Wow! Reading the posts after the Day 8 session was a real eye opener for me. And here I was, thinking I was the only one that made excuses for my condition; that I was broken, damaged goods; that I was the only one who was abused (my father used to hit us [my brother and me] with a leather belt and buckle. And my mother never interfered even though we always ran to hide behind her. But my father always came after us). I grew up hating my father; I remember writing little notes and hiding them around my room--all the notes said pretty much the same thing, that I wished he were dead. The beatings became less as I grew up, but my father found other ways to ruin my youth, putting on curfews when I wanted to go out with friends; not allowing me to move out with friends at age 20 or 21 (I can't remember now). He always said "If you move out you're never coming back through our door!); and then my mum would tell me not to fight so much with him, and to try and keep the peace for her sake.
It took me years, until I discovered via a counsellor, that my mother was just as abusive as my dad in the fact that she never validated how I felt or stood up for me and my brother. It was always about "stop arguing with your father. Try and keep the peace, for my sake!" Intellectually, I understand now that she had her own issues, but to say this to me, when I was young and impressionable, went further to damage me; even when I pointed out to her a couple of times that I thought my father's and her behaviour had a big effect on my brother and me. Again, she berated me and told me off for blaming them. It's a long, long story, and only now, at age 56, I am beginning to discover how truly damaging my parents were to both my brother and me.
It's no wonder I have so self-love! I was brought up to believe that I was never good enough; certainly, my father never told me he was proud of me. I cannot recall ever being told "I love you" by either parent, and now I know why whenever I was told "I love you" by a partner, I never believed them. I never believed in compliments men paid me either, or when someone said I was talented or clever, or whatever.
Of course, I picked all the wrong men to become involved with--mostly abusive, one way or another. But my father was the only one to beat me (and only up to a certain age); I put a stop to this when I started doing martial arts (and thank you, Bruce Lee, for inspiring me through your movies!). I never forget, when I was 18 years, I returned home from a night out and I was late on my midnight curfew by about 5 minutes. I crept into the house, everything was quiet. I thought I was safe, walking into my bedroom, which was dark. Then, suddenly, a pair of hands were at my neck, trying to choke me, while my father's voice yelled at me for being late and how he was going to let me have it (or words to that effect). But unlike all the other times, when I was little and helpless, I went straight into action this time: I broke his hold and pushed him back. He was totally stunned. And then, I told him: "You touch me again and I'll kill you." Honestly, it was like a scene in an action film. My father NEVER touched me again after this. But I still had an ingrained fear of him, and the arguments went on, as did the threats that if I walked out of his home never bother coming back again.
Unfortunately, as a result of these threats, I married the wrong man in order to get out from under my father's roof. But I walked from one abusive home into a worse one. My husband had a horrible temper and he was very abusive, always putting me down, yelling at me, treating me like dirt. Of course, the one thing he could not do was hit me. Ironically, he tried to choke me, too. This was one day when we went to the beach and we had an argument. I broke the hold and threw him down on the sand, punching him in the stomach really hard, and leaving him there to walk home while I drove off.
What's interesting is that I've always been told I was an angry person, but the thing is I've always treated everyone with compassion, and if anything, I was too sensitive to suffering. I cried so many times when I watched news of someone being abused, or people being murdered, or animals being mistreated.... I'm a sucker for all kinds of suffering that affects humanity and our planet; and yet, here I am, probably abusing myself now that there is no one else to abuse me. I know this because aside from all the negative things I tell myself, when I developed pudendal neuralgia, I told myself this was a punishment. It took me about eight years to get this thought out of my head, and now that I'm up to year nine of PN, I still catch myself sometimes asking: "What did I ever do to deserve this?" And then I berate myself for having such a victim mentality.
The good thing is that I now do things to please myself (mind you, I live alone, so I don't have to please anyone else except a very demanding kitty cat)
But when my second husband left me shortly after I developed PN, I must say I was secretly relieved because, like a fool, I was doing everything I could to please him to make up for the fact that I couldn't work.
