Hi Jan and Sapphira,

I was moved deeply by both your responses, thank you
I want to say a whole lot of things but I don't have the time now.
There is one thing though that I have to react on now.......

Jan, you said;

"It makes me feel pathetic for talking about the problems I have had, they are nothing compared to your experiences"

I read this and feel pain .....There are two things I like to make clear about it.

I will tell a story;

We are here on this planet as human beings to learn our lives lessons. Every individual has his or her own lessons.
They...every human being, get they're own share of trouble to deal with. Some people are stronger than others or there talents are in a different area, we tend to say. Or we say if somebody tells something..My god this is more terrible than what I lived through.

Imagine this;
There is a person who is not very strong and can lift a weight of 5 pounds.
The problems this person stumbles onto have a weight of 5 pounds , so this person has to use all the strenght there is to lift it ..It's very heavy!!!

There is an other person , This person is a bit stronger and is able to lift a weight of 50 pounds. The problems this person stumbles onto have a weight of 50 pounds, so this person has to use all the strenght there is to lift it.....It's very heavy!!!

Now there is also a third person. This person is able to lift a weight of 500 pounds!
The problem this person stumbles on to have a weight of 500 pounds, so this person has to use all the stenght there is to lift it....It's very heavy!!!

Can you please tell me which person is having to most problems lifting there weight???

I think it's clear what I want to say....
It's all in who you are, what is your caracter and personallity, what are your talents, how do you use them ?I am convinsed that you can do other things I could never ever dream about doing!.

I think there has to be respect for everybodies story whatever simple it seems to be,but also however difficult it seems to be. We never know what makes a person do things, we can't feel what another person is feeling, what makes them do things, we can relate..but nothing more!!!

The second thing is, and this is happening a lot to me and no doubt to others....
In my live there are not very much people who know what has happend in my live. Yeah, they know it wasn't very nice... But what really happend,no I rarely tell and IF I tell than bits and pieces. The reason I can't tell it all?
It's because every single person react the same way...

It makes me feel pathetic for talking about the problems I have had, they are nothing compared to your experiences"


I understand..... I respect what you say.... and thank you for the recognition you give me...
There is another site to it...If so many people respond this way, you can probably imagine that I ( and more important;...the others!!)will shut down. I simply can't tell anything because I don't want people to shut down because of it!!!
It's not oke that I tell something and that would mean others don't want to tell they're stories because THEY think it's less painfull, important, hard, or whatever.....

EVERY body here is hurt, everybody here knows by living it how painfull this life with a p is. Everybody knows what we mean as we talk about shame, feeling of quilt, frustration and so on..There is no real difference.

I take myself as example but I mean this as a loving warning...Please don't shut people down . I know you are a great person and I do know what you mean to say. But please tell me you will keep recognizing your own valid story.
You know what;
There is no label on pain...there is no label on feeling alone, there is no label on feeling ashamed about other peoples habits,there is no label on emotions whatsoever. There are simply emotions!
No matter what situation started it.it's there...and its there to deal with and to learn from it..
it is really as simple as that!


Somebody send me a card once with the following words. I will try to translate as good as possibble;



Before HE send his children to earth.
HE gave each of them a very carefull selected package of problems.

These, He promised smiling, are yours and yours alone. Nobody else can expirience the blessings these problems will give to you.

And you alone have the special talents en creative possibilyties to make these problems your servants.

Now, go down to your birth and forget.
Know I will love you without any limits.
The problems I give you are the symbol of that love.

The monument you make of your live with help of these problems will be a symbol of your love towards ME...

Your Father

Segaya

Thanks for that post. It has spoken to me deeply.



This has answered a lot of things for me.

