childhood effecting me

LegacyUser

When iwas growing my parents were very hard to get on with. we were constantly arguing. me with them and them with each other. my mother in particular can be difficult. she can let a scream at you for any minor or trivial disagreement and you have to bite you tongue. until eventually i would roar back. you couldnt discuss anything with her without an argument starting. if you argue back with her she cuts you off and accuses you of being critical or judgemental. she seems to suffer from stress but takes it out on others. if you even defend yourself it becomes a major battle

my father can also be argumentative he is like a politician in that he could argue grass is yellow and have you believe it!! however unlike her he at least allows you to put your point across so that it isnt being bottled up

growing up i was very unhappy and even suicidal but my partents never noticed this

the thing is my father is easy to talk and if my mother wasnt around i could have got good advice of him( i know that sounds really terrible but i never liked telling her anything personal possibly because she would upcast it)

i have no confidence and find it hard to talk to people i always think i am being judged i am always trying to impress people and get a laugh i am always looking for compliments i cant make a decision to save myself i alway want people to like me and take everything personal

i have tried counselling a few times but it hasnt worked

anyone go through this?

my siblings dont seem to have the same confidence and assertiveness issues issues that i have

curlzy

Hey OP,

If I were you I'd try counselling again. I know you said it didn't work but it may be that you need a different counsellor, some are better than others.

Best of luck.

HowItIs

Wow OP every single part of your post could have been taken straight out of my head.

The only thing I can offer is the little bit of insight I've gleaned from my own experiences. We all want/need our parents approval to some greater or lesser extent and when we feel that a parent doesn't approve of us it can leave some very nasty scars (mentally). It's even worse when the parent(s) in question are not dealing with their own problems because these tend to spillover onto the people around them which just exacerbates everything.

The only thing I can offer is to keep in mind that a lot of what you're dealing with is actually the result of your mothers inability to deal with her own problems. It's not actually anything you've done wrong it's just that when you spend a lifetime trying to deal with someone else problems like this you start to feel like it's all your fault like somehow you must be to blame for everything.

For me personally I couldn't get past anything else until I started to accept that a lot of the **** I was trying to deal with wasn't even my **** to begin with and certainly wasn't my fault or my responsibility.

I realise this advice is not of any great help in and of itself but if you can get past that one obstacle I really do believe it will help you get to grips with other elements of your difficulty.

And talking to a professional is always a good idea, an objective, informed opinion is always useful.

Fentdog84

I think a lot of parents dont realise that the dynamic of their relationship/behaviour can have long term effects on their child's life and outlook. Myself I came from a family where there wasnt a lot of openness or intimacy between the parents or from parents to children and I think it has been a mitigating factor in communicability & confidence issues Ive had since my teens.

However, I think it is unfair when people blame their parents for everything that's wrong in their lives, there comes a time when you need to take control of yourself and realise that they are only human beings, who probably did their best, even if that wasnt up to scratch. They cant teach you everything you need to know or in the right way, 95% of stuff you learn in life dosent come from your parents. Plus, as with anything there is probably a higher standard and more support for parenting these days with more self help and modern parenting etc, there was little of that 20+ years ago. These days you can just type how to be a good parent into google or whatever and your on your way. The person to ask such a question to years ago was probably the parish priest! :rolleyes:

Anyway, back to the point , I know how you feel but you are very unlikely to be able to change you mother or your father's mindset, it sounds like one similiar to my own.Old fashioned really. Keep up with the therapy if necessary. I hope my post is of some help to you

wylo

I suggest you look up Byron Katie