"Unworthiness" - may trigger?

[TJ jeff]

In Larry's post "Creating Safety II" there was a line that really hit home hard with me - and I did not want to sidetrack Larry's post so I PM'd him back on it - and we both agreed that it would make a good topic for here - so I am bringing it to here... - I hope that this can somehow be of help to others here and I welcome anyones ideas/feedback...

Hi Larry - I just read your post "Creating Safety II" - you have a very good way with words -you are a very insightfull person - so much of what you say rings so very true with me - and you put it into words so much better than I ever could...

I do not want to sidetrack your post (is why I PM'd instead of replying to it)(perhaps I should of started a new post?) - but your T's question at the end of the post speaks very heavily to me... - and I just wanted to explain why... - as it's something that my old T could never understand - and I believe that if anyone can - you might be able to understand...


quote:
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As my T put it to me one day: "Larry, can you imagine such a thing as a worthless child?"

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as sad as it is - Yes - I can imagine such a thing as a worthless child - I was that child... - the second unplanned child to a couple that was struggling just to keep a roof over their heads and barely any food on the table - I was a burdon that they simply were not ready for... - for as far back as my memory goes I can remember my mothers neverending calling me "a worthless child" (if you've never read my story - it explains a lot more)

I am no longer a child - the grains of time keep flowing on and I am now a man (whether I like it or not) - it is a daily struggle for me to try to become more than that legacy of "the worthless child" that I was raised as - I fight to rise above the worthlessness in an atempt to prove to my mother that she was wrong all along about me - that I am more than she raised me to be... - I can be a mighty stubborn man sometimes - and I'm not going to let her win in my life if there is anything that I can do about it!

I hate to admit it - even to myself - but the feelings of "worthlessness" have really been creeping back in this last year (many reasons - loss of job - bankrupcy a short while back - genetic health problem that will never go away - tons more of 'little things')

I guess my real question here is how does one get themselves out of this feeling of 'worthlessness'? - I try to look at all the good things I do (I volunteer with a youth group and at my local church) and yet somehow it still seems overweighed with the negatives in my life - is there a way out of this???

Thanks for any insight you can give me,

TJ jeff

 

[WalkingSouth]

Jeff,

I too remember being called names by those whose job it was to nurture, love, and protect me.

"good for nothing"
"pantywaist"
"worthless kid"

And others. The thing of it is, I believed them. What a huge burden to put on a child. Can they not see what it is they are doing?

Thanks for sharing, buddy.

Lots of love,

John

 

[nymij]

TJ Jeff

Thanks for your posting! Worthlessness? One thing I find interesting about how I learn is that I don't realize how bad or good something is until it is no longer bad or good. E.G. I didn't know how good I had it until I didn't have it (family life, kids, money, sanity, great childhood - or so I though)...

I know you've been on here longer than I have and thus know you probably have read about how one's self image/self esteem is obliterated and/or non existent. So, I wont re-hash that dialogue. Because it is true!

So, your question was,
"how does one get themselves out of this feeling of 'worthlessness'?

I don't have a straight answer for you on this one. Bringing to the surface the good things in your life and that you are doing, is a great start (be persistant). I can tell you this: Having been/and still in very deep "pits of hell" similar to yours, I have known dispare and that feeling of utter worthlessness. I'm not in that pit of dispare right now, so I can write about it from my head not my emotions.

I know that until I was in the pit of dispare (spelling), and what I thought was rock bottom and as low as I could possibly get, I was not able to realize and recognize what was truly good in my life and what matters. This is all very easy to write while I'm not in that "pit." I have read writing like this while feeling worthless and thought, "yea but it doesn't help me right now." You maybe right.

So, here is worked for me: I just kept on... As a survivor, you had to develop coping skills that have shown your stregnth in extenuating emotional situations. For me, in retrospect, my feelings of worthlessness and dispare are a "cake walk" compared to the confusion and need to hang in there I felt as a kid. So, you have the ability to "hang in there." Just hang on for anothere day, one day at a time, one moment at a time, no more, no less!

Jeff, the most uncomfortable thing for me was recognizing my feelings like worthlessness, because I never let myslef feel them. Well, in "recognizing" them, I needed to experience them. Not all those feelings are fun. Come to think about it, none of them are fun. In the beginning my T told me to let them come up and welcome them. I thought he was crazy and too "eastern" for me. Guess what, he was right. He told me, I didn't have to enjoy it, I just needed to let them surface and live through it....

