How strong are your conditioned feelings of unearned guilt and shame today?

I'm dealing with big feelings of guilt and shame today.

I was shamed most of my young life for being able to yell the loudest in the family. (I should be proud. My dad is the only one who could yell louder and my dad was a great man--that just occurred to me.) It didn't matter what anyone else was doing or who was wrong, yelling loud was a no no and the neighbors might hear. My mother would run around closing windows. My dad finally told me years later that he figured it out. My older sister was usually doing something mean to me and I'd finally blow up.

Well, I very seldom blow up anymore. Once maybe twice a year. My ex had a mother who blew up all the time and I think she had reasons to. Her husband was a bastard who spoke quietly and spiritually and so she looked like the lunatic. So even now, he uses that experience to define me compared to him. He can tell me he is leaving in a quiet voice and if I react, then it makes me the bad guy.

And my daughter has learned well. She purposely sets me up even when I haven't lost it. When I was calmly discussing her deciding not to get married with my ex (I won't go into details, but the marriage is back on now), she texted him and said "mom is going to lose it, I need your help." Save me daddy, save me. Are you going to abandon me again or save me and throw mom under the bus. And I gave her what she was asking for on purpose.

And now I feel guilty because I'm the nutcase because I yell when someone does something like this and I shouldn't feel guilty, but I do. I'm so ANGRY that I feel like this, so back to the therapist this week. But it has been a lifelong thing and I'm 58. I haven't exploded since when--a week after our dog died and my son attacked me. We were all in pain. Before that, A GODDAMN YEAR. But I'm the nutcase.

My TBM daughter likes to drop emotional bombs on me, but she gives me instructions beforehand (you can't be upset mom, you can't respond, you can't ask questions, you have to support me) and then tells me she isn't getting married and she isn't buying the house they were going to buy as I sit here holding the check of MY MONEY for the inspection just as I sat down to work for the evening. And I didn't blow up until she texted her dad as above.

And I FEEL GUILTY. WTF.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2015 10:07AM by cl2.

((Hugs)) for what it's worth I think you are a good person.

I have no clue where she is right now. I found out from my niece as my daughter posted it on fb of all places. I have talked to her exfiance. I will be there for him and eventually her. Not right now, though.

If I had any doubts (which I didn't) her actions over the past few years have proven to me that mormonism is bull. She has become a person I don't recognize.

The conditioning I can't seem to shake is caring too much about what others think of me. I catch my inner voice saying "What will everyone think if I wear, drink, say, do this?" I wish I could get some kind of electric shock treatment to get rid of the voice. I even worry about what I'm wearing when I go out for a run. It's nuts but I just cannot seem to shake the feeling.

This. So much concern over others' opinions, especially of me as a mother.

I have zero problems with unearned guilt and shame. Oddly enough, the mindfuck that is Mormonism never managed to pin that onto me.

I don't think I have any useful advice for those that do suffer from this though, as I didn't work my way through or out of that, it just is who I am. I've learned that just telling people to not feel guilty or shamed is not a very productive or useful bit of advice.

I've earned all my guilt.

As have I, unfortunately.

Me too

Guilt is a form of competition in the Church. By stringent obedience you feel less guilt. Only then is it revealed to you the next thing to overcome, to resolve the guilt in your life.

This continues until you either break down or develop a dual personality.

Line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little until you come to a perfect knowledge.

Glad you asked volrammos....

Since I've been out for years now.... the guilt and shame

has gone down the crapper of life, like all things

that stink and are useless. I wish that can happen to all

my exmo friends. It's great. I highly reccomend it.

And I've just about eaten the whole f&%$!#g elephant, thank you.

Cabdriver Confession: I did some more "work" a couple of months ago, and I've spent a lot of time "farting" as a result.

Strictly in private, of course... I'm hoping it doesn't leave an odor on my prose...

And I'm a technical Nevermo with Jack Mormon parents; the BIC folks often really have to walk through literal hell (my dad and grandfather described it that way).

Reading recommendation: Sheldon Kopp's "If You Meet The Buddha on the Road, Kill Him."

/insert sound of one hand clapping



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2015 02:48PM by SL Cabbie.

Thanks to my nevermo ex alcoholic husband, I went to Al-Anon for four years. It was exactly what I needed to straighten out my very mormon co-dependent ways and actions. I learned how to be authentic, and to care for myself when nobody else was caring for or about me. I made some extreme changes in my thinking an the way I live. It pissed off a ton of people. Mostly the mormons. They can't stand it when a woman knows who she is and won't step aside to let them have their way with you.

Its better to be pissed off than pissed on.

+1000

Having been an adult child of an alcoholic father and narcotic addicted mother (both inactive other than during their children's formative years, but otherwise believing TBM to the day they died,) I've been where you are.

It does feel good to take your power back. The Mormon church became my enemy once I was able to stand on my own. When I went along to get along, asked no questions, played by the rules, it was the same old ass wipe it had always been.

