Lost4now
01-12-2007, 04:47 PM
I posted a little about myself in the general anxiety forum but should have posted it here instead.
Im 37 years old and have had SA all my life but didn't realize it until just a couple weeks ago when I found this place. I knew I was different and had irrational fears, but that only made me feel worse since I couldn't put a name to it. I've been searching my past in order to isolate the causes so that I can make changes for the better in my life.
I'll throw out some highlights of my life when I was growing up:
1) Sexually abused at 3 by my father
2) My mom tried to kill me with prescription pills in order to "send me to god" because she couldnt deal with it.
3) My mom went to a mental institution and my dad to prison. At that point, some 'friends' of the family took guardianship.
4) Well, my foster dad was an alcoholic, very abuse and negative to everyone. He was one of those types that faught his whole life. Its how he had dealt with conflict his whole life. He also didn't have very good hygene, so I was embarrassed being around him in public.
5) He had fights with his wife all the time, and eventually broke up, and I had to live with him, since I dont think his wife wanted me to begin with.
6) We moved into a trailer with no washer and dryer, and he was so lazy that he wouldnt take me to get my clothes washed all the time. The kids at school would say I stink, "dont you take a shower"? If I complained to my foster dad, he would shout at me or hit me.
At about the 11th grade, we got in a big fight, and I had, had enough and moved out.
I started working full time and pretty much gave up on school at that point, since it was impossible, and pretty low on my priorities. I just wanted to have a happy life and to get away from all the negative stuff I had faced in growing up.
At this point in my life, I had never been in a relationship of any kind. We were always moving, and I never got established long enough at one school to make a lot of friends.
I tired of my job and this way of life as well, and went and got my GED and went into the Navy. I left the Navy after my term was up and enrolled in college, and made it all the way to my senior year in an Electrical Engineering program. But I had ran out of Financial Aid because I had to take 2 years of catch up courses that should have been taken in high school.
I had no choice but to drop out and get a job to try and pay off some of the debt I had accumulated. My hope was to finish college, get my self settled, and then look into relationships. But I guess life doesnt work that way sometimes.
My foster dad died about a year ago, and I felt a release at that point. He used to always put a guilt trip on me by saying maybe I would have been better off on the streets or an orphanage. Once he died, I was no longer bound to keep quite, and started exploring the pasts. But oh how painful it was.
I had repressed it for so long, that when I started to explore my past, I couldn't believe it was my past. I questioned many times what I had done to deserve it all. Was I working off bad karma from a previous incarnation?
I think I also felt rejected not once but twice. Once by my real mom, and again my my foster dads wife.
And the humiliation I felt in school contributed to my SA no doubt, plus the negative affirmations dealt to me by my foster dad. He used to call me an idiot all the time. He called everyone an idiot though, but I took it more personally since I was already damaged in the ego for so long.
I was never able to take constructive criticisms or jokes from peers either for a long time as well.
I'm feeling a lot better though lately than I have for a long time. Philosophy and World religions have been 2 of my greatest passions for quite a few years. It wasnt until recenetly that I was able to apply what I have learned in those 2 disciplines to my own childhood experiences.
Thoughts create our reality.
Exposing yourself constantly to positive affirmations can deprogram the negative thoughts you have about yourself.
Fusing negative experiences with positive experiences from that era lessens the trauma.
Im no better or worse than anyone else, physical, mentally, or spiritually, so the only thing holding me back from experiencing life, is my thoughts. Its a long road ahead, but I have a strong will to continue and make these changes.
I wrote out my life in explicit detail one day in order to disect it, and see the causes and effects that took place and made me feel the way I do. Little did I know, just writing my thoughts down felt like it was taking a huge load off by mind and having it on the paper instead. I came across an article somewhere shortly after having done this, and was pleasently surprised to having experienced the relief first hand.
I've never been to a therapist either for these problems either.
Correct me if I am in error, but really, all a therpist can do, is ask you questions that will help draw out the answers from within yourself, and to act as a support vehicle?
