I have struggled most of my life with not allowing what others say to rule my life. So much criticism. My mother started with all of us. She was a bundle of anxiety and felt that everyone was judging her and that we kids were the extension of what other people judged her by. She criticized our weight, our hair, our friends, our actions...always criticized. She raised us to believe that we could not think on our own. While I took care of myself more than my other siblings only because of timing....mom had my 2 younger siblings to take care of plus her father because she was the youngest of 7 and lived the closest to him...plus her siblings were all so very self centered...I still came to believe that I never made the right decisions and I was just one bad decision away from ruining my whole life.
When you go to school, the other kids are always judging. I was a chubby child and I word glasses from the time I was 7 years old. The voice in my head was constantly telling me I was not good enough...to keep quiet or I would be noticed and laughed at. I had friends. People liked me but the voice in my head never let up. In Jr. High I lost my chubbiness. I was thin and boys started to notice me. I had lots of friends but that group would get into arguments and 'pick sides' and the arguments made me anxious. I did not want to be drawn into the mean words and criticism so I would distance myself and date. But the boys expected me to be a certain way too. They started bossing and wanting to direct me and I would drop them too. Always being TOLD by someone what I should do and who I should be...even be told by others who I am when I didn't feel like that person they saw. I just put up walls and kept people at a distance.
I went through most of college being engaged. Randy was there, and I trusted him but then it started causing me a lot of anxiety. It became clear that he was a passive-aggressive. He manipulated me by constantly being there, making me feel guilty/self centered. When I graduated from college he told me that he was glad I was done with that nonsense and wanted me to just stay home and take care of him and have children...I knew I was not really important to him at all. Someone else to direct my life and my thoughts.
When I finally got out there on my own, it was scary. For the first time in my life, I had to make my own decisions. I wore what I wanted, did what I wanted, took care of myself. I didn't make good decisions all the time. I went a little wild. Then I got tired of it and met the guy I married.
I married him because he didn't seem to try to 'direct' my life. We got married and he didn't seem to pay attention to me at all. He went the other way too far. I felt like I was in a relationship where I was replacing his mom...I took care of everything. He went about his life enjoying himself...and the only time he gave me any attention is when he wanted sex.
I thought that it was because he wasn't happy about the jobs he had to work and I helped him get into the school he had wanted to go to in order to get the career he wanted. Once he was out, we ended up having to move to another state, far away from family. We had 2 small children by then. Once I got there, I was shocked by the person he had become. Suddenly he was a bully. He talked to me like I was NOT someone he even liked. He ordered me around and yelled at me like I was a brainless twit.
I was separated from everyone I ever counted on and there was no support. He partied with people I didn't know and I was with the kids. I tried getting a job in the evenings when he could be with the kids...but he would drag them off to a friend's and make them sit in front of TV and yell at them if they moved. I had to quit my job. I didn't want to try and hire a babysitter because at that time there was a lot of reports on TV about parents finding out their kids were being abused by babysitters. That was more anxiety than I could handle.
Then he started being physical with our young son. I knew I had to escape. He was angry at me because by then, there was no sex life. I was so very anxious...having panic attacks...and dangerously depressed at the same time. I got a job at a local daycare working as a pre-K teacher and l loved that job. Our daughter went to work with me and was in a room down the hall where I could keep an eye on her. And I could take my son to school and be home when he got off the bus. I saved what money I could and plotted our 'escape'. I talked Troy into letting me and the kids move back 'home' and stay with our parents while he went through his transition into another job. He had been looking to leave the company where he was to take a job somewhere else in order to get into more of a management role. So, he helped us pack and move...for the summer. I had to do it this way because I really did not trust what he would do if he knew I was just planning on divorcing him. His behavior was erratic and violent at times.
While he was separated from us in a new job, new state, he began calling and begging for us to get back together. He said he missed me and the kids and he promised he had changed. The kids complained that they wanted their daddy back. Living in my parents' house was a pressure cooker because not only did she criticize me, she criticized my kids. Always...like my kids were freaks and I had not raised them right. When he got a job back in our state, I decided to try again. I was always hopeful that we would have that happily ever after. I wanted my family. And, frankly, my self esteem was not strong enough to believe I could do it...I could get my own place, job, support the kids and raise them on my own. I did not have the inner strength and faith in myself. And knowing that fed the voices in my head.
