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Are you allowed to be you?
Posted by Shiley • 6/26/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: acceptance, domestic violence
I grew up in a house of domestic violence. My mom taught me how to be strong and stand up for myself but she never taught me how I was supposed to accept that my family doesn't accept me for who I am.
mythoughtsalways.blogspot.com/2009/06/my-thoughts-always-training.html
Have you ever had an issue with being accepted?
User Comments
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All the time, but I am changing, and I am not letting anything stop me -
I've never paid any attention to people who criticized me or my way of life. I always knew what was important to me and didn't care what others thought. You have to accept not being accepted by lots of people, including parents, siblings, your own kids, aunts and uncles, co-workers, etc! The essential thing is to do what you feel is right for you and to be at peace with yourself.-
Usually, that's how I am. I only just now discovered because of circumstances it bugs me.
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My answer for this with family has been to stop sharing. For the short times we're together, I've made it be all about them, and they seem happy with that-- then I go do what I plan to do and be me without unwanted commentary elsewhere.
They haven't noticed yet. I give it a few years. -
Yeah, That is my dream. If I can just get my cousins to not call me auntie then I wouldn't feel so weird about the "secrecy." Is it a secret if you are called auntie and they know you're a cousin. It's twisted.
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Ugh.
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Are you perhaps reading more into this unfortunate habit than is intended, due to your own sensitivity? Or are they just being jerks because they know it bugs you?
How old are these people? If they are adults, I'd say tell them just one time to knock it off or you will sever association with them; if they are kids, I'd say the same thing to their parents.
YOU are not the person who transgressed the bounds of decency and it is unfair...and not exactly good for your kids to hear this...that you be punished for someone else's transgression. If they don't have the common decency to realize this, especially after you point it out to them, then you may want to ask yourself why you continue to allow them into your...and your children's...life. -
We have severed all ties. I only now just realised it bugs me. When I write I just go with it and what comes out is it. Therapy and I have another purpose. I try to allow people to know the real me. It's important for me to allow others to know they aren't alone and it's not them it's the abuser.
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my family wants us all to pretend to be one big happy family. i won't let anyone rob me of myself and turn me into a hypocrite so i say fuck them all and i stand up for myself and my own family! -
I'd say coming to uni, during an existential crisis, and also trying to prove that I didn't need to drink to go dancing in clubs and stuff (I quit drink for a bit) meant I ended up painting a bit of a false image of myself as some mad partygoer, and miles from home with no communication with my old friends or family (couldnt affort a computer), and convinced there was no permanent ego, only your actions and the views of others, its safe to say I wasn't being myself.
But I am allowed to, to some extent. The problem is, as my mum puts it, I am 'a drifter' and If I was to have my way as I wanted, I wouldnt get anywhere or achieve anything in everyone elses eyes.
I'm very much figuring out who I am, and what that means.
Also, mum keeps telling me that if I was gay, she'd accept it. It's be ok. She seems particularly worried about how bad it would be for em to have to hide that. She tells me on a regular basis.-
Sounds like your mother is trying to tell you that she loves you unconditionally. Sometimes when people do that they are looking for you to say something similar in return.
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"Have you ever had an issue with being accepted?"
No, but other people have
I just get on with it and people who don't accept me are not the one's I want in my life anyway.
"Are you allowed to be you?"
Who is going to stop me -
lol ... apparently jafabrit we are birds of a feather.
By the time I reached my late twenties I had jettisoned the negative core values from my childhood and replaced them with healthy core values. I am who I am and if another person can't accept who I am it's their problem, not mine. There are no people in my life that I don't want to be in it. I do nothing and am not in contact with anyone out of a sense of duty or family obligation.
I am awake to the fact that I am not perfect and that not everyone will always love, appreciate or approve of who or what I am … and that’s alright. I have learned the importance of loving and championing myself and in the process, and a sense of new found confidence was born of self-approval. I have learned to stand on my own and to take care of myself in the process.
Not everyone will love me nor will I love everyone but that’s okay, because at our core we are all much more the same than we are different. -
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I am allowed to be me but I much prefer putting on a green dress and a red wig and pretending to be TSR.
Some days I will spend all day wandering around antique shops and Bric a brac stalls dressed as Thrifty and asking the shop keepers, in a falsetto NJ accent, if they have anything pretty from the olden days that I might purchase.-
That's just eerie... It's like looking in a mirror!
(Y'know, if I were lavender and ate ants. But otherwise...) -
Lol! Isn't your nose just a bit long to pass as Thrift shop? I do, however, believe the thriftshopping thing you're horribly cheap. Most days you don't even dress yourself.
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I have nearly been exposed a few times but luckily I have a miraculous inate knowledge of all things antiquey.
The last time I was challenged the man behind the counter said "Ok buddy if you are really TSR and not a falsetto lavender Aardvark in a bad red wig and a dress made from a green velvet curtain, tell me this. What was the name of the man who invented Lalique glassware?"
