I have people in my life that accept me and love me now. But I still can't accept and love myself. I don't trust them to actually accept and love the real me. They accept and love the adult me that developed after years of being molded by my parents.
I don't know any other me. I can try my hardest to be the real me, but I can't re-raise myself from scratch.
When I was a child, I wasn't accepted or loved. That was the core me, the one that could have developed differently.
So, I'm bad at the core. There's something fundamentally wrong with me. I hate and loathe this child at the core of me.
Sure, now that I'm a decent, articulate, generally well-behaved adult, people can accept what they see on the surface. But if they saw through to the faulty unlovable core, they'd hate the real me - the whiny, boring, annoying, weak, loud, pathetic, sensitive brat at the core - just as much as I do.
(I know this is irrational rubbish, but I've just realized after therapy that this is how I feel deep down).
The parents defined that Little One that is you. Is there any reason to give them that power knowing now how screwed up they are? Do you believe their definition has value? Integrity? Validity? Did they ever indicate they wanted to know the real you? Or did they simply cut-'n-paste a bunch of labels to keep you subservient and too cowed to challenge their reality?
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PA,
ReplyDeleteI fought the roles that the NP's forced me into as a child long into adulthood and even after complete NC. The only advice I have is to be patient with yourself and to question, question, question every negative label that you think applies to yourself. Who told you that you were whiny? Annoying? Weak? Who tells a child this? Would you tell YOUR children these things about themselves?
Knowing that we are better than we've been told we are all our lives takes time to absorb. The intellectual process of learning that we might not be what we've always been told we are is the first step, but believing this in our hearts is a process that takes time, reinforcement and lots of practice.
I was told that I was clumsy all my life, that I shouldn't dance because I was too clumsy, that I shouldn't try to be graceful because it was impossible. So I didn't try. One day I questioned it enough to try, and discovered that with the right partner and music, I can rock the tango.
Until Dorothy had the courage to pull back the curtain, the professor was the Great and Powerful Oz.
Love,
Vanci
I always thought I was a weird little kid until counseling I learned I was a little kid raised in a weird world. Took me a long time to feel loveable about myself. I still struggle with it from time to time. Like Vanci I had an adult tell me something about myself. An art teacher told me I was so bad at art to never take another art class. I fell in love with photography and ended up with a bachelors degree with honors in art. A different perspective on the real core you a child expected to behave like an adult, have adult interest, parrot back exactly what the unreasonable adults expected, given responsibilities that were not age appropriate...would you like me to keep going? I still cherish the sessions my counselor taught me to love and appreciate my core self. I bet your core self was amazing if someone had treated her with the respect she deserved. I learned a lot. It takes a while to feel it. Hugs.
ReplyDeletelove her love her love her. She's precious and good. Just because you weren't loved doesn't mean you were/are unloveable!
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For what it's worth, one more realization: part of narcissistic parents' method is to convince you that no one else's affection is as valuable or genuine as theirs. That is so completely upside-down.
ReplyDeleteIn case it's necessary to say so, the love of the people who really love you is top-quality love.
-GKA
sorry, I know how you feel.. And it sucks. I can identify with what you say how one feels deep down as In-authentic, even flawed, something Missing.
ReplyDeleteif we would have grown as other kids in some Nurturing and loving Homes , we may have had real genuine personalities and real grounded selves,
For me I identify with it as this is not really who we are.. And it sucks to know we will never know what kind of person one would turn out to be, but if one remember ours was about survival , there is really no Love in Narcissists just objects and extensions of themselves pleasing them was the only way. If we did bad, we are bad, when we do good its good for them and Comes the temporal approval. Reason if possible with you one should distance oneself from them even permanently.
Once you realise what it passed as love is so fucked up since it was about them and very conditional and if one is brave enough to stare at the Abyss that is what it really is
our Heavenly Father loves us perfectly and un-conditionally, I know its hard to think of un-conditional love,It's even un-fathomable. So hard to believe There is love after Your whole life being given some warped sense of"love"..
Conditional love is not love even God knows that.. Reason scripture says Fear works torment and whoever follows God out of fear has not been perfected by love.
creates doubt, dread, tension, does it explain how one felt Then with it comes blurred line between love and fear love builds, fear shrinks .
I also struggle with love/ fear now that The grace of God , found me. I often wonder since, I had done some sprucing up of my personality, was it so people could accept me? Or even I wanted to get rid of bad emotional stuff
Now as a born again believer under the grace of God, do i serve him when I really dont know what real is..
Then one realises with such a warped way one cannot even know. And God perfected us in christ..when he looks at us he doesn't see the hall of mirrors.. He sees The perfection of Christ
oh wow, I just found this...this struck a cord with me...it explains so much! Everything I did was wrong-I was too sensitive, too smart (I dont understand that one), too emotional....had to be a quiet, well behaved kid who only showed happiness...anything else got punished. Now I'm 43 and trying to figure out who I am....who is the real ME...and is anyone going to like me.
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