Struggling

[orek]

(09-17-2014, 12:39 AM)MakersDozn Wrote: Thank you, orek. Our T is helping a great deal.

I'm also dealing with other issues, including the realization that nearly all the memories I have of childhood--definitely all the memories that involve being around other people--are unhappy ones. It's hard for me to have hope, to believe that things will get better, when they were never good for me in the first place.

Take care,

Charity

So sorry, Charity. You don't have any good memories to hold on to? We have some good ones, as far as lots of laughter in the family--not in the warm Waltons way, but in the incredibly good senses of humour running through the family, luckily. Also, we went camping, so we have nature memories. And there was some sense of connection and belonging. So for us, this made it even harder to face and accept the ab*se (which started in infancy), and it's still dawning us just how dysfunctional and toxic our family actually was, but it did finally explain for us why we've always felt so bad inside. As a child we chalked it up to being a bad person; in adulthood, as the struggles overtook absolutely everything, we chalked it up to faulty, weak character. Yet we tried so hard!!!

So the bad and terrifying memories essentially "let us off the hook" and was a relief in one way. At least there's hope for healing and a reason for our struggles and why we are the way we are. There's not much hope if you're just bad and faulty to the core, which was the only explanation that made sense before we faced it all. But hopelessness still looms. And that is an awful feeling. I hope you can feel hope start to rise in you and take root.