When you truly, honestly hate yourself

Is it possible that something happened to our birth mothers during the time they were carrying us? I ask because both my brother and I were born in UK during WW2. Lack of nutritious food; the fear all pregnant women must have felt (brother born 6 months after war started, me 2 years before end)... bombs falling, people/relatives dying overseas and at home....money scarce sent by rail to Wales without Dad when London being bombed 30,000 people killed in Blitz)..., .. I can only remember at a very young age hearing a siren and being pulled from where I was outside and rushed to safety (maybe a subway station). I know I was a bit of a difficult birth and that, (sorry if this is blunt wording) but listened to my Mum telling someone she was bleeding and had to sit on a pail(bucket) til the Doctor came hours later..after the birth. etc. etc. Of course much worse stories than these, but I was a quiet shy clinging child and in those days children were seen not heard.. other children at school seemed stronger, smarter, happier, more popular: won't bore you with the rest of "my" story, but again just wondered if something traumatic happening to a woman expecting a baby can have an effect on the child whilst in the womb and after... hope I am phrasing this properly. I just never felt I fit in.

@1k194 How are you doing today? Have you been able to read the messages of support here?

I wanted to check in with you, and let you know I am thinking about you today.
Ginger

mguspixi25, you are amazing! I am envious. What a wonderful share. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I had to find just one thing I liked about myself. Just one thing. It was difficult, but I am a kind person. That was my number one thing. Then built on that. I cannot concentrate on my physical appearance, living in this culture of beauty is this or that.

Valerie, I am from a line of English who were hit hard by both WWI and WWII; we all carry responses that differ from others - sirens make me automatically look up, instead of around, and my siblings are the same. We were born this way. If I hear the sound of prop engines (planes) I have an intense gut wrenching feeling of harm and inescapable fear and feel an urge to run underground into bomb shelters. I was born in the early 70’s, from a mother who was born in 1943 to a grandmother who was alone and giving birth in a raid after the sirens and bombs triggered her labour. That grandma was born in 1903, so she lived through both world wars. Her siblings (my great aunts and uncles) were all in active duty in both wars, and my grandfather of my mother was away as a captain in HM Royal Navy when my grandmother was giving birth to my mother. His ship was torpedoed and he came home and had a terminal heart attack when my mother came home from school and he passed in her arms when she was 10. The reason I mention it is I believe that such deep trauma leaves a genetic mark, and is then passed from one generation to another, and this is why my siblings and myself react in such alternative ways to stimulus that would otherwise not cause such responses. I lived on farms when I was younger, and the first time I saw a machine gun/automatic firing rifle, my first urge was to drop to my knees and put my hands on my head, like a POW, even though I was born in 1973.
I believe there may be many who have this lingering historical/generational/genetic trauma, and for a long time I felt lesser than for the things that I carry within myself; however over time, I have seen the benefits of these ‘things’ inside me: I have been brave and stood in front of others who were at risk of harm without hesitation, and I have intervened when people have been under attack from others (albeit I was a 5’10”+ 198 pound strong - not fat -woman with very little to fear in the strength-challenge department 😉), taking the brunt to save someone else. These days, those benefits are a mental strength that give me an advantage in doing some unique things, including having the ability to not judge others for their unique traits that cause them to be ‘different’, and I can help people in hard situations by not shying away, or trying to deflect; I will face their fears with them, because I haven’t encountered anything that scares me for many years, and sometimes holding firm in the face of somebody’s fear can help them. And strength doesn’t mean hard: strength and gentleness go hand in hand, the best of partners. Hardness is kinda superficial, whereas strength is deep, multifaceted, and goes well with many other good character traits like ones you’ve alluded to, including sensitivity, understanding, empathy, and peacefulness.
I appreciate muchly reading your comment, and would like to say that these unique aspects we hold within us aren’t weaknesses; they’re beauty in disguise 🌺

Thank you kindly @lindasmith1222, I really appreciate your comment and you’ve given me a grin of happiness 🙂🌺
I hope that any envy was fleeting, because you have something unique that is an asset to you and the world around you which is your kindness..such an asset in the world we live ❤️‍🩹
Kindness has a power of its own, and I just love hearing how you’re breaking the mould when it comes to the world around. Imagine how a bit of kindness can change things..kindness is the quintessential butterfly effect; and not everyone has that ability 🙂
And kindness goes hand in hand with generosity..generosity of spirit and personality in such a shallow, greed driven and materialistic world is very powerful! This really reminds me to be thankful for those character traits that usually aren’t valued 🙂🌺

@mguspixi25 ... thanx for sharing... My grandmother also coped through both WWs. In the early 1920s her husband died and she raised four children, one of them my Mum. I left UK on my own when I was 18 in 1963 - while growing up the past suffering/coping/issues were not discussed , well not in front of children for sure , and I knew very little of the trials and only maybe at a family gathering when the adults chatted about their own childhoods. It wasn't until I was older I realized they rarely complained about anything and also that visits to the Dr were rare - but now I have no source of that information. Sorry this may not apply to first post, but not often I read of someone in similar circumstances , and also born in 1943. Whether any of my family "hated themselves" I will never know and if so, what they did to conquer that feeling, if they ever did, or hid it very well!