I'm so glad I've moved on. It's been liberating. The co-dependency was fostered between the cult and home. It has taken a lifetime of self-help, counseling, and understanding to break out. There is no easy "fix" for us. Recognizing how far I've come lets me know I'm on the right track.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

I read this one 20 years ago. Worthy of a re-read if I could only find my copy.


http://www.npr.org/books/titles/327826900/zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance-an-inquiry-into-values

About as strong as the gravity of a single hydrogen atom.

Zero guilt, zero shame here. I got over worrying who'd see me coming out of the liquor store or engaging in any other non-cult approved activity decades ago....

Ron Burr

I'm having impure thoughts

Most of my unearned shame and guilt comes today from one of my adult children.

She turned into a borderline personality during her college years, and is now someone I no longer know. She cut off all ties to me, changed her name not once, but at least three times that I know of.

She's disappeared to the Middle East, Israel last I heard. It's enough to have a breakdown over, if I wasn't so damn resilient.

I have a good therapist who has known my family since 2004. He's met my children (we started as intervention for my teens when they were teenagers.) He recognized the borderline symptoms with my daughter. Otherwise I'd still be blaming myself.

I keep asking him was it something I did, in raising her? Her father's a borderline, I haven't spoken to him in years. He wasn't with my children when they were growing toddlers and formative years, or after. Did not know that the disorder has a genetic link until now. I believed a loving environment would make all the difference for my children. Ex-husband grew up in Communist Poland, and doesn't respect truth from lies. There's no ability to trust anything he says.

Did I see that when we met? Not at first. He was a highly functioning borderline. The lies only came out when we separated and later divorced. Big lies, not little ones, about his family back home in Poland. The same kind of lies my daughter has been saying about me since she left home. He divorced his parents in Poland, and she divorced me by her mid-20's. Same age as he did before we met.

Blaming myself for meeting him is an understatement. I was LDS then, and looking through rose colored glasses.

However, my children are the greatest blessings of my life. I wouldn't have traded motherhood for anything else. I gave up a career to raise my children. I don't fault myself for that.

I've struggled some, and been blessed lots. Having been Mormon we were raised to be mothers first, and that's one lesson I've managed well, as a single mother.

My therapist helps me with the guilting over what I might have done differently parenting. I did the best I could, under the circumstances. Including leaving the cult while they were very young.

We still prayed together, went to worship together, and dinner time was a sacred time in our family even when I worked two jobs when they were in high school. I was probably overly strict as a parent, but living in New York City and then upstate New York, it is the norm for parents to know where their children are and to be concerned about them.

So I erred on the side of caution, and do not fault myself for not being overly permissive. Having grown up with little to no supervision, it was important to me for my children to feel secure in my love for them.

https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability?language=en#t-1021922

I've just discovered Brene Brown, and this link is an introduction to her stuff. Her research deals with interpersonal connection, whole heartedness, guilt, shame, vulnerability, accepting your flaws and feeling worthy of love in spite of them (or even because of them), boundaries, gratitude, joy, avoiding 'numbing', perfectionism, etc.

I've been reading her books (Gifts of Imperfection, and Daring Greatly) and every page has an 'aha' moment for me.

I was raised with shame, so I know all about that. I don't do well in public. I've presented more of myself on this forum than anywhere else. I still worry about how I'm received, even here. But my writing is cathartic, and I want to continue. My deepest thanks to everyone who reads my words.

And thanks for asking, volrammos.

Hi donbagley

Started this thread to see if a brain-storm could help me ease my feelings and worries.

I have this irrational feeling of guilt and shame sometime overwhelming me so I just have to sit down and catch a breathe. Scene after scene from the life I lived under emotional abuse starts to play in my mind like it was a movie and it never seems to stop.

It really makes a difference for me to read this stories from people who share similar problems in lives.

Thank you donbagley and everybody else!

I do many things out of guilt.

I probably volunteer mostly out of guilt. I have been lucky to have many remissions; whereas, others with my disease are driven crazy with the pain, or are hooked on pain-killers. So I try to help them. If I stop volunteering, I won't have any friends. All the Mormons have shunned me.

The Mormons have taught me that if I don't help others, I'm worthless.

Making money makes me valuable to others, also, so I'm a workaholic in my career.

My parents didn't love me unconditionally, just for myself. In order for them to "approve" of me, I had to perform well on the piano, and in athletic competitions, get good grades, let my brother abuse me without a whimper, not cry when he broke my toys, be a good, obedient Mormon girl, look nice, marry a Mormon RM in the temple, have lots of babies, etc. But, I'm not young anymore, I only had 4 children, I got divorced twice, I left the church, I quit piano and organ forever, and I hate my abusive brother. So, all that I'm good for is bringing in money, and serving others.

I don't deserve my Mormon Royalty heritage. I don't deserve such happiness. "Evil should not be rewarded."

Yes to the above brene brown recommendation. I read 'daring greatly' and it deals with exactly what you are feeling. It is a great read and very helpful.