Im 37 years old and have had SA all my life but didn't realize it until just a couple weeks ago when I found this place. I knew I was different and had irrational fears, but that only made me feel worse since I couldn't put a name to it. I've been searching my past in order to isolate the causes so that I can make changes for the better in my life.
I'll throw out some highlights of my life when I was growing up:
1) Sexually abused at 3 by my father
2) My mom tried to kill me with prescription pills in order to "send me to god" because she couldnt deal with it.
3) My mom went to a mental institution and my dad to prison. At that point, some 'friends' of the family took guardianship.
4) Well, my foster dad was an alcoholic, very abuse and negative to everyone. He was one of those types that faught his whole life. Its how he had dealt with conflict his whole life. He also didn't have very good hygene, so I was embarrassed being around him in public.
5) He had fights with his wife all the time, and eventually broke up, and I had to live with him, since I dont think his wife wanted me to begin with.
6) We moved into a trailer with no washer and dryer, and he was so lazy that he wouldnt take me to get my clothes washed all the time. The kids at school would say I stink, "dont you take a shower"? If I complained to my foster dad, he would shout at me or hit me.
At about the 11th grade, we got in a big fight, and I had, had enough and moved out.
I started working full time and pretty much gave up on school at that point, since it was impossible, and pretty low on my priorities. I just wanted to have a happy life and to get away from all the negative stuff I had faced in growing up.
At this point in my life, I had never been in a relationship of any kind. We were always moving, and I never got established long enough at one school to make a lot of friends.
I tired of my job and this way of life as well, and went and got my GED and went into the Navy. I left the Navy after my term was up and enrolled in college, and made it all the way to my senior year in an Electrical Engineering program. But I had ran out of Financial Aid because I had to take 2 years of catch up courses that should have been taken in high school.
I had no choice but to drop out and get a job to try and pay off some of the debt I had accumulated. My hope was to finish college, get my self settled, and then look into relationships. But I guess life doesnt work that way sometimes.
My foster dad died about a year ago, and I felt a release at that point. He used to always put a guilt trip on me by saying maybe I would have been better off on the streets or an orphanage. Once he died, I was no longer bound to keep quite, and started exploring the pasts. But oh how painful it was.
I had repressed it for so long, that when I started to explore my past, I couldn't believe it was my past. I questioned many times what I had done to deserve it all. Was I working off bad karma from a previous incarnation?
I think I also felt rejected not once but twice. Once by my real mom, and again my my foster dads wife.
And the humiliation I felt in school contributed to my SA no doubt, plus the negative affirmations dealt to me by my foster dad. He used to call me an idiot all the time. He called everyone an idiot though, but I took it more personally since I was already damaged in the ego for so long.
I was never able to take constructive criticisms or jokes from peers either for a long time as well.
I'm feeling a lot better though lately than I have for a long time. Philosophy and World religions have been 2 of my greatest passions for quite a few years. It wasnt until recenetly that I was able to apply what I have learned in those 2 disciplines to my own childhood experiences.
Thoughts create our reality.
Exposing yourself constantly to positive affirmations can deprogram the negative thoughts you have about yourself.
Fusing negative experiences with positive experiences from that era lessens the trauma.
Im no better or worse than anyone else, physical, mentally, or spiritually, so the only thing holding me back from experiencing life, is my thoughts. Its a long road ahead, but I have a strong will to continue and make these changes.
I wrote out my life in explicit detail one day in order to disect it, and see the causes and effects that took place and made me feel the way I do. Little did I know, just writing my thoughts down felt like it was taking a huge load off by mind and having it on the paper instead. I came across an article somewhere shortly after having done this, and was pleasently surprised to having experienced the relief first hand.
I've never been to a therapist either for these problems either.
Correct me if I am in error, but really, all a therpist can do, is ask you questions that will help draw out the answers from within yourself, and to act as a support vehicle?