I need help...

[Aleksandr]

Hi everyone...I'm just looking for some help, I really need it. Thanks in advance for responding. Sorry it's so long.

I'm 19 and I've been a foster care child for my entire life. I was shuffled from home to home about five times since I was little, so I've never had a read family until recently. Because of this, I have a lot of emotional issues and a lot of self esteem problems.

When I was 4 or 5, my second foster family abused me. They would lock me in my room if I didn't behave, sometimes for days. I was close to starvation quite often. I rarely went to school and I had issues reading and writing. Only when I stopped going to school for very long periods of time did the authorities remove me from the home. Because I was alone for so long, I was left by myself with my bad thoughts, and I think I developed a lot of self-esteem issues because of that. I felt like I didn't deserve to live because I felt like I somehow deserved starvation and loneliness. I've had nightmares ever since.

I've lived with my current family for four years, as a permanent member of their family. They've been nothing but kind to me. My new parents are paying for my college in full, which is more then I could ever ask for. They've involved me in everything they do, and they always make sure not to make me feel alone or unwelcome. I've gotten very close to my foster brother, Anthony. We're sophomores in our university and we became roommates this year.

The problem is, even though I have a great support system, I still have a lot of problems. I have social anxiety and hate being around crowds of people. I'm painfully shy and have difficulties talking to new people. I struggle with dyslexia and it takes me forever to read and write. I feel lonely and sad most of the time and I'm afraid of being seen in a bad light by other people, so I avoid their eyes and it makes me seem antisocial. My nightmares make it difficult for me to sleep. I often cry myself to sleep so I tire myself out enough to fall asleep at all.

Being roommates with my brother has helped a bit, but I'm too scared to tell him how I really feel. I want nothing more than to open up to him and be honest with my feelings, but I don't want him to be overwhelmed or afraid to talk to me. He's been the most loving and kind to me, but I'm jus t scared. How do I open up to him? What should I do?

Thanks again for your help.

 

[ghbarnaby2]

Hi everyone...I'm just looking for some help, I really need it. Thanks in advance for responding. Sorry it's so long.

I'm 19 and I've been a foster care child for my entire life. I was shuffled from home to home about five times since I was little, so I've never had a read family until recently. Because of this, I have a lot of emotional issues and a lot of self esteem problems.

When I was 4 or 5, my second foster family abused me. They would lock me in my room if I didn't behave, sometimes for days. I was close to starvation quite often. I rarely went to school and I had issues reading and writing. Only when I stopped going to school for very long periods of time did the authorities remove me from the home. Because I was alone for so long, I was left by myself with my bad thoughts, and I think I developed a lot of self-esteem issues because of that. I felt like I didn't deserve to live because I felt like I somehow deserved starvation and loneliness. I've had nightmares ever since.

I've lived with my current family for four years, as a permanent member of their family. They've been nothing but kind to me. My new parents are paying for my college in full, which is more then I could ever ask for. They've involved me in everything they do, and they always make sure not to make me feel alone or unwelcome. I've gotten very close to my foster brother, Anthony. We're sophomores in our university and we became roommates this year.

The problem is, even though I have a great support system, I still have a lot of problems. I have social anxiety and hate being around crowds of people. I'm painfully shy and have difficulties talking to new people. I struggle with dyslexia and it takes me forever to read and write. I feel lonely and sad most of the time and I'm afraid of being seen in a bad light by other people, so I avoid their eyes and it makes me seem antisocial. My nightmares make it difficult for me to sleep. I often cry myself to sleep so I tire myself out enough to fall asleep at all.

Being roommates with my brother has helped a bit, but I'm too scared to tell him how I really feel. I want nothing more than to open up to him and be honest with my feelings, but I don't want him to be overwhelmed or afraid to talk to me. He's been the most loving and kind to me, but I'm jus t scared. How do I open up to him? What should I do?

Thanks again for your help.

Firstly let me say you are an amazing person. The fact that you've made it as far as you have is a testament to your inner strength. Cherish yourself - you are awesome.

It can be incredibly frightening to explain your inner most thoughts and feelings to other people. You have made an incredibly huge step just by recognizing that you WANT to talk to someone about these feelings inside you, be proud of yourself for that!

There exist many, many different strategies to talk to others about those types of feelings. Some people use the direct approach; sitting down with the other person and just spilling their guts. This approach works for people that really have something to get off their chest and want it out of mind quickly. Other people use a more drawn out method, making it into a conversation or dropping bits about their feelings inside of a serious talk. Other people use artistic forms: painting, poetry, photography, letters, and such to express or share what is going on inside them.

There is no perfect way to do this, but you CAN do it. If you need any help there are many people on this forum who have experience dealing with these issues. Good luck friend!

 

[Mr.YellowCat]

Hi Aleksandr. Alexandr here.
I dont really have much to say I guess.

But believe in him, as he believes in you.

If he accepted you as his brother, you can do the same. And brothers help one another, no matter how serious, or sensitive, the matter is.
I dont think there is a way to tell you "talk to him like this" or "talk to him like that". Its all the same in some ways.
Its your way of saying things that should be used when telling him. And all that, said with honest heart, will be much better, than reading a book about how to approach people.

I say have faith in him, and be honest, and as much as you can, strong.
He can be strong for you now if you need him to. And one day, perhaps, he will need your strength.

 

[Marios]

I cannot agree more with what was stated above.

I just want to say, good luck.

 

[Aleksandr]

Thanks for all the quick replies.

