Trying to Heal from Family Pain and Find Myself Again

[Sandy-12]

Hi everyone,
I’m new here. I joined because I’m really trying to heal from things that happened in my family. My parents separated a long time ago, but even now they’re still not on good terms. It affects all of us, and sometimes it feels like the whole family is stuck in that pain.

I’ve been carrying a lot inside — feelings of rejection, confusion, and loneliness. I also struggle with my health. I’m underweight, and some days I only manage to eat one meal. It’s hard, especially being unemployed and feeling like my body is paying the price for everything I’ve been through.

I don’t want pity or anything like that. I just wanted to be honest because sometimes it feels like no one really understands how deep family pain can run — how it affects your body, your confidence, and even how you see yourself.

I’m hoping that being here will help me open up more, learn from others, and find some peace in knowing I’m not alone. Thank you for reading.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[schwing]

Hi Sandy-12 and

I joined because I’m really trying to heal from things that happened in my family. My parents separated a long time ago, but even now they’re still not on good terms. It affects all of us, and sometimes it feels like the whole family is stuck in that pain.

It might help to write how some of the family dynamics has hurt you.  Do you believe that (at least) one of your family members suffers from BPD?

I’ve been carrying a lot inside — feelings of rejection, confusion, and loneliness. I also struggle with my health. I’m underweight, and some days I only manage to eat one meal. It’s hard, especially being unemployed and feeling like my body is paying the price for everything I’ve been through.

re: rejection; Tennyson wrote that it is better to have love and lost than to have never loved at all.  I've found that my own fear of rejection limited my opportunities for society and love.  For me, the fear of rejection turned out to be worse than the pain of actual rejection.  One would have less opportunities to develop if one were a performer/musician who didn't develop a tolerance for rejection (i.e. auditions). Our stage is the stage of life.

re: confusion; learn and work through the conflicts in your mind.  Denial can a powerful force affecting one's thinking.  But it is also a stopgap to prevent you from learning something before you are ready to handle it.  Working through some kinds of confusion can be like working through grief; there is a process.  There have been very few "lightbulb" moments in my life; what actually happened was the light would start dim and illuminate more as I worked through more of my confusions.

re: loneliness; be brave to seek out company, mayhap even like minded company.  See "rejection."

I've found that if I have too much going on in my head, my gut would not function as well.  Some medical academics consider the "gut" to be a "second brain."  This is to say there is nearly as much neurological tissue in the digestive tract as there is in the body's central nervous system.  This is why a lot of medications affecting mental processes also seem to have digestive system side-effects.  It is as though the resources to keep both the mind and the gut working well is a shared pool.

It might be worthwhile to learn some meditative practices, skills to train your mind, in order to quiet the mind, at least enough to help mitigate some of the dysfunction that might be happening in your gut.

I don’t want pity or anything like that. I just wanted to be honest because sometimes it feels like no one really understands how deep family pain can run — how it affects your body, your confidence, and even how you see yourself.

Family pain can run deep.  Even 2nd or 3rd generational family pain.

I've found that my family pain shaped not just my personal disposition, but affected how I selected my life partner and raised my kids.  It is better to work through that family pain so that you can make conscious choices for your life and not allow unconscious pain to lead you down some paths.

Best wishes,

Schwing

[Notwendy]

I think most posters here can relate to these feelings when there is family dysfunction. An initial step to emotional recovery is learning self care. There's a concept-Maslow's hierarchy of needs- which puts these in order.

The first set of needs is our basic biological needs- food, shelter. Understandable that you are having difficulty with being unemployed but a primary need is food, and to eat. Stress, not eating- that can affect appetite. Also eating a lot at one time when not eating may feel uncomfortable so several small meals and snacks may be easier to tolerate. Feeling emotionally deprived- and not eating can go together.

Emotional recovery is a series of steps. From reading your posts, I think your first step is to get some nutrition. I don't know what is possible in your area to help with this- soup kitchens, food banks, church resources, social services- that help people obtain food but it's important to access this help if possible.

Family dysfunction can make it feel hard to reach out for help but it's a step to getting help. Posting here is a good step. Our physical and emotional help are connected. Hopefully there are some food resources in your area to get you to feeling better physically.