Revealing Secrets: More thoughts

I feel as though I've been blogging so much about therapy and counseling and topics involving the two that I'm starting to come off as annoying.

I've been doing a lot of thinking since yesterday's session. I revealed a lot to my therapist and now I'm feeling a bit of guilt over what I did reveal.

I know I talked about this a lot yesterday but I'm still thinking about it today. It hasn't gone away.

The thing is that I feel that perhaps my therapist might think it sounds like I might have been abused a bit as a child. Maybe looking at it now, it could be considered to be a bit abusive what happened. But the thing is that I don't see it as such.  I mean I still cringe thinking about the punishment but I know the reasoning behind what brought on the punishment. Basically it wasn't an unjust punishment.

There were legitimate reasons for me receiving the punishment I did. I messed up big time and therefore I had to be punished and for me, this happened to be the punishment.
It wasn't the punishment for every single thing I did. But if I did something major in terms of messing up, this was the punishment received.

The punishment wasn't something that just happened. It happened for a reason. It wasn't like I was punished like this every single day. I didn't get punished like this for spilling something or breaking something on accident.

I'm also a bit concerned that I made my father sound like he was very unsupportive of me as a child; like he was disappointed with me. Again though, it's not the case.

Yes, I know he was disappointed with the fact that neither my brother nor I not even my nephew turned out to be athletes. He was into sports and athletics growing up. He was a Physical Education teacher for 32 years at the Elementary schools. Unfortunately, none of us shared the same enjoyment of sports he did. None of us were interested in sports. None of us turned out to be very athletic like he was.

But I didn't sense this disappointment as a child. I don't ever really remember feeling it so much. I'm not saying that I never felt like I was a disappointment to my dad because I wasn't in sports. What I'm saying is that it wasn't something that bothered me until I grew older and starting looking back at things. Basically it's something I've been giving a lot more thought since being in therapy. Trying to figure out some possible causes for some of my problems.

There was also the fact that my dad did comment a few times on my weight growing up. He still comments on it. I've generally been happy with my weight. I'm healthy. My doctors haven't been too concerned with my weight and neither have I.  I'm not terribly overweight but I'm not skinny. I'm average. I'm not athletic or into exercising a lot. But I don't eat a lot of bad food; I eat pretty healthily actually and while I don't exactly exercise, I do move around. Plus I do a bit of walking.

Again though, I feel like I've made my dad out to be emotional abuse but again, he's not.

The truth is that growing up as a child, I felt loved. I felt like my parents were generally proud of me and supportive of me. They were concerned for me. I struggled with friendships and with some school subjects and my parents were there for me. They tried to help me. When I was being picked on at the Recreation Center and would come home miserable, they didn't ignore me. They went and talked to the counselors there and got things straightened out. Whenever I struggled in school or was misbehaving they'd talk to the teacher and get things worked out. I don't ever remember feeling scared or neglected or abused in any sense.

The only time I was ever scared of my father was when I got into big trouble at school. I  knew what punishment I was going to get and that's what scared me.  Sure my father was stricter than my mother and I learned that at a young age but still I loved my dad a lot. It wasn't until I grew much older that I began really looking back at everything and realizing all this.

There is something I didn't really tell my therapist yesterday when telling her about the punishment. She asked questions about it. She wanted to know more about it; what exactly it involved. I told her as much as I could remember: I remember laying on my parents bed already scared because I knew what was coming. I remember dreading my dad coming home. I remember my dad coming in and already I would be crying and felt scared so scared. I remember my mom telling my dad what I did and I remember hearing his footsteps coming down the hallway; the sound of him taking off his belt.  I remember just crying out and saying "No! No! No!" before he would spank me and while he was spanking me. It was awful. It didn't last long and he really didn't hit me that hard.

I'm pretty sure I had pants on whenever he would spank me but I can't be too sure. I remember having some sort of protection from the belt but what exactly I had on besides my underwear, I can't even be sure. It's painful just writing this down. It's a memory I'd rather repress if only I could.

My therapist asked me if he left any marks or anything when my dad would spank me with his belt. At the time I told her nothing physically, emotionally though yes. But afterwards, I got to thinking more  about it and I realized there were some marks if even just temporary. I remember my bottom  stinging and being sore. I remember there would be red marks from where the belt had hit me. But all this was temporary and went away. Usually by the next day, everything was fine. I can't ever remember having bruises from where I was spanked by the belt.

I'll probably mention all this to my therapist next week. I feel like I need to tell her now. I feel like I need to explain more.  It sounds horrible but it's the truth. It's how it was. 

Again, it makes it sounds like my dad was a terrible person but I can assure you he wasn't. I loved my dad as a child and I still love him now. Though it can't be denied that our relationship isn't as close as it could be and this being probably one of the reasons why.

I do feel as though he expect a lot of me though. Like he expects me to be someone I'm not; do things I don't want to do and that he is disappointed because I'm not.  Again though, this is only as I've gotten older; become an adult, that I've felt like this.

The thing that still gets me is that my parents were punished the same way as children and yet they seem to have turned out ok. Yet my brother and I both have had mental health issues. My brother more so than me but obviously I have some problems too otherwise I wouldn't be in therapy right now. I'm starting to think that both of us were just more sensitive to such things. Perhaps both of us were just sensitive children and this type of punishment had a greater impact on us. Or at least on me it seems. I've just come to accept that I'm probably just a highly sensitive person. 

I've just been thinking a lot about this. I'm realizing just how much perhaps I've been influenced by what my parents did while raising me.