The thing that's worrying the most is how I approach him about it. I think I'd probably spill my guts out if I did have an opportunity to talk to him, but I'm not sure how to get to that point. I'm not sure if he really knows how bad it is. I think he's heard me crying before, since we share a dorm room and we have bunk beds, but he's never said anything or acted like he knew.

 

[LifeCoachWithL]

I'm a social worker and i wanted to say i'm sorry that the system has failed you. It's sad that there are foster parents out there all for the wrong reasons and end up hurting children. With that said, I think you have come a long way, you going to college, says a lot about you; you never gave up. I know it's scary, but have you even told your parents? maybe you can start there first. Some people may react the way we hope them to and others do not, but keep in mind it might be because they don't know how to react.

 

[Groucho]

The problem is, even though I have a great support system, I still have a lot of problems. I have social anxiety and hate being around crowds of people. I'm painfully shy and have difficulties talking to new people. I struggle with dyslexia and it takes me forever to read and write. I feel lonely and sad most of the time and I'm afraid of being seen in a bad light by other people, so I avoid their eyes and it makes me seem antisocial. My nightmares make it difficult for me to sleep. I often cry myself to sleep so I tire myself out enough to fall asleep at all.

Firstly, don't beat yourself up over your problems, the self-esteem issues and anti-social issues are not your fault, nor are your issues with reading and writing. The abusive family home you lived in was responsible because it crippled your initial educational chances, as well as your time to socially develop and interact with others, so as a result, you will find difficulty with handling these situations and it's perfectly natural to have these problems. There are other people out there who have been through similar situations as yours who have had the same or similar problems, so don't think you're abnormal or bad for it, it's natural.

Socialising is very much like catching a train, and if you miss the train, you end up late (other people might prevent you from catching the train unfairly, as these things do happen, delays are natural and do occur). Even if you get onboard, it can be a long journey ahead and it will always generally feel like you're a few trains behind, but that's okay, because that's expected. You may find that it clicks and suddenly you're on a high speed train, but don't worry if that doesn't happen because various people don't get a high speed train. I know my socialising is very awkward and difficult, feels like a script with NPC dialogue actions and half of the options are missing because your speechcraft skill levels aren't high enough to unlock those options yet.

Just as a curiousity, this is largely irrelevant to your points, but it might pique your curiousity, you might want to borrow the book "the sense of being stared at" by Rupert Sheldrake, who details various experiments (the title is admittedly somewhat misleading), including staring experiments where he tested if people could sense if they were being watched. Turns out, in a majority of cases, they could correctly identify when someone was watching them.

Perhaps, you pick up on this, but it goes somewhat into overdrive and you're concerned people are secretly thinking badly of you. Most people, geniunely, are too engrossed in their own day to day business to care (or they're probably thinking you're thinking the same of them!), and the "bystander effect" is an example (people won't assist in an emergency situation the more of them there are).

Worst-case scenario you'll just get that ********* that everyone gets who has to yell out a comment because it makes him seem 'smart' or 'clever' (or whatever it is that processes slowly through his Donkey Kong-esque brain of mostly banana machinations). More often than not, it's just that: a comment from someone clearly related to an undiscovered species of monkey.

Being roommates with my brother has helped a bit, but I'm too scared to tell him how I really feel. I want nothing more than to open up to him and be honest with my feelings, but I don't want him to be overwhelmed or afraid to talk to me. He's been the most loving and kind to me, but I'm jus t scared. How do I open up to him? What should I do?

I don't know what you intend to talk about, so I don't know how to advise to proceed. You'll probably discover this sooner or later, but different people have different 'threshold' levels.

Basically, their threshold level is how much openness they can accept before they freak out and/or disown you. I'm speaking from experience as I often test the boundaries. What threshold they can accept depends on their experience, their persona, and what topic it's about.

For example, and I will admittedly be cliche and stereotypical here, but it's to make a point. Say you have the typical socialite facebook user who classically goes out on alcohol sprees, and my subject was government corruption. You can probably already see that there's a good chance the two are incompatible. If I start going into depth on it, the other person, who is only largely used to socialising in immediate circles and thus small talk (IE non-complicated subject matter) would probably be out of their depth within the first few minutes and I would have exceeded their threshold.

Likewise, there's emotional thresholds too. Some people, when presented with a case of abuse, will go into denial over it, because it exceeds their threshold to handle it as a subject (acceptance would probably shatter a worldview of theirs and thus they would bury and deny), others would be accepting, but might not have any idea how to handle it and would probably feel out of their depth, and some may have good experience enough to know how to deal with it and can help.

Each person is different in how they receive things.

Easiest way to proceed is to start gradually, and build up. Introduce a basic topic, gauge the reaction (if they are accepting, then carry on, but if they act negative or indifferent, those are usually warning lights not to proceed).

If they accept the basic topic, expand the basic topic to other areas. This is a process known as desensitisation. Throwing people in the deep-end can get some... very unusual reactions.

Eventually, you'll get a feel as to which topic each person can handle. I won't claim my advice is stellar for keeping friends as I have, like, one person I talk to? But it seems to help avoid conflict I find.

Not sure if it's the best approach but maybe parts of that can help somehow.

 

[Tiina63]

I am so glad that you have a good and supportive family now, as you more than deserve this after all you have been through.
As Groucho says, it might be best to start off small and then move on gradually to more serious matters when confiding in your brother. The chances are that he already suspects that you have serious issues to work through and won't be surprised when you begin to open up. Although at times it will be a painful process, I feel that it will ultimately bring you closer together.