Always expecting to be considered wrong or bad

I posted this in a another thread:

TheGangsAllHere wrote:Sometimes I post things and then later I'm sure that I probably offended someone or sounded ridiculous. It's amazing (and distressing) how deep my expectation goes of being invalidated, or misunderstood, or considered just wrong and an awful person who shouldn't even exist. Being accepted and understood here is so hugely meaningful for me. Especially as I discover all these things about myself that (when I'm feeling a certain way) could just be viewed as more evidence of "wrongness" (as if it's my bad reactions to past trauma that were really the problem and not the trauma itself).

And Samsland said:

Samsland wrote:Maybe start a thread about this? it is a bit of hijack for me to go on about this but part of the trauma to our personhood is that people believed in us/accused of us things that were not true. Believed us to be a person we weren't. And the chronic feelings of being invalidated, not accepted and misunderstood are also with us, like an anchor.

That's a great metaphor. It's just like an anchor because it weighs us down and also keeps us from moving to a healthier self-view. And there's also fear of the idea of pulling up anchor (wish it were that easy!) and floating to an unknown destination, away from the familiar.

TheGangsAllHere, we've been enjoying reading your posts here. We think you're insightful and helpful. I dont know if that's constructive or helpful? But it's how we feel.

Our 'invalidation anchor' is to be ignored. Not challenged, corrected, ridiculed, just... ignored. It's been a recurring theme all our life. We do something, say something, and family, friends, whatever, just move on without comment, convincing us we're worthless, insignificant. That we've no right to even be here, wasting their time.

This is painfully familiar and we know exactly where it comes from, as far as we are concerned; a childhood, youth, and early adulthood of conditioning. Even now we are susceptible to this self-doubt, this overarching feeling that others' opinions are of more importance than our own, etc...

It's kind of a shame thing. Like if people really saw us they'd know how screwed up we are.

And then there are all those times when people (like teachers) accused us of doing stuff we didn't do. Then they say they saw us do it and we can't tell them some other alter did it because then we'd be crazy and that's a lot worse than being bad.

Iain

TheGangsAllHere wrote:Sometimes I post things and then later I'm sure that I probably offended someone or sounded ridiculous. It's amazing (and distressing) how deep my expectation goes of being invalidated, or misunderstood, or considered just wrong and an awful person who shouldn't even exist. Being accepted and understood here is so hugely meaningful for me. Especially as I discover all these things about myself that (when I'm feeling a certain way) could just be viewed as more evidence of "wrongness" (as if it's my bad reactions to past trauma that were really the problem and not the trauma itself).

I really, really identify with this.

So much so that I can't even deal with it right now. Although I know that I need to deal with it.

Charity

Fortunately I didn't get feedback from my parents, twisted in other ways, that everything I ever did was wrong. My adopted son, on the other hand, did get that message. So his automatic habits when faced with anything that sounds like it might become critical has been to go silent, dodge it, start an argument, deny, lie, change the subject, pout, switch to a cute little, look guilty, get scared, or similar.

He's come far to relearning how to not add a "bad" and "wrong" color when I'm making suggestions. It's tough to unlearn an entire childhood where that was ever-present.

Oh yeah! When Evan even thinks he's going to be blamed for something he TOTALLY freaks out. He got punished REALLY bad before so now he's looking for it like ALL the time! And if he makes a mistake (like when he dropped a glass one time) he PUNISHES HIMSELF by not eating or sitting in the closet or hurting himself. We try to tell him it's ok, but that only works sometimes. He's scared a lot. It's kind of sad.

Cody

Hi Charity!

Oh, yeah--I forgot about the self-punishment aspect. That's huge. Some of that is so built into my life that it's only since I've become aware of parts that I've realized the extent of it. Putting off meeting needs is a part of it, depriving myself of fun experiences, resisting relaxing or taking a break. There's so much, and to realize that there are other people in here that I've been hurting has been quite a shift for me. I only thought I was hurting myself (whatever that means--I used to think I knew what it meant). It's much easier for me to treat them nicely and take care of them as separate parts.

IainEtc wrote:It's kind of a shame thing... And then there are all those times when people (like teachers) accused us of doing stuff we didn't do. Then they say they saw us do it and we can't tell them some other alter did it because then we'd be crazy and that's a lot worse than being bad.

Iain

This was a major issue for us in our youth, countless accusations of behaviour we had not the slightest recollection of, which caused no end of trouble.