A Spectator ...

[ladyxiang]

Hi everyone. I joined the site a few days ago and after reading some of the posts of other 'first-timers' I finally felt I was ready to write something. Forgive me if I ramble.

I feel like a spectator of life, as if everyone around me is in the parade and I'm left standing on the sidewalk watching all of them pass me by. Picture, if you will, the floats in my parade. There are no floral tributes. The floats in my parade are, instead, what I call 'life events', those things that normal people encounter in the course of a lifetime: graduating from high school, attending college, having a career, getting married, having children, purchasing a home, etc. As a spectator I have watched nearly all of these things happen to and for others but have experienced very few, if any, of them myself.

It's not like I haven't tried. I've always wanted to be like others. Problem was, I would start out fine but eventually, things always fell apart. After fifty years, I don't trust trying anymore. I was sexually abused by my mother's husband, the father of my three younger brothers. My mother is still married to him. He began sexually abusing me at the age of six. When he moved on to my sisters, the abuse he directed at me became more psychological and emotional than sexual. My mother's transformation at the hands of this man was the most puzzling. She went from never finishing a glass of beer to a full-on alcoholic in the span of a few years. Drunk most of the time, she was in no position to defend me. At varying points I told her of the abuse. Her exact words during one of these confessions: "I am not losing my husband because of you."

I don't know if my sisters ever ventured to tell her anything or not. I can only speak for myself. The loss of my mother's love was papable. She went from caring and doting on her first six children to tolerating us. The attention she'd given us became firmly focused on her husband and his children. After he came along and after the birth of his three sons, my mother seemed a shell of the person we'd known before. I have always felt that losing her, and her love, left me ill prepared to face the world somehow, as if her love was the armor and the confidence that I sorely needed but lacked.

I finished high school and attended college, but aside from that, I lacked the confidence to seek a career, settling instead for various jobs. My mother offered no help to me or the other five, but did all she could for his three - Two of them attended college and with her help were able to finish. I was the only one of the six to attend college and graduate. She offered me no financial help and was not present for my commencement.

As I said, I wanted a career, a husband, children, a home, all of those things that normal people had but I lacked the confidence to seek. Just a year ago, I met a wonderful gentleman. He isn't my first foray into the world of romance. There were others; not many but they all dumped me with nary a backwards glance. My last attempt at a relationship was fifteen years ago. Since that time I have sat quietly and watched as my siblings married, had more children, buried spouses and remarried. They are part of the parade. I, as always, am on the sidewalk watching. The gentleman I have met is wonderful to me and is attentive. I have shared with him the pain of being sexually abused as a child. He has tried as much as possible to help me. Still, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop or the bottom to fall out of the whole thing. Nothing as good as him has ever happened to me, so I am apprehensive that he will stay around. While I can acknowledge that it is a chance to join 'the parade of life' and to stop being a spectator, experience tells me that putting forth any effort will bring me nothing. I fear that he will wake up one day, very soon, and begin to question his choice to date a fat, ugly, nobody.

When that happens, I will go back to being that spectator, only then I'll move a little further away from the curb and back, into the shadows. I envision a corner not penetrated by light where I can safely watch without being seen.

Has anyone else ever felt the same way?

[lexip]

I read your post and I exactly the same like I'm watching everyone else have life experiences but I'm having very few myself. I was R almost 2 years ago and since then everything has just stopped. I tried to go on a course a few weeks ago, went a few times but then talked myself out of going telling myself, "I'm not good enough", "nothing good will come from it" all the negative thoughts went around and around my head. I really could of wrote your post myself. Even though I'm still in my 20's everything that has happened makes me feel older. I feel like I'm in my late 30's just wanting a quiet life, when I should be out grabbing every life has to offer! I don't know if this is all down to what happened to me, before it happened I was pretty laid back and low on confidence. But since everything it does seem to be worse. I'm not depressed or low, well not right now anyway, I just don't think I'm making the most out of life. But I guess all we need is time, time for me does seem to be the key and I'm glad you have found someone! You do have that in your life and that is something to be proud of! I'm sorry if iv gone off into a rant I just wanted to say that I understand. I hope you find all the support you need here on As!

[ladyxiang]

Thanks janepp for your response. I am sorry about what happened to you. You said when you were R two years ago 'everything stopped'. It's funny you should say that. My abuse began when I was six and sometimes I feel like I am still that six year old child, as if time did suddenly stop. Sometimes I have dreams of being back in my childhood home and back in my bedroom surrounded by my dolls and toys, or I am back in grade school. Do you sometimes feel that way, as if you are still that age, because of what happened to you?

[lexip]

Thanks janepp for your response. I am sorry about what happened to you. You said when you were R two years ago 'everything stopped'. It's funny you should say that. My abuse began when I was six and sometimes I feel like I am still that six year old child, as if time did suddenly stop. Sometimes I have dreams of being back in my childhood home and back in my bedroom surrounded by my dolls and toys, or I am back in grade school. Do you sometimes feel that way, as if you are still that age, because of what happened to you?

In ways. For me its more like I'm trying to get back to being the person I was before. I was 21, outgoing, nothing phased me! I seen all guys has "good guys" but what happened took that from me. I liked who I was and I spent so much time trying to get that back. After the R I still went out and drank in fact I drank more after the R than I did before, in a way I thought that was me saying Hey Im still a young fun outgoing flirty person. I wasn't! I was falling apart, and my drinking in was verging on a problem and led to more dark places. So yeah everything, stopped, changed, became screwed up, its taken a lot of time for me to except im never going to get the old me back, but that's ok. Im ok with that now. So in ways I don't still feel 21 more like 41 but that's ok, I was certainly going off the rails so its good that iv chilled out. I do understand what your saying though. In ways for me time goes fast but Im still stuck in the same place. "trying to get over the R". Not so much right now, im coping now, Im sorry if iv trailed off the point here a little. I do hope I have in some ways answered your question! There's so many chapters of recovery I feel like im covered already and its only been 18 months!!!

[~FOUND~]

Hi there.
Welcome to AS.

I hope you find this site to be helpful.

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