It’s incredibly difficult emotionally to be silenced, isn’t it? Be it from choice, conformity or expectation, or ‘just how it was done’, it’s so challenging because it perpetuates suffering in various ways (in my situation, in terms of never speaking about these things, I feel like ‘nothing changes’, so the trauma feeling remains the same).
None of my family spoke of their trauma or how it affected them, only of the traumatic events that occurred in very descriptive ways (not speaking of the emotional ways these events impacted them). This was not helpful for them or the younger generations listening to these disjointed traumas as they left so many questions and insecurity. As you’ve mentioned, this often led to my family members not liking living with themselves (hating themselves) because of their perpetual emotional unrest/traumatic experiences/resultant PTSD.
I finally realised that regarding my former generations (parents’ generation and former) I would never be able to comprehend and ‘ground’ their experiences, and truly understand them; so instead I decided to just be as supportive as possible emotionally, while not focusing on ‘what happened’ - because I knew I would never know (making it a never attainable goal).
As well, I thought that I had the right to describe how it feels to have generational war trauma, and use it in ways that supported other people (I knew some refugees from Afghanistan who are Hazara people who were targets of dominant groups/militia, and they were alienated in emotional connection to being in Au because they thought nobody knew what it was like to be a generation or future generation of war and trauma, so I have used my family stories and experiences and emotional outcomes of that to help them). What people feel is justified; I tend to think that having some way of reconciling that inside and then feeling comfortable enough to live with it is what helps. However I haven’t ever had any psychological support (all psychologists I have approached here have told me my trauma is way beyond anything they are equipped to cope with and immediately decline further support, and a psychiatrist said to me once that he would not know where to start, and that he was taking a month off work immediately after the first session..hehe, I think this just goes to show the huge gap in treatment approaches for trauma, including the personnel gap regarding those with experience in trauma should be supported to deliver safer psychological services…like the saying, takes one to know one 🙂). Anyway, that’s just my personal thoughts about that.
It’s kinda hard to free yourself from this kind of trauma, but I think acknowledging it’s there goes a very long way 🌺🙂

You made my day! Hugs!

Such an honour; thank you kindly 🌺🙂

Thank you all for your kind words.

I had a better day today than I’ve had in awhile. Not sure why. (maybe prayer helped? although assuming God would help me always seems presumptuous of me)

I still hate myself…but one thing I’ve noticed is different recently than when I was at the happiest in my life (when I married my precious husband) is that I haven’t been enjoying anything. Even things I “like” to do. Everything recently has become a (never ending) to do list. I have goals for myself, but somehow they’ve become demands.

I’ve been sick for several days and just had to sleep. Then realized as I started to feel a little better, but was cautious not to push it in order to avoid spreading my germs to others or becoming sicker and bedridden again, that the slowed down pace helped me actually enjoy something again.
First, a simple meal and upbuilding video about nature. Then a walk with my dog (now that the heat has subsided). Then just sitting in nature. Then weeding a little in a flowerbed (something that I’d been dreading because it’s become a “weed bed” instead of a flowerbed). But, I do like weeding. I had kind of forgotten. I was weeding just to be outside. Sitting in the grass with my hands in the dirt; just to give my body fresh air. And suddenly I remembered what it was like when I first was married. How I enjoyed all the “work” to be done in our farm. I wasn’t obsessing. There wasn’t a “to do” list. I just enjoyed waking up each day in a peaceful, secure environment. That was new to me. I had never felt that kind of peace before I married and moved here. I had always walked on egg shells. Had always felt my personal goals were insignificant, even selfish. Had always felt hopeless and without direction.

But when I married my dear husband, for the first time I had this huge sigh of relief. A safe place; and it was home. Never knew before that what having peace at home felt like. I made goals, and worked at them. I spoke and felt valued. I had hopes and plans.

Fast forward to shortly before the pandemic. I won’t go into depressing detail (because I don’t want to go there today) but my dad was diagnosed (belatedly) with Alzheimer’s and my moms health began failing too. My brother (the one sibling out of 9 that I have a com rade ly with) got his spirit broken and has not recovered. And he has become my parents’ primary caregiver and is consumed by it. I help where I can but he lives with them so he gets the brunt of it. Being there so much recently has felt like being drawn back into a dark pit of despair, hopelessness, anger and internal strife.
I’ve taken all my duties at home and turned them into demands of myself. My family ( my husband and our life together) should come first, so I demand of myself to have all things at home done before I go to my parents. ….but that has been impossible. So I’m struggling with the feeling of failure; then comes all the baggage from my life before, returning like a tsunami burying me, not only while I’m physically at the home I grew up in, but worse than that, after I leave. The emotional baggage won’t leave me.
It’s more than my parents’ failing health, which is devastating in and of itself, it’s the return of all the disfunction and emotional distress of life before I met my husband and got out of that dark pit.

I tell myself to “do what you can and leave the rest alone”. But sometimes it’s impossible for me to differentiate. What is being a good daughter and sister, and what is being used and pulled back into the pit? It’s a daily struggle.

I hope I can remember today and the feeling of just being in the moment, a good moment: laughing at my silly dog, pulling the weeds away for the flowers to get sun, having dinner and conversation with my husband.
I hope I can keep this barrier I’ve had today and regain the ability to enjoy the things that are truly precious.