possible, doesn't it help just to realize that you were lied to, that you actually are a good, loving, worthy, valuable person?
Your need to be in control may be the direct result of not having any control when you were a child. Love can only exist through free will. The more you try to control someone, the more likely you are to drive them away.
Maybe you feel you don't deserve the unconditional love of your husband. You may even believe unconsciously that he doesn't love you enough hence your fear he loves others more. This could also be true of your reaction to the friends who show an interest in you for who you are. All this love should be sufficient evidence for you that you are worthwhile and special.
If you haven't done any counseling, it would be a good idea to try it. Understanding what is wrong is a great start but sometimes it takes help to fix the problem.
You are right that you need to conquer this problem before it drives away the ones you love or before you follow the same pattern with your children.
Good luck and best wishes, D.
How sad that you have been going through this so long and still haven't found an answer. You sound as though you really want to be better which is important. Your first sentence pretty much sums up your problem. You have been convinced that you are a bad person and you refuse to accept any evidence to the contrary.
You seem to be suffering from an extreme lack of self esteem which causes you to believe that no one can love you for yourself. This probably stems directly from your parents, people who were supposed to give you unconditional love. I wonder how you would feel if you could confront them now that you are an adult and don't have to listen to or believe their garbage? Tell them how their treatment of you was unjust. If that isn't possible, doesn't it help just to realize that you were lied to, that you actually are a good, loving, worthy, valuable person?
Your need to be in control may be the direct result of not having any control when you were a child. Love can only exist through free will. The more you try to control someone, the more likely you are to drive them away.
Maybe you feel you don't deserve the unconditional love of your husband. You may even believe unconsciously that he doesn't love you enough hence your fear he loves others more. This could also be true of your reaction to the friends who show an interest in you for who you are. All this love should be sufficient evidence for you that you are worthwhile and special.
If you haven't done any counseling, it would be a good idea to try it. Understanding what is wrong is a great start but sometimes it takes help to fix the problem.
You are right that you need to conquer this problem before it drives away the ones you love or before you follow the same pattern with your children.
Good luck and best wishes, D.
#3
Anon73 
- Newbie
-
- Group: Members
- Posts: 5
- Joined: 09-November 05
Posted 18 November 2005 - 12:23 PM
Hi DC
Thanks so much for your reply. I have read it a number of times so what you are saying will sink in. Its very kind of you to take the time to reply to me. I know what you are saying is true. I think deep down I do distrust and fear everyone because my parents broke my trust when I was an innocent child. You are right that maybe unconsciously I do not believe that my husband can really love me. For years when we were going out I used to think why does he want to be with me? What have I got to offer him? This has got to stem from the thoughts and feelings I had a child due to the way I was treated by parents. I thought they cant really love me otherwise they would not treat me this way and this led to me feeling unlovable and worthless. When genuine people show me love and affection now, like my husbands family, I cringe and put up my defenses as an automatic reaction - this is what I am used to doing for many years and it has become a habit of survival. Like in Benjamin's book, which I am halfway thorough, he says this is what I did to survive and anything that threatens my survival is pushed away, ignored and treated badly by me.
I am really enjoying Benjamin's book and I think it will help me understand more about my repressed trauma and emotions and why they try to rise up in different situations. Before I used to add feelings of guilt, shame, confusion and fear to them but recently I have just let them happen and not feel that I must stop them. This is a relief of its own and hopefully will help towards my recovery. Just being able to understand and not judge is an immense relief. Other self help books I have read have focused on being positive, repressing negative feelings, changing the way you think.. this is all very good but what happens when you tire of this? You just go back to being the same insecure emotional wreck.
Confronting my parents is not something I can really do.. they would not really understand what I am talking about.. god where would I start? Everything in our family is always brushed under the carpet. But doing some of the exercises in Benjamin's book I have started to dig around in my past and write the traumas down and also how they made me feel so that I can connect the effect of this to the present day. It's not easy but it makes me feel so much better as its such a release for me to realise I can move on and not be stuck in the same old rut. I now realise that there is nothing genetically wrong with my brain!! I used to think I was born a bad person with a jackel and hyde personality who could be good sometimes and bad at others. Who could get on with people sometimes and could not stand them at other times. This hot and cold personality confused the hell out of my family and I ended up not talking to my sister and brother in law for 2 and half years and they could not stand my moods. At that time I blamed them and put it down to a personality clash. I now realise it was because my repressed emotions were always trying to come out in different situations and as I was confused as hell I had a very negative attitude towards them as I thought they were causing it. I thought this is the way it was with me and I couldn't change that. I now know I am wrong.
You might be aware that I have not really touched upon what really happened in the past ie/ what my trauma's are and maybe this is because I haven't really sat down and thought about it. I have always bottled it up and it exploded from time to time by just projecting it on others. I need to do this and its going to be hard but I know what I am doing now is a start...
This forum and Benjamin's book is such a comfort to me and I can't thank him enough..
Thanks so much for your reply. I have read it a number of times so what you are saying will sink in. Its very kind of you to take the time to reply to me. I know what you are saying is true. I think deep down I do distrust and fear everyone because my parents broke my trust when I was an innocent child. You are right that maybe unconsciously I do not believe that my husband can really love me. For years when we were going out I used to think why does he want to be with me? What have I got to offer him? This has got to stem from the thoughts and feelings I had a child due to the way I was treated by parents. I thought they cant really love me otherwise they would not treat me this way and this led to me feeling unlovable and worthless. When genuine people show me love and affection now, like my husbands family, I cringe and put up my defenses as an automatic reaction - this is what I am used to doing for many years and it has become a habit of survival. Like in Benjamin's book, which I am halfway thorough, he says this is what I did to survive and anything that threatens my survival is pushed away, ignored and treated badly by me.
I am really enjoying Benjamin's book and I think it will help me understand more about my repressed trauma and emotions and why they try to rise up in different situations. Before I used to add feelings of guilt, shame, confusion and fear to them but recently I have just let them happen and not feel that I must stop them. This is a relief of its own and hopefully will help towards my recovery. Just being able to understand and not judge is an immense relief. Other self help books I have read have focused on being positive, repressing negative feelings, changing the way you think.. this is all very good but what happens when you tire of this? You just go back to being the same insecure emotional wreck.
Confronting my parents is not something I can really do.. they would not really understand what I am talking about.. god where would I start? Everything in our family is always brushed under the carpet. But doing some of the exercises in Benjamin's book I have started to dig around in my past and write the traumas down and also how they made me feel so that I can connect the effect of this to the present day. It's not easy but it makes me feel so much better as its such a release for me to realise I can move on and not be stuck in the same old rut. I now realise that there is nothing genetically wrong with my brain!! I used to think I was born a bad person with a jackel and hyde personality who could be good sometimes and bad at others. Who could get on with people sometimes and could not stand them at other times. This hot and cold personality confused the hell out of my family and I ended up not talking to my sister and brother in law for 2 and half years and they could not stand my moods. At that time I blamed them and put it down to a personality clash. I now realise it was because my repressed emotions were always trying to come out in different situations and as I was confused as hell I had a very negative attitude towards them as I thought they were causing it. I thought this is the way it was with me and I couldn't change that. I now know I am wrong.
You might be aware that I have not really touched upon what really happened in the past ie/ what my trauma's are and maybe this is because I haven't really sat down and thought about it. I have always bottled it up and it exploded from time to time by just projecting it on others. I need to do this and its going to be hard but I know what I am doing now is a start...
This forum and Benjamin's book is such a comfort to me and I can't thank him enough..
Share this topic:
Page 1 of 1