remembering feeling broken

The goal for counseling is to diffuse some of my emotional reactions to criticism so that my boyfriend and I can have an easier relationship and that I can feel more secure. I want to know that when I'm mad, I'm justified in being mad.  I'm supposed to remember the earliest time I felt broken, or flawed or had all the emotions that came out with my boyfriend this week.


So I guess I'll get started with another list and see what comes up because I couldn't think of something when I was with her.



1. My college boyfriend frequently criticized my social skills and did his best to make me more presentable to his family and friends.  I listened to him and thought he was helping me make up for the deficits in my parenting. I thought I was bad at interacting with people so I just believed him. I decided in middle school to always be nice and honest so that no one could justifiably accuse me of lying or being mean and that so people would like me.


2. When I was in middle school, no matter how I dressed, or what I said my "friends" told me I was copying them as well as being mean or inconsiderate.


3. When my friend in high school told me that he was going to commit suicide I told my dad, through tears,  that I wanted to be driven to his house. My dad told me to stop being so emotional and to calm down and didn't drive me anywhere.  I'm pretty sure he yelled.



4.  My dad yelled at me for tracking dirt into the house. (When I say yell, I'm thinking at least 30 minutes and me crying.)



5.  My dad hit me in front of my brother and sister because I told him I was done packing but he found a sock I'd forgotten to pick up.



6.  I got screamed at for spilling juice on the carpet.


7.  My dad would anticipate what I was about to do wrong (like putting a water glass right in the path to reaching the bread) and, in preparation for the eventual mistake, criticize me.


8.  I spilled juice on our pizza and my dad said that the only dinner I could eat was the soggy pizza. I ran out into the field and ate raw onions for dinner.


9.  My dad asked me to help move a truck to another farm. Instead, he gave me a tractor with two trailers attached and a 3 minute lesson on how to drive it. He forgot essential information on how the gears worked so I got left behind.  I couldn't even make the windshield wipers work or see what was happening. He also didn't tell me that we were driving the back-roads instead of the usual way. When I went the wrong way and couldn't back up the double trailer he yelled at me. I cried the whole time I drove the tractor to the other farm.



10.  I asked my dad to use his credit card to register for the SAT's online. He said no so I asked my step-mom and she said yes. I got yelled at for going behind his back because my dad assumed I knew that they shared the same account. He didn't believe me that I honestly had no idea that my step-mom's card was actually his and just wanted to register for the SAT's and go to college.  Maybe this was to this event or maybe another, but I think he grabbed my neck, walked me to me room and stood over my bed yelling at me while I curled into a ball and bit my arm. My counselor saw the bite marks the next day and was disturbed that I told her I was biting myself to escape the situation and focus on the physical pain. Physical pain is easy I told her.  Emotional pain is hard.

11.  I got an A- my freshman year of high school. My dad told me I couldn't drive the boat. I graduated first in my class-with that one 92.7 percent in history the only flaw in my transcript. 

12. My dad always got impatient and angry before road trips. It was best to stay out of his way and anticipate his every need so that he wouldn't yell at everyone.  If there was a mechanical or logistical problem it always seemed to get taken out on me.

13. I got a car stuck in the mud. My dad wasn't mad at first even though I was terrified to tell him. He got really mad at me when his truck got stuck in the mud when he tried to pull me out.

14. My dad decided not to pay for my college because I moved out my senior year of high school. He didn't want to reinforce my bad decision to leave because he thought I was overreacting and that he was not abusing me.  Abuse, he said, was putting out cigarettes on kid's arms. He didn't smoke.

15. I remember preferring being spanked to being put in time out in elementary school. It was over immediately and I didn't get bored. I don't remember any crazy, violent spanking. I was always told what I did wrong and my dad was calm when he spanked me. In high school he hit me while he was really angry for irrational reasons-usually because I was making excuses for what appeared to be an initially minor incident.

16. In high school, I was not chosen as editor in chief of the school newspaper even though I'd put in more time and had more writing skill than the other applicant. My teacher, one day when he was angry at me for being upset about the decision, told me that everyone had voted against me. They didn't like me. It didn't matter that I was the better writer or had worked harder and longer. I remember that he was so direct and clear about what was wrong with my ability to socialize.  I was too critical of others. People had complained about me. People didn't like working with me.   What I remember is that I was able to find more wrong with people's writing and logic than most and giving the most feedback.

17. My nanny committed suicide after she stopped taking care of me.  I remember wondering why she would leave and do that if she loved me so much as she said. I remember opening my last present from her. She bought me a bronze elephant before she died because she was planning to kill herself. I felt guilty for not liking it as much as I wanted to.

18. In the counseling sessions after I moved out of my dad's house, my stepmother told me my mom was a lying, backstabbing bitch. I felt guilty for moving out when she told me too. I was never sure if my dad was abusing me. It was my mom who had the clarity of vision to get me to move out and the strength and will to carry it through. I worried that she was still mad at my dad and taking me away to get back at him.  I was never sure who was right. Was I a horrible, unappreciative kid like my step mom told me? 

To be honest, it seems ridiculous to attribute feeling broken to my teenage self. I was such a good student and so on top of so many things it was hard to consider myself damaged. I applied to a scholarship for kids who'd been through trauma and wasn't even sure if I deserved something like that. It was one of the few I got turned down from and I remember that the letters of recommendation didn't really say I was broken. They said my parents divorce was hard on me but left out the fact that my dad was abusing me and that I'd moved out. It was as if they were not sure it was my dad's fault and couldn't side with me. The rejection letter congratulated me on my good grades. I felt like the people reviewing it saw this middle class white girl complaining and gave the scholarship to someone with real problems.  With my mother out of work on disability and my dad refusing to pay for college,  I actually did need the money if I wanted to go to an expensive private school.

I think my first awareness of broken that I can really pinpoint is my reaction to meeting a depressed, brilliant, unfaithful man who I was hopelessly attracted to. I'll share what I wrote to him next.