Posted by Racer on December 8, 2005, at 13:34:33 [reposted on December 8, 2005, at 16:55:07 | original URL]
I'm having a really hard time with this, and nothing seems to be getting me past it. Yesterday something very raw -- though very old -- came up, and it brought up again the comments from my T about how amazing it was that I survived. She's said it before, and it's bothered me before.
Anyway, I don't know how to ask what I want help with. It has to do with that whole victim thing, about how pathetic I feel when someoen says that it's so amazing that I survived these things. (Maybe because in part I *didn't* survive? Or just that I must be doing something to cause these things to happen to me, which makes me awfully pathetic. I don't know.)
This was from high school, when I was being tormented by other students. It was terrible, as those things are. In my favorite teacher's classroom, things got out of hand, and he took me into the hallway -- where he told me that he just couldn't control the class with me in it, and I'd have to leave. Just writing those bare facts is bringing tears to my eyes, and I have both a sadness and an impotent rage -- very much surpressed -- going on behind the pain.
Now, I'm an adult now, and I know that the people around me failed me; they were supposed to protect me, in some way, and they didn't. They didn't really even make an effort to protect me. I know that that part wasn't my fault. But there's a very big part that's got all that judgemental stuff going on about how it's wrong for me to expect other people to step in and protect me, that it's my responsibility and all the rest of that [expletive deleted -- think misspelt fish species]. I also know that being picked on really isn't the same as being pathetic or worthless. And I even know some of the problems -- like, I have this huge need for approval, but too much independence to fit in (bad combination in high school) -- but I still feel as though I should have somehow been able to fight all my own battles, without help, etc.
But every time I hear my T say something about me surviving, and how amazingly strong I must have been, I just collapse -- and feel weak, and pathetic, and all sorts of other things. None of them good.
Can anyone relate? Or help me work out what the problem is? Or where my answer might be found?
Or just tell me that only the best women feel this pathetic? lol
poster:Racer
thread:586986
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20051206/msgs/586986.html