Hi honey,
Wow babe what an amazingly candid post! I swear though that reading everything you wrote was just like hearing myself speak. Our lives have been so similar in so many respects, it's really quite amazing. I've often found those sort of affiliations with others on this forum because of the rules that dictated our childhoods, but yours and my story I'd have to say are almost identical.
Firstly, I just want to say that I absolutely know how you feel when you wrote this ;
Now I realise 1) I have depressive tendencies. Sometimes they get real bad and I want to die 2) no self-esteem, or very wobbly one 3) problems socialising. Lots of times I just cant make the effort to be with people 4) big trouble when it comes to emotional attachment 5) I feel guilty about all of them.
You sound like an amazing young woman hon, but I know exactly what it's like to have the hallmarks of success, but still at the very core of you feel as though you'll never be good enough, or worthy enough. Even though those around you might not see it, because you pick yourself up and carry on, because that's what you've always had to do.
I good friend of mine texted me to tell me to read your post because of the many similarities between our life stories, and I'm so grateful that he did :)
I'm currently in the second year of my bachelor degree with majors in Sociology and Human Geography. I'm hoping to, to be able to do honours in Sociology, but that's still a while off yet. Congratulations though on your tremendous achievement, I'm well aware of how much hard work it takes for you to have gotten to where you're at.
Like you I decided to fade from the org and funnily enough went to England to work for a while. I also spent a few months teaching in Ghana in West Africa. It was there, just like you, that I had a total breakdown. I had faded from the org, and I knew on what basis I had decided to leave, but all the fear, and pain, and loss caught up with me in an instant and I felt totally paralysed. Like you I contacted my family, with it seeming like the natural thing to do in a time of crisis, but they of course preached about why my life had gone so wrong, with my leaving the org. Looking back now I can so clearly understand why everything happened with me the way it did back then, it couldn't have been any other way, I just had to go through it. But you're right though, once you've hit rock bottom like that, it's as though no matter what happens in life from tha point you know you can drag yourself through it.
I was one of seven children in a witness family. My father was physically and emotionally abusive (not sexually abusive), and my mother within a few years of their being married had been totally subjugated, and as you so appropriately described, at that glazed look of emptyness in her eyes for most of the years of my childhood whilst growing up. I think it's absolutely terrible that you aren't able to have a relationship with your siblings now honey. I hope that that situation changes one day for you. There's one thing that I have learnt in these last couple of years, and that's that people continue to surprise me. Especially those in my family who are/were witnesses. So don't give up hope honey that you won't have a relationship with some of your family members in the future.
When you spoke of the fear and the guilt as a child by feeling as though you were constantly falling short of the mark, I can so very much relate to that. I can also relate to what led you down the path of anorexia and bullimia, having been there myself in the past...although it's not exactly something I would normally talk about, except to a very close cousin.
Alls I can say honey is that considering what you've been through, and what your achievements are, you're an absolute start. Anyone who gets the pleasure of knowing you will indeed be better in themselves for it. I know what's like to know that you're capable, and successful, and yet still inside feel as though there's some sort of secret person that if people really knew they wouldn't like you at all. Well the fact is that secret person doesn't exist! You're beautiful, and extremely well written, and very self-award and you've dragged yourself through hell to get some semblance of a life together for yourself. You have every reason to be immensley proud. But don't forget that in moments when it's all just too hard, that you have every reason to feel as you do, and you just have to allow yourself to go through those motions. With the complex histories that we have it isn't always going to be possible to exactly put our finger on what exactly triggers us to go into those depressive slumps, but the most important thing is that we're determined to fight our way out of them. We can't, no matter what, allow ourselves to further propogate the imposed mysery of the past, on to our futures, because we deserve far better than that. We're in control now, and we deserve the opportunity to reach our full potentials and to be truly happy :)).
Anyway hon, I hope you'll stay in touch and drop me a pm from time to time. I'll pm you with my email address, because I'd love to hear from you and how you're doing. Feel free to contact me anytime during those hard times, because I TRULY know exactly how you feel. I swear we could almost be twins!
Much luv and hugs to you, frog, xox
