self-worth

Ruined

~ KJ ~ 5 Comments

Research shows that people who have experienced sexual abuse in childhood are four times more likely to work in prostitution than people who have not.

It doesn’t surprise me at all. Because it’s happened to me.

I’ve done things I really shouldn’t have. I didn’t end up on street corners putting myself in danger, but I definitely put myself in situations in which I did things I didn’t need to. Yet it wasn’t just about the money.

People constantly judge, asking how someone could degrade themselves like that. But I was already degraded. I was already ruined. And it wasn’t my choice.

It’s inexplicable just how damaging it is when your first sexual experiences were with your own mother. I had sex before I even knew what sex was. I felt shame before I even knew what shame was.

My mother created a never-ending cycle, a lose-lose situation that I could never, ever win. I was programmed not to say no; saying no got you punished. Yet saying yes meant I was a whore. Any time my mother believed I was being remotely sexual (and I really wasn’t — what seven year-old is), I had to be cleansed of my sins. After a while, I started to wonder what was wrong with me, why the evil hadn’t left me. I’d been burned so many times, I learned not to feel.

It just got worse as I got older. There were constant accusations. I couldn’t stay after school to work on group projects because my mother believed I was having sex. She accused me of posting nude pictures online; I never did. She’d pull these crazy ideas from I don’t know where. Even when I was an adult, she’d accuse me of being in relationships with people at work. She accused me of having sex with my (female) boss; she was just my friend. She’d also accuse me of having sex with several coworkers. When I would stay late at work (to avoid going home), she claimed I was at work having sex. She continually reminded me how much of a sinner I was and what a whore I was.

None of what my mother claimed was ever true. And I knew that, on some level. But I became conditioned to believe that I was a whore. That something inside me made me this way. There was a defect in me that everyone could see but me. After all, normal, pure kids don’t do these things with their own mother. Maybe I made her do it. She always said she was trying to help me, but maybe I was just too damaged from that start.

I never had the chance to form my sexual identity. I grew to fear sex. Unless it involved my mother, it was somehow wrong. Yet in an intellectual way, I knew that if it involved my mother, it WAS wrong. There was no right way. It was all wrong. It was all bad.

Once I was a teenager and really understood sex and sexual identity, I realized that my body, my sense of self, was already ruined. While others my age talked about losing their virginity, I had already lost mine, more than ten years prior, to my own mother. It was never my body; she stole it from me. It was hers. All of it. All of me. It was hers.

The fear of telling someone no overruled my life for years, even after I managed to run away. While my body was no longer being damaged by her, I let it be damaged by others. I was already ruined; there wasn’t much more anyone could do to me to make me hate myself any more than I already did. All those years she called me a whore, it stuck with me. It was like a prophecy that needed to be fulfilled.

Before I left IOP over a month ago, I made a promise to someone very important to me that I wouldn’t engage in that type of shit anymore. I promised I wouldn’t put myself in any kind of situation that would cause that weakness in me. And I haven’t. It was easy to do, a lot easier than I thought it would be. One less thing to worry about.

Except I didn’t account for all the possibilities. I managed to avoid  not-so-healthy people who had been involved in my life before, but I forgot about the not-so-healthy people who I couldn’t avoid — the strangers, the acquaintances, the come-and-goers.

I was sitting on the bus the other day, on my way home from a doctor’s appointment. I was emotionally drained. There was man on the seat across from me; I’d seen him many times before, but never really engaged much aside from hello. This time, he started telling other passengers that I was his fiance. I told him to shut up, but he didn’t. He just kept saying it. When the bus emptied out a little, his comments got worse. He told me what I could do to him, and all the things he could do to me. I just frozen. As much as I should have told him to fuck off, I couldn’t say anything.

I could feel the nausea kicking in almost instantaneously. I showered as soon as I got home, trying to scrub away the feeling of being dirty. But as much as I washed, I didn’t feel any better. I could hear my mother’s voice in my head. This was my fault. I was a whore. He must have sensed it in me. That’s why he said those things and made those gestures. Somehow he just knew.

