Relationship Struggles… “I’m Not Worth It”
(and why I can’t cognitively correct my thinking)
I had a good T session yesterday. We covered a lot of ground and went deeper into things than I expected.
I had decided I wanted to revisit something my T said last week as we discussed what I shared in the content of my last post. Because last week, as I was explaining how my current real-life relationship & situation related to the loss I experienced as a boy of wanting / longing / hoping so badly for a “normal” childhood and a dad who was a real dad and wasn’t abusing me, my T rattled off a list of characteristics of the family in my current real-life situation and how those characteristics were repetitions of my childhood experience with my own parents & family system. When she rattled things off last week, though, for some reason I wasn’t able to internalize or understand what she was saying.
But on the drive to my T session yesterday, I figured out that she was saying. To give an example: she said my mom, and the soccer mom I’ve been relating to, were and are “controlling.” By “controlling,” my T meant that they both were emotionally controlling; both women try to tightly control their emotions and don’t show much emotion outwardly. This understanding let me to draw some of the other parallels she had mentioned: like relating to a dad who didn’t connect with other men, or a dad who didn’t connect enough with his children, or children who longed for adult connection to meet their legitimate needs but parents blocking them from getting their needs met. These parallels triggered a lot of my childhood emotions last week.
As my T and I continued to talk yesterday, I shared how over the last week I made several attempts to connect and spend time with my soccer player’s dad. I invited him and several of his boys to breakfast and then to do some fishing afterwards. Not unexpectedly (I know from his kids that he is very quiet and is shy around other people) this dad quickly rebuffed those attempts to connect, which reinforced to me he has zero interest in striking up a real friendship. He texted me, “I appreciate the offer, but fishing is something we do as a family thing.” And although I pretty much expected his decline, it affected me – especially the young parts of me. The 7-9 yo boy in me heard this message from him : “You are not a part of this family. You do not belong.”
While I was sharing this with my T, all of a sudden, I was struck by an even deeper sadness I didn’t know existed inside me. The following words (from my 7-9 yo self) flew into my mind: “I’m not worth it!” This soccer dad’s rejection struck my 7-9 yo kid very hard. That kid felt rejection, abandonment, isolation, and deep loneliness in what he said. That 7-9 yo boy in me, “I’m not worth it! I’m not worth this man overcoming his own issues to engage in a friendship.” And in that 7-9 yo’s reality, this rejection parallels my father. While my dad was perpetrating abuse on me, that kid in me felt this: “Dad tells me what he’s doing is wrong. He promises me that he won’t do it again. And that makes me feel like I am important to him! I’m worth him sacrificing what he wants to do to me – because I am important
But sometimes I get so confused… because he keeps on doing it! He promises to stop touching me, but he just does it again… and again… and again. And I know what that means… it means I am not worth it. I am not worth it… ☹ I am really, really sad.”
When I was 7-9 yo though, I still believed I was mattering to my mom, and that I was worth it to her. I believed this throughout my childhood even though she never read my mind or looked at the signs to figure out what my dad was doing to me. In fact, I believe she was the reason that through my childhood and most of my teenage years (until I was 17) I didn’t fall into deep despair and depression, that I didn’t turn to alcohol or drugs, and that I was able to live what I thought was a pretty “normal” life as a teenager.
But then… when I was 17 and forced my father to tell my mom what he had done (so I could get help)… she did not help me. She did take me to a therapist for a couple of months like I asked for, but then she was the one (not my father) who forced me to stop – because she couldn’t handle the anxiety and guilt she was feeling. She told me accusingly that I came home angry after every session; that was the main reason she wanted me to stop seeing the therapist. She also told me that she didn’t want me to talk about the abuse anymore – because she had been abused and moved on, and that I should do the same. Finally, when I was 18, for some reason she thought it should be my decision whether she stayed with my father or not; she asked me what I thought. I told her it was her choice. Ultimately, she chose him over me.
