As A child, how did you react...

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Most of that sounds all too familiar.

Last edited by Graelwyn on 26 Sep 2007, 3:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I was always deeply hurt by criticism but I hid it. I wanted to avoid conflict at all times. I don't tolerate control-freaks well at all - never have, never will.

OMG!! ! I did the same things! I would throw terrible temper tantrums, if I did not get my way, was told to do something I did not want to do, and to get attention when I was being ignored. I would get quite physical like you (i.e. throwing things, breaking things, and hitting things).
If my mother made the slightest change to anything in my room, I would completely freak out! I remember once, when I was visiting my grandparents for the weekend, my mother decided to change my room around. She also decided to buy new curtains and sheets w/ a matching comforter to add to the change. Of course, the sheets were an entirely different print and color than my other ones. So when I finally arrived home to discover the massive change, I completely flew the coop. I couldn't stop kicking and screaming! I absolutely refused to go into my room until it was completely restored to the way it was before I left.
BTW, I could not stand when my mom would vacuum. I would beg her to stop! The noise made me very angry and would drive me up the wall!



Sounds very familiar to me as well...Except for being promiscuos

Any criticism would leave me feeling DEEPLY ashamed and hurt and send me into full retreat. After a period of recovery, I would emerge still angry at the person for giving the criticism.

I'm only now just starting to change this destructive pattern.

[quote="Quirky_Girl72"][quote="Graelwyn"]/quote]

Eh - it was just another way to self-destruct. I had a whole slew of weapons I used against myself including anorexia and bulimia as well. You name it - been there - done that. So much programming for self-loathing that I was just waiting to die. Those were ages 14-18. Saw a very good therapist who was also spiritual (got her compassion which was like manna from heaven - life giving) then got married, things changed. Then - had a baby - got a good dose of oxytocin in the the process - also a mini NDE at birth - and feeling altruistic love for the first time in my life by being a mother to a beautiful baby - turned things around. Slowly like the movement of the second hand on a clock. It's been almost 30 years - and the programming is still there - just a little less intense.

I hear you. I felt pierced with daggers. I once drew a picture of myself with holes in my aura from head to toe. Criticism is the anti-thesis to self-esteem. It just cuts deep and leaves scars. I hope yours will all be healed. Inside and out.

YES!! ! I went to 4 in one year!! ! When I was 20, I went on my own to undo the diagnosis list that was previously there and get a real one. I did not expect asperger's. However, the psychologist put me through a bunch of testing and it cancelled out all the others, so it was worth it.

My mom was, and is, horrible to me. I am not who she wanted me to be. I am looking at two major scholarships right now for St. Mary's College at Notre Dame and Loyola University in Chicago. She said I could never make it at Loyola (though my gpa in college this far is a 4.0) and that I would never fit in at St. Mary's because I "refuse" to change. *sigh* Ignorance is not bliss...it is idiocracy.

She is a control freak. i was not allowed to have my room the way I wanted it. She would punish me if I got upset about it. It was really bad.

I have the opposite problem moving furniture. I keep doing it because it never looks quite even and right to me.

I just listened to my mother softly torment my Fragile x brother last night by mildly in tone criticizing some products he had brought home. She did it in a droning way and in her mind, nobody has ever detected that instead of being longwinded and a simple woman, she is really giving him the business. I noticed that she had unappetizing behaviors that left people feeling lousy but living with her 24/7 for the last few years and really focusing, I noticed that the woman actually smiles to herself when she pulls some of this stuff. I have heard her freak out over some household offense but if she doesn't know that you can see her, her face is not the same as her voice. So I am actually okay with criticism as long as it is not from her. I put up with a lot of my aspie father's longwinded lectures without resenting him or thinking he had to be wrong about me. I was a very mild and obedient child and it got me nowhere. I should have let the bastard out of the wood shed.

It never bothered me when my mother cleaned my room. All she did was put my toys away and take out the garbage, took out my dirty clothes and washed them, put away my clean clothes. But as I got older I hated when she told me to clean my room because I didn't know how to clean it, and it looked clean to me so I took every single item off the shelf and put it back on and my mother kept saying "I said clean your room, not play." That was that only one time when I was six and after that she never told me to clean my room again because I always kept it clean. But I was bothered one day when I came home from school and I saw she changed my closet. She took down my clothes rack in my closet and made it smaller and moved it to one side of my closet so I have more room. But she never really changed my room around when I was growing up except for when I was 16 she changed my room around while I was in school. She put my bed in the center of my room so that I have more room in my room. She also put a chair in my room and had me look at it and see if I liked it. I did.


I can remember my mother getting on my back about my obsessions and me not playing with kids my age. I can remember her telling me things like "Beth you should play with kids your own age." "Beth they're too young for you. You need to find kids your age." "Beth you need to read a new book, not Dalmatians." "You're obsessed with a 7 year old movie." "You're seven years old. Seven year olds don't unroll the toilet paper. Ben doesn't do it."
"Stop crying like a two year old." "Beth, you're almost eight bla bla bla (I forget what she was yelling at me about but I was doing something with my brothers and my mother yelled at me about it because I was seven and I was acting like a little kid and was going to be eight in two days). I can remember getting lot of that stuff until I was about 12 after my diagnoses and then she stopped. Instead I was given a lecture, being talken to about my mistakes instead of being yelled at about it. And she stopped getting mad at me about my anxiety and my obsessions and me not playing with other kids my own age.

A therapist once told me I was my own judge, jury & executioner. I've always been my own worst critique, so receiving extra is especially hard to take. My mum said never had to discipline me (even though I had my moments, my mum knew something was wrong -even when undiagnosed- rather then I was being a brat) what little she did I took to heart, I never liked hurting my mother. I've always been the type of person to follow the rules & get upset when nobody else does.

I laughed... seriously. When I was getting lectured or especially if my Mom tried to hit me... I would have an uncontrollable urge to laugh.

I mostly did nothing though, I didn't have any reaction. Her punishments barely had any effect on me.

One time I was doing particularly bad in high school... in a rage she completely flipped over a table in my room. I did not even respond... basically I just thought..."well what a mess, guess I'm going to have to pick this up."

Edit: oh thought this thread was about punishment...

As for criticsm or pressure, I don't think I felt any. I just kind of went along to have a life the way I wanted. Sure my mom would get upset or prod me to go outside when all I wanted to do was play video games... but it wasn't very controlling.

In fact it's something I sort of lament from childhood... I wish there was pressure for me to do something... or have higher expectations of myself.

Well in my household if you reacted to verbal or physical harshness, you would get it louder and harder for indicating that the harshness as undeserved so I can hardly cry although I also got an extension for being stoic. My fragile x brother on the other hand wouldnt be able to hold it together and would tremble the minute the harshness started so of course, the harshness would change topic to what a wuss he was but that didn't stop him from breaking down. He's had surgeries growing up but my mother never hugged him after them. She quickly "forgot" to consider how damaged he already was. We didn't throw tantrums when we were little privately or publicly. We were dominated long before we could ever reach that point.