Structure and security

Hello all, I'm wondering if anyone else can relate to this. [Disclaimer: I love my parents and they are wonderful people. I'm writing this not to blame them but to understand myself.]

My parents never set or enforced any rules for me. They never taught me to be an adult. There was no guidance. They never set out clear, reasonable, healthy goals and rules for me, with clear, reasonable healthy consequences for ignoring them. When I pushed, they yielded. Occasionally my mom would get frustrated and implement something like a chore wheel, but once she'd cooled off she'd stop enforcing it and it would be forgotten. The inconsistency made me feel insecure and out of control.

It's like they never considered the fact that I was a child, and that children have to be raised, which is hard work. I needed help growing up. I wasn't born an adult that always made the right choices for herself. I was smart and thoughtful, so they thought I could take care of myself. They thought loving me and encouraging my interests and giving me lots of opportunities would be enough. And while I'm immensely grateful for everything they gave me, I'm starting to realize that something was missing. I craved a firm hand. Specifically, a firm, kind, loving, patient, understanding hand.

Because that's the problem, they'd give me way too much rope, and only after I'd ###$ up would they take an interest. Then they'd punish me, but from a place of anger, and in ways that were scary and hurtful. There was this one day in Second Grade when I lied to a teacher about having done my homework. I wasn't even testing limits at that point, I literally just forgot to do an assignment. I'd never done anything like that before and I didn't know what the consequences would be, so I lied. The teacher caught me and I got humiliated in front of the class, but that was nothing compared to how my father acted when the principal told him. He drove me home from school in a rage, I could feel waves of anger and disgust and disappointment. I was crying and saying "I'm sorry" over and over again and he still wouldn't speak to me for hours. I remember the heat in my cheeks, the self-loathing and shame, the sick fear that he didn't love me any more. To this day, I still feel that way when people are angry at me.

What I learned that afternoon (and on subsequent afternoons) was that the expectations for me were very high and that the consequences for failure were dire. That I must hide anything about myself that my parents would disapprove of, or risk abandonment. That my mistakes could severely injure my parents, and so I was in a sense responsible for their happiness. Why didn't he ask me why I lied? Why did he expect that I'd have a full, adult understanding of honesty? I was 7 years old. Why, instead of hurting me, didn't he lovingly enforce some rules, like, "Okay, we're gonna review all your homework for the next couple of weeks, and you're going to write a letter of apology to your teacher. You are forgiven." I would rather have been corrected than shamed. I would rather have been lovingly disciplined than angrily punished.

As an adult I vacillate wildly between two masters: a cruel, punitive superego and a wild, self-indulgent id, with little middle ground. I'm either an ascetic or a glutton. I don't know how to discipline myself without hating myself. I think my feelings of loneliness and worthlessness stem from feeling that they didn't care enough to help guide me. To this day I still have a weird physical craving to be held firmly, safely in place, embraced by strong, unyielding, reassuring arms.

Does this make sense at all, or sound familiar to anyone else?

It sounds quite familiar, perhaps for slightly different reasons. My father wasn't in the picture, and my mother was a single parent working two jobs, which meant that she wasn't around. When she was around, she was very hands-off, unless she was disciplining me, which was severe. So, that's all she was, either absent/ambivalent or physically violent. I used to think that's where everything came from: the violence.

I've only recently come to realize that there are so many other issues stemming from the fact that there wasn't any kind of guidance in my childhood, no instruction about limitations or boundaries, no teaching of basic right and wrong, consequences for my behavior in a social-integration kind of way. As a result, I've been an extremely impatient person. I've also had issues with limitations and boundaries, both my own as well as those belonging to others. I have learned some of these things, but I've always learned them the hard way. I have always had problems with self-discipline in a healthy way, either moving forward with my goals like a military soldier or slacking off like a pothead (not that I am by the way). And I have an extremely punitive view of myself when I'm not being productive in some way. I have the hardest time relaxing, I mean ever. Feelings of worthlessness, abandonment, loneliness are all quite familiar to me. And it's been the hardest thing to try to work out of this self-view.

