Who Am I, Anyway???

    I have really been struggling with depression lately.  There are a lot of factors playing into it and I know this is just part of the process.  Lately I have just felt so despondent and like things are never going to get better.

    I am still working through spiritual abuse issues, and expect that this will be an ongoing process.  As I mentioned in this post a little bit back, I am working through a book called The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse. I have to take it in chunks because so much resonates with me; I can't plow through it.  I will probably go back and read it a second time after I am done with it, keeping a notebook with me to write down thoughts as they occur to me as I'm reading.  I'm amazed at how the authors nail on the head so many of the feelings and internal struggles I have had all of my life, including conflicting feelings about God and feeling so much guilt over having those feelings that I have felt paralyzed and that I needed to up my outer performance in order to be in good graces with Him.

    As different things have come to my mind regarding my parents' treatment of me, I've realized how often my dad really was very unkind to me.  Some of the things he would say to me were really mean and things that I don't believe any father should ever say to a daughter.  For a long time I've seen my dad as the "Good Parent" because my mother is the one I had to deal with most of the time.  My dad had a fun sense of humor and I think he meant well in a lot of ways, but the more I learn about abusive family systems it is so plain to me that he was a classic enabler as far as my mom was concerned.  I turned to him so many times in tears, wanting him to help me and protect me, and he usually just backed her up and I would get a lecture on what I had done to deserve the treatment I got (based on what she would tell him).  There were so many times that he made me responsible, through both reactions and things he would say to me, for his and my mothers' emotional well-being; like if they were unhappy it was my fault.  I guess I really had some nerve deciding to be born (maybe they should have used birth control awhile longer before deciding to become parents if having that responsibility was going to make them so miserable).  I wasn't celebrated; I was tolerated.

    I've been watching parts of the Winter Olympics, and love watching the figure skating.  I think it must be such an amazing feeling to have parents who are so supportive of your dreams and desires, and who encourage and believe in you.  One of the skaters I watched from Thursday, from Italy, is a former Olympic contender who almost didn't come back after some devastating losses from previous Games.  She decided to come back one last time at the urging of her mother, who told her to just skate for the joy of skating.  I didn't see the short programs but her long program was beautiful and an absolute triumph.  They showed her mother hugging her afterward saying, "Do you see?  Do you believe now?"  What an amazing feeling that must be!

    Something I am feeling so keenly is grief over what might have been.  How different could my life have been if I was adored and encouraged, instead of torn down and humiliated on a regular basis? What if I had been born to parents who weren't so injured themselves that they would have nurtured my self esteem instead of screaming at me that they couldn't understand why my self-esteem was so low?  What if my feelings had been validated and I would have been listened to when I was hurting?  What if I hadn't had to fight to make every single opportunity for myself that I got? What if I had felt God as a loving, empowering force to joyfully embrace instead of this supreme, angry being to be feared any time I made a mistake?  What if I could have been free to just discover myself without all of the constraints and fears that were drilled into me, and could have been allowed to be the joyful little being that I naturally was instead of being seen as someone who needed to be broken?  What if I hadn't dealt with so much trauma that I wasn't constantly walking around in a daydreamy haze and could have actually comprehended the things going on around me and interacted in a normal way with my peers? At my age (I am 47), I am feeling like all the pieces that are coming together are too little, too late.

    In a lot of ways, I feel very lost.  I don't really know who I am. I'm realizing with more and more clarity that almost everything that I involved myself in, including talents/abilities I cultivated, I did in an effort to be accepted and to fit in somewhere.  I'm not sure I even really know what my true nature is because I had to use adaptive behaviors to survive by the time I was three years old.  I had to gauge situations for volatility and then chose behaviors that would serve my well-being in the best way, and many times what I chose was extreme opposites:  either super-perform for oohs and ahs and applause, or to try and be invisible.  The way I latched on to religion was a way to be a "good girl" and not get into trouble, and since there were nice teachers there who liked me for being well-behaved in class and knowing all the answers, that was somewhere that I sought approval from.  Now that the scales are falling from my eyes and I'm looking at things as they really are and how they have truly fit into my life, I feel a kind of nothingness.  I don't know what defines me. The way I am chaffing at the bit as far as church goes is getting me increased isolation as well, because this is not desirable behavior in a church member.  If I were to freely speak my mind to other church members whom I have considered to be my friends, they wouldn't want anything to do with me because I would be considered to be falling into forbidden paths that lead to "apostacy," and therefore a bad influence. So really, if I were being outwardly truthful about how I am feeling, I would probably lose most of the friendships I have.