Help Me Stop Kicking My Own Ass!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Folks, need some advice here, although in the grand scheme of things, this is about as mundane as they come. To me, however, esp. in light of my recent behaviors, pretty dog-damn important. What can you tell me?

For as long as I have lived, I have focused the blame on everything that has happened to me or involved me, upon myself. It almost seems I was born this way. My parents: embittered alcoholics who made my childhood and that of my sister & brother incomprehensible & painful. MY fault, for not figuring out some way to make them be more responsible, caring parents. My siblings: equally damaged by my inability to somehow “straighten out” our home life, leading to years of therapy for them. Obviously MY fault. My failed marriage: I had no way of knowing that my husband was becoming a closet heroin addict, and I should have figured it out. Again my fault, but at least I got my young children out of that before it became dangerous. My children: capable & bright but having had many run-ins with the schools and even the law at this point, CLEARLY my fault for being a single mother and having to work a couple jobs (no support has come in from my ex, EVER. He’s too ill to be employable) and not being around the home on a more full-time basis to monitor things. My relationships: all have come to nothing, the last one prior to now my fault for being unable to support him in the lifestyle he desired, as he clearly admitted to me when he kicked me out 2 yrs ago for the rich woman he finally married earlier this year. “I believe my future will be much better with her than with you,” was the exact quote.

Now some of those WERE items I could have prevented and some were not. Point being, I beat myself nearly to death over every single one of them, even when my head kept insisting to my heart it was ridiculous to do so.

This weekend past, I nearly destroyed the relationship I have carefully built with current SO, by going ballistic when he teased me about a sensitive issue. And I mean overreacting for a 10-hour period in an extreme, childish, spleenish manner! We had a nice Sat & Sun planned. When he showed up at my house on Saturday, it was to break up with me, because he didn’t know if he wanted to babysit my insecurities and subsequent rants for the rest of his life. I could hardly blame him. We worked it out by talking, and proceeded to have a fabulous time. He said, “Let’s just put this behind us.” And yeah, I want it to be that easy.

But I have spent this week blaming myself for being so stupid! I cannot get beyond it. I created a serious rift in a relationship I would hate myself for trashing, and now some time will be requried for trust to rebuild, so I have certainly lost ground even if he is willing to forgive. I KNOW I cannot behave in that manner again. Dumb, dumb, DUMB!

How do I stop taking the wind out of my own sails? How do I stop beating my own head against the same walls I built? What in HELL is wrong with me, an otherwise educated, experienced, fairly strong individual, that I cannot make peace with myself?

If you’ve “been here”, how have you succeeded in getting the blame demon out of your life?

–Beck

2

You have had a terribly unfair start in life, and it’s natural that you feel some (or all) of the bad things in it are your fault. Children don’t understand adult problems - they only know their parents are unhappy and assume it’s the child’s fault somehow.

Having relationships where your partner has behaved badly are very unfortunate. You were rightly looking for love and support and they didn’t give it.

You need to focus on the good things in your life and tell yourself you achieved them despite your early hardships.
You’re educated, strong and experienced.
Your children are capable and bright.
You’ve attracted several partners (how you doin’!) and the current one sound pretty decent.

You know that you want this current relationship to succeed, and that you have sensitive issues. Tell your partner as much as you feel able, thank him for being in your life and ask his help.

Good luck. :smiley:

3

It may just be a personality thing. I’ve struggled with this my entire life. I cringe and beat myself up over stupid things I said when I was nine years old. I’m tormented by stuff that I know everyone else has forgotten but me and mistakes I made when I was younger. It’s like I expect myself to be perfect and every little mistake is something I can’t let myself forget or forgive.

The only advice I can offer is to keep repeating to yourself that it doesn’t matter now. No one is perfect, and your mistakes are part of what made you the person you are today. When one of those bad memories come up, force yourself to think of something that you did that you’re proud of. You may never be able to get rid of this problem, but you may be able to control it with time and effort.

4

Not by suddenly shifting blame to parents and ex-spouse and kids and romantic interests. That, I can tell you, doesn’t help at all. It leaves you just as lost and unhappy as blaming yourself, and solves nothing. As long as you stay in “who is to blame?” mode, no matter where it’s directed, you’re choosing an immediate (if bitter) emotional satisfaction over contending with your problems. It appears that you can’t expect much help from the co-conspirators named in your OP. Therefore, no matter who’s responsible for causing your miseries, it appears you are going to have to be responsible for fixing them, or at least ameliorating them, and certainly not visiting them on others.

To do that, I think you’re going to have to give up on the scientific dissection of what you call the demon: give up trying to decide whose fault, and in what proportions, your situation is. Besides, human relationships are never that precise: on October eleventh, 1976, at two p.m., a woman in a blue hat was mean to me: for what part of my current unhappiness is she to blame? We’re complex creatures, and our lives are never solely our own design and never wholly the product of outside forces.

