cr*p day today!

[fifi]

Ok, here goes, this is not easy for me, as laying myself bare or admmiting that I'm not ok is such a hard thing for me to do and this is kind of an exercise for me in itself.

It's a really naff day today, not helped I'm sure by consuming half a bottle of wine last night, I took this route as I have quite an emotive and difficult problem that I have got to deal with tomorrow and am dreading it.

What I find so hard to do is really open up to anybody, for many years even when I considered my self-esteem to be pretty robust, I still was the one that always helped my friends and family out with their problems, always perceived as the strong one, the one to hold everybody up and even then had great difficulty talking if I was experiencing problems myself. I know that this is a throw back to my early years when there was nobody there, and I can remember from a young age telling myself that I could cope alone, wasn't going to let what was happening at home destroy me (even writing that makes me feel like a victim), but how do you change the habit of a lifetime? Even yesterday seeing a friend, I could see that she wasn't ok and she totally opened up to me, was very truthful with how she was feeling, and I was glad I could help, but then she asked me how I was and I told her I was fine! Why can't I get over this?

Posting this fills me with dread and part of me wants to delete and forget it, but I'm going to be brave and be honest!

Fifi

[loopy loo]

Hi Fifi,
I was just having a look around the site when i spotted your post. I was really moved by your courage at taking the first step and admitting to people that you have this "problem". Well done! It certainly isn't easy so give yourself a big pat on the back.
I just wanted to say that i can relate to your difficulties, and that it seems to be to just be something we internalise at a young age. I didn't have a great childhood, but it wasn't traumatic either, and yet i quicky learnt that the best way to survive was to put other people and their feelings before my own, otherwise something terrible would happen. I think abandonment might have been the fear.
I have had some trainig to become a counsellor, but i will tell you, it is not easy to open up to someone, even so. I have been seeing a counsellor and it is very scary! BUT, you can, step by step, build up little ways of letting your feelings out. Remember, YOU are in control of what you say. You also have the right to say you have said enough for now....if you feel that way.
Maybe the next time a friend pours her heart out to you, just comment that you have had a similar feeling (if you have) so that little by little you can express your self at your pace. Things like this take time ,energy and a lot of work, but you can do it, bit by bit.
Remember you are just as important as anyone else....despite money ,class etc, we are all just people and you deserve the same treatment as any one else. Try to feel you have as much right to be heard as others...think about it.....do they REALLY deserve to be understood more than you? If you think so, just keep asking yourself "why" and keep going until you can not answer any more. When you run out, you are usually at the "bottom line". Which means that you have found a belief about yourself. Challenge this belief, because you do deserve to be heard and treated with love and kindness just as you do for others.
Be proud of who you are Fifi.
Take care,
Loopy Loo.

[fifi]

And I guess that is my big stumbling block....... challenging the bottom line. The CBT has been really helpful in as far as taking the anxiety out of certain situations, I can set up and succesfully carry out putting myself in situations that have been difficult in the past for me, have even got good at finding an alternative more positive view on my self critical thoughts, but when it comes to the part in my book that I have to challenge my central beliefs about myself this is where I come unstuck and become so frustrated with myself! I'm a woman of 35 for godsakes!, shouldn't still be carrying this baggage round with me. A few years ago after the bith of my 3rd child and having had a horrendous PND with my 2nd and living in fear that it would return again, my doctor put in place some counselling for me after the birth. On my first session with her she asked me to tell her about my childhood to the present day, I couldn't understand what on earth my childhood had to do with this and became quite distressed that she was making me drag this all up. I had spent 30 years never looking back on what had happened and to some extent my childhood had actually driven me to succeed, although I had started my family very young, I had gone out to work, taken myself back to college in the evenings to complete my education that I hadn't been able to finish, gained a professional qualification and progressed up the career ladder very quickly. Determined to be the best Mum I could to my children, never let them feel as I had and for many years this all worked. After I finished giving her my life history, there was a big silence and she eventually said, I think you need psychotherapy. THis filled me with horror, it had been bad enough just giving her a brief look, let alone having to go over this in detail. Anyway we decided to carry on with counselling sessions initally and review again after. At the end of my sessions, she told me that she didn't feel I anylonger needed the psychotherapy as through the counselling I had gained a great insight as to why I felt like I did and knew where I was at, but, she still felt that I needed further counselling, which she could not offer within the NHS to help me slowly talk about what had happened to me, as even with the counselling I found it too hard to go into detail. Of course I never further pursued this, I suppose still didn't want to admit that I needed it. But, I think I am beginning to realise that actually if I am ever to have peace of mind, ever feel truly accepted, ever live the kind of life that I know I deserve then I need to do this and actually this is the reason that I am only getting so far with the CBT.

