How would you feel

[Eyes On the Roll]

If you grew up your whole life in the shadow of your older sister, your younger sister, and your father.

Your sister was only 2 years older than you, but despite that, you felt inferior to the fact that she excelled and you didn't, despite the almost identical relations to intelligence. Ever since you could remember, you hated the world and everybody in it. Your father never showed you any sign of affection, despite having custody and wealth, and never once said "I love you".

Your younger sister (5 years younger) that you lived with since her birth, grew up in a family with a mother and a father. She never had to walk to the bus stop by herself at the age of 6. She had her mother to drive her to the bus stop every day, and you were there, every morning, to witness this. She is now 15, and has lived in a stable household SINCE BIRTH, and you, living with her most of your life, have been through quite the opposite.

Your younger sister, at the age of 15, is excelling in school, and you become enraged. If you had grown up in the same instance as her, wouldn't you have done the same? Who's to blame?

You RARELY EVER find any happiness in life. If ever. Do you even know how happiness feels? Or is it some construed idea based on perspective? Ever since you were 11, your parents have had you on SSRI's that haven't done shit but make you more enraged, opened the chasm ever more. You got into more fights at school, and more trouble, and your parents stopped punishing you because they felt you weren't accountable.

So, ever since middle school, you have been made to believe that you were "fucked up", next to your perfect sisters. At the same time, you have been told, time and time again by relatives, "Oh, you should be a model, you're gorgeous!" Is that not a mind fuck? You get negative reinforcement, but at the same time, positive reinforcement.

Now, you're here. 21 years old. You had a 3.0 GPA in high school cause you couldn't give a shit less and never did homework. You started taking drugs because the medication you were on as a kid never helped, and you were brought up to believe that you were "fucked up".

You're 21 now. You are a great looking person, hell, you look the same as you did when you were 18. At the same time, growing up in a rich family, you have not had ONE happy moment in your life, that you can remember. Why is that?

Are your parents to blame for how you are? For the extreme lack of joy experienced in your empty, soulless existence as a human being? Prompting you to lash out at others, so you can see them feel worse than you?

Or are you to blame.

 

[RobotRipping]

it's a combination. Leave your old memories behind, you can move on from them, try to redefine yourself, you are different than you were when you were a kid and circumstances are different now. It may be comforting to hold on to these terrible memories and feelings but it's only holding you back from becoming happy. In taking that chance to become happy, you are taking a risk that you may fail and be more miserable and your subconscious is protecting you from further misery but if you never take that risk you'll never become happy. Learn to let go.

I'm sure you must have had some happy moments in life. When you are depressed you tend to remember only the bad times, as well, when happy, remember only the good times.

It does sound like your dad really fucked you up as a kid (i've read plenty of your posts) and i would be bitter as well that your younger sister grew up in a seemingly perfect life compared to yours but it's all over now, you're all grown up and you can change your future. You sound insecure which is understandable given your upbringing but it'll improve as you start to grow into your own person.

A lot of the things you bring up are the typical go to points for therapists and if you haven't already, i think you'd really benefit from going to talk to someone about all this stuff.

to answer your question: i would feel insecure, not good enough, bitter, angry and full of rage.... strange that i actually do feel that way about my childhood as well.

 

[Allein]

Mine is a very long story, isn't everyone's? but I do identify with much of what you feel and would and did feel much the same. I carried that self loathing and disappointment in me my family and the whole world for a very long time, to some extent I still feel like that today.

What is great is that you have identified this at such an amazingly young age, to me this shows an emotional maturity that I sadly lacked. I buried myself in work and drugs and growing bitterness for many years, well into my adult life.

In the end all this led to severe depression and a catastrophic break down and a stay in secure accommodation, the struggle has continued since and it was only after falling to pieces that I started trying to understand what had been going wrong. I won't claim to have resolved all my issues but I have recognised that in truth they are just that, my issues. It is true to say that to this day my father still won't say he loves me and my relationship with my family is far from ideal but they are who they are and I'm starting to accept there is only one person in the world I can truly change.

I take a great deal of solace from loving my own children and not repeating history, I'm trying to let go of all the bitterness, it's from easy but it is nothing ut negative it changes nothing and just makes me more like the very things I dislike so much.