Until you give up the grim satisfaction of blaming anyone for your problems, the danger is always present that it will turn on you: this is especially so because you’ll always be the nearest target at hand when it comes to doling out whatever psychic punishments are in your arsenal.

5

I am sure I cannot help you, but I think I know some people who can. You’re the adult child of alcoholics, and your formative years have a lot to do with the person you’ve become as an adult. Have you even given Alanon a try? There you may find people struggling with the same demons as you. You’ve got parents and an ex-spouse who were addicts. Alanon has help, hope and support for you.

My personal awareness that I was not to blame for so much came in a suprising manner: realizing someone I admired tremendously was not perfect. That he could be so incredibly smart and wonderful (OK; he’s my husband) and still have many human imperfections made me realize that I, too, could be a perfectly good human being and not be perfect, too.

Good luck with your journey.

6

This should be ever given Alanon a try. I don’t mean to imply that you should have, and you haven’t. Sorry if I sounded as if I did.

7

I have to echo Ellen Cherry and recommend Alanon. You have all the hallmarks of the child of alcoholics. At the very least, get some counseling from a professional experienced with alcoholism/addiction. Believe me, I understand your feelings all too well and you need not live this way.

8

Not much to add, but wanted to ask - are you the oldest child? Because you sound a lot like my older sister. She knows there is stuff she should blow off lingering from our long-ago childhood but she still takes it all on herself. Well, I think she no longer blames herself for our siblings’ difficulties, but pretty much everything else. She always hated the pressure of being the oldest, but kept it on her shoulders anyway. As middle child, I’m much more able to shrug off all the horrible family leftovers.

9

Hi Rebecca,

You’ve been through a hell of a lot! My heart went out to you as I was reading your post.

It sounds to me like you need to stop evaluating yourself and start accepting yourself. This is a principle of Rational Effectiveness Training - you can read more here: http://www.rational.org.nz/public/12principles.htm

I hope this doesn’t come across as weird or anything, but I’ve found that website so helpful on many occassions and have recommended it to many people. The advice offered is really practical and ‘everyday’.

All the best,
Sandra

10

Thanks, folks, for all your advice. My poor sister, who suffered from a near-nervous breakdown just a year or so ago (I never knew! She lives on the West Coast & I don’t see her all that often, sadly), also gave me some books/websites to look into today, via email. I called my local Al-Anon this afternoon and will attend a meeting tomorrow night. And will look at Rational Effectiveness Training as well. Anything that will help me to fend off these feelings of helplessness and self-disgust must be a good thing.

The folks at Al-Anon recommended I attend 6 meetings at least before deciding if it was “for me”. I think that is fair. If those of you advising me to try this are in the know, what am I likely to expect from these meetings?

Thanks again for all your fantastic help.

–Beck

11

Sounds like you’ve got a good man there. How about letting him help you? Simply talking through the issues and stuff.

12

I like this article:

http://www.couns.uiuc.edu/Brochures/perfecti.htm

Best of luck changing this. It will change your life in amazing ways.

13

Absolutely the oldest child, Mrs. Cake. My younger sister (by just two years) and my very much younger brother (by nine years) looked to me for some kind of explanation of what went on in the parents’ minds. I had no clue then, & still don’t think I know perfectly well even given years of experience with alcoholics and the like by now. But always felt it was my duty to help them in some way. and have always felt I didn’t do enough to protect them from the general craziness, as the oldest sibing. So maybe I am like your sister.

My good man is trying to help, Quartz, but has his own issues as well. That is one reason we get along so very well, we empathized significantly with one another. He is healing from some years of depression, and has recently(in the last two weeks) taken on a new & difficult but ultimately very rewarding job, and needs to focus on that intensely right at the moment. I don’t want to load MY junk on him right now, especially when it is junk relating to some far-distant past he had nothing to do with, and especially when he has gone overboard to make me feel accepted and adored. He knows I am going thru this emotional state, is willing to forgive my nonsensical feelings of guilt and terror which occasionally cause me to lash out, and simply wants to move on. The burden is on me to help myself a bit here now. He’s right when he says he cannot babysit.

–Beck

14

I killed it by turning it on itself.

One day I was sort of contemplating my guilt/blame issues and I suddenly thought, “You moron! You screw-up! Look at all the stupid things you’ve been blaming yourself for over the years! Look how you’ve let the genuinely guilty parties escape! Look at how unnecessarily terrible you’ve made yourself feel! Look how it’s messed things up! And not just that, this blaming yourself for everything is WAY more your fault than any of those other things you thought were your fault! You need to stop it right now!”

