Bad childhood I want to stop thinking about. Any ideas?

[danasan]

Originally Posted by Castout

I just want to add there is a mistake that most victims do

To deem their victimization too personally,


It is NOT YOU. You just happen to be there at the time... .

Thank you! I was just going to say that. It is a main progress to find exactly that fact out.

danasan

[Castout]

Originally Posted by danasan

Thank you! I was just going to say that. It is a main progress to find exactly that fact out.

danasan

No problem

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by RedMenace

Thanks. I needed that to calm myself down. I do let my inner dialogue talk myself into insanity. That damned mind, always trailing off.

That damned mind is you! And it just functions in the way it is designed, seen that way it functions flawlessly and proves that it is in order. What is driving you crazy is no your mind, and is not your eyes you see with and not your ears you hear with, but is your ever-rambling always self-focussed ego that always takes itself very!!! important and claims an own existence although it is just illusory by nature. It abuses this tool your mind is.

If you want to change that, change the attitude in which you meet the world, in the present moment. Staying focussed on what you do in the present, your mind then becomes clear and settled - and then finds the calmness and clearity and power to take out your ego, like sunbeams penetrate clouds and dissolve them if the sun's warmth is just powerful enough. The ego, like clouds, exists as a phenomenon, but it has no real substance of its own.

This does not mean your history will all of a sudden change, and your memories would be different or no longer be there. They will stay the same. But the pain will not have power over you again, you pick it up if you choose to have a look at it, like you take an appel in the store, and you then put it back if you have decided that it was enough and that you do not like it.

That is freedom from pain: not wishing to fight and supress pain (which is impossible since pain is inevitable part of life in a temporal world), but not getting ruled by it, but to handle it in the way you like to do, by your own terms and conditions.

[the_tyrant]

Sorry I can't help you, I'm younger than you

but looking at your sig, are you going to defcon this year?

[Penguin]

Good advices and points here raised by all of you, you guys gave some great advice, and hats off to Skybird - that's an honest compliment as I don't say this very often

One thing Red, your experiences in life are what shaped you, your character, your personality, this is also something so have to keep in mind. If you were born with a silver spoon you certainly would have become a different person. So you have to accept that this past is a part of you - which does not mean that you should let it control your life or think about it any second, but no matter how you turn it, it is part of who you are.

When you exchange yourself with others who also had a bad past, you should not see it like you stated in your second post "Oh, others went through bad stuff, too and I shouldn't think too much about myself as I'm nothing special"
The thing you can learn from an exchange is that the bitch called fate has no personal vendetta against you and certainly experiences from others can broaden your perspective.

Music and literature can also be a powerfull weapon to deal with these things, if you search a little, you will find many others who put their experiences into words and sounds. If you want you can pm me and I can put together a list of stuff that I can recommend.

I don't know how how much physical exercise your medical condition allows you to do. For many people it helps to "let it all out" through exhausting sports, for example Martial Arts or running. "The loneliness of the long distance runner" by Sillitoe would be one of the books in my literature list.

I somehow got into Punkrock in my late teens. For me it helped, to find people who thought in the same line - or more true: outside of them And half an hour of slamdance can substitute one year at a psychiatrist Most of my friends I have today and since many years are people who walked the same way. In my circle of friends, most of them are somehow damaged goods, don't want to go into too much details, but you can find any imaginable fate and experiences among them. Maybe that's why we are tight knitted and stand there for each other, maybe in some way as a family substitute, a family we have chosen by ourselves - your parents are neither your choice nor your fault.

I also want to point out again, what others here already said: value the things that you managed to accomplish by yourself. It was you who managed to find a girlfriend and it was you who earned his way into college. You did this all by yourself! Stick to this thinking, man! Others can advice you, and you should keep an open mind to it, what you seem to have, as you proved this in this thread. However in the end it is you who has do find your own way to deal with all this stuff.

[frau kaleun]

I can only echo what others here have said.

Find someone you can talk to, when you need to talk about it. And by "someone" I mean a professional counselor of some sort, the college surely has some kind of service set up to see to the needs of its students. Find out what and where it is and take advantage of it.

[Armistead]

I grew up much the same, but not ill like you. My father was an alcoholic, but I had a wonderful mother. She stayed in the marriage much longer than she should've, mostly belief in God and the church telling her to stay married. We were either rich or terribly poor depending on the year. My father was emotionally abusive, often played the victim, suicide attempts for attention, but brutal. He was the type that told mom if she ever left with us, he would kill us all. It was when mom joined support groups outside of church that she forced him out.

For years after that he lived with family. About twice a year we would get calls that he's vanished and left a note that he's gonna go take care of business, so we lived in fear. Once we got that call, guess I was 17 and I would stay up and watch cars pass the house. I was watching TV when boom, the entire outside was on fire, I saw him running away. Thank God it was mostly brick and we got out and he was arrested, but not put in jail, back to a mental hospital.

