The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I think I'm damaged, and I think there's no repair. Especially because I've lived way to long with no self esteem to ever really get any back. My dad was not an alcoholic, but he might as well have been, the way he treated me, and still treats me is not how a father should treat a daughter. I left that home after 18 years and went straight to a home where a man told me he'd take care of me and love me and save me from my dad and I lived with him for 20 years.......only he became an alcoholic and to this day, I don't even know what he did to me, all I know is I have no self worth, or feel I'm good enough for anybody or anything. I'm super shy and just can't seem to get out of my shell. I dont think any amount of therapy can save me, so I feel doomed to a life of sadness and solitude.
Please don't believe the negitive messages they have given you about yourself. I think most of us, like you, know what it's like to not feel like we are worth as much as everyone else or as smart as everyone else. I know I do. All I can offer is what has started working for me. I am slowly changing the way I speak to and about myself. I don't criticize myself anymore, I just tell myself I'm doing the best I can and will handle things a little better next time. I praise myself for the little things just like I would a small child because I think that's what my damaged little inner child needs sometimes and didn't get. This is what works for me.
" You are smarter then you think, stronger then you know, and braver then you believe." ~ Christopher Robin
I felt exactly like you do, around the fall of '09.
My XABF had relapsed for the sixth time in 14 months and I was beating myself up for choosing another doomed man to have a relationship with. Asking myself if I would ever get this love stuff straight, or if there was even any possibility of finding a healthy relationship at the age of 45, and maybe I should just settle for what I had? On and on it went.
It created a kind of crisis for me, so I started looking into therapy. Also started reading like crazy. Some were books recommended by my therapist, some recommended by friends.
Carolyn M Ball Claiming Your Self Esteem
Muriel James Born to Win
John Bradshaw Healing the Shame that Binds You and Homecoming
My AMom died in Nov, then the XABF relapsed again just before Christmas. At this point my tailspin landed me in Al-Anon, and I had more reading to do! I've been devouring CAL ever since.
Since last Sept, I've gone from feeling hopelessly damaged and "I don't have enough lifetime left to fix this" to optimistism and the ability to see real progress that I've made. Some days it feels like every time I turn around there's a new insight waving at me.
One of the most useful tactics was to halt an old negative tape in my head and replace it with a slogan -- bit by bit, it really started to work.
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Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could... Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. - Emerson
Many of us here have felt the same as you. You are NOT damaged beyond repair. Find a good sponsor, read self help books. I agree with what ythannah wrote. Baby steps.... There are special blessings in every day, you just have to look for them.
I like to tell myself "i'm just having a bad day".... When I get caught up in putting myself down I try and convince myself that I'm not a bad person but I'm just having a bad day...
My life is like a roller coaster where one minute I feel strong and the next I feel like this horrible person that is not worthy of anything...
By me saying it's just a "bad day" it gives me hope that tomorrow or even an hour will get better...
I don't know if that makes any sense but I hope it helps = )
ps.. And I know what you mean by thinking they are going to protect and take care of us... I just lost the only man that ever truly cared for me (my father) 1 year ago last week... I feel like I have no one right now = (
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Courage is not a roar. Sometimes Courage is the small voice at the end of the day that says "I'll try again tomorrow"
Shanda my mother was also shy. It is a real characteristic, and is ok! Just like some people are extroverts.
I have some of it too.
Do you say negative things to yourself in your head? I know for me changing that was major for me.
It helped me to volunteer dog walking at the humane society.
You could just go sit in a nice retirement place and believe me your listening and talking to them would help you and them big time.
I love my solitude. Do not isolate though. I wish I had a mate, but I don't.
When I am involved with too many people I feel their pain and it is too much for me. Or there seems to be more hassles in my life.
I am super sensitive, so sometimes just going to a store and seeing someone mean to their kids bothers me.
Or if a employee is rude or cold to me I hate that. I do my best to hang in and usually they show their heart.
I know challenges help with the issues you speak of.
But yes I know what you mean about damage. We can only take so much! After so much death and loss in my life, I feel my heart is broken. When something or someone gets sick I am afraid they will die.
I do my best to push on and stop the negative stuff in my head. Scars are there. But hon you can add more to your life to cushion that stuff.
Animals are a major healer for me as you know. Doing rescue work made me realize how strong I am. Made me have to face some pretty evil people and horrible situations. Made me grow up.
I hope you read the post by "into the woods", which has the quote by Nelson Mandela.... You ARE worthy of happiness and a great life.... Please don't let anyone, yourself included, tell you otherwise.
Tom
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"He is either gonna drink, or he won't.... what are YOU gonna do?"
"What you think of me is none of my business"
"If you knew the answer to what you are worrying about, would it REALLY change anything?"
Hi Shanda, Im damaged goods too........Im recovering with your help, and the help of everyone here at MIP.............please keep coming back, I know I do and Im finding, and rebuilding, myself one day at a time.......because Im worth it, and so are you.
