I have blamed it ALL on being a woman.

[kaistevens]

Peeling back the layers, as I work on my recovery, getting closer each time to those thought, beliefs, and ideas that I keep making my messed up choices from, each layer points more and more to this core belief that...
It is all because I am a woman.

I am 37 years old; mother of 4, step-mother of 3, grandmother of 4, a wife for the 3rd time, sister of 2, estranged daughter of two very angry, very selfish people. As I continue on this journey of self-discovery, self-recovery, talking and working with others to try to see myself more honestly and more clearly, it always takes a big blow up in my life, a big storm with all it's damage for me to see that I blame any and every pain, hurt, harm, broken wound in my life, on being a woman.

And in this moment, after the storm, as we start cleaning up the broken peices, and the blood, and the air is so clear, I can see - CLEARLY - how just about every decision I have made for as far back as I can see has come from the motivation of NOT being a woman. I am still fighting, and hating, this very unchangeable part of who I am.

I thought I was accepting it. Because I started wearing more feminine clothes, dresses even, and make up and fake fingernails, and I stopped cussing as much, and telling people to suck my D***.

I thinking the reason that I still don't want to quit smoking is because I still see it as a macho thing to do. It's not lady like, that's what my Grandmother would say, and that's good enough reason for me. Talk about insanity!!! this is just ludicrous. My male ego is killing me, this Little Man Syndrome of mine will be the death of me, and I just don't know how to redifine my expectations, my beliefs, about who God designed me to be.

I can see where soo many of the choices in my life, the one's that worked out and the one's that didn't, have been made out of this drive I have to not be seen as, thought of, talked to, looked at, treated like a woman. And my brother wasn't born until I was 13, and I was about 23 or so before I started to see that my parents have been more abusive and angry towards my brother than they were with us girls. It was THEM, their problem, not me not being a son, not me being a woman.

Is there a program for this? Is there some self help book? This INSANE IDEA has been a part of my thinking for so long that it is almost invisible to me. The smart, thinking part of me can see the craziness of all this, but those basic instincts inside me just keep running me into this wall.

I can see that this belief structure is built on a big lie that I accepted as true a very long time ago, I just don't know how to tear it down.

I want to be who and what God made me to be, cause I know he knows what he is doing. How do I change this?

[Montauktammy]

stopped cussing as much, and telling people to suck my D***.

you did that too thank God i was not the only one thank you

[litlaurlee]

I'm sorry that you have fought this for so long. I suppose as addicts we seem to fight really well certain things. For me it's usually the *fact* that i think i must make everything right. perfectionism of a sort.
I relate to your issues in the sense that i've often gotten obsessed with looking at womens history overall in sort of a feminist way, if you will, (while i am not a feminist) and making a case over all the injustices that we endure just because we are women.

I think if you keep saying, praying, believing in that last line you wrote you will find the willingness.

[serenity3]

I've been reading Simone de Beauvoir The second Sex, I think this relates to what you are saying x hugs xxxxxx

[clean42day]

I also relate to your issues, but for me - turning into a tom boy at a young age - all relates to "power". for me being female seemed to be too vulnerable and so I used the tom boy image as a protective barrier of sorts. later in life it often turned into a type of contra dependence and rebellion againt anyone and anything or any person trying to tell me what to do - how to act - what to feel - or how to appear "appropriatly" female. all of that - was a type of power over me and I rejected it with all that I was.

To this day - my character is very male dominant.....I certainly enjoy all the fine lines of being a female - but to some extent - I am a very independent and powerful female...so much so - that I percieve any little power imbalance as a threat to my inner self.

I wish I could change this about myself - but for me I know it all stems from a lack of trust in myself to allow me to be vulnerable and know that I will survive it.

I just don't know how at this point to balance the two sides of me. I want nothing more than to be fully and completley loved....but every time I give myself permission to do that to be vulnerable - I get hurt in some way - and out comes the protective armour again.

I have almost given up on finding a man who can live with my independent powerful side and break through to the inner self that I really am.

thanks for sharing your dillemma - it is also mine in a different way.

light and love

Gail

[serenity3]

i think you have the right idea, i dont think we are supposed to be what anyone tells us to be. the contradiction and conflict is part of who we are, its part of what we go through from birth, the conditioning of what it means to be a woman or a man. its natural to try and understand those structures that have been forced upon us, it is hard not to try to live up to them. you are a perfect individual x