Hi Peggy,

What I meant by doubting my reality is doubting my view of my childhood/family of origin… maybe I was just too sensitive and it wasn’t really all that bad–I just took it all too personally. And I should have figured out how to let it all bounce off me and keep moving forward in life.

I also sometimes doubt what I understand about life currently. I’d say it happens because I live too much in my head and negative thoughts get stuck and wear me out mentally. What helps is to exercise or go do something like go out to a store and just be around other peoples’ energy… then I slowly come back to reality. Well, at least somewhat.

Re doing stuff… it’s really easy for me to do things like shampoo the carpeting… I know what to do and how to do it, there is  a definite start and stop. Although it’s work and can be exhausting, I can do it. What is hard for me is making huge life decisions: where to go, where to live, what to do. Thinking about these things wears me out and makes me feel lost.  I feel like I’ve never really belonged anywhere or with anyone and I have no reason for being. I seriously don’t know why my parents ever had me. Their interest in me as a person was non-existent. From even when I was maybe 6 or so, I felt like I was on my own in many ways. Like I was supposed to run on auto-pilot, be a ‘plug-and-play’ kid–like they could give me the inputs (food, clothing, shelter), and I should be able to do all the rest. Yes, they fed, sheltered, and clothed me. But they didn’t bother to understand me, guide me, give me hope and encouragement, or make me feel wanted and valued. So when I get into places in life where I don’t know what to do next or how to even figure it out, I fall apart mentally. This is why I picked the screen name ‘Lost Soul.’  I only am able to keep myself grounded by keeping a routine, doing what needs to be done (chores, exercising, eating well, paying bills), and giving myself some extra tasks to do.

I have no one IRL to talk to about this. My siblings don’t get it. In fact, my sister is someone who has always known what she wants and can’t fathom someone who doesn’t. She has told me I am a mystery to her. And I think, “Where’s the mystery?” All I want is to belong and live a decent life. To know other people care that I exist, and to have people I can confide in, talk things out with when I’m feeling lost/stuck. (I think if I had all of this, it would be as if someone had loaded me up with rocket fuel!) My sister refuses to do these things (be someone I can talk to / help me sort things out / be a consistent, warm, friendly presence in my life) because it would be ‘coddling’ me to do them. In her view, I need to be strong and independent and figure things out for myself, by myself.  <– I don’t think this will ever happen. What do I feel like? I feel like I’m on a small life raft floating in the middle of the ocean, hoping that one day a boat will pass by and rescue me.

Wow, I’ve written a lot here. I didn’t even know I could do that, I thought my brain was too fried from stress. Thank you for everything you said. You are right: I should not expect too much of myself, congratulate myself for what I do get done, and take a break. Last night I went to bed at 8 p.m. I wasn’t physically tired and didn’t fall asleep  until after 10 p.m. I laid there in the dark and zoned out listening to the noises from outside to try to forget about everything for a while. I think it helped some. Thank you for writing to me. It’s so good to have a response from someone. So often, when I attempt to talk to my sister, I get no response at all and it feels terrible.

Lost Soul

• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Lost soul.

Dear Anita,

Thank you. Again, you make many of my points for me.

The “I don’t know why my parents ever had me” was not meant as a literal question; it’s what I thought as a child around ages 8 – 12 years old. There were entire stretches of days where no one in the family spoke to me civilly or engaged with me in any positive way. (Just to be clear, I have two siblings: a brother and a sister.)

Yes, I pretty much was the family scapegoat as child and served the purposes you described. Later as I got older, I couldn’t handle being the scapegoat anymore, so I stayed in my room a lot and tried to avoid attention as much as possible, and I morphed into being the lost child in terms of dysfunctional family roles. The mystery comment was said in recent times, but what’s ironic is that at about the same time, my sister suggested I look into finding a meetup group for people who are highly sensitive… I have never discussed being HSP with her, so she does understand me on some level to have even come up with that, lol.