I've been reading several books on the subject of "developmental trauma", and it's given me a great deal of insight into these kinds of issues and their origins. My work towards feeling like a normalized person and moving passed my childhood experiences is a daily thing for me.

More than excitement and adventure (which I surely crave) I do need structure, security, and safety. I've had many periods in life that have been chaotic, even dangerous, and as a result, I crave routine, a sanctuary at home, and consistency with people in my life.

I think we should be wary of how much blame we place on our parents for our issues. It's easy to place blame on people who have so much responsibility. Yes, our parents can mess us up but we do need to take responsibility for what we do as adults.

Danieleaf wrote:More than excitement and adventure (which I surely crave) I do need structure, security, and safety. I've had many periods in life that have been chaotic, even dangerous, and as a result, I crave routine, a sanctuary at home, and consistency with people in my life.

Yeah exactly. And I'm way more likely do interesting, adventurous things when I have a stable platform to launch from. Too much free time and I just sort of get lost.

IHeartMarsha wrote:I think we should be wary of how much blame we place on our parents for our issues. It's easy to place blame on people who have so much responsibility. Yes, our parents can mess us up but we do need to take responsibility for what we do as adults.

Completely agree with you. The context is: I have a really hard time seeing any flaws in my parents. They are wonderful human beings and have given me nothing but unconditional love and praise and support my entire life. Which makes it hard for me to look back and see things in my childhood that went wrong, because it makes me feel guilty. As I mentioned in the first paragraph, I'm not doing this to complain about how poorly I was treated or how unfair my life has been, because the opposite is true. I'm trying to understand why the thought of kneeling before someone who loves me makes me feel at peace.

Is there a way to look at what happened with your parents without any judgment? Your post suggests to me that you are trying to think of what they did "wrong" but can't piece it together with the knowledge that your parents are probably fundamentally very good people, and that's where the guilt comes from.

I kind of see these things as, maybe we have to fill in the gaps that our parents missed. My parents were much the same. In some ways, they would lash out and it would frighten me. In others, they let me have a ton of free rein, which normally wasn't a harmful thing as I did my own thing and stayed out of *too* much mischief. But because they didn't teach me a lot of adult skills (skills that they lack themselves in some areas), I find myself now working to make up for that. And I'm doing so without judgement on it. I don't think to myself that my parents did anything "wrong" or that there's anything "bad" about learning these things later than most people. it just is, I'm learning now and doing the best I can to find balance and live life in a way that is rewarding.

IHeartMarsha wrote:I think we should be wary of how much blame we place on our parents for our issues. It's easy to place blame on people who have so much responsibility. Yes, our parents can mess us up but we do need to take responsibility for what we do as adults.

I agree. Learning about the coping strategies in play as a result of unresolved feelings about my own childhood is a very new thing for me. I only learned about most of these things, well, not even a full three months ago. So, my mission now is simply finding out what to do about it, which is why I've been reading so much on the subject.

behaviour Always reveals what you really want
i think a lot of borderlines are addicted to stress (/drama)

madjoe wrote:behaviour Always reveals what you really want
i think a lot of borderlines are addicted to stress (/drama)

I don't agree with you really. It's more akin to feeling a need but not having the awareness or the communication skills to fulfill that need in a healthy way...and a lot of times it's the result of not even having the awareness of what that need even is, so you seek to fill the void with, whatever. When you lack awareness, what you want might not even be known to you, so your behavior is erratic, illogical.

My personal history is not dealing with stress well at all, which is why I have a pattern of running from it instead of learning to deal with it. And drama is something for which I have very little patience.

Wow, I've been digging around the forums for a while today and just now came across this. This totally resonated with me, my parents raised me the same way. I love them to death, but they didn't raise me with a firm grip at all. It's left me feeling almost lost and very insecure most of the time. I totally relate with the feeling of often wanting to be held and physically feel secure. I could go on and on about this, but I'm not feeling very collected at the moment. Great post, it was comforting to read.