Aloha Sis...Welcome back and Hold on there!! Let the Lone Ranger (my early nickname) give you a hand up. Lone Ranger because I use to run and hide from my family and hide well I did. My natural behavior was isolation and preferred loneliness topped off with a nice icing of Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD...indeed!!) That also came with another personality which I developed for when I was out in society...Different name even and not the Lone Ranger...quite the opposite. Anyhow what I need to tell you is that your condition is temporary and when you are thinking that it cannot be fixed or changed recite these words to yourself, "I could be wrong." There is help both in the program and with professionals and what makes it all work is the attitude that it's all changable; fixable. I haven't used my nickname for over 17 years and my dual personality figure left and hasn't even written. Stop judging yourself negatively from the second it starts and repeat to yourself. "I could be wrong." Believe in your good self and keep coming back. (((((hugs)))))
What a powerful post you wrote ! A couple of years ago I could have written your same feelings down almost word for word. A couple of years ago if you had held a gun to my head and asked me what I was gratful for or what I thought my self worth was. I would have told you to just shoot me as a saw no hope, no peace, felt that I was so damaged I was unworthy of love.... I could go on. My only peace came with sleep and I would wake up in a complete panic attack the minute the sun would start to shine in. It just meant another day of agony and inner pain for me. I was on medication. seeing a therapist etc... nothing was working Someone finally gently lead me to Alanon I found out I was not alone..little by little I recognized things I could be gratful for. That people would love me if I allowed them too. That although I had been damaged that damage didn't have to define me and my outlook on life. I was worthy of happiness and peace. It is our God given right I worked the program as hard as I could, absorbed everything others had to share with me. I took what I liked and left the rest as they say. I almost wish I could say I would like to be back to the same person I once was... I thought I was strong, confident a leader.... but I see now much of that was a facade, a coping method I had learned to survive. Today I wish to be a better person..I've much to learn but am a willing student Today I have much to be gratful for even amongst the chaos that still lingers I am learning to know me, the me I was meant to be Like I said a couple of years ago I never thought any of this possible but it is Please know you are worthy, that people you may not even know about are gratful that you have touched thier lives, you deserve happiness. Make your HP your best friend for with him all is possible God Bless You on Your Journey and always remember you do not walk this journey alone.... We walk with you. You are not alone
My dear, many here can relate to your post and have been where you are including myself.
Getting a sponsor and working the steps I thought was supposed to help me see my character defects and apologize for my wrong-doings. It was that . . . but so much less than I thought it would be. I thought all the guilt and self-loathing I was carrying around was from a life lived poorly by a bad person.
Come to find out, when taking my own inventory, that I am a pretty good person and no one is going to love me until I love myself.
It is a slow process, but it can be done. Are you working with a sponsor? Attending meetings? Doing things for yourself that make you feel good?
We are here for you. Just start slowly and come and share the results with us. Lets see together if you can find the love you deserve right inside yourself.
Please keep coming back. We love you.
Tricia
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To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.
I too navigate the world under the belief that I was somehow born as a "lower grade" human being than others. This keeps me comfortable in my vicitm role where I do not need to take control of my life. I used to use that realization to beat myself up, but now I simply see it as fact. Intellectually, I KNOW that I am living in a world that is based on a distorted belief system. One day someone told me I was really self-centered and self involved. I balked at them. ME?!!?!? I have no self esteem, I feel worthless and undeserving of anything. I believe I destined for mere survival - if that- and not for living, let alone THRIVING!!! I came to realize that I could also be self centered if I believed myself to be what AA calls "Terminally unique" - I believed I was honestly THAT bad that the entire world conspired to prove this to me. The entire world does not revolve around my inadequacy and horribleness. This was a message I had internalized growing up and that I had used everything that happened to me as evidence to support my theory. My entire self concept was woven around this weak, defective, unchangeable girl who had to simply accept her shortcomings as her birthright. Today, I know I was taught to be a victim. Being a victim is comfortable for me. It is all that I know. It supports the belief that I am "less than" as I fear. It prevents me from taking any risks at all, because my self esteem is so fragile that it feels as though I will be destroyed if I were to take a liberty I don't believe I deserve and then somehow receive a negative message to support it. So, I don't try. I live in fear of that reality of myself and I dont' change. Fear keeps me stuck. In Alanon I learn that I am NOT alone - that so many of us have grown up with such messages and they are LIES. But we have come to see them as truths. I knew that a few days would not undo years of programming, but I had to be able to discern the "old" messages and behaviors and the new ones and realize that I had a choice not to act on them. Ilearned to discern what was based on the past. Without doing so I was only going to keep bringing my past (trauma, low self esteem) into my future and recreating it!
I was abused as a child and lived in this deep coat of shame for much of my life thus far. Would you say I was damaged or deserving of the abuse? (Sometimes it helps to look at it from others perspective and then understand that we are being as hard on ourselves as others are being on themselves!) I don't know how to change it overnight, but I do know that there are AMAZING, AMAZING people on this board who have reached out to me and extended their hope and I trust in the process of this program to allow me to believe in a level of peace I never thought could be possible.
-- Edited by RunnerChick on Saturday 24th of April 2010 06:10:45 AM
