mixed messages:you're good, you're bad, you're fat, you're thin,you're hopeless,you're the best?

Growing up I was surrounded by mixed messages all the time. I never knew what to expect in my house, my family, my friends, or extended family from one second to the next. Anyone and anything could turn on me without a moment's notice. It felt like there was never any foundation to hold on to... nothing that was ever stable. I was good and i was bad. They were proud of me and humiliated by me. I was worthy and I was worthless. I was smart if I got an A and stupid if I got a B+. I was a pretty little girl who looked just like my mom and I was ugly because I made a face dad didn't like. Everyone had a right to show their feelings... except me, except us in our house. Dad was allowed to be angry and do whatever he wanted, but if I even frowned, I got sent to my room until I could come back out with a smile on my face. I was just right and I was a fat little pig who ate too much. I was supposed to finish everything on my plate but if I did I was greedy and selfish. I was such a generous little girl but if I dared to ever ask for anything I was selfish, self-centered, and only thought of myself.
It went on, and on, and on. Every day.
I never knew who I was supposed to be.
Was I good or bad or fat or thin or right or wrong or worthy or worthless or wonderful or stupid or smart or allowed to talk or was I to be seen and not heard or not seen at all or....?
I think that developing other people inside was one way to organize all those mixed messages. I am sure I didn't do it consciously. But through all of the chaos that I lived in, maybe my mind made up a way to say: Fine. You say I'm all those different things, but I can't fit all that inside. So OK: Someone will be this and this; someone else will be this; We'll make Missy be bossy, outgoing, worthy, and loud. We'll make Nobody be invisible, never heard, unworthy, selfless. We'll make the Bully the bad guy-- he can take it when you yell and say all those mean things, you can't hurt him. C**** will be the one who's smart, intuitive, beautiful.
Between all the things that were happening to me, inside of me, around me, having no way to rescue myself from the situation because I was just a child, my mind went its own way: here is an escape.
You can't run away, you can't scream, you can't get out of there... but you can go inside your mind and do it.

Posted by pilgrim | Filed under: The Bad Days

1. Posted by Teresa on February 8, 2005

2. Posted by Tracy on February 9, 2005

3. Posted by Sarah on February 9, 2005

4. Posted by psjlken on March 24, 2008