I was afraid. Afraid my mother would find out. Afraid I would be punished. I believed his actions were my fault, just like my mother taught me — look what you made me do. 

It was always something I did, something I was, something I said. It was never anyone else, and never her. But that was her falsity, not the reality.

One day I want to be able to decipher between the two. One day, I want to tell her, look what you did to me. Look how you ruined me.

There’s no need for any doctors

~ KJ ~ 9 Comments

I’ve been dealing with a significant medical issue for the last ten days.

And when I say dealing with, I mean actively avoiding, pretending it’s not happening, and keeping my mouth shut about it, hoping it will resolve on its own. Because you know, that’s how I handle most things in my life. That’s how I was taught to handle most things in my life.

Medical avoidance is my norm. That is one thing I have carried on from my mother. She only took us to the doctor when it was required (because of school forms) or when I was near death. And even then, I was made to feel like it was some kind of burden on her for me to be sick.

Well before I was diagnosed with asthma at age 14, I kept telling my parents that something was wrong. I had to struggle to catch my breath. I felt like I was suffocating.

“It’s just allergies.”

Except it wasn’t just allergies. I suffered for a long time until my lungs filled up with so much fluid that I could no longer breathe. It wasn’t until then that my mother finally took me to the doctor. I probably would have died if she had waited any longer.

By then, the damage was already done. I spent the next 14 years in and out of hospitals, battling pneumonia and lung infections, living off of oral steroids and liquid Albuterol just to stay alive (and for those that may not know, oral steroids are simultaneously the best and the worst drugs ever).

I always waited until the very last minute to seek medical treatment. Concerned friends would tell me I was turning blue. “I’m alright, just cold,”I’d tell them. Then within the week, I’d be in the ER on oxygen. I wasn’t cold, I knew what was coming. I just was taught to think that I didn’t need medical care. I grew up believing that I didn’t deserve medical care.

And I’m still practicing that belief. I went to the doctor back in March, with my therapist, after her consistent prodding and encouragement. It was at that appointment that I was diagnosed with COPD. I haven’t been back to the doctor since. My prescription ran out, and I’ve been living unmedicated for months now.

I think I’m doing just fine, considering. My therapist is not as inclined to think so. We were discussing the impending hospitalization, and her reasons for wanting me to go. She mentioned me not receiving medical care.

“I don’t need medical care, I’m fine.”

“You have COPD, and you’re not getting treatment for that.”

“Yea but I don’t need it, I’ve been okay.”

“For now. But that’s not just something that can be put to the side.”

On a deeper level, I still feel undeserving of care. That ties into my even deeper belief that I am undeserving of love, and undeserving of life. Maybe I have COPD because I am undeserving of oxygen. Who knows.

I wasn’t even going to tell my therapist about my current issue. I had already endured enough of her semi-lecturing this session. But I found myself immensely tired during session. My therapist assumed it was related to not wanting to talk about the difficult stuff (which I admit, in the past, it has been). I kept telling her this was different, and she asked how I knew it was.

I finally told her what’s been going on. I knew it was just going to further prove her point about me needing to go to the doctor. Luckily for me, I squeezed in my admission right at the end of session, so I didn’t have to talk about it all that much. I’m sure I will hear about it on Thursday. Hopefully by then, the issue will be resolved and I can just say “see, I told you I was going to be fine.”

Or, it won’t. Either way, I’ll sit there and say everything is okay. I could be bleeding to death, and I’ll still tell you I’m okay.

That’s what I did in childhood. That’s what I do today.

Perfection

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

Growing up, I had to choose between being hurt for being too good or being hurt for not being good enough. There was no in between; those were my only options. So I chose to be perfect. It probably helped that I was born with relatively high intelligence, which allowed me to succeed academically with very little, if any, effort.

But it still ended up hurting me. Being perfect was viewed as an insult in my family. Being perfect meant that I thought that I was better than them. How could I have the audacity to think I was better than anyone, especially them? It made my parents angry, and they took that anger out on me. I could never take pleasure in an achievement; it ended up resulting in more pain.

