And thanks for your reply--I know it can take a while to formulate a reply to something like this from a near stranger, but at the same time, I was a little worried that I'd offended you!
Nah, I was just suffering from "person writes worthwhile comment so I take forever to reply because I feel like I have to write something worthwhile too" syndrome :-)
but when I see things on TV that look normal to me, other people are pretty horrified sometimes, and I have at least one friend who can't read some of the fiction I write because the family dynamics I write between people who like each other much better than my family does upset her too much!
Yeah, my equivalent of that was that I didn't realize until I was in college that not everybody hated their parents. I genuinely thought that no one would voluntarily spend time with their parents once they were an adult and no longer dependent on them, and that everybody only did so out of a sense of obligation. I guess most people don't grow up thinking that...
at least, it's a way my mind has of protecting me from feeling how terrifyingly powerless I've been and could be again, so that I don't sit there wibbling about it but rather take the actions I need to take to prevent it
Yeah, I hear that. The other way that seems common that some people have of believing that they aren't/weren't powerless is blaming themselves for whatever abuse they experienced ("I deserved it because I was a really bad person. Even... when I was 5.") I never believed that outright, I always resisted it intellectually, but I also kind of wonder what I've internalized and buried that might be causing me to self-sabotage without being aware of it.
no subject
Nah, I was just suffering from "person writes worthwhile comment so I take forever to reply because I feel like I have to write something worthwhile too" syndrome :-)
but when I see things on TV that look normal to me, other people are pretty horrified sometimes, and I have at least one friend who can't read some of the fiction I write because the family dynamics I write between people who like each other much better than my family does upset her too much!
Yeah, my equivalent of that was that I didn't realize until I was in college that not everybody hated their parents. I genuinely thought that no one would voluntarily spend time with their parents once they were an adult and no longer dependent on them, and that everybody only did so out of a sense of obligation. I guess most people don't grow up thinking that...
at least, it's a way my mind has of protecting me from feeling how terrifyingly powerless I've been and could be again, so that I don't sit there wibbling about it but rather take the actions I need to take to prevent it
Yeah, I hear that. The other way that seems common that some people have of believing that they aren't/weren't powerless is blaming themselves for whatever abuse they experienced ("I deserved it because I was a really bad person. Even... when I was 5.") I never believed that outright, I always resisted it intellectually, but I also kind of wonder what I've internalized and buried that might be causing me to self-sabotage without being aware of it.