And then the blame demon screamed about how I had tricked it and crumpled down into a tiny ball before disappearing in a puff of smoke, just like in a bad movie.

ok, maybe the last part didn’t happen, but the rest of it did.

15

lots of good advice here.
In the movie The Gumball Rally there is a great line you might think about.
Franco the Italian race driver (played by Raul Julia) gives this great line, as he gets into the Ferrari.

You cannot change the past.
You can change the future.
What’s-a behind you is not important
What’s-a in front of you is very important.

Think about it, and good luck.

16

I am currently acting as stage manager for a production of The Taming of the Shrew. I’ve never done something like this. I usually do photography and graphic design work for the company. We are in the rehearsal process right now and having the play, broken down, line by line by skilled actors and a very knowledgeable director is really fun.

Anyway

The play opens with an intro that is not usually done. We’re doing it and it really drives home the point of the play. In the intro, basically a drunk gets tossed out of a bar and he passes out in the street. A wealthy Lord finds him and he and his men decide to play a practical joke on the drunk. The take him and clean him up and dress him up and when he awakes, they all call him lord. They insist that he has been suffering from a malady where he thought he was but a poor tinker. The man slowly becomes convinced that he is a Lord. Then the Lords players put on a show for him. That show is The Taming of the Shrew. Interestingly, in the play, Kate the curst, the shrew, the bitch, is a real monster. Everyone in town calls her a shrew. He dad calls her a shrew. Then Petruchio shows up and he does not call her a shrew. No matter how she yells at him he insists that she is fair and mild. He quickly removes her from her fathers house and her town and by changing her environment, he changes her.

You need to change your environment. You need to surround yourself with people that won’t let you treat you this way. Also, people who blame themselves for everything are, really, a bit narcissistic. If you are to blame for things that means you could have done something different. You really do have power over all things but sometimes you don’t use that power well. Guess what? You don’t have power over everything. It can’t be your fault.

Thearpy worked for me. I had a team of doctors. One I just talked to and the other medicated me. The combination did wonders for me but finding the right people for both jobs was difficult.

17

I have this problem too, and I can also relate to even horribly regretting mildly dumb things I’ve said as a kid. It’s like a get a horrible feeling in my stomach, even for inconsequential things. One thing that has helped me (but only a bit) is to try to imagine if my daughter messed up in whatever way I’m beating myself up about, and asked me for advice. Of course I would tell her not to feel bad, that it’s no big deal, and I would really mean it. So then I try to imagine how my mother would also really not want me to feel bad, and try not to.
One day I was sort of contemplating my guilt/blame issues and I suddenly thought, “You moron! You screw-up! Look at all the stupid things you’ve been blaming yourself for over the years! Look how you’ve let the genuinely guilty parties escape! Look at how unnecessarily terrible you’ve made yourself feel! Look how it’s messed things up! And not just that, this blaming yourself for everything is WAY more your fault than any of those other things you thought were your fault! You need to stop it right now!”
That sounds great - I’ll try it today.

18

Lots of great advice above. One little thing that is helpful to me is something I call the six month rule. If I catch myself dwelling on some stupid thing I did, and it happened more than six months ago (and often enough it happened back when I was 9 …) I tell myself “Sheesh! That was more than six months ago, let it go.” This helps keep the targets for self-blame down to a manageable number.

19

Alex and Harriet, thanks for the advice. I will have to stick to my children when I think of those who would not like me to feel bad, as I am certain my dear, departed mother would in fact LOVE me to feel as guilty about everything as possible. She was an interesting specimen, I must say. But many others here have Bad/Sad Mom tales as horrific as mine, so I know I am among valued peers.

Just discussing this has led to a week of contentment and distance from bad thoughts for me…can’t thank you enough, co-Dopers. Ever.

–Beck

20

I’m so glad to hear that Rebecca. At an Alanon meeting, you’ll hear an explanation of the organization’s purpose – which is to help YOU, not the alcoholic or drug-abuser in your life. Sometimes there is a theme, or one of the steps, that the group may be discussing, other times someone is having a crisis. Other times everyone shares what is going on in their lives, and how they handled things. People don’t judge, they are there to offer support. Sometimes someone will tell you something from their lives that helped them. You can use it as you can, or you can ignore it. It’s on the same principle as La Leche Leage, in that regard – take what you can use and leave the rest.

They will also pass the hat and ask you to contribute a dollar. But you won’t be expected to contribute your first meeting – in fact, they’ll tell you not to. There will be literature for you to peruse, some free, some you can purchase (for a very nominal cost). There are a couple books that offer something for you to think about each day. I can’t remember the title, but there’s a newer, orange-colored one that I think you would enjoy. If I remember correctly, it is geared to the adult child of alcoholics. The older, blue one, seems more toward spouse of alcoholic. (Of course “drug user” is completely interchangable with “alcoholic.”)

Good luck!