I held on to perfection like it were a life raft, saving me from drowning. It’s the only thing I had in my life that gave me any sense of worth. Other people would tell me how intelligent I was, how much potential I had, how much talent I possessed. I needed that because it gave my life meaning.

Unfortunately, my need for perfection has hindered me in the long run. If I am not perfect, I feel worthless. I cannot bask in many of my achievements if I know I could have done better. I hold myself to (at times) impossibly high standards.

This was exemplified recently when I took the GRE. I told my therapist the unofficial raw scores I received, completely lacking any enthusiasm about them. I was such a mess when I took the exam that I knew, in my belief, that I had done poorly. My tremendous headache (self-induced) and lack of sleep just ruined everything for me.

“I know students that would be thrilled to have GRE scores anywhere close to yours.”

“But they’re not good enough.”

“You can get in to any school with scores like those.”

“But they’re not perfect.”

On some level, I knew my therapist was right. But I was so mad at myself because I didn’t get that perfect score. I could have slept longer. I could have not gone crazy and banged my head the day before. I could have eaten breakfast. I could have done better than I did. I need to be perfect or I’m not good enough.

So when any other person would be ecstatic with those scores, I could not take any kind of pleasure in what was, in reality, a considerable achievement. I talked about it as if I were talking about cloudy weather.

I also think my previous graduate school experience has hampered my academic outlook in general. I can no longer get excited about anything because no matter what I did before, I ended up not being good enough for the program. If I don’t get excited, I won’t be as hurt in the end when it doesn’t work out. It’s a twisted form of self-protection.

As a child, I held on to hope that perfection would save me. It never did. So why do I still need it in order to feel like I’m worth something?

A question of worth

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

I fell into a dark place while in therapy yesterday.

I’m still sort of there, hanging on with one arm, with my head turned over my shoulder and looking into the darkness, waiting for the moment I lose my grip.

My therapist asked me to come up with some positive things I could do for myself, and some things we could do in therapy to help transition from dealing with trauma to going back into the real world. My mind just went blank. I looked around the room aimlessly, stared at my hands, stared at the floor…I even closed my eyes hoping an answer would come into my mind. But nothing came. This wasn’t the first time. Any time she asks me these types of questions, I draw a blank. It shouldn’t be this hard to come up with answers. What is wrong with me?

After several sighs and “I don’t know”s, my therapist finally asked me if I believed I was worthy of these things. No. Sometimes I struggle with believing I am worthy enough to be breathing, let alone to be engaging in any remotely positive things. Then I felt myself sinking. I managed to stay grounded for the most part, but I felt like I reverted right back to being my mother’s child. I apologized profusely, which is a habit of mine. I feel like I am constantly bothering other people, and am compelled to apologize for it. I just kept telling my therapist that it was all my fault. Something was wrong with me. Something must be wrong with me. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. My therapist kept trying to convince me that it wasn’t, but I know it was. She mentioned the possibility of my parents being mentally ill. Could a person (specifically my mother) be mentally ill and still appear so normal on the outside? That doesn’t even matter anyway. It was still my fault. I was the only one treated that badly. The defect lies in me.

I grew up believing my purpose in this life was to be abused. I had no self-worth. I have no self-worth now. It’s hard for me to accept when people say something positive because I question their intentions; it’s just not something I’m used to. My therapist asked me if I believed the things she said about me. I said she had to say those things because she was my therapist. When she said that she said those things because they were true and because she cared, my immediate response was “please don’t care about me.” I don’t want people to care. I needed people to care years ago when I was a child in desperate need of saving. Now I am adult who has lost the ability to trust people. Part of that is due to being raised to believe no one could be trusted, and part of that is due to witnessing the actions (or lack thereof) of people in my life when it came to what was happening to me.

Trust no one, fear everything, don’t talk, you’re evil…these are programs that have been downloaded into me since childhood that I have yet to be able to delete. They are like those programs on your computer that run in the background and you don’t even realize that they’re there; they are automatic, and they’re always taking up space. How can I ever feel like I am worth anything when these thoughts are constantly running in the background of my mind? How can I be worth anything when I am so incredibly damaged?