I had my last therapy session today......freedom, horrible, horrible freedom! So now all that remains to be seen is will Tuesdays improve or continue to be my most hated day? Today was actually a good day, I was feeling a bit crap this morning, I seem to have a period that is taking fecking weeks to arrive!!! I mean it, I've bloody cramps and horrible mood swings, eating bread and chocolate....yes I know, but it's an insatiable hunger, well it is satiable, one piece of dark choc Toblerone a day does it! But still? The day improved as it went along, I was busy and I kept my mind engaged, I haven't looked at computer all day, maybe that's a good thing?
So my last session and I had to bring everything together, basically sum up my experience of therapy and what I felt had come of it, what had i discovered about myself.... easy enough to do? Not really, remember the therapist has a perfect memory and remembers exactly what I've said about everything (that's how they make sure you aren't lying) but I can't remember everything cos some weeks I was hysterical and upset! I did come to several conclusions which I'd like to share if you don't mind?
One, I have low self esteem brought on by the fact that as a young child I was often made to feel unimportant, not quite good enough, example a childs painting or drawing, my dad would often point out how I could make it better...therefore it wasn't good enough as it was and I wasn't good enough as i was. Conversely my mother never had time to look at pictures.
Two, my parents were bad parents, they both told me from a very young age that they wished they hadn't had children. They fought a lot and my dad drank a lot, he told me in the early hours of one morning after they'd had a physical fight that it was my fault, I was the eldest, if they hadn't had kids their lives would have been happy.
Three, I always felt like my marraige wasn't going to last, my experiences of men are not good...I distrust them, my mum pities men "what do you expect? He's only a man" and on Christmas Eve when I was nine and my brother was six they fought and our dad asked us who we wanted to live with him or my mum, we both said mum and he drove off, he was back by christmas morning, there is the annual photo of us that morning which I hate, I have kept it in a album though, I look so sad, I have to say the twinkle is gone out of my eyes. My parents still argue, they stayed together, tied tightly to each other by bitterness, i don't think marraige works.
Four, I am afraid to ask for things because I fear rejection, if I ask for a favour from someone, I have to really psyche myself up, if they say no I personally feel rejected. Rationally I know this is silly, if I say no to a request I'm not rejecting that individual but for me it's different. My parents made me work too hard for everything, both physically and emotionally, nothing was ever given easily or without some sort of emotional cost, i feel like that now with my ex partner (although I didn't feel that way in the relationship).
Five, I strive to be perfect, because if I am perfect people will like and accept me (for people read my parents..inner child needs a hug) I have to remember I am only human, and my parents were only human and my children are only human, "Good enough" is good enough!
I am a loving, caring, intelligent, beautiful, interesting woman, I have discovered what I want from life and I have the tools to get it, I need the courage to ask for the help and rescourses to get there! Today was the end of my therapy, the end of the relationship with my therapist but the begining of a new chapter in my life, no, actually like a brand new 120 page copy book when I was in school, the excitement I got when I wrote on that first perfectly smooth page!
I hope this post wasn't too me me me! But then feck it it's my bloomin blog! It's all me me me!
10 comments:
Fair play and best of luck. As for the dad and blame thing, what on earth was that all about? Little people need love, hugs and encouragement, not emotional blackmail and guilt, they'll get enough of that sort of crap when they get to adulthood. Draw a line in the sand, step over it and leave the crud behind.
Good god, Midge. What a huge amount to learn - and how much sense does all this make about how you're feeling right now, especially about motherhood?
My maternal granmother's mother died of pneumonia, I think, and she and her brother were sent to livewith an evil aunt who told her she killed her mother. My grandmother was loving towards my mother until she reached four, the same age my great grandmother had died. Then she pretty much rejected her. My mother used to scream at us 'You're killing me!!' fairly regularly (and both my grandmother and mother died of cancer, just to make it all the more convincing!).
There is no question that we replay these formative ideas in our own lives. It's a question of having hte awareness and wherewithal to step out of the pattern, the grooves of hte record.
You've summed up your therapy with amazing succintness. NOw if you can just do something positive about it, you'll be able to write an incredibly successful self help book!
PS A big hug to little inner Midge.
Thriftcriminal, Dad his own issues with his parents and the past, which he never dealt with! I have left the crud behind, but as Jo said it'a an ongoing battle, ignoring the negative inner voice and focusing on the positive! I'm doing better and the blog is a positive rescourse for me.
Jo I know, the parenting issues are connected to my own childhood, and then that's connected to their childhoods.....infinity!
Thanks for the hug!
No! Reject the infinity! Fight it!
I am fighting it now, but I mean for the parents and their parents etc....
Oh, I see now. Of course. Duh.
Oh MW that's really very sad and you must still feel a lot of pain from those experiences as a child.
I'm so uplifted by your last paragraph, I do hope you are too and that that is how you really, really feel now. It means that the therapy has been a huge success, right? Keep writing about it MW and get it out there!
I'm with Ash...you're recognizing it, so that's a bigger step than anyone else has taken!
Blank slate, baby. Every morning can be a blank slate. I'll buy you some lovely paint for it.
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