BPDFamily.com

I've been reading the boards for quite some time.  My life has changed a lot and continues to because of it.  

I am in my mid-50's and didn't know my family was actually insane until my late 40's.  I am grateful to God for the way he gave me the news... . finally. Instead of trickling bona fide clues to me He let me have it all at once.  He knows me and knew if He trickled it to me I would hash it all over and then minimize it.  Given to me all at once I could not minimize it, rationalize it, cover for it, deny it, take blame for it, or maybe my personal choice of calling it something else entirely.  My family was quite surprised at my righteous anger. They wouldn't come near me which was exactly what I wanted.  I began to heal but then something came along I didn't expect.  I started looking back on my life and found myself often embarrassed in a room all by myself for past things I have said and done.  Sure, I can trace most of it to being raised by bad people but it still falls on me and I began to not like myself.  Seriously, not like myself.  After a while I began to wonder when will this shame end?  I didn't kill anyone or anything serious.  Often I just embarrassed myself with ineptitude and lack of social graces.  The shame continued. I wondered if this was part of a grieving process or what I deserve.  Turns out it is part of yet another grieving process.  Child abuse.  The gift that truly keeps on giving.  The first process was when I grieved and buried my very much alive parents.  I thought that was hard enough but now I understand that I have been grieving for a little girl and stuffing her with potato chips and cookies so she could feel anything.  I thought it my white hot shame would never end.  Then something happened in the family and I don't feel that way anymore.  I think it was the catalyst for this shift in mood.  I don't feel embarrassed anymore about the past.  I know better than I did then and I care to continue to learn more.  I think I can forgive myself now.

Gracious... . weren't we throwaway children all of us?  :'(  Sacrificed at someone else's nightmare illness.

The emotional eating (I am understanding what you said that you ate food for comfort and in times of anxiety?)... . I did the opposite - I ran and ran, physically ran, played tennis, rode bike, way way beyond the norms of healthy exercise. It got me out of that hell hole with a good excuse. No illicit drugs like my troubled friends were falling into - no my drug was run run run until you can't breathe anymore, shin splints, dehydrated. No one supervising my output nor input. I lived on pbj sandwiches. Hated to drink milk. So there was no emotional nor physical nutrition at all.

Guilt, shame, mortifying gobsmacking shock and dismay - we really have the grab bag of hurtful emotions don't we? but as you said - something sometimes comes along that jolts us into the reality that - we didn't create this painful world. We were awful little scapegoats and witnesses to great tragic scenes.

I'm glad you're here. There is alot of fraternity even in these painful recollections. So many here get what I am trying to work to even if I don't sometimes.