Dear Segaya,

I've been sitting with your post for the last few days. So many thoughts and feelings after what you wrote, I'm not quite sure where to start. My mind feels like a slow moving picture of the milky way. To be honest I didn't really expect to find quite the degree of reflection that I have here. A case of be careful what you ask for - in the nicest possible way:) I really do want to communicate about this but I feel as though my words are sealed up inside so deeply. I spent a large part of the last 20 years a virtual recluse and my 'talking' was onto paper. It was the only way to protect myself, as I had no self protecting mechanisms, I suppose, other than withdrawl. It's quite an adjustment connecting with this forum. For me the only safe place was on my own. I need time to know that this isn't a dream, and that it is safe. I think that will help to start. It's so unlikely and is probably a bit paranoid but I'm terrified of putting details of my life out there. My inner world is ok because no one could identify me from that. Segaya, I just wanted to tell you that my mother was also keeper of the gate, and from a very young age, instead of keeping it closed and (other) predators out, she opened the gate up to them - and had lunch with them afterwards! I hear your story and I recognise the chamber, with the door open you've just stepped in through and the door in front that leads on but will remain closed, for now. Just one room in the haunted house. And maybe to share another room with someone else - "bits and pieces". Hearing from you has opened a light into very tight corners. In way I feel a bit embarrassed at feeling so affected, but I have been and I say that, not to put any load on you, but, why...let me think. Maybe because I kind of know where you were may been speaking from and it is important to me to respond to your words and respect for your experience, and I just find it hard to say anything much because what you said is very real to me, and I just need to absorb and deal with what it is touching on in me. Like you said, the grief, I suppose. I hope I'm making some sense here. Thank you for listening..
Sapphira

Dear sapphira,

You make a lot of sense, I know exectly what you mean.
It's overwelming to hear words or read words 'out loud' that you are scared even to think about!
We have a saying here;'The punnishment of silence is for life.'
This can mean a lot of things.
What happend to us, and also to others here on this forum, can only contineu in silence and because of silence. The grip these events( people)have on us can also only go on as long as we stay in silence.
I promised myself AND all other vitctems to break the silence.

I don't tell things to hurt people, I want to wake them up. Take charge of your own life. Be the one yourself to safe you.
The only one who can stop abuse, in whatever form it comes, is YOU. I can't stop it for you or for anyone else. I can only try to help find the inner strenght that is needed to take action.

You say that you are terrified to tell these things...Nobody will ever forse you to tell them. Even more so...there is no need to tell the details, it's clear for people who recognize it and these people will only be the ones who know it because they lived the same way you did. Nobody else will notice!!!!
I don't mean saying this that walking on the street or doing some shopping people will know. I mean that as soon as you tell a little the good ones will pick up the signals and will respect you.
I work with victems for 22 years now. Only 1 time some woman told details because she thought she had to. After insuring her that it is oke if that's her choice but not neccessary she was very relieved. Know that if you want to share somethings it's oke.... But it's also oke if you don't..YOU are in charge now.

If somebody hit you hard on your arm there will be a bruse and after a week that mark is gone.it's not so very very impotant. The feelings it caused are importend. You start thinking about what you did wrong, why did that person hit you, 'Am I a bad person who deserves punishment'there will be shame and feeling of quilt.
These are the things that are important to deal with.

Take your time to get used to being heard.Take time to feel safe on this forum. Indeed bits and pieces..nothing to big, nothing to deep.... it will all come in time..It will find a way and life itself will bring solutions, you will see!

I want to say to you that in time you will find that you have a lot of self protecting mechanisms. It's oke.They are there for a purpose and they did well!
You are here and kicking live!!

You are a possitive person and that is because how well you did in the past. You prooved to be increddible strong, and you kept strong for all these years that you had to survive.
I don't see self-pitty in you writings ...I see somebody who finally found a place where people speak freely. This can be shocking at first, but it will give inside for you in others live and show you that you are not alone. And also time to read about what others write and how they dealed with surcomstances.

Take your time....read, react. Tell your own things when YOU are readdy
Start with small, small things and wait how people respond. You will see that people will not attack you, that they will treat you as the adult, respectfull person you are.

And remember; all the energy you used in the past is still there and now you can use it to built yourself up to the level that YOU choose to be on. Nobody can stop you..Nobody will prevent this to happen if you don't want that!!!


If there is anything you want to talk about. If there are questions, ideas, If you want to shout, scream, cry,laugh or joke about. If you need motivation, stimulation or support ;We are here!!!!
Love Segaya

Dear Sapphira and Segaya

I am so pleased that the two of you have come together. You share the same problem and it must be a huge relief for you Sapphira to know that somebody understands every word you write.
I can see what you are saying and Segaya is right, there is no need for you to spell out in words what is in your head, the right people understand.

It is your choice what you want to tell and what you would like to be left unsaid, you are in control. I, too, am amazed that you have come this far already.