Best Wishes

 

[theartofwar]

It took me a long time to deal w very similar situations at the homefront growing up. Compounding these feelings was being raped double digit times when I was ten by a recreational leader at the YMCA on the street I grew up on. From 10-20 I told no one and I would walk by the exact building where this hell on earth took place, all the while with the voices of my parents ringing in my head. They could've been much better but they loved me, they simply did not understand. I always heard why can't you be more like your brother, lll never forget overhearing my dad tell his friend how children were hit or miss as he learned with me. He said how he did nothing different ( there's the problem I was screaming for love and support, any sign of nurture or attention ) and yet I couldn't seem to manage the most simple situations while my brother had a full ride to undergrad and his phd at Harvard by the time he got his doctrine at top of his class at only 26 years old.
For years it broke my heart and I let it dictate my actions. Finally I chose to be the man I am today, imperfect sure, a drug addict in recovery, yes. But I am now honest and love others as I wish to be loved. I'm proud of the progress in the last half a year I've made and frankly while this style of upbringing is hard, nothing good came easy. I actually think that it has made something good, at least I am told that quite often. I try to accept it as truth, being good is such a foreign concept but it would truly be amazing to be a good guy and not the deceitful junkie I have been in order to make others perceptions of me fit and not arrouse suspicious thoughts in regards to the routine sodomy I went thru.
Outside this board a few people in my family know that I was molested , they don't know that for three months I covered up bloody underwear and bathing suits with semen stains as i was sodomized 19 times. I wil neve tell them as already what they know they use against me " the world won't stop because of what happened to you John no matter how much of A travesty jt was".
Honestly I don't want to hear answers I just want a fucking hug and know at least you love me like my brother even though he blatantly is better jn every tangeble area that we both attempt. I'm not jealous but I'm still hurt, even though I accepted and moved on in order to fulfill my own manhood.

 

[Tude]

I think you are to blame for your situation. I hate to say this, but we are the only ones responsible for our lives. How much money you have doesn't mean shit. So your life hasn't been perfect? Make it so. Pick yourself up by your bootstraps and do something. Maybe pursue that modeling career. But whatever you do, don't sit around and blame others for your life. I say these things in a pep talk kind of way. I'm not trying to be mean.

 

[lilmizer]

there's a whole lot of data supporting the premise that family does have the most significant impact on a child's life until around age 10, when peer group becomes the most influential. in a vacuum, we could say that your parents are to blame due to the hereditary basis of your apparent depression, and chemically dependent tendencies. then your peer group is to blame after age 10. we can also blame society. perhaps even God, if an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent being exists, is to blame.

i subscribe to a deterministic philosophical belief system, which essentially states that free-will is a delusion. We are the sum of hereditary circumstance, coupled with the present situation as it occurs, and ultimately our brain's response to said situation -defined empirically by neurotransmiter reserves/connectivity/dispersal to appropriate synapses. this system removes blame, as everyone and everything is doing "as it should" or "as best as he/she can" given the 3 aforementioned variables.

there are, however, anomalies that occur where paths converge and diverge from, forks in the road, or strands in the spiderweb of life as it occurs. some may say such convergences are acts of God. some may say they are totally random. the choice is yours.

the point is, should you read this i will present you with a fork in the road, so to speak.

You can continue to blame the world, your family, society, the government, or whatever higher authority you want for your present circumstance.

or.

You can muster what you can, however limited this strength is, to attempt to take control of your life. Discovering who is to blame is a non-issue in this endeavor. Accept everything as it is, everything as it was, and everything that will be in this moment... as exactly as it should be. Free yourself from your ego, your self-created painbody (which has now become a psychic prison of sorts,) your resentments, your attitude of entitlement, your fears. Breathe in and truly experience it. Realize that every breath you take is sacred. Become aware of your self-commentary that you assume as your identity, and realize that much of it is fallacious nonsense. Become aware of it, and allow the thoughts to be drowned out by what you are experiencing - right now. they will never completely go away, but with practice you will be able to become the watcher of the self dialogue and it will lose its power over you. It is scary at first because it is your identity, but what will follow is a path to peace and self discovery. A joy in living that is indescribable... obviously this is a state that is difficult to stay in as we live in a world of material things; a world in flux. there are glimpses of peace.

Or you can chose to believe that i am some idiotic hack with a convoluted belief system, and continue to dwell in your pain escaping only briefly to chemically inebriated bliss... and then eventually your source of respite will completely envelop you, poison your entire mind/body/soul/psyche/existence and then you will probably be more open to what i am saying. the choice is yours.

