Continued from here.
Then, I fear that I am turning into one of “those” bloggers who just wants ratings, which has never been my goal. I just want to offer hope and healing to fellow child abuse survivors, but a “persecutor” part of myself tells me that I am just some egoist and that I deserve to be attacked on my blog. After all, who the h@#$ am I to give anyone advice? I am no paragon of healing. I can’t even tell when am triggered … my friends have to point it out to me.
I have been healing since 2003 and have made virtually no progress sexually. I guess I have made progress if we want to celebrate that I no longer have to get drunk before and bang my head immediately after. However, it still frequently hurts, and I just want it over with as soon as possible. What kind of wife does that make me? I feel like a complete failure as a wife.
I have a kid with ADHD, and he is so hard to parent. I love him deeply, and he loves me deeply as well. I have kept him safe and continue to do so. I am the one who manages all of his medications (for ADHD and asthma), handles all of the discipline, and, quite frankly, does 99.9% of the parenting if you don’t classify earning the paycheck as an element of parenting. (Hub is a wonderful provider and enables me to be a stay-at-home or part-time work-at-home mom…completely my choice.) My child is 10 years old and cannot entertain himself for 10 minutes. When he stays home from school, he needs constant attention, which is so foreign to me. I was ignored throughout my childhood when I wasn’t being abused, so I simply have no idea how to give anyone attention 24/7. That makes me feel like a non-nurturing “bad” mother because I feel “sucked dry” after five days of this. I just want to scream that I don’t have one ounce of myself left to give to anyone!
I live with a husband and child who cannot/do not process anything, so the house looks like a frat house unless I stay on top of it constantly, either throwing away soda cans (all theirs – I don’t drink soda at home), etc. myself or reminding them over and over again to do it themselves. When I get behind because they have both been home for the holidays, inclement weather, etc., I see that I am a lousy homemaker, too – O for three. In the South, a woman’s value is pretty much equated with how good of a wife, mother, and housekeeper she is, and I am O for 3 in my head.
I have always been a good employee and a good friend, but my employer is over a computer (I work as an online college instructor) and my friends are “gone” due to the holidays followed by inclement weather, so all I see is my “failure.” Then, when my professional blog “disappears” and I am criticized on my personal blog, and what’s left? Just me, a big, fat failure.
To be continued…
Photo credit: Hekatekris
“so all I see is my “failure.” Then, when my professional blog “disappears” and I am criticized on my personal blog, and what’s left? Just me, a big, fat failure.”
Faith, I so understand this terrible feeling. I understand and I feel for you. I call these types of accusations, the voice of the “Destroyer” – and my sister has helped me to understand, that everytime I listen to that voice and repeat it as my own words, I am giving consent to the Destroyer- I am in agreement with him.
But I do not have to be, and neither do you. Change that into a positive just like you taught us; change, I am a failure, into I am not a failure.
You are feeling completely overwhelmed right now and out of control of your circumstances. Those feelings in themselves are triggering, because it is how we felt so much as children in an abusive environment.
Take time to fill up. I have a special needs daughter, and I understand how much time they can take. But I believe she is a beautiful gift from God. The other day, it was just her and I so I took her out to lunch and we went window shopping and such.
What are some things that might fill your cup up? Can you leave your son with a trusted friend for a couple hours just so you can pamper yourself, or cry, or sleep, or whatever you need?
You are not a failure. Believe that! I wish I could be more help to you right now. But I just wanted to reach out, and let you know, I understand, and I care.
Thanks, heavenly places.
I don’t feel that way now, but I definitely did when I wrote this. Like your kid, mine is an amazing gift as well … he is just different from other children. Sometimes I wonder if anything is getting through to him at all because he is both stubborn and learning disabled. Then, I see a glimpse of the love I have poured into the child aimed back out — his empathy, warmth, etc. — and I know that I am reaching him. He is definitely a good kid at heart inside of an adventurous, impulse-challenged body.
I am still hoping to fill my cup. What I need is a day “off” when I am not also feeling sick. I have spend the last couple of days mostly in bed watching TV, but it hasn’t been relaxing because I have been so sick and dizzy. I need to be healthy and have a “me” day. Hopefully, that will happen next Thursday (my self-declared “Sabbath” day of the week).
– Faith
I ♥ you Faith, you are awesome.
Thanks, Lacey. :0)
– Faith
Your writings touch me deeply. I have been mentally tortured and neglected by my parents for years. This has given me an immense amount of problems sexually, socially. I pretty much had the social skills of a monkey.
Today, at age 25, I am a father and husband. And what has helped me get over (I am still fighting with it, but I am a long way down the road) my problems is being honest with my wife. It takes a huge amount of patience from her. But when we talk, and she simply listens, we come to so much solutions.
