feeling #######5

dividedtruth89 wrote:But I did know better. And I knew better when I saw my DAd for the last time when I was...13 or 14.... but I don't understand why I can't get others to understand that it was my fault.

Did you really know better? Was it really your fault? Did you do something so wrong that it can never be fixed and you have to punish yourself for the rest of your life for it? When you were 13 years old, did you have the knowledge you have now?

Hindsight is 20/20.

So when you look back on those memories, you are doing so with the knowledge you have today, right now, as an adult. You didn't have that perspective back then. You didn't know back then.

You can sit there for years SHing and saying "it's my fault, I should have known better! Why didn't I just do this? Why didn't I just do that? I ruined my life."

One thing I struggled with is with my marriage. Why didn't I leave the first time he hit me? It took me a lot of time to forgive myself for not walking out the door. I have since forgiven myself for not leaving him that first time because I DIDN"T KNOW. I believe him when he said he would never do it again.

A good question to ask yourself is "if I knew now what I knew then, would I have done things differently?"

Chances are you would answer that question with a big fat "yes."

But you didn't know then.

Just because you know now doesn't mean that you messed up because you didn't know then. It means that now you can look back at the choices you made and figure out how to correct them now, in the present where you have power.

You now have the power to correct these mistakes, misdeeds, bad feelings, hurt relationships with yourself and your family. You can now, with the knowledge you have in the present, talk to your father and say "this has always bothered me and I'm sorry. I didn't know any differently back then." From there forgive yourself. As others have said, it sounds like he already forgave you.

It's time to forgive yourself. If you aren't ready to do that yet, that's okay. Maybe just stop giving yourself such a hard time about it.

I also have those irrational feelings of shame. It is not guilt, just shame.
I did nothing purposefully wrong, and in some cases, it is trivial.
But for some reasons, those memories stick, and there is nothing I can do to get rid of them.

It is like situations where I learned something important, hurt someone without knowing any better.

I suppose that is what you are living.
I don't know how to get rid of that.

Tungsten wrote:I suppose that is what you are living.
I don't know how to get rid of that.

I didn't either and then I ordered a book on healing from domestic violence. I didn't know about my past then. I was just trying to get rid of the guilt for staying with my abusive husband for so long.

Anyways, it was a self help workbook that was a Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) workbook. It walked me through step by step and challenged all my self hating beliefs. It really helped. Now when I am faced with a bad memory about my childhood, I use the same technique. Instead of blaming myself for not calling 911 after childhood trauma, I think back to my mindset at the time. If I had called, he would have killed my mother and brother. I believed it.

So thoughts like that need to be challenged. It's not justifying what happened, its just forgiving yourself for not knowing any better. Just because you know better now, doesn't mean you knew better then.

MORE SH TRIGGER

Thank you all for your insight. The reasons for the cutting change. It has been, in the past, a punishment, but lately it's more about giving my pain more dimension. For example, I am often this happy go lucky, care free person at work. She's also very vulnerable, and can cry about little things, like if her manager says she made a mistake. If I cut, then it's like keeping all the parts of me together, the part that is sad and lonely and I don't know what else. I'm going to give this other part a name for now, but please realize I'm not talking about an alter, just another part of myself.

Her name is Punky (after a show I used to love, Punky Brewster. I just got the idea because someone at work told me he thinks I'm kind of spunky.) She's younger, and she's happy at work because her favorite thing to do in the entire world is turn up the radio really loud while she cuts the fruit(I work in produce at the grocery store). Then dance to the music, and she sometimes makes jokes that she's crazy. Talks to herself out loud, sings with the music, loud outbursts. She's even told a couple people that she sees a therapist because she's crazy. But she sees it as one big joke and laughs about and likes to make the other people laugh. I don't think they believe her, I think they believe she's pulling their leg. It's her way of opening up to them though, I suppose.

There is a scenario that runs through my head. If someone ever challenged her and said, "you don't have any problems, you are such a happy person. When you go home you ride your bike and read and probably watch Power Rangers before going to bed." All this is most definitely true, but in my fantasy, I lift up my sleeve and say "yeah, I do all that stuff, but I also cry and cut myself."

Obviously I would never do that. But the cuts are hidden proof of the inner pain that is still there. I don't want to forget it completely when I'm feeling happy. I want to always have a reminder of the "rest of me."

Sorry if this sounds completely bizarre. But it's all truth.