I suffered from low self esteem for years. Maybe genetics saved me, because I was like my mom. I loved to read. Although not religious now, I was then and church was a big help. The main thing I remember growing up is I swore I would never treat my family or kids like that...and I haven't.

I would tell you to take small steps. Those that say just move on don't understand the long lasting effect. You go through years of abuse when your mind is growing, it can take years to grow out of emotional abuse.

Know it's not your fault, but determine not to be like him. As wierd as it sounds you do have to constantly feed your mind positive thought and start taking chances. Not everyone is a type A, don't feel you have to be
an outward pro, but do learn to function around people. Many try to force themselves to be a outward pro when it's just not their personaility type, learn to be happy and confident with who you are.

I'm 47 now. Over the years I've made a few attempts to reconcile with my father, sadly they all failed, he's selfish beyond most. I didn't even go to his funeral.

I had a great mother. She dealt with much guilt over our childhood, but she married young and religion and marriage was big back then. She made life great for all of us emotionally as best she could. After the divorce with a few years of council and training she started several support groups and opened up two shelters for abused women living in fear. She was always there until she died about a month ago...the last 20 years I always sent her a card on fathers day, because she did both jobs.

[NeonSamurai]

This may have already been addressed in other responses.

My advice, as someone in the field is this. First off, I suggest that you learn to stop ruminating about the past (obsessively thinking about it). It is never a good thing to be thinking about it for very long, and will just lower your own feelings. When your mind starts to drift in that direction, refocus it on something else, like good past memories, or things that are going well in your life.

Second, try this as an exercise. Sit down and make a list of all the positive things about yourself, who you are, and where you are in life. Focus on the positive aspects of your life, and find ways of improving the more negative aspects.

Third, don't force yourself to be overly sociable. Everyone is different, some are very extroverted, others are very introverted, most are somewhere in the middle. Now conversely I do not suggest locking yourself away (this is rarely good for your own morale), but pushing yourself too much to be sociable is not good either.

Fourth and last for now, you are probably underappraising how other people are. Truth is most people tend to be quite insecure, and have issues and problems. Everyone wears masks to conceal these vulnerabilities, and may even pretend to be something they are not. Lots of people also did not have great childhoods either (I certainly didn't), and we all have had damaging experiences.


Anyhow my suggestion is do some research into positive psychology/thinking, perhaps also CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), though that is not exactly do it yourself. See if you can work on bringing yourself up a bit. At the moment I do not get the impression that your problems are severe enough to warrant intervention by a third party (therapy/counseling), but you may wish to, if these memories are causing you serious distress or impacting your life.

With memories there is no magic button to get rid of them, and the more you access those memories (by remembering them) the more easily they are remembered. So work on your own self discipline and learn to intercept and halt the re-remembering.


As for the religious stuff others mentioned. Well if you are a believer already, it can help. If you are not, trying to find god will probably not accomplish anything for you.

[Howard313]

Firstly, you are very brave for posting this thread.

Secondly, I had quite a nasty childhood myself, although I won't go into it I can relate to you in that way.

My best advice is simple, put the past behind you and focus on the present and future. I know that's easier said than done, hell, I still get kept up at night from time to time remembering my childhood. Experience has taught me that too much free time gives me time to let my mind wonder and usually end up thinking about the past. So if you don't have one I suggest getting a hobby or two. Spending time with friends and family is also a great way to forget the past, even if it's only for a little while.

Sadly, there is no magical cure for removing bad memories, and odds are they'll probably stick with you forever. But you can at least dull them out.

Good Luck!

[Onkel Neal]

Hey buddy, a childhood has a huge impact on you, don't discount it. You have friends here, even though we may disagree or squabble occasionally. Keep increasing your self-awareness, work on your strengths, and stay positive. Force of will counts for a lot, just keep developing that muscle.

Originally Posted by Skybird

The past is no more, and the future is uncertain and still not here. The only thing we have for sure, is this one present moment. Nothing exists outside of it.

The emotional pain you feel is because you stuck to things that are not any longer, and the loss you experienced when your parents disappointed you and let you down. Analysing and endlessly discussing things with your friends or your own inner voice, doe snot make it any better. It just forms these memories a nice and warm nest to settle down in.

However, it is not the things themselves that bother us and make us mourning or fearing them but it is our evaluation, our commenting, our note-giving to which we attach all the time. Like in a reflex, a memory comes up - and immediately an inner dialogue starts to flow down the channels of our inner mind. And the more often this is repeated, the deeper the channel digs its bed into our mind.

Do not try to "manage" your sadness, no human can do that, trying it only delays the healing, may hide it from the surface, but only at the price of it becoming stronger and stronger. One day you'll meet it again unexpectedly but then it easily could have turned into something that overwhelms you.

Instead of doing something, let it go. Just this: let it.