[email protected] feel free to contact me, anyone i can be of assistance to - do contact me

 

[Allein]

I think you are to blame for your situation. I hate to say this, but we are the only ones responsible for our lives. How much money you have doesn't mean shit. So your life hasn't been perfect? Make it so. Pick yourself up by your bootstraps and do something. Maybe pursue that modeling career. But whatever you do, don't sit around and blame others for your life. I say these things in a pep talk kind of way. I'm not trying to be mean.

I understand what you are trying to say but I disagree with the whole concept of blame for either party. To me blame suggests that we should feel bad about what has happened in the past, which is pointless and unnecessary.

I agree that the only thing we can really change is ourselves and the way we view other people, our expectations of others are just that and we cannot expect those people to fit our model.

These are easy words to say and much more difficult to live by, but guilt and blame only push us further away from the path.

Love to all

 

[piebald]

if you are looking to explore your past and its impact on who you have become addressing things like familial dynamics, emotions, etc can be very productive, cathartic and ultimately will give you a better understanding of yourself..but if you are dwelling on those things, or trying to find something or someone to "blame" for certain parts of your personality or difficulties in your life than thats counterproductive.
So take stock:
you DO have two parents,
you DO have siblings,
you grew up with "wealth"
you had parents who actually recognized and at least tried to address your unhappiness(regardless of the outcome) with medical attention.
you have had people tell you that "you could be a model"
you have a 3.0 gpa in high school
you are now 21 and a "great looking person"
Your criticism, and most likely in-accurate analysis of your parents not "pushing you because they felt you were not accountable" is laughable for a few reasons. The fact that you have parents who were aware, involved and empathetic enough to "stop pushing you" is a fucking blessing; not a point of criticism or a way to shift blame... they were WORRIED! you have parents who recognized your unhappiness and tried (regardless of the outcome) in different ways to help and support you; through medical attention and another approach to parenting; wether you agree with their efforts or not; even mentioning this in your chronology of "trauma" as an event or thing of consequence that your is judgmental and sort of mean. They saw you in pain and wanted to take some pressure off you-their intent was to help im sure, not to diminish your accountability. Chances are if they HAD pushed you, you would be complaining about that too
And if your idea of a "MIND FUCK" is thinking you are "fucked up" and then having friends and relatives tell you that your gorgeous then be thankful you have never really had to think your way out of anything with actual relevance

you are 21 and your "extreme lack of joy in your empty soulless existence" is merely a symptom of some type adolescent egocentrism that you need to outgrow. of course its valid that your childhood experiences, emotions and events have effected you, as they do every developing child. I think exploring this stuff with a professional is a great idea if you have the resources...good god you life is NOT THAT BAD! so MOVE FORWARD..i hate to break it to you but your not fucked up..your young, your human, you experienced some confusing stuff..think of what you do have.

 

[lilmizer]

piebald i just think i had a rational/intelligence induced orgasm. ^_^

 

[Vaya]

Am just loving that (at time) tough love advice you're offering, piebald. I think if I were in my early twenties, I'd probably resent ya for it At 26, though (God! The amount of change in so little a timeframe...), your words are sage, honest, and above all else, perhaps - are true.

Thanks for taking the time to write that one out, man :D

All the best,

~ Vaya

 

[Eyes On the Roll]

Well I've looked at past memories, and have compared them to how my older sister was through childhood, and she grew up in the same instance I did.
She became far more than I am today. It took her a while, but at the age of 24 she got her bachelors. Here I am, age 21, not even my AA. I compare myself to her, as we were younger. I have ALWAYS been pissed off, angry, and dissociated. I'm not stupid, I know that. I took an I.Q. test in first grade for gifted classes and marked above average. I like to think of my self as not ill. But, the more I think about it, I am mentally ill. This has been with me for as long as I can remember. My earliest memory is of me, breaking my femur completely in half at the age of 3.. and laying on a hospital bed with some pully device, pulling my leg back into place while I was fully awake. I vividly remember this. My next earliest memory, is that of me running into the living room balling my eyes out to my dad because my they had divorced and my mom was gone.. and I didn't understand why. I remember him looking at me expressionless, and telling me to go back to bed. Ever since then, I have been nothing but angry and pissed off. I have always been pissed.

