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The Longer You Live, the More You Screw Up

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 08/06/2001 - 7:00pm
in
August 6, 2001

Question

Dear Dr. Love,

I am 33 and I have two daughters, 15 who lives with her father and an 18 month old that I share custody of with her father. My husband left me 6 months ago after being together 7 1/2 years, married for 3 1/2. He is younger than me, he just turned 30. He told me he should never have gotten married and had a child until he was in his 30's.

I still love him and am extremely depressed and hurt. I did not feel loved as a child by anyone, I felt rejected and worthless, like I didn't matter. I am so far in debt that it stresses me out so I drink a lot (get totally wasted and am usually late for work the next day) on the days that I do not have my daughter. I do not drink when I have her. My car is going to get repossesed, which is broken down and I know that the bank will not be able to get much money for it and then I will owe the bank even more money (I only have a year and a half until it's paid off).

I have a lot of other debts that I can't pay as well. After my husband left me, I found out I was pregnant, got blood clots and couldn't walk, therefore I could't go to work, I lost my job. I got behind on my bills before I found another job, but I had to take a pay cut and am now living paycheck to paycheck, unable to catch up and I keep falling further and further in the hole. It seems like once you get behind, it is impossible to catch up. I can't get a loan and I have no family or friends to go to for help.

To make things worse I have been engaging in sexual actitivities (not actual intercourse) with men that I do not know very well. I have recently been having sex with a man whom I met through a mutual friend. He is a nice guy and the sex is great but he keeps blowing me off for a few days then he'll call me up and we'll go out and end up back at his place or mine having sex. I think he is using me for sex and I am hurt by it.

My soon to be ex-husband told me that just because he and I didn't get along doesn't mean he doesn't want to have sex with me (he had still been trying to have sex with me after we broke up, until about a month ago and I did a few times). I am stressed out every day over financial matters and I feel there is no hope. I am also depressed about the fact that no man can really love me, only have sex with me. I wake up every morning wishing that I wouldn't have. I hate the idea of being in my own skin.

I believe the only reason I am still here is because I love my daughters so much and I do not want to hurt them, but I wonder if they would be better off without such a loser for a mother. It seems like the longer I live, the more I screw up and I don't want to do it anymore. Do you have any advice that might save me from my wretched self? If so, thank you very much. If not, I understand.


Answer

What I see is that the longer you live, the more you trash yourself. When trashing yourself isn't sufficient, you find men to give you even more lashes. Clearly you are suffering from what is called the Battered Child Sydrome. You felt rejected and worthless as a kid, so your mind thinks that this is the way life is supposed to be. Choosing a husband and lovers who makes you feel like trash is par for the course.

 

If you reread your letter, you will see that you sound like a helpless victim. What you don't see is that there are no victims, only volunteers. You do have a choice on who you choose to stay attached to--a husband who keeps you feeling rejected and worthless, and who you allow in your inner circle--men who trash you. As a child, no one ever taught you that you are not supposed to be treated this way, not by yourself, not by others. Just because your parents were too damaged to treat you right doesn't mean that this is the way you should continue to be treated. You had no choice as a child, you didn't pick your parents, but you do have a choice now and you do not have permission to continue battering yourself. Stay alone, buy a vibrator, enter a nunnery; do whatever you must do to stop being with men who disrespect you.

You also need to realize that battered children learn to swallow their anger. Such children figure that if that were to voice their rage, that they'd be mistreated or neglected even more. This pattern of burying anger continues into adulthood. The problem is that the psyche has an odd way of responding to buried anger: it punishes you for it, by backing you into self-destructive choices that get your butt kicked in. What is amazing is that once the anger is owned and brought out, all this self-destructive behavior ends.

In order for you to dig your way out of the living grave you find yourself in, you are going to need to find your anger, the anger from childhood and the anger from the present. You are also going to need to reprogram the part of your mind that thinks that being dumped on is the way life is supposed to be. You will need to watch yourself like a hawk, being ever vigilant for your own tendency to enter situations that harm you and to stay attached to people who mistreat you.

Find a battered womens' support group right now. You need to discover, through your relationships in the group, how you are supposed to be treated and you are going to be need to be helped to find your rage and voice it.

Let me know how you make out.

- Doctor Love

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