And so, that 17-18 yo teenager who had believed that at least he mattered to his mom even if he didn’t matter to his father, that teen in me heard her saying: “You are not worth it. You are not worth the time and expense to get you help. You are not worth me enduring my anxieties, my fear, and my guilt for me to help you. You must make the sacrifice of your emotions and healing – and you must take care of me. Because I am worth it. And your father is worth it. But you are not.”
At this point in my T session, I choked up badly. Tears started flowing. I discovered one more thing that has been living deep inside me that I didn’t know was there. I reflected to my T that when I’m feeling this, I try to tell myself the same thing that other people will say to me. They say: “But… you have so many people in your life you do matter to. You are worth so much to those people. You are worth it!” But telling myself those things does nothing to quell the feelings of sadness or to correct the belief that “I am not worth it.”
One of the principles my T and I have established and proven about the younger kid fragments inside of me is this: those young fragments of myself are “stuck in time.” They are frozen within the reality that existed for them in real life when I was those ages. They do not have relationships with people that I added to my life over the years as I got older. They can only see things from their age backwards – but never forwards. Therefore, they cannot see or feel my wife. They don’t have my daughters in their lives. They have not met my best friend and his family (who I met when I was 18). And therefore, they truly do not have anyone in their lives that can counter the message that they are not worth it.
So now, it is up to me (adult me) to continue to connect with those younger parts of me. And it is up to me to communicate and demonstrate to them that they do matter, and that they are worth it. I can use relationships they did have in their lives – even their relationship with God – to communicate and prove their worth. And I can communicate their worth to me now. My T can also talk to them and communicate to them that they are worth it. Because this needs healing; this is a big, deep wound that hurts.
Last thing: my T also gave me an interesting perspective on healing. She said, “The hope is… that when you face real-life situations like this… the possibilities of why people respond the way they do (like rejecting attempts at connection and friendship) start with the innocuous reasons (they are too busy, they have their own issues, etc.) and that those childhood reasons – that focus on me and my lack of worth – don’t have the predominant emotional power over me. That is a very good thing to work towards.
I had a good T session yesterday. We covered a lot of ground and went deeper into things than I expected.
I had decided I wanted to revisit something my T said last week as we discussed what I shared in the content of my last post. Because last week, as I was explaining how my current real-life relationship & situation related to the loss I experienced as a boy of wanting / longing / hoping so badly for a “normal” childhood and a dad who was a real dad and wasn’t abusing me, my T rattled off a list of characteristics of the family in my current real-life situation and how those characteristics were repetitions of my childhood experience with my own parents & family system. When she rattled things off last week, though, for some reason I wasn’t able to internalize or understand what she was saying.
But on the drive to my T session yesterday, I figured out that she was saying. To give an example: she said my mom, and the soccer mom I’ve been relating to, were and are “controlling.” By “controlling,” my T meant that they both were emotionally controlling; both women try to tightly control their emotions and don’t show much emotion outwardly. This understanding let me to draw some of the other parallels she had mentioned: like relating to a dad who didn’t connect with other men, or a dad who didn’t connect enough with his children, or children who longed for adult connection to meet their legitimate needs but parents blocking them from getting their needs met. These parallels triggered a lot of my childhood emotions last week.
As my T and I continued to talk yesterday, I shared how over the last week I made several attempts to connect and spend time with my soccer player’s dad. I invited him and several of his boys to breakfast and then to do some fishing afterwards. Not unexpectedly (I know from his kids that he is very quiet and is shy around other people) this dad quickly rebuffed those attempts to connect, which reinforced to me he has zero interest in striking up a real friendship. He texted me, “I appreciate the offer, but fishing is something we do as a family thing.” And although I pretty much expected his decline, it affected me – especially the young parts of me. The 7-9 yo boy in me heard this message from him : “You are not a part of this family. You do not belong.”