I do look forward to following your progress as I can see you are an extremely strong person and will move forward at the pace you feel comfortable with.
It does help to write things down but there is no need to post these thoughts on the forum but you can use the forum to support you through the journey you have embarked on. Please feel free to get of any negativity if you need to, there will always be someone around to listen so you don’t feel alone. There is nothing worse than lying awake at night with terrible things going round in your head and you feel like the only person in the world who is awake.


I feel you will become one of the people here who goes on to be a huge source of comfort to others.

My thoughts are with you both.
Regards
Jan

Dear Segaya and Jan,

I am very grateful for your words, thank you. And as it happened I had been awake in the middle of the night feeling like the proverbial, and got up to read the forum, and got your two posts. That was neat

Yes, it is at certain times overwhelming to hear said back what was for me. Obviously there are some differences, but there is a knowing of feeling that passes through the barrier of words and it is incredible after 43 years, to know truly, deeply, I'm not the only one to have known this. That is so freeing. I actually felt as though the great gapping hole beneath my feet just closed up - like I'd finally hit the bottom of the bucket - and now I can use that ground to bounce back up. It's time to move on some.

You say that the strength that got me through is still there to create the life I now want. Part of me seemed to believe that the energy was only there as a kind of crisis mechanism and that once I got some control then it would go. I think it may have to do with the feeling from so young that things can only go well for so long before something outrageous, often sadistic, would hit me from behind as it inevitably did. And it always seemed to come when things were 'good' - in my mind. Now I understand it more, it was really a case of when things were quiet and calm, or boring, in her mind. She needed her shot of stimulation, like lift off into space, from normality into this kind of hyperspace zone. It was like food to her. She was almost always incredibly calm (in an unnerving kind of way) except when she'd achieved lift off around her and she'd have this absolute glee come over her, a total delight from it all, and she'd head off all charged up and at peace with the world, while I tried to hold onto my sanity. This kind of behaviour seemed totally without logic, but I'm learning really there is - just not our logic.

Her work involved life and death emergencies, every day for many, many years. I have never, once, in my entire life seen her afraid. She was always in charge, literally and figuratively. Cool and calm. But it makes sense she could handle these types of situations...Actually, now I understand why I get extremely anxious, to the point to almost paranoid when things are going well because it's like - what's coming, something has to come? It's hard to come out of crisis mode because there's a different bunch of feelings to adjust to. And I see that in the past I probably self sabotaged my hard earned tranquility just to relieve some of the anxiety witha dose of chaos. But I'm starting to get a handle on that.

One thing I have got from reading the discussions so far, and especially from you Segara, what you were saying about the energy. I felt shattered to my core. Defeated, crawling through life. It seemed that after all the shattering, what else is there? Now I tell myself, yes, the mirror has shattered, now create a mosaic. I see that you have done this. Taken the shattered pieces and created anew. You have become a great support to others and I hope too to find a way to transform these experiences for the better. I was so uplifted when you said, Jan, you feel I could become a support to others, because inside I need to know it wasn't all in vain. Part of me is very determined about that. Right now my goal is to keep working through what reading the forum brings up for me, continuing to learn, writing heaps, as you say, and learning to cope with the calm and ensuing paranoia when it hits the high notes. My other goal is to keep pulling the two realities together. I know that I will find reality and grounding here.

Again, I just want you to know that I am extremely grateful for your site, for your encouragement and your real understanding.

Sapphira.

Actually, there was something else you said Segaya, about being the one to save myself, that reminded me about the list of rules. I'd like to add "Being your own best friend and advocate - or learning how to become that". What we never had growing up with these people was a sense of someone being on our side - unconditionally and completely. I do know that it is hard to learn this when there may have been few, if any, people in our lives who were there to love us and to teach us how to do this, but it can be learned. We have to be that one person there for us, at least.

Sapphira

Do you have any idea Sapphira how possitive you 'sound'?
You make me a happy perso this way!!!!

