From: anon-1534@twwells.com (Suzanna)
Newsgroups: alt.sexual.abuse.recovery
Subject: Re: birthdays
Date: 11 Jan 93 23:56:21 GMT
Organization: Anonymous Posting Service at twwells.com
X-Email-Accepted: yes

cloister@stein.u.washington.edu writes:

   on the one hand i'dlike it if all my friends got together and threw
   a party for me just because they liked me.  i have other friends
   for whom that happens.  on the other hand, i don't really like
   being the center of attention and i'm very awkward at parties.

I'm sorry, this is another stupid question. Do most people on this
newsgroup have friends and/or a SO? All the posts I've read here, I
think, although admittedly not a large number, mention friends in some
context. I must be missing out on something proper.

   >I'm sorry, I don't know what I want to do, because I don't know what I
   >should be doing. The two are synonymous, for me at least. This must be
   >wrong then.

   there's nothing wrong with doing things you should do.  so long as
   *you* decide that you should do them.  if other people are deciding
   what you should do all the time, then i think there's something
   wrong.

I'm sorry, I'm not at all sure if I anyone is deciding what I should
be doing. Since I left home I have done the same thing, every day,
without much change. Recently I started to go to university, but that
just means more work and less time at home (although it is very
interesting!). 

   try this for a while: let your heart's desires decide what you
   should be doing, then go ahead and do them.  you seem like an
   intelligent person to me, and i have no doubts that you are able to
   decide whether or not something would be harmful before you do it.

I'm sorry; there are two things I would like to do which I have not
done, but I can not do either of them. One is find a friend or friends
with whom to spend time. Unfortunately, I haven't found anyone who
seems 'right', probably because I can't talk to people and they don't
like me.

   >Oh. But I will never be able to think and write properly if I don't
   >study. I need to read the right books and learn them and understand.

   well, i don't think this is true.  i've read every word of every
   post you've made, and you write very well.  you're clear and
   eloquent, you get your point across quite well.  i don't think you
   need to study from books or other "learned sources" to decide what
   to think and how to be.  be yourself!  you're a worthwhile person
   too, and i don't think you have to supress that in favor of some
   "miss manners" finishing-school version of how a proper lady should
   be. you do just fine with that yourself.  you don't need any books
   to tell you how to act.

Oh, I do need books; to show me how other people think and live, how
they behave, how they see the world, and everything! Otherwise I
wouldn't know how to behave at all, or what people do. Books teach me
about everything, and some are better than others. Those are the books
I should read.

   i'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate.  feel free to
   completely throw this out the window if it's all wrong: i get the
   feeling that your abuse robbed you most of all of your self-esteem
   and self-image.  children are wonderful things; born with
   inquisitiveness and curiosity, willing to try anything to see what
   happens.  you've mentioned before that your natural liveliness was
   supressed when you were young; i think that supresion quashed the
   sense of vibrant expression you were born with.  it took away your
   self-esteem, because all the natural things you wanted to do as a
   child were silenced and deemed "wrong" by your parents.  it made
   you distrust your own sense of what to do because all your
   instinctive impulses were supressed. you learned not to trust
   yourself.  along with that went your self-image, because if you
   can't trust yourself and never know what the "right" thing to do
   is, how can you know who you are?  you were never free to explore
   who you are.

I'm sorry, I am not very proficient at self-analysis. What you say
above might be very correct, but I do not have your knowledge of how I
should be. However, it certainly is a convenient theory.

[Advice deleted for reasons of space; sorry, I will heed it.]

   many *hugs* to you, suzanna.  i know i've been struggling with this
   self-image and self-esteem thing for a long time.  i think i'm
   getting better with it.  i guess i'm saying i have some idea of
   what you're going through and i empathize.
   take care, ok?

Thank you for your concern and support. I will take care.

I'm sorry, I noticed that in my previous post (the follow-up to which
this is itself following-up) I wrote "peoples's". This should have
read "people's". I'm sorry, I didn't notice it in time to delete the
post.

Suzanna



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