SUFFERING IN SILENCE (page 3)

nilfun

Very compassionate post, Merry. Thanks for opening up the dialogue...(even if it's confined to an internal one at this time)

damselfly

Why do we do it? Afraid we'll seem weak or ridiculous? Afraid no one will really care? Afraid we don't belong? Afraid we don't deserve attention?

Yes to all of the above, I rarely reach out in real life because I'm terrified of rejection. I find it easy to do reach out on the board because it's more anounmous(sp?) If I'm rejected there is less hurt.

(((((Donnie))))) I wish we were closer! I would make you tea and let you pet my kitty, Maggie. She would purr loudly to help you feel better. Then we'd have cookies. Everyone loves a good cookie.

Dams

luna2

If I don't ask, I won't be rejected.

GoingGoingGone

Like many here have expressed, I grew up in an emotionally abusive home where 'happy' was the only emotion I was permitted to show. I could never confide in my parents, or even talk to them, and quickly learned to take care of myself. As I grew up, I became the person who took care of everyone else's problems, too. People have always confided in me, and over the years I have connected deeply with my friends because of that.

I still never ask for help, though. I don't expect anything from anyone, because then I can't be disappointed. It's kind of strange, though, because I can't really say that I have low self-esteem, I just don't ever ask for help or support, even though I sometimes desperately need it.

Hmmmmm....

GGG ((((((((((((((hugs to everyone who needs them!!!!)))))))))))))

MerryMagdalene

Oh my beautiful beautiful friends--(I hope you don't mind if I think of you that way; I don't mean to be presumptuous)

Now I am trying to type through tears...Even broken and suffering, you are the most amazing, loving, giving people I have ever met. You have opened more doors of thought for me and comforted my bruised and mending heart more than you will ever knowduring the year that I have been here.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings on this. I would like to respond to each of you individually...tomorrow after I have absorbed all this a little more...

~Merry

MerryMagdalene

(((Sad emo))) :

I guess there's still a little child locked somewhere inside who doesn't really know who she is or where she belongs in life.

I have often felt this way myself. I hope that from here on out we will be able to fully embrace and enjoy the process of exploring and discovering those very things, as painful and challenging as that can sometimes be...

(((Brenda))):

the only correct emotion was a happy one.

(((Narkissos))):

making you feel bad for feeling bad

(((whyamihere))):

I suffer alone everyday.
I wish I could reach out, but it is too hard for me. I was raised to have no feelings. Perfect and Happy is all I know. I hate it. I am sad and I can't be sad. I don't know how.

I detest the way so many of us we were raised or otherwise trained to repress our true feelings if these were anything other than mild and happy, putting on a false face that eventually becomes so firmly attached that it hurts like hell when we finally set about pulling it off...and then there is that horrible fear that I have often struggled with----what if there's nothing underneath the mask???

Then there is the REJECTION issue brought up by

(((Dams))):

...terrified of rejection...

and (((luna2))):

If I don't ask, I won't be rejected.

I don't know if it's just a defense mechanism against the pain or not, but when I feel rejected I tend to adopt the "it's their loss" attitude and remind myself, in the words of Emerson, "When half gods go, The gods arrive."

(((Sassy))):

sometimes when people are needing a hug the most, they haven't the strength to ask for one

(((((((for everyone who needs one right now but can't ask)))))))

(((Elsewhere))):

When I'm down I tend to isolate myself and never tell anyone

A tendency you and tal and I seem to share (and many others, I am sure)...and the reason for this thread. And, as Narkissos brought up, I have made the mistake of sharing with the wrong people when I would finally allow myself to reach out and then, afterward, becoming all the more isolated. But I think it's worth the risk when you do finally find real friends who, as talesin said:

really want to share the bad times, too...make the effort to open up, it's worth it.

(((WLG))):

I feel like I need to control the sadness better and be the person that people know they can come to when they are down.

and (((GGG))):

...I can't really say that I have low self-esteem, I just don't ever ask for help or support, even though I sometimes desperately need it.

...made me think about how (((Prophecor))) has been trying to talk me down out of my "ivory tower." LOL Maybe it is best that we not always try to be the lonely, stoic guru on the top of the mountain, but come down into the valley with everyone else who is struggling so that we can take turns helping and supporting each other, rather than that always falling on just one person's shoulders. In sharing our weak moments, we can find strength together.

And, finally, (((nilfun))): I'm glad this thread may have helped open up an important internal dialogue for you. Those are important, although after a while they can be somewhat limited in their perspective, so I hope that even if you are not able to bring what you are dealing with out into an open dialogue, that at least by reading those of other folks here, you may receive beneficial input indirectly. I often have.

Thanks everybody!

~Merry

SixofNine

I have a similar take on this as Narkissos. I find that I have to work things out for myself. When I need advice, it is specific, so I'll ask specific questions.

nilfun

Yeah...I guess sometimes it is better to "suffer in silence" around certain people. For example, I now try to avoid sharing anything negative with relatives who happen to be JW or who still have the JW mindset -- I'd rather suffer in silence than give them the ammunition/satisfaction to say "That's what happens when you leave Jehovah." Even though I know it is pure b.s., I don't want or need to hear it right now.

hamsterbait

My intuition is that I was a cat in a previous existence. They hide themselves away when they feel unwell or mopey.

Even before JWS my family had a fierce pride: "don't start crying now or when I get you home I'll give you something to cry about!" Or, when I asked my mother why she had told a pack of lies about me to the teacher at parents' evening:"I had had to say something - I didn't want to look like a fool."

All signs of conditional love - Boy oh boy, is that not why my family bought into the cult racket - now they could justify their behavior as righteous before Jehovah!

Or after my experience with the babysitter: "If you tell anyone, I'll say YOU made me do that." ( a pre schooler?!)

My Mother hated how her second husband wouldn't share his feelings. She'd ask him what was up, if he told her she would then mock and berate him for feeling that way. (If she thought his feelings were "soft" - ie vulnerable) That is one phrase I remember "don't be soft".

In company we were to be polite and quiet. After saying "excuse me" a thousand times, if I then piped up with what I wanted to say at the table it was "And what have YOU got tosay that's SO important?"

I believe that you learn to trust (or otherwise) in the almost pre speaking part of life, which is why it is so difficult to describe feelings we never were allowed to find the words for.

Going to the kingdumb hell and being expected to lie and say everything is fine at home - even though nobody else is there because of some disgusting altercation. When other kids at school started saying in 1976: "Where's the end of the world knowall?" And I had to deny my own reality (again) and say JWs never said anything about the end of the world coming in 1975.

Yeah - it is so much easier to hide away somewhere, far from the madding crowd, where no one teases, mocks, lies or blackmails you.

HB ( of the "not now Josephine, I'm hibernating" class)

Frannie Banannie

Yep. So afraid that I'll sound like one big long whine after another.

SUFFERING IN SILENCE

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