From: cloister@stein.u.washington.edu (cloister bell)
Newsgroups: alt.sexual.abuse.recovery
Subject: Re: birthdays
Date: 9 Jan 93 23:44:18 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu

anon-1534@twwells.com (Suzanna) writes:

>   When I was little my mom would arrange for a birthday party and she would
>   invite my relatives & kids from school -- I don't remember much about
>   most of them except that I was often really miserable & didn't like the
>   party and felt like I *supposed* to behave a certain way and *supposed* to
>   be happy but I wasn't & so there must be something wrong with me.  I felt
>   like that about other holidays too, like Christmas.

>I can't remember ever having parties for my birthday; I don't think I
>ever had one, and I certainly didn't go out to other peoples's. My
>parents did give me presents. I don't like that idea any more, since
>my "present" for my eleventh birthday wasn't at all pleasant. We had
>Christmas too, again just my father, my mother, and myself. I don't
>remember anything special about them.

when i was little mom would arrange parties for me.  i never liked them much, i
think.  i don't really remember them.  i suppose if i'd liked them i would have
remembered them.  now i'm grown up and sort of torn about what to do on my
birthday.  it's generally just another day for me.  i would feel silly and sort
of self-centered to organize a party for myself.  it seems to me like my
friends or s.o. are supposed to do that.  i don't know.  on the one hand i'd
like 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.  sigh.

>   I've been slowly learning to get away from the *supposed to*s.  Like my 
>   friends and I say to each other -- if we say 'I should do...." then we 
>   need to think about it -- should's aren't useful.  Instead think about
>   what I *want* to do.

>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.  imho, saying to myself "i
should do X because i *want* to" is a completely valid thing.  there's nothing
at all wrong with doing something because it would please you or make you
happy.  well, imho there's nothing wrong with it so long as it wouldn't be
harmful to yourself or to others then go ahead and do it!

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 wanted to speak to Suzanne a little -- the thing about trying to
>   find out what is "right" and doing that.  It is something I have
>   tried to do a lot in my life, I have usually felt as though I was
>   involved in some sort of game and I didn't know the rules but felt
>   embarrased to ask -- I feel like I don't know how to be social (I
>   learned for a while in high school, but it was all based around
>   flirting & seductive behavoir & that isn't safe for me anymore).

>I'm sorry, I feel the opposite with respect to being in a game; my
>mind is that game, but outside is real and hard. Everything is strange
>and I don't understand it. I don't know how to be social, and I have
>never flirted or "gone out".

that's fine too.  no one says you have to be a social butterfly.  if that's not
what you're into, then don't do it.  an addendum to my above spiel on following
your desires:  as well as doing things you want, it's ok to not do things you
don't want to do.  again, so long as not doing them isn't going to be harmful.
like taking unpleasant medicine or something; sure you don't *want* to, but it
would be harmful not to.  it seems to me though that not dating is harmless
enough, so don't do it if you don't want to.  

>   I try not to get angry at myself for not reading the "Right" books,
>   but read what I like (which happens to be good/bad/and mediocre
>   science fiction/fantasy about women, trashy lesbian romance novels
>   & general novels about women -- I don't try to read the stuff that
>   I always thought people "should" read anymore.

>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.

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.

so what i would counsel you to do now is try and re-gain that inquisitiveness
and curiosity you were born with.  it's still there, somewhere inside you,
stored in deep-freeze waiting to be thawed out.  try it out, use it, learn for
yourself what are right and wrong things to do.  use as your guide the results
of your actions, not the externally-imposed right-or-wrong from your parents.
don't be afraid to ask "why?"  don't be afraid to disagree with the answer.
this is what children do; it is how they learn to interact with the world.

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?
-- 
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Newsgroups: alt.sexual.abuse.recovery