Our parents have passed, and I’m not concerned about cutting contact with the siblings because what contact there is is minimal. “Question now is how can you live a different life than your role in your family of origin, a role you didn’t choose.” Yeah, I guess that’s one way of framing it. I despair of finding a life, a way of living, that I want to live. All I ever wanted for the most part was to find someone to love and be loved by, get married and have my own family, and that has never worked out for me. My longest relationship was only 2.5 years. And now that I’m too old to have kids, I don’t know how hard I want to work to make a relationship work. I tried hard in those relationships, the best I knew how that is, to make them work and they failed, mostly with the guy ending it. In hindsight, I put up with getting very little while giving a lot, which was, after all, what I learned at home. (For the record, I have an anxious attachment style and most of these guys had an avoidant attachment style.) After the last one, I was heartbroken and felt wrecked by the rejection. I said to myself and the few people who would listen, “I don’t want to date anyone for a loooooong time.” And I haven’t. I don’t have a sense that I’m worth very much to anyone. Even though I know, logically, I am one of about 8 billion people on this planet and all types of people with all types of problems—criminal records, mentally illness, history of drug/alcohol abuse—get married, have kids, and find new relationships after previous relationships have failed, I don’t see much possible for me. I can’t see myself as worthy or attractive to anyone other than, say, someone looking for a meal ticket or someone to take advantage of. “She’s okay; I’ll put up with her for now… until someone or something better comes along… or until she gets too annoying.”

Hopefully no one says to me now, “What, so you think you’re nothing without a man?” No, it’s what I wanted. And what’s wrong with that? (I’m tired of people making me wrong/mocking me for wanting what I want, for wanting a normal life, to be treated well, to have what most people do want—this started with my family.)

Lost soul

Dear Anita,

I laughed a little reading your example about realizing you could open a window for yourself… I haven’t had the same experience per se, but my father was such a domineering, controlling person, I was expected to always ask permission before opening my bedroom window when it was hot, well into my teens. And I also have let life happen to me because it didn’t occur to me I could make things happen. I stayed in lousy jobs, one-sided friendships, and toxic relationships because putting up with bad situations was all I knew.

Being criticized, day in and day out, was a huge part of my childhood. I like to say, “Most people usually have two parents criticizing and correcting them. But I had four people on my case ALL the time.”

I’m sorry your mother slapped you; I hope this was a rare thing for her to do, although words hurt just as much as (and typically last longer I than) physical abuse.

I did see the movie Awakenings, though quite a long time ago. I wouldn’t say I’ve been in a coma like those people, but I do feel like I am not very far from the starting line of adult life, whereas so many people my age are far ahead of me…

The best therapist I ever went to would tell me all the time, “There is nothing wrong with you.” The first time she said this, I said to her, “But how do you know that? You barely know me.” She said nothing in response, but gave me one of the kindest smiles I have ever seen.

Lost Soul

• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Lost soul.

Dear Anita,

“When parents feed, shelter and clothe their child and take away the child the following: hope, courage, the feeling of being wanted and valued, are they doing the child any favors, meaning, is it worth it, for the child?”

No. (Sad smile.) Of course not. How could it be? The only imaginable case where it could be okay would be if the child got those things, on a consistent basis, from another person or group of people in their life… that does sometimes happen for some children.

I’m having a less than great day today due to a health issue I won’t name here. (It’s chronic yet mostly manageable but also a bit rare and not well-known.) Though not brain-related, it affects neuro-transmitter levels, and puts me in an irritable mood in which negative memories surface and my thoughts tend to repeat. In this mood, I often end up thinking of what I would like to say to my sister, or other family member. I don’t bother/have never bothered to say these things IRL because she would only talk over me or deny the things she has said and done. (But when I’m in this mood, I would happily punch her in the face. And I feel like that would be the least of what she deserves for how she treated me growing up.) She thinks all/any of my problems are either my own fault or perhaps caused by our father. As an adult, she has told me that I’m my own problem, that she deserved to have children and implied that I didn’t deserve them or a husband, etc. When were children, she was always telling me that no one liked me, that no one could like me, that I was stupid, fat and ugly, that I was driving mom and dad crazy with all my problems and needed to shut up and stop bothering them. Every day it was some nasty, hurtful comment or other. What floors me is the parents seldom called her on what she said and didn’t acknowledge the impact of it. Sometimes they told her to shut up, but this was typically at times like when they were driving and needed to focus on traffic. I always wondered why they never thought, “Whoa, what is wrong with this kid? Why is she always saying nasty stuff to her little sister? We need to take a good look at her, figure where this is coming from, and put a stop to her behavior.” Especially since, as the older we got, kids who knew both of us would say, “Jeez ‘Mary’, you’re really mean to your sister.”

Of course they had plenty of their own reasons why they never thought these things. They were both fairly estranged from their own families. My dad was bullied by an older sibling and this factored heavily into his having a poor self-image, a huge chip on his shoulder, and a hair-trigger temper. Neither of my parents were at peace with their estrangements but instead greatly absorbed with resentment to the point where it occupied their thoughts. (And sadly, I’m now repeating their behavior. Sigh!)

One day, I was feeling a lot of self-hatred but had a moment of detachment from my thoughts and decided to google ‘self-hatred’ in an attempt to figure out where it comes from. I found an interesting blog on it written by a therapist.