I remember, at age 15, on a vacation to Atlantis to The Bahamas with my two sisters, dad, and step mom. I couldn't find joy in any of it. I vividly remember my family attacking me. "Why are you like this? Why are you always mean? Why are you never happy?" I remember them standing around me, with angry faces, chastising me for this. All I can ever say to something like this is "I don't know". I really do not know.

Because my little sister was so babied, and we lived in the same house, I would often torment her and make her feel like shit when we were home alone. She never told on me, for one reason or another, i don't know. I firmly believe that I am completely unable to feel any joy in life, except when I would take drugs. When I was taking drugs and partying, I had loads of friends. I don't take drugs anymore, or drink, and I have no friends. Because I'm trapped in my real mind, and I hate everything. I don't like anything. If my mom asks me "what's wrong?" I lash out at her, because inside, I want to believe there's nothing wrong with me, but I know that people know that I'm fucked up. If anyone asks me stupid, trivial questions, I get so pissed and I lash out. I've been finding it increasingly difficult to conceal my anger. It's gotten to the point, where nobody wants to be around me anymore. I guess that's the way I want it, because I get so disgusted with people over the smallest things, from eating with mouths open, to stupid comments, and even to other people displaying happiness around me. I feel disgust and hatred. I find it tragic, that this is all I feel. Even though I'm only 21, trust me, I've tried everything I can to change, from psychotherapy to prescribed drugs, to black market drugs, to meditation, and to exile.

The thing is, I'm not depressed. I know this, because I'm not sad. The last time I was sad, was when I was 14 and my cat died in my arms. That's the last time I cried of true sadness. Ever since then, I have not experienced true sadness. I just feel dead inside. Completely dead. I mean, at least I want help. I want to be able to feel the pleasures of life. I hate being this way. It's a curse. I function in the real world just fine. It's just that I dont find joy, pleasure, or happiness in anything. If I'm ever happy, it's only for a brief few minutes.

 

[TriggerHappy]

why not go off on your own into the world? you seem stuck on defining yourself through your relationships with family. it doesn't seem to be in anyone's best interest for you to stick around poisoning the scene, given the true nature of things. fact is, your 21, and that's a great time to go find out who you really are. i have successful siblings, i know what a drag it is. move to Los Angeles and pursue an acting career. you're a good writer, write screenplays in your spare time. be the prodigal son, don't look back... don't even think about family until your mid 30s. by that time, you'll be famous and wealthy enough to buy and sell your hometown...

 

[herbavore]

One of the things about depression IME that makes it different from sadness is that it is almost more like a lack of feeling. Sadness is feeling. Depression is like walking around functioning but being dead inside. I think you could be depressed. Those first early traumas you talked about are extreme enough by themselves but they didn't happen in a vacuum. What kind of Dad does not try to comfort his son when he is only a little kid (or any age!) who is distraught after his mother is suddenly gone? I imagine that this was not an isolated incident. Having a distant parent, one that doesn't show love, can cause a lot of problems throughout life. Unfortunately it sounds like rather than getting any understanding for that at the time, you got blamed for having real feelings and expressing them.

I think what TriggerHappy said is very true, that at 21 you would probably be doing yourself a huge favor by distancing yourself from your family---not because they are terrible but because you could redefine yourself without past family dynamics covering everything. I think that you have internalized this view of yourself partially because that is how you have been seen by them. ( Like when you went to the Bahamas and they demanded to know "what is wrong with you".) I think it was Blahmann that said in another thread that it seems like you never were given a healthy way to express your anger and fear. You are faced now with having to figure out how to undo some of the old patterns and how to give yourself physical and mental space to do that. Maybe it is time to think outside the comfort zone. Maybe immerse yourself in a different culture. Or like I said in the other thread, what about a mega backpacking trip?

It breaks my heart to think of the emotional prison that you find yourself living in with all this anger. I know you feel trapped but I really believe that if you can come to terms with some of the things that caused you to approach life this way when you were small (which actually made perfect sense from your reality back then) and you give up thinking that everything is now written in stone for all time, that you can deconstruct what you constructed to protect yourself so long ago.

We all have to forgive our families and move on. My parents did the best they could, were loving and supportive, and still I managed to come out with a few scars I struggle with. I moved far away from my family and looking back, it was because I needed to define myself not in relation to my sister or brother, not how my parents expected me to be, but for myself. I think if you could find a way to do that it would really help you move through these overwhelming feelings.