You are right. It is hard to have any inside of who you are without the scenario of how things were before.
You know how to be a victem, You know how to survive,You know things others don't even have nightmares about.... But how to handle normal live. No problems in sight for a while... Scaring!!!!
What helped me a lot by getting back my feelings;
I was always a person who wants to help/save others. I had nothing that held me back.I was worthless so I was able to protect others even if that ment I was getting hurt myself because I wasn't importend anyway.
The way I learned to chance that behavior and to think a little better about myself ( and build that up during the years) was to project my problems onto somebody else..
In my mind there was a little girl, she looked a lot like me and was living the same life i ha dto live...
If I stumbled up to something and puss the feelings away I thought of that girl, who wasn't me, in my head. If I was to help her, what should I do next?
If there was trouble for me feeling what happpend because it was to hard to feel it again or 'to far away'....
I thought about the girl again . I was able to shed some tears...1 or 2 and than it stopped again. I pushed it away.
But in time I found that it really helped me.. I dealed with it all by pojecting things to somebody else that needed help and care and thought about how to solve they're problem or how to comfort that person. If I could feel it very clear I would take the feelig and make it my own again...
The dinial of my own pain and grief and lonelyness was overwelming but this way I could handle to make it 'real'to me and work with it.
Now after a lot of years I can feel my own feelings and don't need this projecting skill anymore.
it also teached me what the feelings were. i didn't know exacly the diffrence between the nuances of one feeling or the other. It is importend to know because if you can't name it, than you don't know how to handle it. People who can't, always seem to be angry because at least they know how to be angry.I didn't want to be an angry person the rest of my life so I had to sort out all emotions and how to act/express them.

I am so happy you found that you have a starting point now...This is the first day of the rest of your live...And everything is possible.....'
Love Segaya

Hi, Segaya...I just read your sad story, and wanted to connect with you on it. Of course it broke my heart, but it made me remember things too. When I was in high school, I used to get up, and since I had no friends and wasn't allowed out, I would start cleaning too. I dusted and polished, washed the kitchen floor with a scrub mop and a metal bucket, swept up the kitchen, did the dishes, put everything away, went through the newspapers to go out, organized the mail, cleaned the bathroom, swept the hall, vacuumed and polished the floors. I wanted everything done by the time my mother came home, so she would walk into a glittering, clean, lovely home. Of course I was hoping for fulsome praise, as I needed to feel like I mattered. After hours of work, when everything was perfect, she and my brothers would usually arrive home at the same time. When my brothers came in, they would toss their coats and books and shoes anywhere, leave things all over, and mess up the place. They were both older than me, so they weren't children, and ignored my pleas to pick up. So when Mom came home, the effect was ruined. She would thank me for what I did, but it just didn't matter how hard I had worked and that they had spoiled it. She never criticized or scolded them, in reference to me. They could just ruin all the work I had done, as if it didn't matter.

My Psychopath sister (also older) shared a room with me, if you could call it that, and used to get up in the middle of the night and beat me. She finally got what she wanted by throwing out my bed and furniture (supposedly without my parents' knowing) so I had nowhere to sleep when I came home. I think they might have noticed that a bed was missing, but they chose to believe her. In order to keep her happy, my parents moved me into the front porch, put an iron bed frame in a corner of the radiator, behind the front door. No furniture, no privacy, no closet. Everytime someone came to the front door, there I was. And my beloved, darling pet cat, who loved me, was no longer allowed out there to sleep with me. That was the worst thing. They told me I could "still use the bedroom", but I wasn't allowed by Psychopath sister to get something out of the closet, or even look in the mirror. I wasn't allowed to look in the mirror. Can you even imagine what that did to me? And my parents kept pretending it wasn't happening. There was never an instance in my life where they said, " What about her? Do you think that's fair to her?" Never. Never.

When I went home for my father's funeral, my future husband came with me, having never met these people. I had to take him through my sister's room (formerly mine) to get to the attic where I was supposed to sleep. She demanded we not turn on the light, so he of course did, being afraid of nothing. After he saw her messy room, and watched me creep past the mirror, I took him up the stairs to the attic. He walked into the right side (there are no rooms), and saw an area filled with boxes and furniture and everything you keep in an attic. On the right side was the same iron bed with a bare mattress, covered with boxes. There wasn't even a path to the "bed". He had heard all about this but to be confronted with it was something else. He couldn't believe that no-one had even bothered to "make the bed" for me, much less clear out a space. He looked at me with tears in his eyes, and said, "you poor thing". Then he flew downstairs in a rage and started to make hotel reservations. He said it was either that or we'd be having a funeral for more family than my father the next day! He said the only reason he didn't kill my sister and slap my mother's face was because she was a recent widow. When we went to the first wake service, I had to ask permission to get dressed in my Psychopath sister's room, and then she complained about it. She told me to do my makeup in the bathroom or my mother's room and not to look in the mirror to do my hair. When we got to the service, my uncles and aunts were there. My uncles ignored me, and my aunt criticized me when I wanted Dad to have a flower; she said "you've had enough concessions". LIke what? Being allowed to come to the funeral? That one piece of cruelty broke my heart, and I felt like an unwanted selfish monster. I had brought pictures of the family to be put in with Dad; I showed them to my mother. Later I turned around, and my mother, brothers, and sister were at the casket, putting the pictures in without me. Like I wasn't even there, and I was the one who had brought them. It was so bad my future husband couldn't even attend one of the wakes, because he had to stay away from my family, lest he do them bodily harm. (He stayed home with my cat and they had a long talk. )

