Musings on healing

Caroline's posts here have me thinking again about my own experiences and their consequences. It's hard for me to put the "abuse" label on my own experiences, despite the assertions of others to the contrary.

I am only really able to acknowledge that my parents just weren't good at being parents. I'm know they see it differently, and in many ways I have never forced them to acknowledge the effects their behaviour had on me. The effect of never being good enough, always blamed, always responsible for keeping things running. The effect of not being allowed to show negative emotions of any kind (although others were and did). The results of feeling responsible for keeping my parents' marriage together, of stopping my mum from leaving, of acting as go between when they were not talking to each other. The effects of learning that love could and would be withdrawn if I acted outside of expectations. The effects of learning that I could and would be abandoned. All of this (and more) I have kept hidden from them. I am still keeping up the "happy family" appearance.

Then there was the abusive priest who exploited my vulnerability and naievity enough to seriously mess up my attitude to Church, Father God and men in general but did not do "enough" (or leave any trace of what he did) for any action to be taken. He silenced me, forced me to block out that time and those experiences. He convinced me, as my parents did, that he did nothing wrong and I had misunderstood his actions. Part of me still believes that to be true, knowing that I am the problem, I am wrong.

And keeping others happy led me into other problems. Trying to please the bullying head teacher of my second teaching post. Setting myself impossible expectations, the hyper-vigilance for the first signs of trouble, making sure others are happy, never believing I am good enough, always knowing rejection is just around the corner. The terror instilled by criticism, quite out of proportion to any actual comments.

I want to move on. I want to lose that "victim" mentality, to know that I am "good enough". I want to discover the God who really does accept me despite who and what I am, or even for who and what I am. Nobody can (apparently) tell me how to do that.
Mental health professionals are focused on their belief that my image of myself as inherently defective is wrong and want me to change that. They stress self nurturing, telling me that behaviour will change feelings and thoughts. It has in the past, I know - but the frightening thing for me is that change crumbled under pressure. Occupational health want to tackle the pressure. I'm starting to think I need to look at it from a different angle entirely, and find the God others of you seem to know, the God who can accept me as I am, the God who has no expectations of me being perfect or keeping him happy. And I need to deal with lots of issues to do that - especially "Father God" and "the God who heals".