I am rambling somewhat. So let me sum up my thoughts here... Jeff, you have to live through the despondancy/worthlessness (period). It is not fun! I think anyone of us will attest to that. But the only way out, is through. I didn't know it, but the way I did it was to live one second at a time, and keep using tools like recognizing all the good you are doing, your family/freinds/pets/support/Therapist, your home/apt/house/shack/trailer, your safe place(s), the people on here. No matter how difficult it is, keep moving through (not around) this tough time and know it will get better!

Finally - Jeff, know this - You are a good person. Your feelings of worthlessness are valid and painful. You are NOT alone, and if you think no where else, you are loved and valued here. You are helping more people than you think (myslef from this post included), so your worth a LOT! Thank you for this post, and for being who you are, not what you have!

Jim

 

[roadrunner]

Tj jeff,

Since you first asked me this question I have been puzzling over it a LOT. It's so complicated, but here is as far as I could get with it until now.

The first thing I thought of was a rather philosophical question: Can there be such a thing as a worthless person, someone who has done no wrong but is just worthless all the same? I think the answer is no. It would be difficult to prove that, but look at how barbaric the alternative would be. If there are worthless people then they don't deserve considerations of any kind: they would have no rights, no claim to happiness or even life. They would be nothing better than slaves and could be mistreated as badly as the "worthwhile" people wished to treat them. There could be no talk about human rights in such a society. And who would decide who these worthless people are, and according to what criteria? We would be back to the Holocaust, the labor camps of Stalinism, and the evil ideas that prop up racism and other forms of prejudice.

It seems to me that even the argument that some people are in and of themselves worthless is an outrage and a threat to all people everywhere. So many of our institutions are based on the idea that we ALL have value: for example, the whole idea of recovery from CSA presumes the idea that every survivor is of value as a person and deserves to get his life back.

So if there is no such thing as a worthless person, then there can be no such thing as a worthless child.

That brings me to what you are really asking TJ: can the things that happen to a child MAKE him worthless? Can his worth be stripped away from him, or could he ever DESERVE to have that worth stripped away from him? The answer again would have to be no, wouldn't it? Every child deserves to be loved, nurtured, cherished and protected in every way possible.

If your family was in tight financial circumstances that doesn't change the fact that you were a worthwhile child. When your mother called you a worthless child over and over again I can well imagine how destructive that must have been to your self-esteem. But the fact remains that what she said was never true, and it was an outrage for her to say such things to her own child.

What happened to you is a good example of how a child can be made to FEEL worthless, as I was saying in that "creating safety" thread on our feelings about ourselves. As an adult you have to confront that feeling and come to terms with it. But the goal will be to believe and trust the fact that this feeling is entirely wrong. When you ask why you feel worthless, and that's a crucial question, the finger will point not to Jeff himself, but to others who abused and mistreated him. You have always been a worthwhile person, not less so than anyone else here - or anywhere.

Much love,
Larry

 

[reality2k4]

TJ,

you never were a worthless kid, none of us were.
Losing a job is hard enough, not having money or
losing some relative is hard also.

I have also lost my job, and yes it puts a backspin
on going forward as you think, what now!
I hope you find the charity work therapeutic, it keeps
your mind busy.

Having loads of time to just keep falling back to the
past is no good thing, but that is how I feel myself
going also.

Very few parents have the skill to deal with this stuff.
I worked for a disability place, it was hard to just
work there, then you get parents screaming about not
getting help with an abused child.

Through work confidentiality, I was not "allowed" to
offer advice to these parents and guardians.
But I could see that these parents just did not know
how to handle the situation even though they loved their
kid.

I never spent so much time at home, I was always out
of there, it was too hectic, and I had to find safety
outside of the home.

My parents always worried when I was gone for so long,
then treat me like I was different and some kind of
messed up kid, not like the other kids.

I was a stranger in my own family, does that ring a bell?
Today I feel much the same, and drift back to them times of
day and nightly worries of how parents want to fashion you
into what they expect.

Is it any wonder why you still fall back on yourself or
"stumble"!

