Post by heatherinjapan on Dec 17, 2012 4:26:26 GMT -8
I'm the oldest daughter of a dysfunctional family. My parents, especially my mother, were very emotionally unavailable to me when I was a child, and that left me with low self-esteem and lacking social skills. My mother was depressed and a love addict.
I have two younger sisters, and I fought a lot as a kid with my sister (three years younger than me) and I viewed us as enemies for my whole childhood and adolescence. As a kid I always felt dislike for my family. I'm in therapy now and it looks like my self-defense mechanism was to put up a wall against my family when they weren't there for me. I wanted their love but it hurt that I wasn't getting it so I guess I told myself I didn't want or need it anyway. This has automatically carried on into adulthood now.
I moved to Japan 7 years ago when I was 23. I keep in touch with my dad only. He's the most normal of the family I guess. He emails me and tries to keep in touch, and I find it easy to open up to him because he does try and communicate with me and he is honest about his feelings.
I've always just told myself that my family situation is what it is and it can't be helped. But I guess deep down it does bug me. I do feel like a failure for not being able to be friends with my own family, even though that wasn't my fault. I feel bad that my own family doesn't contact me. They haven't called me once in the 7 years I've been here. My dad told me last Christmas he would start Skype-ing me but he never did...
It's complicated - it's not that my parents don't want to call me. I know they really want to talk to me. They just are not able to act on their own desires (and they passed that on to me too). It makes me feel bad, like I'm a difficult person to connect to. But I know I shouldn't blame myself - that was their job as parents to connect to their child.
I know when I feel rejected by someone I have a pattern or shutting down to that person, not being able to open up or be warm or sweet to them. I see this pattern in my adult life and I think it comes from the unresolved conflicts of my childhood with my younger sister. I can't tell that person that they've hurt me, or that I actually want to be close to them.
Anyway long story short, I'm going home for winter break and I want to try and reach out to my family. It's hard because I've never been myself around my family. I put up that wall against them and I felt like I had to keep going with that character once I'd started it. Part of me also feels like I don't want to be sweet to people who have hurt me... My family doesn't really talk about feelings and things...maybe only in one on one sessions with Dad. Any tips for how to go about repairing my family relationships?
I have two younger sisters, and I fought a lot as a kid with my sister (three years younger than me) and I viewed us as enemies for my whole childhood and adolescence. As a kid I always felt dislike for my family. I'm in therapy now and it looks like my self-defense mechanism was to put up a wall against my family when they weren't there for me. I wanted their love but it hurt that I wasn't getting it so I guess I told myself I didn't want or need it anyway. This has automatically carried on into adulthood now.
I moved to Japan 7 years ago when I was 23. I keep in touch with my dad only. He's the most normal of the family I guess. He emails me and tries to keep in touch, and I find it easy to open up to him because he does try and communicate with me and he is honest about his feelings.
I've always just told myself that my family situation is what it is and it can't be helped. But I guess deep down it does bug me. I do feel like a failure for not being able to be friends with my own family, even though that wasn't my fault. I feel bad that my own family doesn't contact me. They haven't called me once in the 7 years I've been here. My dad told me last Christmas he would start Skype-ing me but he never did...
It's complicated - it's not that my parents don't want to call me. I know they really want to talk to me. They just are not able to act on their own desires (and they passed that on to me too). It makes me feel bad, like I'm a difficult person to connect to. But I know I shouldn't blame myself - that was their job as parents to connect to their child.
I know when I feel rejected by someone I have a pattern or shutting down to that person, not being able to open up or be warm or sweet to them. I see this pattern in my adult life and I think it comes from the unresolved conflicts of my childhood with my younger sister. I can't tell that person that they've hurt me, or that I actually want to be close to them.
Anyway long story short, I'm going home for winter break and I want to try and reach out to my family. It's hard because I've never been myself around my family. I put up that wall against them and I felt like I had to keep going with that character once I'd started it. Part of me also feels like I don't want to be sweet to people who have hurt me... My family doesn't really talk about feelings and things...maybe only in one on one sessions with Dad. Any tips for how to go about repairing my family relationships?