Post by hardlyquinn on Nov 19, 2012 1:31:01 GMT -8
I can't say that the upbringing I had was full of abuse. I know both my parents did love me in their ways, and that they had their own issues that caused them to behave the ways they did, but both my brother and I have had endless trouble in our adult lives with emotional stability that can only come from those days.
Our dad was generally cheerful and good humoured, but he had a temper on him that manifested itself in endless verbal fights with our mother. She was not one to sit back and take it, she fought her own corner and they were vicious to each other. We tried to ignore it, but it just got worse and worse as we grew up.
I used to hide in my room by myself, reading whatever books I could get my hands on. A lot of them were romances, they were my consolation in my loneliness and anxiety over the fighting.
My dad was very critical of all of us. He belittled us with his 'humour' and when we complained which I often did, I was told to lighten up and not take things so seriously, he was only talking in fun (fun for him, maybe, not so much for us). Nothing I ever did was good enough. I would get good marks in school, but unless I got 100%, he would say that I should have done better.
He mocked my looks, would laugh at me when I came home from the hairdressers and to this day I hate going for a haircut. I would try to leave the room when he was having a go at me, and he would follow me, telling me where I was going wrong. He saw that as his one and only duty as a parent. There was never any praise. I actually hated him as a teenager, but he thought he was always right about everything. Complaining about it did no good at all.
My mother did her best to protect us, but in her way she was not helpful. She wanted to see me in the role of 'poor little thing' and never let me step out of that role to develop my self confidence. I wasn't allowed out like my brother, and as an adult when I challenged her over the restrictions she placed on me, she told me that her main priority was keeping me safe. There was no possibility of allowing me to develop strength of my own through getting out there and developing myself into a self reliant person, I had to be protected.
We had left the area where my parents were born when I was very young, so I in effect lost my extended family at around 3 years of age. Then my dad took a job which took us around the world, and I never had any continuity or stability. We were sent to boarding school, so then we effectively lost each other, and I was on my own. In those days (1970s) there was no such thing as pastoral support, so my peers were the only emotional support I had, and they were in the same boat as me.
I took my solace in books, and developed a very flighty mind, full of romance and sci fi and all sorts of nonsense. I find it very hard to be close to anyone in a true mature relationship.
So I suppose all of this is the basis for my love addiction. It seems an inevitability given the facts of my background, but I do very genuinely want to recover from it.
Our dad was generally cheerful and good humoured, but he had a temper on him that manifested itself in endless verbal fights with our mother. She was not one to sit back and take it, she fought her own corner and they were vicious to each other. We tried to ignore it, but it just got worse and worse as we grew up.
I used to hide in my room by myself, reading whatever books I could get my hands on. A lot of them were romances, they were my consolation in my loneliness and anxiety over the fighting.
My dad was very critical of all of us. He belittled us with his 'humour' and when we complained which I often did, I was told to lighten up and not take things so seriously, he was only talking in fun (fun for him, maybe, not so much for us). Nothing I ever did was good enough. I would get good marks in school, but unless I got 100%, he would say that I should have done better.
He mocked my looks, would laugh at me when I came home from the hairdressers and to this day I hate going for a haircut. I would try to leave the room when he was having a go at me, and he would follow me, telling me where I was going wrong. He saw that as his one and only duty as a parent. There was never any praise. I actually hated him as a teenager, but he thought he was always right about everything. Complaining about it did no good at all.
My mother did her best to protect us, but in her way she was not helpful. She wanted to see me in the role of 'poor little thing' and never let me step out of that role to develop my self confidence. I wasn't allowed out like my brother, and as an adult when I challenged her over the restrictions she placed on me, she told me that her main priority was keeping me safe. There was no possibility of allowing me to develop strength of my own through getting out there and developing myself into a self reliant person, I had to be protected.
We had left the area where my parents were born when I was very young, so I in effect lost my extended family at around 3 years of age. Then my dad took a job which took us around the world, and I never had any continuity or stability. We were sent to boarding school, so then we effectively lost each other, and I was on my own. In those days (1970s) there was no such thing as pastoral support, so my peers were the only emotional support I had, and they were in the same boat as me.
I took my solace in books, and developed a very flighty mind, full of romance and sci fi and all sorts of nonsense. I find it very hard to be close to anyone in a true mature relationship.
So I suppose all of this is the basis for my love addiction. It seems an inevitability given the facts of my background, but I do very genuinely want to recover from it.