And as quick as a flash I answered him "Art Deco!!"
They have to get up pretty early in the morning to catch this ant pervert out! -
Most thrift stores do expect you to wear clothes upon entering. I mean, it's not written in stone, but sort of a general guideline.
Anin would raise eyebrows without the green dress. -
At least a shirt and shoes. No shirt, no shoes, no service. Why is it those signs never mention the bottom half?
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Up until fairly recently, I had a lot of trouble with my self-view. I grew up terribly insecure and lacking in confidence. I had poor self-esteem. Through hard work and lots of therapy I learned to love and accet myself.-
I know what you mean. As a child I was not allowed to be myself, I had to be hypervigilant due to a mercurial, volatile, abusive mother. I learned to be a "pleaser" in order to be safe...please her and live to greet another day (I really was in fear of my life most of my childhood).
This created in me a persona that survived through doing what others expected of me and denying my essential self whenever the wants of others conflicted with my need. And I got involved in a long string of relationships with men just like my mother. Of course, I inevitably imploded.
After five years of therapy I finally got a grip and now, 20 years later, I don't know how to be anything but me. Oh, I still have to deal with people like my mother, but I can now do so as myself rather than as a pleaser chameleon. I seldom think about it anymore, but when I do, it is very liberating! -
That's interesting because I basically went through the same process. I allow me to be me. In fact, I don't know how not to be me now. I accept me as I am with all my imperfections, and I expect that those who can't accept me will move along and find someone else to commune with.
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@sweetviolent--it was very liberating for me too. Growing up sexually abused, I had so much self-loathing. I blamed myself for the abuse, which caused me to hate myself. That self-loathing manifested into full blown heroin addiction.
I could not have remained drug free without liberating myself from my past. And yes--how freeing it was!
Good for both of us, SV. -
@timethief. I think that is how most people who successfully transform themselves become; unable to be anyone other than who they are. After such soul-searching, you cannot do otherwise.
Shakespeare himself said it best: To thine own self be true.
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yeah, there were times when I worried about what they would think, and such. I'm past that now. I usually don't even tell anybody in my family about me, or anything I do. What they don't know can't hurt them, either way if they don't like the way I am too bad. -
Am I allowed to be me? I have no choice but to be me. Things happen in life. Childhood trauma. 30 plus years of suppressed memory. Shock of realization at what had really happened to a six-year-old. Addictive personality. Very low self-esteem. Suppressed anger. Loneliness. Patterns of self-sabotage. Toll of years. Of age. On and on. The gravities of life. The only question is whether I can ACCEPT who I am. Today. Realize what happened yesterday has past. What may happen tomorrow is the future. All I have is today. My choice is to accept who I am today. Hopefully do so with compassion and understanding. I am who I am today. And I do accept me. With gratitude. -
People get irritated with me all the time because I am quite vocal and have no problem calling things as I see them. I won't change and if people don't like it, they can piss off.-
Yay! for you.
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Acceptance is overrated! people who are caught up in this codependent that are bound to wind up in some "Savior" cult -
I have never been black enough, never poor enough or rich enough. I grew up as a middle class black girl, which dosen't fit into any stero type that I'm supposed to relate to. I like rock and I speak perfect english. I was called "white girl" by the black kids and asked if my skin was dirty by the white kids. However, I fit in with my sister, my mother my best friends who are all very fitting misfits. I think no one should ever hold the power to ALLOW you to be you. I think people who cannot learn to be themselves despite adversity, simply don't deserve to be so. No one could EVER make me question the things I've come to love of myself.-
I used to date a black guy from Long Island who said exactly the same things! He also speaks perfect English and he has an affinity for Armani suits and Kenneth Cole shoes. Helluva nice guy! But he, unfortunately, had a mother who wanted him to be the whitest little black boy in Long Island and he grew up caught between two cultures.
That can be a terrible kind of angst. Fortunately he moved to San Francisco and finds acceptance much more easily there. Now, if can only find a way to accept himself. -
I think the toughest thing black kids or people in general have to get past is this idea that there IS a seperation in race. If you are academic, astute, broad-minded and mild tempered you are "white"..if you are loud, "urban", use slang and live in a bad area then you are "ghetto" which is a term of endearment for Blacks. I don't see why this has to be, when this came into bleed into the mentality of people's minds. Thinking that race automatically identifies you to a certain intellectual class is the most ignorant thing ever. I agree, people need to accept themselves for not only who they are but who they WANT TO BE.
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People are victims of their circumstances. I know it's hard but the best is to "forgive and forget". It's very important to move on because at one point of time people's bitterness won't allow them to be what they "initially were" or "always wanted to be". The way to begin is by "forgiving ourselves".-
"Forgive ourselves" huh? I don't blame myself for anything. I don't get it. Sorry.
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