Inner chatter

[Venusian]

There have been some very insightful responses already. For those of us with childhood abuse in our past there does seem to be a common thread.

I have been thinking about other things in my life that are happening now and how the inner chatter that kept me from doing things sooner. I have to have surgery, it is a surgery I probably could have had years ago but I didn't think it was bad enough to look for the help. There were other women who had things so much worse so why was I complaining? Now, I HAVE to have the surgery and I could have saved myself years of misery and now I have to deal with the pain I didn't have before. All I heard in my head was I am not as bad off as others, I don't deserve to to have a better life, leave the doctors time for someone who really needs it. Guess what, I really need it, but I still hear it in the back of my mind that I don't deserve to take care of myself because there are so many others that deserve the doctor's time more than I do. Why do I ALWAYS feel like I am bothering the people that are there to help me?

 

[Deleted member 12723]

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((Venusian))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
You deserve good things in your life. You are precious and valuable even if you do not feel like it. All of life is a practice and we learn as we go. You are better than you think you are and you are not as bad as you thik you are.

You are taking care of yourself now and that is the important thing. Big hugs.'

 

[Hashi]

Now I am just beginning to learn how to live. I am making baby steps. And it is a two step forward, three steps back process. I wish I could go to a finishing school and learn some things.

gizmo, I feel just the same. Working on DBT skills, some of what I'm trying to practise is what other people learnt by the age of 10. Sometimes it makes me feel a bit hopeless, as if I ought to be sitting on a little chair at a little desk in a class of seven year olds. At other times I feel like an adolescent. I have to try to negotiate my way through life and relationships with the emotional development of a young teenager.

...that'll make you wish you'd never been born
...or you won't know what hit you"

These are horribly familiar.


I was allowed to talk, but when I did I was told I was boring/ungrateful/opinionated/lazy etc. Reading this thread, I realise this was just as effective in shutting me up and that was probably the intention.

 

[SweetPeaandSunBird]

(((Venusian))) I so hope the surgery goes well.

I'm with you on that delayed-response before taking care of health problems when they first came up. It's such a problem that many of us have. I've had two examples in the last 7 years, making things worse and worse (requiring some sort of surgery when something much less invasive could have been done if I had just taken prompt care of myself). I've been lucky, but I still don't think I've learned my lesson.:O_o:

 

[Venusian]

(((SP&SB))) I think that is what my T was trying to get through to me when she loaned me the book. It is so hard for me to accept help from anyone, or trust that when it is offered that they will follow through. So many times growing up when I needed the help no one would notice or if I said something I was told to "figure it out", or if someone said they would help more often than not I would be forgotten or someone else needed help at the same time and they would get the help and I was left behind.

It just added to the inner chatter that is still plaguing me today, I don't believe anyone who offers to help. I only rely on myself and that extends to doctors, so many of the ones I could see were doctors you only went to if you already knew what was wrong. It took me until I had no one else to take care of before I began to really take care of myself but those inner voices are still there holding me back from really doing that.

 

[Britt.f7]

As far as not going to the dr when you need to. My mom put off, for about three days, pain that she was having in her chest. She even told her lung doctor when she saw him and he recommended she go to an emergency room. She didn't until the third night. Long story short, a month later, she died while in the hospital. I will never know for sure that she would have lived had she gone in when she experienced the first symptoms, but we were never given that chance.

However, my mom, my grandma, my sister, my father, and myself are/were all horrible about going to the doctors when we should. When I finally saw my doctor about my depression, he asked why I waited so long. Um, because I thought I could handle it and it would go away. I was wrong.

One thing about having a chronic illness, it makes you have to depend on others from time to time whether you want to or not. Very hard thing to do when you aren't used to asking for help or receiving it. It has been a very long and humbling experience. What I found out is that sometimes people do want to help you but feel useless or unneeded when you do not allow them. Sometimes you just have to say okay.