Tuesday, July 28, 2009

"Unworthiness"? Yeah, we go waaay back

It is clear that my application in regards to stopping my accepted constructs of "unworthiness" and "incompetence" have not been effective or specific enough.

So... I am going to go back and pin down where this is coming from and why I am facing it so intensely lately.

My recollection of being "unworthy" comes from my upbringing as a child under the care of my mother, who was an abusive parent. I accepted and allowed a lot of emotional and physical abuse while she raised me. Within this, there have been many moments where I have been told that I was a "mistake", that I am a "failure" or "stupid".

There were times when each and every day, I was scolded and berated for long periods... sinking in all of the anger from my mother... sinking in all of the judgment. Taking it all into myself and becoming it... actually letting the words and the heated emotions behind them drive into my body and reside there, where I as a child under my mother's care had no outlet... had no means of expressing the pain and anger I was consuming.

Within this, I abdicated myself over to being a "failure"... accepting that I would always be in the "wrong", that I would always be scolded and called all kinds of demeaning names by my own mother, who apparently "knows me best". I accepted the resentment, the regret.

This acceptance grew within me... compounding as me... growing as I grew into adulthood... one and equal within and as my very being. I could do nothing right... I would always need her to correct me and scold me because I could not ever be "right". I could not ever be effective on my own... something was functionally "wrong" with me.

In several areas of my life, i stopped "progressing". I saw my friends "grow" into their lives and move within the world... getting their licenses to drive, getting jobs, going to college, living life. I did not do any of those things. I was not "given" those things and therefore did not allow myself to have them.

by the time i was 22 and still living at home with my mother... dreading each and every day of being in her presence... hating myself and the image i had become... deliberately sleeping in and staying up late at night so as to reduce the time i would actually have to be around her... i decided that i could not continue.

i decided that i would rather die on the street without support from her or anyone rather than depend on her for my survival in this world. and with that decision, i set up a situation for me to run away from home... and leave my little sister behind.

at 23, i was "homeless". I stayed at the house of a friend... slept on a couch in their living room or on a chair in their computer room, or on the floor. i did this for months, living off of the charity of my friends. eating what i could, when i could.

and then finally moving out into a house with other friends... where i set up a "room" for myself in the living room (there were not enough rooms for me). I hung up fabric sheets to be my "walls". I lived there for about a year, in a fabric walled cube in the living room. I ate crackers and ramen noodles. I would sometimes steal small bits of food from grocery stores because i didn't have any money.

after that, i moved into another house... again the situation arose where the other roomates had jobs and cars... and i didn't... and there weren't enough rooms for all of us. so we constructed a room for me in the garage (car park). we build a makeshift room out of wood wall panels bought from a supply store. and i stayed in that garage through winter and summer. i found a job... and walked to and from work each day.

now, i am in the same house, though i am now properly renting a room. i have a bed, i have amenities, i have clothes, i have food, i have income, i have a computer, i have books and several things to entertain me.

by most accounts i have "succeeded" in standing up... in forcing myself... in supporting myself.

yet i only got to where i am from the charity of friends. i got to where i am from allowing others take care of things for me. i got to where i am NOT by standing up for myself but by making OTHERS do it.

Ever since i removed myself from my mother and any support she would have given, I have been tumbling... completely cut off from any stability. she was the sole stability within my life.... she was the only "source" of support for my survival in the world... but i could not let myself live under her... i could no longer stand not standing, and taking more of her abuse. i fled and ran away.

and i have been running ever since, really. i have been running from the fear... the utterly paralyzing construct of me being "defective"... me being "unable to support myself"... "unable to live properly in this world like others do".

within my life i have wanted to do great things... accomplish great things... manifest great creations of self expression... but have always failed... have always petered out just before the end like a candle snuffed before it's time.

why? i have so completely become the manifestation of my fears... so completely and physically manifested as "incompetence" and "unworthiness"... and "procrastination" as well as "ineffectiveness". it is who and what i am in my physicality... and it has been the general pattern of my life.

if i am to make any real change... this construct... at it's very core... must be faced. i must stand. just as i could not let myself live within the boundary of my mother's abuse... i cannot let myself live under the acceptance of this fear.

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