While I was sharing this with my T, all of a sudden, I was struck by an even deeper sadness I didn’t know existed inside me. The following words (from my 7-9 yo self) flew into my mind: “I’m not worth it!” This soccer dad’s rejection struck my 7-9 yo kid very hard. That kid felt rejection, abandonment, isolation, and deep loneliness in what he said. That 7-9 yo boy in me, “I’m not worth it! I’m not worth this man overcoming his own issues to engage in a friendship.” And in that 7-9 yo’s reality, this rejection parallels my father. While my dad was perpetrating abuse on me, that kid in me felt this: “Dad tells me what he’s doing is wrong. He promises me that he won’t do it again. And that makes me feel like I am important to him! I’m worth him sacrificing what he wants to do to me – because I am important
But sometimes I get so confused… because he keeps on doing it! He promises to stop touching me, but he just does it again… and again… and again. And I know what that means… it means I am not worth it. I am not worth it… ☹ I am really, really sad.”When I was 7-9 yo though, I still believed I was mattering to my mom, and that I was worth it to her. I believed this throughout my childhood even though she never read my mind or looked at the signs to figure out what my dad was doing to me. In fact, I believe she was the reason that through my childhood and most of my teenage years (until I was 17) I didn’t fall into deep despair and depression, that I didn’t turn to alcohol or drugs, and that I was able to live what I thought was a pretty “normal” life as a teenager.
But then… when I was 17 and forced my father to tell my mom what he had done (so I could get help)… she did not help me. She did take me to a therapist for a couple of months like I asked for, but then she was the one (not my father) who forced me to stop – because she couldn’t handle the anxiety and guilt she was feeling. She told me accusingly that I came home angry after every session; that was the main reason she wanted me to stop seeing the therapist. She also told me that she didn’t want me to talk about the abuse anymore – because she had been abused and moved on, and that I should do the same. Finally, when I was 18, for some reason she thought it should be my decision whether she stayed with my father or not; she asked me what I thought. I told her it was her choice. Ultimately, she chose him over me.
And so, that 17-18 yo teenager who had believed that at least he mattered to his mom even if he didn’t matter to his father, that teen in me heard her saying: “You are not worth it. You are not worth the time and expense to get you help. You are not worth me enduring my anxieties, my fear, and my guilt for me to help you. You must make the sacrifice of your emotions and healing – and you must take care of me. Because I am worth it. And your father is worth it. But you are not.”
At this point in my T session, I choked up badly. Tears started flowing. I discovered one more thing that has been living deep inside me that I didn’t know was there. I reflected to my T that when I’m feeling this, I try to tell myself the same thing that other people will say to me. They say: “But… you have so many people in your life you do matter to. You are worth so much to those people. You are worth it!” But telling myself those things does nothing to quell the feelings of sadness or to correct the belief that “I am not worth it.”
One of the principles my T and I have established and proven about the younger kid fragments inside of me is this: those young fragments of myself are “stuck in time.” They are frozen within the reality that existed for them in real life when I was those ages. They do not have relationships with people that I added to my life over the years as I got older. They can only see things from their age backwards – but never forwards. Therefore, they cannot see or feel my wife. They don’t have my daughters in their lives. They have not met my best friend and his family (who I met when I was 18). And therefore, they truly do not have anyone in their lives that can counter the message that they are not worth it.
So now, it is up to me (adult me) to continue to connect with those younger parts of me. And it is up to me to communicate and demonstrate to them that they do matter, and that they are worth it. I can use relationships they did have in their lives – even their relationship with God – to communicate and prove their worth. And I can communicate their worth to me now. My T can also talk to them and communicate to them that they are worth it. Because this needs healing; this is a big, deep wound that hurts.
Last thing: my T also gave me an interesting perspective on healing. She said, “The hope is… that when you face real-life situations like this… the possibilities of why people respond the way they do (like rejecting attempts at connection and friendship) start with the innocuous reasons (they are too busy, they have their own issues, etc.) and that those childhood reasons – that focus on me and my lack of worth – don’t have the predominant emotional power over me. That is a very good thing to work towards.
. Of course she hadn't and she won't. We had both adopted the same strategy with respect to our pasts -- denial and quiet, deep resentment -- until I couldn't anymore and miraculously found Hope. Of course it was a lot of work too 
.
