Self-Love
I really do wonder what the deal is with self-love, and how far it goes. Abby Miller says that authentic self-love is to be able to love yourself in your darkest times, not only when you are flying high. If you cannot do that, then the love is synthetic.
We have been beaten down by so many outer expectations of what makes us good or bad, I feel it is nearly impossible for some of us to love ourselves. Because a child is molded by the way the adults in his life treat him, if he is given the message that he is bad over and over again, it will be very hard for him to believe in himself to do good. Children are extremely egotistic, and this just means that they have no logic skills to discern if what adults are saying is out of reason or not. They cannot think abstractly, as psychology has taught us, until the age of around 10-12. Therefore, everything goes straight into their emotions, and they take it how it is. So if their father makes a face at them to stop talking when they are excited, they will interpret this to mean that they are not worth anyone's time, and be ashamed of themselves. The younger the child is the worst the pain will be, because the more he is in his caregivers' hands for safety and he will depend on them for cues of what actions will make him worthy of love, or survival, and which are despicable. The actions that are deemed despicable will then be disposed of, even if it part of the child's nature. This is called splitting, or fragmentation, of the personality, and any mention of it will cause great shame, but in essence it is shame of the part of the self.
For me this happened all too often, and I retreated into myself and the voices of self-doubt became inside, angry slashes on my self-esteem. When I was a kid I was in battle with myself constantly, if I made a pretty picture and showed it to a friend, who disliked it, my heart fell and I agreed that her view must be true. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw my features as ugly and too strange, such as my nose too stuck out, ears too large, and teeth too crooked. I thought I had to look like my adoptive family in order to be a worthy person. I was ashamed of my family and home, and whenever I went to over to a friend's house I thought, "This is what a normal family looks like." I voiced those thoughts to my mother, but she took them as humorous, She also told me of the time I said, "Are you jealous of my teacher because she has blond hair and is pretty?" and she just laughed and told the teacher. I was serious though, and I thought that everyone was better off than me or my family.
I used to write long, adventurous, and the main character was always rebellious and negative in thoughts and actions. For example, she hated school, was always trying to get away with everything, and tried to escape doing anything productive. Whoever I read them too would laugh and praise me for it, no body every questioned what was going on in my mind to come up with such disparaging plots. I guess because in the story I always made sure she was admired and loved by everyone, and they didn't take her misbehavior too seriously, as I saw my own life. Everything seemed to be a joke and full of dodging work and increasing play. Even at the expense of my grades and decency, and sometimes respect.
Nancy Verrier, in The Primal Wound, says that adoptees get split off in their personality between being good and bad, there is no gray area. This means they perceive the world as good or bad, depending on the circumstance. This is very normal for little kids, but they learn later on that there are more to the story, whereas with adoptees, their feelings never get resolved so they carry it with them to their teens and beyond.
More to come,
Adoptee Heart
We have been beaten down by so many outer expectations of what makes us good or bad, I feel it is nearly impossible for some of us to love ourselves. Because a child is molded by the way the adults in his life treat him, if he is given the message that he is bad over and over again, it will be very hard for him to believe in himself to do good. Children are extremely egotistic, and this just means that they have no logic skills to discern if what adults are saying is out of reason or not. They cannot think abstractly, as psychology has taught us, until the age of around 10-12. Therefore, everything goes straight into their emotions, and they take it how it is. So if their father makes a face at them to stop talking when they are excited, they will interpret this to mean that they are not worth anyone's time, and be ashamed of themselves. The younger the child is the worst the pain will be, because the more he is in his caregivers' hands for safety and he will depend on them for cues of what actions will make him worthy of love, or survival, and which are despicable. The actions that are deemed despicable will then be disposed of, even if it part of the child's nature. This is called splitting, or fragmentation, of the personality, and any mention of it will cause great shame, but in essence it is shame of the part of the self.
For me this happened all too often, and I retreated into myself and the voices of self-doubt became inside, angry slashes on my self-esteem. When I was a kid I was in battle with myself constantly, if I made a pretty picture and showed it to a friend, who disliked it, my heart fell and I agreed that her view must be true. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw my features as ugly and too strange, such as my nose too stuck out, ears too large, and teeth too crooked. I thought I had to look like my adoptive family in order to be a worthy person. I was ashamed of my family and home, and whenever I went to over to a friend's house I thought, "This is what a normal family looks like." I voiced those thoughts to my mother, but she took them as humorous, She also told me of the time I said, "Are you jealous of my teacher because she has blond hair and is pretty?" and she just laughed and told the teacher. I was serious though, and I thought that everyone was better off than me or my family.
I used to write long, adventurous, and the main character was always rebellious and negative in thoughts and actions. For example, she hated school, was always trying to get away with everything, and tried to escape doing anything productive. Whoever I read them too would laugh and praise me for it, no body every questioned what was going on in my mind to come up with such disparaging plots. I guess because in the story I always made sure she was admired and loved by everyone, and they didn't take her misbehavior too seriously, as I saw my own life. Everything seemed to be a joke and full of dodging work and increasing play. Even at the expense of my grades and decency, and sometimes respect.
Nancy Verrier, in The Primal Wound, says that adoptees get split off in their personality between being good and bad, there is no gray area. This means they perceive the world as good or bad, depending on the circumstance. This is very normal for little kids, but they learn later on that there are more to the story, whereas with adoptees, their feelings never get resolved so they carry it with them to their teens and beyond.
More to come,
Adoptee Heart
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