I was wondering how, or if, you deal with the concept of wasted time. I have spent about 37 years dealing with a N. Okay it has probably been less because I shouldn’t count when I was a baby.
I spend a lot of time being regretful about the time I wasted dealing with my Narc dad and most importantly the numerous pariah friends and boyfriends that I choose enter into my life when I left home.
Then of course, I spend a lot of time beating myself for trusting the most untrusting people to mentor me through my career.
I definitely had goals. I guess there weren’t that much different than other peoples. I wanted a spouse, children, a home, and maybe just a little bit of money in the bank. I don’t have those things.
I spent most of this decade working 7 days a week trying to deal with my career (or have some semblance of a career). The people in my work life were too much like family so I am floundering. Like my friends and boyfriends before, my bosses and mentors gave me plenty of warning signs that they were either moochers or vampires, but I ignored them.
I decided when I was very young to live my life pretty conservatively. I knew I didn’t want a spouse and children until I knew I could be emotionally healthy and choose a healthy husband.
I knew that being a survivor of molestation and having a Narc dad I was going to have to do a lot of work in order for me to be healthy enough to parent.
I knew I had problems stemming from childhood, but I had no idea after years and years of hard therapy that I would have so much more work to go.
I feel more confident that I could be a good mother now. The only males I was exposed to growing up was my molester/Step-Dad and my Narc real Dad so as much as I wanted children I knew that I had to do a lot of work with myself before I could even reasonably pick out a father for them.
Like many people now, I have been having financial problems along with this career stuff. 95% of the people who I supported through divorces, boyfriend issues, lay-offs ect have conveniently disappeared in this new period in my life.
Selfish people act like selfish people so of course they left now that I am at a low point. Looking back on those relationships, I I had plenty of hints about their character.
I guess what I dealing with now is the realization that I had another whole new problem with my life that I wasn’t even aware of until a year ago. Not only do I choose some nasty family members to be close with and nasty boyfriends, I also choose some of the most selfish female friends. That new sense of my life has really rocked me to the core.
I am trying not to think of the 37 years of life as a whole waste of time, but it has been difficult.
My job ends in September and I am launching a non-profit designed to help people. I am hoping that helps my mood.
Since I am really broke I pretty much do things that don’t cost money. Work is one of those things.
And of course, I have to start rethinking my original dreams. It’s funny that kids with less screwed up families dream about being pilots or rock starts. My dreams were very boring.
I imagine that must be common with incest survivors and/or being raised by a Narc.
The women in my family live to be very old and I hopefully have more decades to have one of my dreams come true. If I don’t, then I need to be grateful that even though I only have a few hundred dollars in my checking account I have a fridge full of food and a lot of people don’t even have that.
I am really just trying to be grateful for what I have and trying to make peace with things I don’t have.
I spend several days a week caring for my nieces and the kids of some of my friends that are single mothers so I get plenty of Auntie time.
Of course when things aren’t going well I start thinking about all those “what ifs.†Like where would I have been if I hadn’t been molested? What more could I have accomplished if my Mom had helped me rather than ignore the abuse? What if I had a loving father I could have gone to who would have said that I was okay rather than call me stupid?
Then I think what if I was born in a refugee camp? Or died during one of our history’s many holocausts and I start feeling very ungrateful. I also start feeling immature because nobody gets the life they want regardless of whether they were raised by a Narc, or not.
Anyway, this is a long rambling email.
I just wanted to know how others deal with idea of wasted time. Somebody posted that she was going back to college. I found that very inspiring. I think it was Nic or Bub. I can’t remember. I know others deal with issues through their art like Phoenix.
I did “I am a victim†thing for a while and that got old. Now I am doing this weird breakdown/anger thing which has been going on for almost 2 years. It is better than victim, but still so far from where I want to be.
Right now getting my non-profit off the ground is where I am hoping to do some good, but as I am writing this post, I realize that I need to take a better assessment of what I can do with my life.
It is inspiring to hear about people’s second and third acts.
Nat