I hope you can find an angle on this, it is of the past,
not the present, but we just have to crawl sometimes,
and yes, I too am stubborn, but that is also from the past,

ste

 

[time2heal]

It is hard to deal with the feeling of worthlessness. I think that it is even harder for CSA victims and those who were emotionally abused by hearing it. I had both and do not wish to repeat the things said to me. It seems to me it is part of the cycle. Bad situtation occurs then you blame yourself and feel guilty and worthless. Those feelings are ingrained into you from the abuse and not true of your adult self. I think that people without the past we all have deal with those issues little and big better not because they are stronger but because they probably have not ever felt the intense pain we have. They haven't had to deal with the rush of emotions or memories problems sometimes generate. I can remember writing an electronic journal 12 years ago and it seems like every other day I was writing "I feel like my life is out of control again" It was the little things bothering me then and I had not figured out how to deal (cope) with my feelings. When I have that feeling creep up on me I take a step back and do something I enjoy for a while, clear my mind, then come back to it later when the emotions pass. My wife used to hit the heavy bag to take her frustrations out and get rid of the bad feelings. Either way it takes your mind off it until your ready to look at it again. The 2nd time you look it usually isn't so bad or 3rd or 4th ect.

 

[TJ jeff]

John, nymij, Larry, Ste, and time2heal - thank you all for your responses - gives my mind more to contemplate (at 3AM when I should be sleeping) - is somehow comforting to know that others have/are stuggling with this...

I think a lot of what is bringing these feelings of the past back so strongly right now is my inability to find decent work that this body can do - tomorrow will mark 1 year to the day since I basicaly lost my job by the union's walking out...

Today I spent the day at a job fair filling out applications - even filled out a application for a job placement agency (I don't like those places and it's about the last thing I wanted to have to do) - so many people in the place - all of them trying to sell themselves to prospective employers - if there is one thing that I have learned - it is that I am not very good at selling myself... - to be honest, I hate the fact that a person has to try to 'sell' themselves just to get a job... (I know that this is'nt going to make sense to anyone - does'nt even make any sense to me - but I spent most of the time I was there in a kind of triggered/disassociated state of mind)

Right now - I just really need to cling to these words that I said a few days ago...

- I fight to rise above the worthlessness in an atempt to prove to my mother that she was wrong all along about me - that I am more than she raised me to be... - I can be a mighty stubborn man sometimes - and I'm not going to let her win in my life if there is anything that I can do about it!

TJ jeff

P.S - Larry - I really needed to re-read this tonight...

When you ask why you feel worthless, and that's a crucial question, the finger will point not to Jeff himself, but to others who abused and mistreated him. You have always been a worthwhile person, not less so than anyone else here - or anywhere.

Thank You...

 

[Morning Star]

YOUR SELF WORTH IS WHAT YOU GIVE TO YOURSELF, and not others give to you.

So if you really value yourself, you won't try to prove yourself to others or get trapped in this cycle of super-excellence or perfectionism, just because you dont feel that you are good enough, or try to improve yourself constantly.

That is when you take your power back from others, and no longer look for others approval neither fear their disapproval. You do what you want to.

So the easy way out is, instead of finding your 'worth' from what you do, you get busy finding your self.

Truly, you dont become special when you do something special; you are special because you were 'born' special. You were created by the universe out of its need to express itself as you.

You are special because you carry the scared within, and the day you find that for yourself, this question will stop mattering.

Then the world might find you useless, you would be content in the knowledge of the self.

And when you find your self you will find enough reasons to celebrate your life, just as universe celebrated your birth.

 

[John Oarc]

The movie Parenthood, the statement, "You have to have a license to catch a fish, or drive a car, but they let any ass**** have a child" Paraphrased not quoted.

That sums it up for me, my parents lived off of what they were given, or not given and passed the leftovers down to me. The "love tank" if I can use that, was never full, no one had enough to give and it just trickles on down from one generation to the other until someone stops the cycle and I believe most or all of us are doing that, if you are here posting you are trying to figure it all out and improve your life thus improving your children's future, creating greater self esteem in them. I could go on forever but that is the way I feel about this topic.

I do know this; all of us have the potential, all of us are one step, one thought away from believing in ourselves forever. Fear is the primary thing that keeps us from truly believing in ourselves, from achieving our greatest potential. The fear stims from the abuse, but we are not the abuse, we are not our parents or the predator we are not the fear. We are capable of anything. If we can stay in the abuse or victim role we can come out....

Great post, I love you guys