Why are we so critical of ourselves?

[Please help]

Hello All,

  I am doing inner child healing and new traumas keep popping up. I am bothered a bit about how I conducted myself in my childhood. There were a few times I did not stand up for myself and was a bit socially awkward at times. I always worked, had my own place at 18 and got an education so I am not a total flop.

Much of this comes from my F continually putting me down based on comparing me to his "projection" of how he was as a teen. I discuss this in earlier posts.

My gut tells me not to focus on my own perceived childhood shortcomings in comparison to other kid's because they were not dealing with what I was dealing with. Instead, pat my teenage self on the back and tell him he is doing one hell of a job staying alive through the chaos and encourage him to keep going. It will serve no purpose to look around and see how happy and successful everyone but me appears.

Once I got away from my family at 18 , I truly began to flourish. I think we all have moments in our lives where we showed tremendous weakness. It's impossible to be a lion 24/7 , throughout your entire life.

I suspect this comes from my F continually berating me to make himself feel better. I vividly recall being around 13/14 and something about my M and his saying to me in the car "what's wrong, can't handle rejection from your mother?" This is coming from a guy whose M had to help support him until she became incapacitated.

I keep telling my 16/17 year old self he has the heart of a lion and to simply keep going forward. Any problems he is having are not his own doing.

My question for you: Is this a cop out or should I somehow pass a little blame onto my teenage self?

I can see my child forming his personality now and it's based entirely on me and my wife. If he is a failure as a kid, it's in all likelihood because of me. My point being is I am not sure if kid's are responsible for bad social skills or is it attributed to the adults around them.  As I get more into parenting, I can see how kid's become the environment they are in. Maybe I am answering my own question here.

Thanks in advance

[Turkish]

This is,  I think,  a critical discussion: how our FOO influences our parenting. I have a co-patent who is diagnosed with anxiety and depression, but my mother has BPD (and depression, PTSD, and a self diagnosed eating disorder).

I'm not really scared,  per se, of my influence upon my D5 and S7, but I am cognizant of my fleas. I want my children to be better than me.  I don't want them to carry what I do,  the dark and dysfunctional.  I want them to be better. 

[Please help]

That is an interesting way of framing how to view this. Yes, my parenting styles are definitely affected by FOO. I have been somewhat breaking NC with F. This is primarily due to wife and baby needing some sort of family. I spoke to him the other day and he tells me he is going to central america for dental work. He cannot eat food without pain due to having teeth problems. He wanted his 2nd set of kid's to call me. I don't know them and hate their mother. She tried to kill me, laughed to her sister when she suspected I was becoming suicidal ( " I saw him put his head in a noose in the garage and I was hoping he would go though with it" at 16 and a bunch of other stuff.

I said  he can have his friend call me if something happens. He got extremely upset and said " you dont care if something happens to me" and went into self pity.

I sent him a text reminding him his friend can call me if something happens to him. He is petrified of going through this and I realize what a weak person he really is. All those years of projecting himself as a tough-guy were just that, a projection. He wants kids from both  his marriages to come together, marshall up their resources and be there for him.

He truly does not think he ever wronged me. I explained how I went 23 years from 19-42 without speaking to anyone in my family. No one came looking. Instead, they wrote me off as being dead or in jail. I used to google myself and get disappointed with how easy it is to find me. 

 I also reminded him of how he and his ex wife tried to have me arrested for abusing his mother after she had a stroke. They alleged I was stealing her money when in fact it was them. I had pictures of them at the bank and a stack of copies of the checks they forged. It as even in the local news. I was 19 at  the time and that is when we went NC.

He wants me to buy a twisted version of events of somehow he was helping everyone and I was a bit of a jerk and that is why we should all love him.

I invited him over to see the baby and we bbq. I was polite and my wife was delighted.

This may be a lesson for those who are considering breaking NC. Once you break NC, the original emotions will come back, you will quickly realize why you initially went NC and the people will be the same. Only this time, you will see them from a much more mature perspective.

Getting back to why we are so critical of ourselves, I think it's because we had disordered people around us during our formative years harming not helping us. Most of non's here are very strong people and always tried to rise past the abuse and do better. Unfortunately , we took some baggage from the trauma with us.

[Gaslit John]

I'll share how I feel about comparing myself to others.  This is how I teach my daughters to view this also.  I call this "Facebook syndrome".  It is when we compare our reality to someone's false front.  We will most of the time feel bad about ourselves when the comparison is anything but accurate or fair.  So... .I think like this.

From the outside looking in my life seems great!  I have a degree. I have my own successful business.  I have a nice house.  I have 2 beautiful daughters.  I have a beautiful wife that also earns a good income.  Perfect life right?  

WRONG.  My life is flirting with the idea of being hell most of the time.  My wife spending is out of control.  I'll probably never retire.  And there are many things inherently wrong and not the way I want them to be.

We all have different life experiences, different family dynamics, and everyone is hiding how things truly are and what they have had to endure to get to where they are currently.  Life is not fair from the start so neither is comparing ourselves as we have all had completely different lives.

Ask yourself "What's my idea of success and happiness?"  What is the unit of measure?  Money, possessions, beauty, social status?  I say if you're happy and moving in the right direction then who cares what anyone else is doing.  Take good care my friend!  Life is good!

[Please help]

I recall from my youth and high school  and even young adult years is how most people had some sort of family structure in place to help propel them into life. I had nothing. Even more so, I had people who were supposed to be helping me doing harm to me.

I am working on breaking the habit of looking at facebook and seeing my peers post pics of their kids and parents ( one big happy family). I know many of these people fairly well and though there may be a few issues, there is nothing of real consequence that would constitute drama  and dysfunction.

I am learning to be happy with what I have and who I have become. This is why I should not look at others creating their own "brand" on FB.

Additionally, this is why my F and I can probably never have a relationship. I refuse to buy the narrative of what a scumbag I am and how he and everyone else tried so hard to help me over the years. It always turns into me " hey, remember this or that" and he sheepishly says "yeah". He knows he is spinning a false narrative.

I am sure he will go back to despising me and we may never talk again. I cannot help but wonder if he was motivated to contact me after all these years for help in some way. He did drop hints but I pretended to ignore. The help he needed may be emotional and or financial.  I am suspect of anyone claiming to want a relationship with their grandchild when they went 7-20 years absent from every one of their own childs' lives. This tells me there is a deep flaw in him and hsi actions should always be suspect.

As we all know with disordered people, if you know who they really are, you will be painted black and hated.