From: anon-1357@twwells.com (Silver Tiger)
Newsgroups: alt.sexual.abuse.recovery
Subject: Birthdays, overweight feelings
Date: 11 Jan 93 23:56:40 GMT
Organization: Anonymous Posting Service at twwells.com

I have been following the discussions here, and thank you all for
providing such interesting stuff to read.. finally I have felt the
need to respond (much less intelligently than you have done, but
then hey, it's late at night)...

Re: Birthdays

My birthday is in July.  Therefore, it was never celebrated during
the school months.  Since I am from a small town, there were usually
no other kids who celebrated in the summer.  Teachers always gave
kids with birthdays during the school year little presents or at least
they got their name on the blackboard, I never got any of that.  Yes,
a little thing, but when you're a kid, it bugs you.  Then, when you're
an adult, it bugs you silently.  (Of course, this is from the person who
remembers vividly coming into the classroom after a booster shot in 
kindergarten and not being greeted by the teacher with a "oh poor girl,
that must have hurt, let me soothe you" type speech, when the girl who
entered the room just before me was fawned over.  Remember that, any teachers
who may be watching this broadcast... little things are remembered.)

Also, since my birthday was in the summer, I rarely celebrated.  All my friends
were gone on holidays in July (prime lake-going time!)  I think that the
last birthday I spent with my parents was up at the lake, where we picked
berries all day.  Whoop. :)  I guess what I need to say is that I WANTED
someone to throw me a party.  I only remember one party from my whole
childhood, only one, and it was fun.  However, the whole childhood left me
with the opinion that I was not worth throwing a party for.  In fact, if I
planned a party, nobody would come.  

Then I went to University.  I gathered a new group of friends.  As I had always
done for my friends, I remembered their birthdays and went out with them on
their days.  When mine came around, I expected the usual, everyone forgets me
and goes on vacation.  But now all my friends were working in the city, same
as me.  When a friend of mine surprised me by actually planning a party and
inviting my friends and brothers from the city, I cried (in private, I
have been trained too well to not show emotions in public).  It felt so good,
but to this day I still have a niggling belief that if I did not remind 
people of my birthday, they will not do anything.  I just realized my great
fear this summer.  I talked to my friends, and they said that they were 
busy on my birthday.  So, I decided that *I* wasn't going to spend my
birthday alone.. I planned other activities.  Later I find out that my
friends are miffed, that they were actually planning something... now I am
usually perceptive about these things, but I accepted without even thinking
that nobody cared, that I was going to be alone... as it turned out, one of
my friends joined me in my planned activity, and the others replanned.
I still can't quite believe that people care enough to do that.

Re:  Overweight

Being overweight is a survival mechanism.. It protected you from abuse.
However, it also protects you from opening up to members of the opposite
sex.  I know for a fact that being fat saved me from being abused in
an adult relationship:  a male friend of me and my best friend decided to
go out with my best friend.  It turns out he was a real idiot/slimeball
and basically used her.  She is over it now, and has admitted to me that
she thought the guy was really more interested in me than in her, in that
I was more fun to be with (yeh right).  She basically said that he would
have gone out with me if I had a body.  (He used her for sex, mostly.)
So there you go.  But now I want out of this shell, although I doubt it
will ever happen.  I have heard the stuff about how you should love yourself
for who you are.  Well, who I was got abused.  Got hurt.  Why should I love
her?  She was vulnerable.  Now "who I am" is ashamed.  I am worthless, since
I cannot attract a man.  I tried a few times, but I have finally decided that
dealing with my abuse is something that I cannot make any man I love face.

I am dealing with a broken heart over a man who I loved... all my youth after
the abuse I was a tomboy, staying away from female vulnerability.  I prized
my independence, my intelligence, how I could compete with the guys in school.
In University I met this man, we became basically best friends.  Then I tried
to go out with him.  I had not even dated or flirted before then, and I tried
to flirt.  I dressed up nicely, I made sure I was always very presentable
(as much as I can be) when with him, I got my ears peirced, coordinated my
outfits, paid real attention to makeup.  I got as close to him as possible,
making little gestures (I have no idea what is proper here) like "playing
footsie" :)  :<  He basically ignored me.  Well, no, maybe not, he had
been without a relationship ever too, basically shy.  I wonder now if he
saw my love for him and got confidence, while never returning the love.  He
told my female best friend that he thought of me as a sister.  He told a
male friend of mine that he liked me as a friend, but he wished I could
think of him just as a friend.  That hurt, especially since I heard it
secondhand, and I now knew that he knew, that he had been seeing me making
a fool of myself.  We never talked about it, but I stopped the chase.  I
have always been able to take hints that I am substandard and not desirable.
During the time that I thought we might actually go out, my weight had dropped
forty pounds (I lost it for HIM!) .  It went up by more than that.  

I have tried a few other gestures towards men, but they never return them.
I am doomed to being single and alone.  Now all I have to do is to learn to
deal with it.

Oh, conclusion to "broken heart":  He is getting married.  To a cute little
woman who looks like the starlet he always liked in movies.  He gained such
self-confidence that he has become much less shy, by a few orders of
magnitude.  When asked why he liked his fiancee, he said "She laughs at
my jokes and likes to snuggle."  Silly me.  I spent too much time studying
and making HIM laugh with MY jokes, and I love to snuggle too, he just
never seemed to ask ME.

Sorry, this letter started out as commentary and ran down into rambling
about myself.  Anyone who is still with me, thanks for staying.  Hope
you aren't depressed now too.

Silver Tiger
email me anytime, I'm always looking for something to do

p.s. Free Amazon and Apple, where are you?



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