But the new venue and having us back together did not make him happy. It wasn't long before he was going on long tirades. Long diatribes as to what we ALL did wrong, treating us as brainless. I began to suspect he was getting drugs somewhere. I couldn't prove anything. I did not know for sure if it was a drug thing or just a mental problem. I was an emotional and mental mess.
Then he lost that job and I was one big walking ball of anxiety and the thoughts of worthlessness were too loud to stop. I flung myself in between him and the kids the best I could when he started the long diatribes at them...constantly with the speeches about what was wrong with them. Our poor son...he got bullied at school and home was not even safe. I did what I could to bolster him. Our daughter would just run and hide in her room...all the time the anxiety was building.
He got a job closer to family and we moved. He went before us while we waited until the school year was over. By the time we joined him, he had gotten himself hooked on drugs and I did not know it. I was so naïve I did not know what the problem was...well, to make a long story short...more anxiety, and by then I blamed myself for everything that happened wrong. After all, I was stupid, right? My anxiety was so great I almost was immobile. I could not think straight...I was stupid, worthless...and I must have caused this. I was not a good enough wife. Any strength I had left in me I used to help the kids get through it. I felt so low for putting the kids through it. What kind of mom was I?
So...when people constantly tell me I am strong and smart and I can do anything...the voice in my head tells me different. I am trying SO hard not to let the anxiety take over so that I do stupid stuff and act out. Yes...act out. In the past, when I was so anxious that I thought I was going to have a melt down...a melt down so horrible that I would end up in a rubber room in a straight jacket, I did inappropriate things...like an online affair, of sorts. It was how I coped...it was a different world to me...and escape. And, no...I didn't think of anyone else. It was my escape from my reality. It was the only way I could safe guard myself...so that I had some sanity left to help my son. I NEEDED to be someone else in a world that was not 'real'. After all, I never saw anyone and they were out there somewhere else. But when it became real, it almost spun me even more out of control. It was when I got on my knees and prayed to God to 'heal me'...to forgive me for not trusting Him to help me...for seeking out my own escape. And I had to face up to it all with my then husband. It was something he told me he could forgive and move on...but it was just something else for him to hit me with for years to come, and feed the voices in my head.
And, yes, anxiety, at its worst, does not allow you to sit and admit your wrong doing because it is what makes it worse. You need to feel like the victim. After all, outside stimuli is what is making you anxious. I sometimes would relieve my most anxious and worst moments by joking...a lot. When I was joking the most is when I was feeling the anxiety closing in on me. My humor was like releasing the pressure in the pressure cooker.
I felt like I have been 'dancing on the edge of the volcano' because I was afraid people would figure out what a worthless mental case I am. And seeking help for it has never brought me any real help. Pills are not the answer. And any counseling I have tried has yet to be any help.
What did I do instead? I turned to other people to dump on. No one out there could really help me. It is not their job but I let others feed my need to believe I am a good person...that nothing was really my fault.
The divorce knocked my back down because the voice in my head was louder than ever...worthless, failure, my fault. I FAILED. I FAILED. I am stupid and worthless and I failed. But most of all, what was I going to do because I am so mental and stupid there is no way I can support myself. I was going to self destruct in front of my kids and they were going to see how helpless and worthless their mother is.
I am working SO HARD to quiet that voice in my head. I am seeking out counseling to TRY AGAIN for some relief. Some days, it is all I can do to put one foot in front of the other. Yes...it is that bad.
So that email I got ...listing all my faults and sins...just when I was thinking I was making progress in my own head...until then I was actually feeling like I was having days where I could smile, feel calm and better about myself...was not feeling so hurt and forgiving the ex husband for adding to my anxiety...when I felt perhaps I could reclaim some joy...then being BULLIED into believing that once again I was wrong...and then being reminded of how flawed I really am....
It knocked me back down to my knees. I lost my trust along with everything else.
Perhaps the one thing it did help me with is this...don't let anyone new into my life because I can't trust them. They are only waiting for their chance to remind me of the worthless, stupid, lazy person I am.
Will I make it through this masters program? Right now I am scared out of my wits that I CAN'T do it. Will I be able to get a teaching job...and if I do, will I be any good at it? Right now, I am afraid no one will want to hire me, I will lose the house, I will let my kids down and they will find out they can't have any faith in either one of their parents...then they will give up too.
I have to pray and remind myself that God is there because He is the one that is my only constant that I can have any kind of trust to be there. He forgives me. He will strengthen me. He will not cut me down nor does He hold my sins against me. He knows about my anxiety and how bad it is. He knows that everyday I fight to squash it down and keep moving. Every day.
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