Thank you for your kind words, it's been good to talk to somebody who knows where I'm coming from and I'm sorry if it's turned in to an epic!

All the best with your journey.

Fifi

[Hope 2]

Hi fifi

Was just wondering how you are getting on ?
I have found asking for help SO difficult for 7 years .
But since joining here I can't stop !!

Best Wishes
Hope x x

[fifi]

Hi Hope,

After posting that thread, it made me realise that I really needed to step up with my views on myself and actually it's ok to ask for help. Funny thing is I found myself constantly putting off the next chapter in my CBT book where it challenges your thoughts about yourself and would find myself going off and getting involved in anything else than have to face doing thi. Needless to say I've made myself do it these last few days and have arranged some further counselling.

Fingers crossed.

[Bill]

Hello Fifi,

I'm sure under the right circumstances where you are made to feel comfortable, you will be able to open up.

I think there are a number of reasons why we feel we can't talk about our feelings and issues. We need to feel we can trust the person we're talking to because we're opening up with our inner fears which are very sensitive to us. These fears will be based on hurts and pains so we try to keep them in and bottle them because they simply hurt too much to talk about. We need to feel the person we're sharing with will understand us and not cause further hurt through ignorance, ridicule or dismiss our feelings. All too often we've been badly treated or told to "pull ourselves together" which has destroyed our trust in people. We can also fear that if we open up, the person will walk away or not understand, leaving us feeling abandoned and adding to our hurt.

Once we do find someone we feel we can open up to, we can then be helped to come to terms with our past that have caused our anxieties but we just need to feel comfortable with someone we feel understands who we feel we can trust for the healing process to start. Building trust takes time but time also heals, as will you.

[lucy0927]

All too often we've been badly treated or told to "pull ourselves together" which has destroyed our trust in people.

This really stood out for me, I've been told I'm a closed book and people can't read me or understand what I'm thinking because I never let my emotions show and I never tell people anything. My mum is the main one that says this, it upsets her that she feels she doesn't know me, what she doesn't realise and what I can never tell her is that at one point when I was going through one of my lowest moments I asked her for help, the reply I got was "I can't help you, deal with it on your own and pull yourself together".

I understand that some people just don't understand or aren't able to deal with other people's problems on top of their own. For my Mum it brought up too many memories of her past and problems and she couldn't help me. It took me a while to understand but it still hurts and I find it hard to let anyone in. It's amasing how what was probably such a small sentence to someone can change how we trust and depend on that person so much.

Fifi, I admire your strength to post your feelings and then not delete it afterwards. I hope it helped writing it down.

[fifi]

Thanks Lucy, although it did give me a few sleepless night and an incredible amount of anxiety.

Mine was a general climate that I grew up in, I was physically abused, but the problem was when I asked for help I was constantly told that nothing could be done about it, the situation couldn't be changed, and this person would become highly distressed when I went to them, would cry, tell me they couldn't deal with it and I would walk away feeling terrible for upsetting this person. I actually belived that this was how everybody's life was and eventually gave up asking for help, learnt to deal with it alone, there wasn't anyone else to ask, no other family.

I think what I was trying to say is that it's often presumed that you can't let people in because your frightened of what they'll see, for me from the age of 11, I learnt to deal with everything on my own because when I did ask for the help it just wasn't there, which then unfortunately served me badly throughout my life as I was always perceived to be strong, tough, the person who sorted everybody elses problems out, but when I started to unravel nobody could believe it or knew how to help, and I couldn't ask for it.

But I figured that by taking the first steps and putting this post on here I was positively trying to change it and if it helped just one person who could identify with how I felt then that could only be a good thing.

[pete69]

fifi may i ask what cbt book you are working your way through?