Has anyone else ever felt guilty for being born

[MoonOwl]

I truly ache for you. I know how it feels. The truth is, none of us know how we got here. We didn't ask to be born. It wasn't your decision but it is your journey. Your mother had her own journey just as my dad did. We don't know why things happened the way they did but we had no control over any of it. If we did, we certainly wouldn't have chosen the paths their journeys took. What we do have control over is the road that we're on. We will never understand the "why" of our parents deaths but we can honor them by living our own lives well.

 

[MoonOwl]

If you feel that this issue is at the core of your negative beliefs, why not bring it up with both therapists? They will be willing to work on whatever comes up for you. Two heads are better than one!

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

@MoonOwl Point taken...

Its not the only thing I am struggling with this month that I need to talk with them about, My birthday is the 18th, and as it gets near to it I have a hard time staying grounded, the frozen orange only works so much. And bad things happened on that day and the xmas that followed.

 

[MoonOwl]

@MoonOwl Point taken...

Its not the only thing I am struggling with this...

I'm so sorry. Nobody's birthday should bring up bad memories. What is frozen orange?

 

[BuckarooBanzai]

Even if the DES treatments did cause her eventual leukemia, you are still not at fault. If she hadn't become pregnant with you, she would have become pregnant with another child and, most likely, suffered the same result.

In any case, you are clearly not to blame.

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

I finally had a chance to talk about this with my therapist, she made the point that even if the DES did lead to her cancer, neither she or I had any control over what happened, as it was her fall when she was carrying me that started the chain of events. She has me linking this to items on my core values and beliefs list we have been working on.

 

[BuckarooBanzai]

I am so glad you brought this up with your therapist. :)

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

I have too bring such things up, have no choice in a way, because my therapist's knows I want to get better and get happy, or be dead. So for the present I am locked into an everything on the table relationship with everyone in my treatment/therapy circle.

I am tired of life as it has been and would want it to end if things stay the same. So for now I am 100$ committed to make changes, ever though its painful, I have had to employ a lot of distress tolerance, something I did not have the ability to do at all before I went to SP TDU.

 

[BuckarooBanzai]

I'm glad to know you have good coping skills. Very important.

Try to remember that feelings come and go. They are just feelings. The pain you are experiencing now does not imply you will always feel this way!

What is SP TDU?

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

@BuckarooBanzai SP TDU = Sheppard Pratt Trauma Disorders Unit

I don't actually have coping skills, I am beginning to acquire them. SP TDU got me to where I can cope with FB and such, so that I can learn more and deal with some things in Therapy.

I know I will never be whole, normal, or have a normal life or even a decent life. But I don't have a lot of choices but to try, if I give up I would be committable as my T and others know that if I can't get better, I just don't want to exist.

 

[Seasounds]

Yes, absolutely; especially in the early years of my recovery work. I was a unexpected and unwanted. I was thought to be a child from an affair, outside the marriage.

Then you add all the shame based communication that my parents did, and, that alone, leads a child to feel deep shame, self-hate, and that they shouldn't have been born; a mistake.

After decades of work, I know I am a miracle in progress, like all of you. We are gifts to be valued and loved.

"If only we could see the value and beauty that we ascribe to others, in ourselves..."

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

@Vandya I don't know if I was an unexpected child, but I do know that my mom was likely bi-polar like me, and she ran around on my dad as a result so the marriage was under stress, so its possible I was an unwanted child. But my feelings in this area seem to go back to my birth, and my moms death when I was 6, 1 year after CSA by a neighbor. So a lot of my core values and beliefs is built on feeling like my mom would be alive if I was not born. Its an irrational set of beliefs, but at age 6 who can think rationally. I am sorting this out with my T, as it drives some of my core beliefs, that affect my self esteem and communications with others.

We are currently working on my core beliefs and values with my T. As those drive all my other maladaptive behaviors.