Appreciation from others hurts me today

Started by Call Me Cordelia, May 13, 2019, 03:42:29 PM

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Call Me Cordelia

I have done very well on building up friendships with good people. I enjoy them and am now feeling free to share myself and my gifts as I wish. Today I received a very sweet note from a family we spontaneously hosted one afternoon, and another from a friend to whom I sent a bouquet of flowers from my garden. You'd think that would make me feel good. And most of the time it does, but today it sent me a fresh wave of grief.

You see, whatever we did to roll out the red carpet for my FOO and ILs was never ever good enough. And my lovely garden was outright ignored or put down as "just too much work." Really, my MIL stayed for a week in the summer one time and didn't look at it once. So today I'm feeling sad about the contrast between the way nobody in my FOO or ILs ever freely acknowledged good in me, while people I didn't even know until relatively recently readily appreciate me and go out of their way to tell me so. Anybody else ever feel grief when something good happens, because of having never experienced that good in our families?

Spygirl

Yes. Regularly. I do my best to be present and enjoy it now. Sometimes later i cry privately. Mourning i suppose.

Coming out of cognitive dissonance youve used to survive youre whole life is emotionally.challenging.

athene1399

QuoteComing out of cognitive dissonance youve used to survive youre whole life is emotionally.challenging.
:yeahthat: I sometimes wonder why my M can't be more like others. I will announce to her something that I feel is a big accomplishment for me and she either just changes the subject or says "that's nice" and changes the subject. And others are excited for me. It's like what the heck. Why can't she be? I just have to accept her for who she is and not expect that from her. It's frustrating to never feel good enough for someone. I am finally getting over that now. Things only have to be good enough for me. I don't need her acceptance or praise. Although sometimes I wish she could do that.

I am glad you are building relationships with good people who acknowledge what you do and the effort you put into the things you love, like your garden.  :) I'm sure your garden is beautiful!

Call Me Cordelia

Thanks, both of you for your responses. I'm curious about the cognitive dissonance here... I don't really have a clear idea of what that means. Isn't it like doublethink, where you hold mutually contradictory ideas at the same time? We all had to accept some objectively not normal stuff to get through to adulthood. Athene's scenario of having my good news minimized is very familiar. But experiencing the opposite, normal scenario of receiving empathy makes me sad. It used to make me uncomfortable, and I assumed they were just being extra nice because they felt bad for me somehow. But now I see most people are genuine, and my FOO are not. It's like going through the looking glass.

blacksheep7

Quote: . I'm curious about the cognitive dissonance here... I don't really have a clear idea of what that means. Isn't it like doublethink, where you hold mutually contradictory ideas at the same time?

Yes, you are right, that is it.

To come back to your initial post, it is hurtful when our happiness or efforts are ignored.  I remember telling gcs that I was going to retire earlier than expected. Her response blew me away "well if you've got the money".  Not, you must be happy, excited, whatever.     :(      I saw it as jealousy and I was always happy for her even when she was better off than me, having a house and family when I didn't.  Today I know that she has to live in a fantasy world to be happy.
I may be the black sheep of the family, but some of the white sheep are not as white as they try to appear.

"When people show you who they are, believe them."
Maya Angelou

StayWithMe

Quote from: athene1399 on May 16, 2019, 06:24:59 AM
QuoteComing out of cognitive dissonance youve used to survive youre whole life is emotionally.challenging.
:yeahthat: I sometimes wonder why my M can't be more like others. I will announce to her something that I feel is a big accomplishment for me and she either just changes the subject or says "that's nice" and changes the subject. And others are excited for me. It's like what the heck. Why can't she be? I just have to accept her for who she is and not expect that from her. It's frustrating to never feel good enough for someone. I am finally getting over that now. Things only have to be good enough for me. I don't need her acceptance or praise. Although sometimes I wish she could do that.

I am glad you are building relationships with good people who acknowledge what you do and the effort you put into the things you love, like your garden.  :) I'm sure your garden is beautiful!

there's at least a little bit of passive aggression in everyone.  My mother is like that as well so i don't tell her anything ie Eveything's fine.  She becomes interested in what I do when she hears it from someone else.

SpunHead13

I get bursts of grief when someone does something nice for me too. It will usually happen when I am on my own and texting and someone says something nice about me or my work. I'm blown away and so thankful for it! Im tearing up a little right now.  Sometimes though because the emotion is so intense I disconnect a little too. I always feel guilty when that happens because then im afraid the person giving the compliment doesn't know how thankful I am.

I think it is healing, touching a core wound, it gets slightly less intense every time.
It's always darkest before the dawn
-Florence Welch

1footouttadefog

When normal decent people act normal and decent, the contrast between them and the pd's in our live is spot ligjted in deed.

It then gives opportunity to grieve the reality of the pd and wjat is negative about the relationship with them.

Olease dont let this painful experience deter you from interacrions with the decent folks in your life.  Instead live and grow through the healimg process that comes from dealing with the grief.

Call Me Cordelia

Blacksheep, PDs are jealous of everything, aren't they? It's so sad that they are so insecure they can't allow there to be any happiness for anybody else.

Omg, StayWithMe, you reminded me of my MIL getting talking points from me about something cool I was involved in. Once she had enough to be able to give the scoop to the rest of the extended family, her interest was turned off like a switch.

Quote from: SpunHead13 on May 17, 2019, 12:54:06 AM
Sometimes though because the emotion is so intense I disconnect a little too. I always feel guilty when that happens because then im afraid the person giving the compliment doesn't know how thankful I am.

I think it is healing, touching a core wound, it gets slightly less intense every time.

I think you're right, and I see myself in this too. My minimizing others' compliments protected me from that grief. Now that I'm voluntarily opening up and cleaning those wounds, here come floods that have been held back my whole life. At the most inconvenient times.  :'( :'( :'(

1foot, right on. I'm not burying my feelings or hiding myself from the world anymore. It hurts sometimes but it's worth it.