It can be really hard to stick to your guns when others act like you’re in the wrong on something. It’s even harder when that something has to do with your personal well being.
If you’re anything like me, you see standing up for yourself in some aspects as not worth the confrontation or conflict that may come along. You’ve been conditioned, whether through people or other influences in your life, to see yourself as unworthy, little, and puny. Sure, everyone has days like that. For some of us, that’s what makes up the bulk of our thoughts.
The biggest problem with growing up in a home or being in any position where you’re conditioned to think like this is that it affects every aspect of your life. It will make you think your bronchitis is just a cold – that you’re upplaying the affects of any illness or just unworthy of getting treatment – and that you don’t need to seek medical help. You don’t go for promotions or better jobs because you ‘just know’ you won’t get them. It affects your confidence to the point that if, by some miracle you did apply for a job, you wouldn’t get past the interview stage because you become a nervous and anxious wreck. Your personal relationships suck because you either have no friends or you have ‘friends’ who walk all over you and make you feel worse about yourself.
It’s almost as if every user can sense you’re a good usee.
On top of that, you get to deal with that little voice in the back of your head that reminds you how not good enough to accomplish things you are. Oftentimes, that voice is the voice of the bully or abuser or oppressor that you’ve dealt with.
A good way to combat these feelings is to be assertive and to speak your truth.
I know that speaking your truth sounds silly, but that’s exactly what it is – your truth. Just because your abuser didn’t see what she did as abuse doesn’t mean it isn’t. If you felt abused, that is your truth. No one has the right to tell a victim whether or not they were victimized.
These issues will just keep popping up until you get help and work on sharing what you’ve gone through. Not everyone is as into sharing as I am, but I believe that it really does help the healing process along for others to hear and know about why you’re triggered by the smell of beer or why people yelling at others bothers you.
Sharing can be a really hard step for a few reasons – the biggest perhaps is that sharing makes what you’ve gone through real. I began to talk with other abuse survivors and the things and stories we had in common were frightening honestly. It became more real to me.
Right now I am dealing with the realest feelings from the abuses I’ve suffered. I’m dealing with flashbacks that I have a really hard time getting out of. I’m dealing with pent up anger at remembering more and more things that happened as I was growing up. All this is happening because I’m sharing more in my relationships and in therapy. But it also means I’m working through these issues.
I am solid in the knowledge that I suffered through things a child shouldn’t even have to think about let alone endure or witness. I know for a fact that the adults in the home where I grew up have some serious personality and mental health issues that need to be addressed but likely never will. I am dealing with the fact that my family was not dysfunctional but abusive and that it stunted my emotional growth horribly.
I own everything that I am, including what has happened to me. In order to embrace myself – faults and all – I must embrace the scared little girl that still resides inside of me. I have to help her find her voice.
My mother can’t seem to keep herself out of my life. She continues to read what I’m doing here on this blog and trying to creep on me via multiple social media sites. My sister has been asked to rein me in to stop me from talking about what I’ve gone through.
I’m not a little girl anymore. I can’t be scared by comments that my sister will be taken away and my mother put in jail if I talk about the abuse or what happened in our home. I won’t be frightened into silence anymore.
And if you don’t like what I have to say, I have only one thing to say to you:
Your opinion doesn’t matter anyway.