WomanSavers.com Forum / WOMEN'S ONLY FORUM / Are other families like this?

I‘m not sure about this. I know lots of families argue about lots of different things and have their set ways. I‘m currently trying to make sense of a lot of things in my life. Reasons why some things have happened, where it stems from, who is to blame etc etc. I know you can end up over analyzing too much and you should just move on but i find certain things that happen in my life questioning me in the face and I can‘t hide from. I‘m wondering to what extent my life is actually messed up, my background, my family, my choice of boyfriends, my personality, the way I cope with life. I‘m beginning to see more and more how these things are related where as before I never really gave any of it much thought and just lived my life. Making decisions as I went but never feeling the need to question whether i was right or wrong. Since a lot of bad stuff has happened it‘s totally changed my world and my inner balance, my whole mentality about my life and the people in it. Some days I just wish I could make a new start, run away and never be seen again. I sometimes think my family has been the biggest problem.

All I want to do with my life is live as stress free a life as I can. I just don‘t feel I‘m getting it and wonder if I ever will. I sometimes feel as though it‘s the people who I allow into my life and get a little close to me whether it be friend or boyfriends that cause me the most hurt and pain. I then wonder if there is something i am giving out there to people to make them think they can treat me that way.

The question I wanted to ask was this? In families i guess you have set routines and ways of going about things. This may sound silly but if for instance you‘re making tea. You fill the kettle with water to boil it. If you fill it fractionally too high is that a problem? Do you have marks where you have to fill it to. If some families are like this (in mine it is due to money and saving it) then how are you told about it if you do it wrong. Are you made to feel like a child? Is your name said in a tone that makes you feel like you‘re in trouble? Dos this go on in other families. That‘s really what I want to know from some of you.

I feel stupid asking this but I really don‘t know how to guage my whole upbringing and my now life. I just know i need to make myself happy but feel i need to make sense of a lot of things before I do. I can‘t move on until I feel I can break it all down. Either way I know there is something wrong somewhere and I need to find it.

I‘m not sure about this. I know lots of families argue about lots of different things and have their set ways. I‘m currently trying to make sense of a lot of things in my life. Reasons why some things have happened, where it stems from, who is to blame etc etc. I know you can end up over analyzing too much and you should just move on but i find certain things that happen in my life questioning me in the face and I can‘t hide from. I‘m wondering to what extent my life is actually messed up, my background, my family, my choice of boyfriends, my personality, the way I cope with life. I‘m beginning to see more and more how these things are related where as before I never really gave any of it much thought and just lived my life. Making decisions as I went but never feeling the need to question whether i was right or wrong. Since a lot of bad stuff has happened it‘s totally changed my world and my inner balance, my whole mentality about my life and the people in it. Some days I just wish I could make a new start, run away and never be seen again. I sometimes think my family has been the biggest problem.

All I want to do with my life is live as stress free a life as I can. I just don‘t feel I‘m getting it and wonder if I ever will. I sometimes feel as though it‘s the people who I allow into my life and get a little close to me whether it be friend or boyfriends that cause me the most hurt and pain. I then wonder if there is something i am giving out there to people to make them think they can treat me that way.

The question I wanted to ask was this? In families i guess you have set routines and ways of going about things. This may sound silly but if for instance you‘re making tea. You fill the kettle with water to boil it. If you fill it fractionally too high is that a problem? Do you have marks where you have to fill it to. If some families are like this (in mine it is due to money and saving it) then how are you told about it if you do it wrong. Are you made to feel like a child? Is your name said in a tone that makes you feel like you‘re in trouble? Dos this go on in other families. That‘s really what I want to know from some of you.

I feel stupid asking this but I really don‘t know how to guage my whole upbringing and my now life. I just know i need to make myself happy but feel i need to make sense of a lot of things before I do. I can‘t move on until I feel I can break it all down. Either way I know there is something wrong somewhere and I need to find it.

I agree with DeeDee on this one-this is so very true to me:

You didnt chose your childhood, you may have had a terrible childhood, but that was then.

But you chose your own life now.

If you make all your life choices based on negativity and the view that you are a victim-then victimization and negative experiences is what you are going to get. Negative attracts negative.

Yasmina

Exactly.

I believe there is no reality, only perception.

Any situation has the potential to be turned into something positive. (If someone wants a good example of this, read Viktor Frankls account of his stay at a German concentration camp).

Therapists are partly to blame for focusing too much on the negative impact bad childhood experiences have.

They think the influence is linear:

Negative childhood experience-->trauma/disturbed personality development-->psychologically dysfunctional/disordered adult.

And some people think that its static too; "I´ts always been like that, and I´ve always been like that-so it´s never going to change".

But most people who have made a conscious effort to focus on the positive in their current lives will tell you that memories of the past will "pop up"; either simply a happy memory or a negative one, now understood in a new, positive way.

So there might be no need to focus on the past; just to live TODAY in a positive spirit.

I read a poem once, cant remember the author:

Yesterday is the past

Tomorrow is the future

Today is a gift

This is why it is called the present

Yasmina

There‘s no question that our families of origin have a lifelong impact.  It takes years for those "voices in the head" to go away, if they ever do completely.  And the things that hurt can hurt for many years - long after you thought you were "over it" already. 

For anyone who has had a painful or abusive family history, I highly recommend therapy.  It paid off for me in big dividends.  Telling someone to just "let it go" is not enough.  That‘s a process - not an event - and for some people, can take years. 

The important thing for all of us to remember is that as children, we may have felt powerless, and didn‘t have a choice.  As adults, we do.

A question I was once asked (re. family) was, "If you weren‘t related to them, would you choose them as friends and would you choose to be around them?"  In many cases, the answer was an unequivocal, "No!"

I think time, distance and maturity do wonders.  I chose to pull away from family when I found them too painful to deal with.  I went to counseling.  I also did a lot of writing.  One conclusion I came to was that I marched to a different drummer.  Once it caused me pain to be "different" than they were.  As I got older, I came to embrace those differences and to accept that that was okay.  I don‘t have to be like them - nor do I want to be.  The answer was not to live my life to please them, but to live a life to please myself.  When I had children of my own, I created my own family, with my own traditions.  Making a break with my past was healing. 

As I have gotten older, I have come to see that all families have their problems, and all families are dysfunctional to some degree.  There are no perfect parents, and no perfect siblings and things are rarely, if ever, fair. 

I also came to realize that a lot of family judgments and criticisms were based on their insecurities and their hang-ups, which really had little to do with me or who I was.  And in some cases, the mean behavior had more to do with jealousy than anything else.  It took me a long, long time to see that.

When the "voices" start in my head (theirs) I just tell them to shut up.  The only boss I have to listen to is ME!