Interesting - Very Serious Post (VSP) - Me Exploring Me

I've just confirmed for myself that being bullied DOES have an effect on your life. I'm coming to terms with the fact that my Mum's depression (and the way she took it out on her family over a period of many, many years) has had an effect on me. I'm not quite sure what but it's left me feeling very similar to a gentleman called MarkLewins over at 20six.co.uk. He sounds like a good bloke and our situations parallel in many interesting ways:

1) We both are genuinely nice blokes

2) We both get overlooked by females in the old "Nice guys finish last" situation. We're TOO nice for our own good. Where other blokes would seize a situation and be forthright and direct, we find it difficult to do so. Why?

In my case (and I'm not a psychologist) I feel it's because I've had many years of being told "No, you can't do that" and "You're not good enough" and "Don't be stupid, she's out of your reach" and similar. So now, although i seem brash and confident on the outside, and in many situations I can be brash and confident, I have this voice inside my head, re-inforced by different people telling me over long periods of time that I'm not good enough. It's like Lister off Red Dwarf says, he's got his paranoia constantly telling him "Don't do that, it'll be dumb of you to do that. Why do you think anyone would want to be with you? What have you got to offer?" My paranoia is just a lot louder than other peoples' seems to be.

3) We both are extremely vunerable. Because we've had to be tough for years it seems, I at least have trouble actually wanting to risk anything. So many times I've had my real feelings stomped on by 'friends' during school and at home, where Mum would twist them in weird ways. Basically, I lock my feelings up in a box now-a-days because I just don't have the tools to handle them.

4) It seems we both missed out on experiences during secondary school due to bullying of some sort or another.

I'll be the first to admit that in some respects I'm about 4 years behind my peers. Whilst they were able to enjoy themselves (from the age of about 14+) with supportive parents and go to parties and have fun and the like, I spent a large proportion of that time planning how I was going to survive another weekend with Mum on the 'warpath' constantly finding fault in everything. Parties and social occasions were kind of low down my agenda, hiding in my room, or just round a friends house, was my thing. Somewhere where I feel 'safe', that I view as 'sanctuary'. Even now I kind of still have that viewpoint, despite the fact that Mum has drastically changed (she's not as loud now, but still emotionally manipulative).

So only now am catching up on things I've missed. Consequently, I place greater emphasis on things that other people do not, like just being invited out socially and just being thought about in general really. Other people find this hard to understand, they've been social for years, what's another party, another night out?

Anyways, thanks to MarkLewins for making me think today. I hope he doesn't mind me comparing the two of us. I've put a trackback on this post so he can check it and I'll remove it if necessary.

I feel better now, slightly cleansed even (if that makes sense). I'm gonna have breakfast. I was out on my bike this morning and it only took me 15 minutes. I'm gonna have to find a new route I think (or extend the old one somehow).