I’ve been tortured for 19 years, so it won’t fix in several months. With you it’s the same case.
You’re not a failure, you’re a winner. The fact that you are still alive, you can reason with yourself (which you clearly do) and brought a son into this world after all that you’ve been through, makes you a winner.
I love your blog. I added it to my blogroll.
Success on your journey!
Regards,
Daan
Thanks, Daan.
Feel free to post your blog URL here or email it to me if you would like for me to add yours to my blogroll as well. :0)
– Faith
Wow, thanks for the offer!
You can link to me as: Improve Yourself. Improve your (love)life.
The URL of my blog is: http://www.loveandlife.net
Thanks a lot!
Hi, Daan.
I just added your blog to my blogroll. :0)
– Faith
Hey Faith,
Everyone has that “failure” voice in their heads sometimes. Tell it to shut up! 🙂 Seriously though, you have so many followers on your blogs… That many people do not continue to flock someplace if it were not giving us something that we really need. And none of us, or very few have ever even met you, so we don’t owe you anything by coming here or saying that you are helping us. There is no end game to that. Therefore it MUST be true. And it is.
I do understand the feeling like a failure though, and it is not logical at all, it is programmed. I just wanted to remind you that it’s just bad programming and point out some physical proof to the opposite.
Peace,
mia
Faith,
I get the failure feeling too. Because I also have bipolar disorder I got to the point several years ago when I could no longer work no matter how much I wanted to. It hurt SO much and my husband wasn’t as understanding back then as he is now (now he’ great). At the time I was going crazy and staying home, making no money and not able to even do housework. Talk about feeling like a failure! I am also from the South, so I get that thing too even though I dont live there anymore. Anyway, I ended up getting Social Security Disability and at least I felt I was giving something back to our household, so I focus on that as one thing I do. You are ana amazing mother and wife AND you have a professional life. All of that’s amazing. There are people with no emotional or mental issues at all who can’t scratch their butts without someone telling them to. Wow that sentence got away from me sorry lol!
My point is that you’re awesome! I know you said that you don’t feel that way now and I’m glad, I just wanted to throw my two cents in. 🙂
Faith, the results may not be what you expect, but the honest loving sincere effort is there – and that it IS success. Its only your head that is saying I cant, and no more and I give up. Yes there are moments when you may not be able to function, but you are not beyond human. From what I know about you, your son requires much beyond what other children do who dont have ADHD, so its probably easy to see yourself as failing somehow. But you attempt to meet those needs (probably being more successful at it than you realize). It’s not like you are saying ‘oh I am doing the best I can’, while subjecting him to abuse. That’s your mother. You are doing the best you can and giving him a strong loving foundation. He is growing from that I am sure. He doesn’t have the same needs you had.
You have two shortcomings Faith – you are not perfect 🙂
and you are not gentle enough on yourself. I think its amazing you cant see what a powerful and significant presence you are.
Only the best wishes for you Faith
Palucci
if you do the shopping why do you have soda at home. isn’t it a cause of diabetes etc etc etc with all the HFCS. it might even be spurring your child’s problems. why don’t you ban it from the house ? water is an excellent alternative.
Hi, Gracie and Palucci.
I removed the back and forth comments. I wasn’t offended by Gracie’s post. :0)
Gracie — Those are all good points. Hub goes grocery shopping with me and buys the soda. I reward my son with tallies for good behavior, which includes drinking water. He drinks a lot of fluids in a day and drinks a lot of water in addition to the soda. I send him water with his lunch, too, so he doesn’t have a choice there. :0)
Palucci — I appreciate you having my back. :0)
Both of you — I think that by removing the comments, your next comments might automatically filter into the moderator queue. So, if you don’t see your next comment post right away, that’s why. Don’t worry … when I approve your next comment, that won’t happen anymore. :0)
– Faith
You are doing the best you can with the tools you have…i encourage you to be gentle with yourself. It takes so much effort to parent, and learn roles that are foreign. How many years were u in abuse? compare that to how many years you have been in healing. Giving ourselves grace is such a wonderful gift…Hang in there. I think you are doing fabulously.
Journal of Healing
Sometimes we *do* fail. I feel like a failure a lot of the time. But my counselor reminds me that failing at something does not make me, or you, a failure. For me, everything has been black and white, but I’m learning to reshape my thinking.
I’m a recent reader of your blog, and find enough good stuff that I have been coming back each day. As the others have said, be gentle with yourself – now – and the next time you hit a particularly rough patch of days.
Fatith,
You are not a failure! Just through this blog, you help so many people. You don’t have to be perfect. No one should expect you to be perfect. Even the posts where you admit you’re struggling resonate with me and I think that’s why most people read them. Not because we think you’ve got everything figured out. Keep doing what you’re doing!
Kristine
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