This is still continuing today. Nothing has changed. I asked my mother to let me make a copy of the only family album we have, for safety's sake, and to give everyone a copy. She has stalled me for ten years (I'm not exaggerating). This Xmas my Psychopath sister produced a copy for everyone. They just gave her the album to copy (badly), Never mentioned it to me. I asked to see my aunt's papers for genealogy purposes, and my mother gave them to my brother, who has hidden them away. Still tells me I can have them, yet it never happens. I asked to look at a box of my father's family papers, for genealogy, in 1987. It's one green metal box, sitting on his desk. "You'll get them, you'll get them", my mother says. In 1998, my husband sent me downstairs with instructions to take the box, copy the documents, and return them. So I did. In there was the only existing photograph of my great-grandfather in 1892, with geneaological information. They never knew I had copied them, and the box is still sitting there, untouched, and no-one has ever shown them to me. As far they know, I am still waiting. And apparently that's okay. It doesn't matter how I feel about it. The cruelty of making me watch while Psychopath sister hands out copies of the album in front of me, is beyond belief. I don't know if they enjoy it or they are oblivious because I don't count. The least they could have done is said, "I know you asked for this, but..". Not a single acknowledgment of how I feel or that I am there at all, and that sentence sums up my entire life.

I can't even get into the issue of "who gets what". So far, my mother has given my brother my father's collections, the family papers, and the house. The house. That she always said was for all of us. Never even told me, either. It just slipped out. Now, she wants me to come over and clean it for her, because my brother won't. Are these people insane? How do they keep dismissing me, as if I don't exist and have no feelings, over and over again? My husband says this is why, when he met me, I acted as if I don't exist. He watched me slip out of rooms, and have nothing to say, and never ask for anything, and he thought, "what happened to this girl?". Then, of course, he met them and realized it was worse than I ever said. When we moved in together, I used to ask him if I could "eat that piece of chicken", and things like that. He said, "Baby, you can eat anything, have anything, do anything you want." Then he started buying me Barbie dolls because he knew I never had them! Of course it helps keep me pink!

I am so sorry to everyone for having vented like this; I didn't realize it would be so long, but selfishly I have to say it helped me to write it, even through the tears. Segaya, I'm so sorry for what you went through. I wish I could send you sandwiches and milk and toys. (Do you like Barbies?) I'm so proud of you that you are a therapist, and bringing your pain to help others. I bet you are a wonderful counselor. I wish I had done something with my life, but I wasted it in suffering, although I have to admit that no-one can clean a floor like me. I'm as good as a navvy with a metal bucket and mop wringer. Some achievement, huh?

Stay well in pink, Girly friend...
love, Lady Crown

Hi Lady Crown

Please don't apologise, you didn't vent. You gave a clear picture of what your life was like and if that helps you come to terms with that existance then this forum has been made worthwhile. As I read I could feel a chasm of hurt and emptiness and understand your need to please these people to get the love and respect you deserved. It's not your fault they were inadequate and shows that they didn't bring you down to their base level.

Your husband sounds wonderful, such a strong character so he must give you a great sense of security.
It appears you are making huge strides in moving forward and I hope it continues. I wish you and your husband will enjoy the peace of mind you find. I'm sure you will find some peace of mind because of the way you are dealing with your past. I'm full of admiration that you have gone through this and not become bitter and can talk about it in such a rational way.
You too, have acted as a therapist as you have shown how it's possible to get an insight into what happened and will be able to share that experience to help others.

It will be good to follow your progress and my best wishes to you and that man of yours! Has he got any brothers :)?

Regards
Jan