What Do I Deserve?

[Suzetig]

Yeah, I know that's where my T is trying to touch and while rumour has it that the world doesn't end, it's a bit of a risk...

 

[FauxLiz]

Suzetig and Ragdoll I am right there with you. My T has been working to try and bring me over from the dark side that somewhere somehow as a child I did something to deserve all the abuse I have sustained in my life. I do a great job of convincing myself for the 45 min that we are sitting in therapy but the rest of the time I struggle trying to figure out what I did so that I can somehow fix it and make things better.

 

[Changing4Best]

My first thought was that I deserve a bouquet of flowers. I love flowers, but in all my life, I have only ever received one of them. It was from my ex-husband and I mistakenly replied, "Uh oh! What did you do now?" to his gift to me. I was implying that he had done something wrong and was asking for forgiveness for his mistake or crime or dirty deed. I did not feel deserving of the flowers. I had not done anything for them, in my opinion or in my mind, and so I (probably) wrongly concluded that he had done something for which he was asking forgiveness. That was a really messed up view on my part, basically an "undeserving" kind of mindset.

Now that I feel I deserve flowers, I have no husband to give them to me, nor a boyfriend. I sometimes buy them for myself, but this is not as satisfying as if someone had bought them or picked them and given them to me!

 

[Suzetig]

I hear you @FauxLiz - I had a bit of a session like that today, trying to explain why I didn't deserve the same good things as anyone else and struggling to challenge that even in session. It's hard stuff this.

@SheilaKathy it sounds like you realise you deserve someone who will buy you flowers - and you do.

 

[Changing4Best]

Well @Suzetig I did buy myself some flowers today anyway, even though there is no one to buy them for me. I am a widow and my 2nd husband was good to me in many ways, but never bought me flowers. It was my first husband who bought me the flowers, but he deserted me after having gambled the rent money on a horse and lost it. He found a place where he could go, but said that I was not welcome there. He was a huge flirt, so I imagine he got some woman to take him in. Needless to say, my suspicions about his buying me flowers way back then, were probably founded. He probably had done something for which he needed to be forgiven. I would not be surprised anyway. He needed to be forgiven daily about so many things! I should have left him, but I had been taught by my abusers to never say NO and so I never did say NO to him directly. I divorced him after he deserted me though.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I have a real difficulty in getting to grips with what it means to be "deserving", or indeed "undeserving".

I do as well and I think a lot do.

I struggled answering this so I broke it down to "How do you determine what you deserve" and posted that. That ended up being really undetermined.

I think it comes down to (just from really thinking hard on this in my own life) accepting that you are a good person that does the best you can with what you have and deserve good and dont deserve bad. Easier to say than to do, I know.

I started to do a list of what I do/don't deserve and it pretty much ended up back to front, so I don't deserve love and care, but do deserve to be used and abused. Cognitively, I get that this is screwed up thinking, but challenging it just feels like I'm lying to myself because every other part of me says "no, you did deserve to be beaten, you still do"... I think one of the difficulties for me in therapy is that I feel like I'm trying to get something or somewhere that I don't deserve, which feels shameful, and shame can literally stop me in my tracks.

This is very familiar. I struggle with it too!

Ok, so per my therapist (more for me but could help), its a matter of saying "I deserve good"; "I deserve a clean home" etc. And also say "I dont deserve abuse", "I didnt deserve abuse"; "I dont deserve mistreatment" etc....even though it feels like you are lying to yourself because one eventually believes what one continuiously tells oneself (and that was true in my denial...so why not true here?)
Now, also per my therapist, you can do this backwards to see how much you are starting to believe it. Say "I deserve to be abused" or whatever backwards like that and if it feels off a bit, like its not quite right, then its starting to work.

According to my therapist, its more of a repeditive speaking it to yourself, thinking it to youraelf etc until you start to believe it. Many affirmative notes around the home etc.

I appologize if this was already stated, I replied without reading the other replies. I also appologize if thata not what you were quite looking for.