Selfless

My parents expected me to be selfless.
Selfless
That's interesting.
In the face of continuous entitlement from them I was expected to be selfless.
Is this because I was, "Without self" in their eyes?
It would seem possible.

What I was, they owned, and also expected me to give up on demand.

  • To work for them, for their glory to those "outside" - their ambition was to be my ambition.
  • To see to their needs, anticipate their needs and work towards their happiness.
  • To subsume my own needs ( if they even realised I had any)  towards their desires.
  • To only develop my skills and personality along approved lines.
  • To only use gifts and property as they deemed fit or they would be removed.

 Yet they gave up so much less.

The Rejection Wound

When I reached out to them for emotional connection there was no response, and even now I don't expect people to like me or want me. Often they do, but the response still surprises me. For years I though that this response was false, and that my parents was correct.

The Judgement Wound


Because I was always judged harshley, and also frequently, I now feel that I have little competence in things. I frequently suffer from imposter syndrome and have quite low self esteem. This opinion of myself is however contrary to evidence and I am well to very well qualified in a number of fields and have a wide range of talents and abilities and am highly skilled at several different things. I am happy to praise others skills and talents, but uncomfortable with my own, rejecting the validity of compliments and dismissing my skills as not valuable.


I always felt inadequate, no matter what I did my parents were quick to point out that there was a better way it could have been done (I never considered that they actually did so very few of theses things that they claimed to be more expert in than me - nor even considered that they were simply using hindsight to beat me with, rather than real knowlege)
I apparently looked, behaved and performed inadequatly - my emotional responses were inadequate, my sucesses were inadequate, my choice of friends, partners, ambition , skills, my ability to look after myself and others... every single damned thing, wasnt good enough.

How was I told this? - well directly obviously but also;
by implication,
insults,
tales of others more succesful,
criticism,
silence,
lack of praise,
praising others over me and so on.

Even as an adult this persisted, questioning every decision I shared, setting up impossible standards I could not live up to. I was so distant from myself that I could not even clearly identify what I enjoyed, even what happiness was.

I was convinced of my intrinsic failings, feeling I wasnt really able to make good decisions. For some reason I was sure that the parts accumulated in this physical body were so faulty they somehow precluded me from making good choices or performing tasks well. Yet laughably I was very clear that they had disagreed with every decision I had made that had brought me something good in my life. There is nothing good about my life that they have aproved of, yet they were prepared to take credit for everything that might be seen as positive by outside eyes.