Now, for us modern hyperactive, omnipotent brainmonsters used to manage even the worst of the worst disasters and never show a sign of weakness or pessimism, this is easier said than done. And if we nevertheless let things be, and some time later tell ourselves or our friends we successfully let things go, we nevertheless are still occupied by them plus the illusion of having let them go. Our luggage has grown.

But there is something you can do, and that is to always lead your mind back to the present moment you live in, your breathing, the most imminent and immediate thing you currently do. Neither become angry with yourself nor try to fight against your mind when you realize you have drifted back into past memories again and you feel sad again. Just recall that even the next minute is most uncertain and that your current stroke of breath is the only thing that you really have. Patiently lead your drifting mind back to the present moment. Dont evaluate the inner images of the past. Refuse to comment on them once you became aware you are drifting again. When you realize you drift, gently lead yourself back to the present moment. Do it time and again. You will do it very, very often. After some time, you will have turned it into a habit. That is good. When the habit has become so omnipresent that there are no more interruptions between different times when you practice it, then you are truly free.

Pain like yours cannot be "managed". It cannot be made to turn away. It needs to heal naturally, all by itself, in the time that it takes. It will not take too much or too few time. It will just take that time that it takes, not more and not less. Seen that way, it is perfect, and always right on time. That must be a tough nut for an impatient 19 year old, eh?

The past is no more. The future is not yet to be. All life is within this present single moment. Understanding this is key to everything. In this understanding lies true and unlimited freedom. In the end, everything we believe to experience, is temporal only and cannot last, and if we try to form our felicity by making temporal things everlasting, we necessarily must get disappointed, for they will go sooner or later. This is even true with regard to love, and parents. But we do not suffer because these things are hurting us or are not in order. Things just are the way they are, and we are free to let them go and move on, or to cling to them and allow them to occupy us. In other words: we suffer because we are not in order.

Life often is said to be a voyage. So travel on and leave behind your current stay. Bon voyage!

Yeah, that covers it pretty well.

[CCIP]

Mate, trauma is a tough thing, at any age, but especially from childhood. Don't ignore it and don't keep it to yourself and try to just 'tough it out' - toughing it out works when you just put it aside and temporarily block it out by focusing on the task at hand. But it will always, ALWAYS come back, don't even think it won't. The fact is, even when you've dealt with it and are way better, it's still there - don't get into the mindset that you can erase it, but also don't get into the mindset that it's all there is. It's just another thing in life.

And yeah, it's very hard to appreciate for anyone who's not been through it. And it's not the moments when you're really sad or angry that grind you down in the end - those are actually the moments that can help you get it out. It's the fact that it's there in the back of your mind, ready to set you off, that really gets you.

My biggest piece of advice is a) get help; b) look at your life in terms of the bigger whole - not just that one thing. Relatively recently, I crashed hard on much more recent trauma, and frankly I didn't even realize how bad it was until a couple of years later when I stepped back and was horrified at how much I'd let it dominate my life. The one thing that really helped is several months of counseling, during which a deeper underlying childhood trauma also emerged and helped me understand my current problems much better. But it wasn't like they magically figured out the answer to everything though, nor was there any magic pills or instant realizations involved. What counted was that I got out of the mental block(s) caused by trauma that would send me on a loop and force me to ignore the rest of what my life was really about. And gradually I was able to step back and see the bigger picture - as, as Skybird says, to see and take joy in the present and not past or future.

[yubba]

I feel for you bro, been there too, best thing you can do is turn the rear veiw mirrors down, get your nose into the wind and don't look back, you got a lot ahead of you.

[THE_MASK]

Try to find a good phyciatrist , they can help you and there are many drugs that help but its just finding the right ones (not illegal ones) . Anything else i could say would be just my opinion and not fact ..

[NeonSamurai]

I'm not aware of any drugs that can help with bad/traumatic memories. I would suggest a therapist over a Psychiatrist as few Psychiatrists do therapy (which is what you would need). I don't think any drugs will help, other than maybe an SSRI, but I am quite doubtful you are having serotonin problems (ie major depression), or you wouldn't be posting about your problems.

[Skybird]

Hold your horses gentlemen. No need to talk about pharmaceutics and therapists here. From what he wrote, I do not see RM as a candidate for psychotherapy or medication. I also do not see him as somebody actually suffering from depression right now. Though he might be vulnerable to it - like we all are, to varying degrees.

And all-time-high-pills I reject for principal reasons, always.

It's a bit en vogue to always call either for drugs or for psychotherapy these days. Last but not least that is becasue psychology is pressing real hard to convince the public it were an indispensable actor that must claim representation in each and every field. But the psychology they taught us at university is anything but that. It has its purposes when it is useful, but these I limit to a much wider degree than psychology itself does.

Prescription of drugs is done far too uncritical today.

On a saidenote, a study has raised voices in the EU, they now consider to add lithium into the drinking water to decrease suicide rates in the EU. Can somebody drop a couple of bombs onto Brussel, please.