hello and sending you tender hugs my @Emelia8 for today 
I acknowledge that today you have both happy and sad memories-- i totally know what you mean -- for me it is my dad who was emotionally and mentally abusing me , so when dad,s birth and death anniveries come around i can only think of the bad
I love @Eve7 idea
cook your favourite meal , set the table for you , put on a favourite movie that you love , time to spoil yourself , have a soak in the bathtub full of bublles
now it is your time to shine as you do here everyday
love you and sitting with you
Sweet Em,
People especially medical people that matter in your life telling you this, only adds to your trauma. What it does is gaslight you, has you second guessing yourself that it really happened. It invalidates you and your suffering.
What happened to you is real, unforgiving and I wish I could give you a reasurring hug that you're not going crazy. I am so sorry that you feel like you do about yourself.
Today is a difficult day and I want you to reach out for professional help please @Emelia8 if you need to.
You are an incredible woman, one that I am proud to call my friend. I know your family adore you and your neighbours too. I'm sure there are many more that do too, too many to mention.
You might feel worthless but now is your time Em, time to start the life that you couldn't before.
Here's a piccy to ponder the good behind the message. I love you and I feel confident the best is yet to come sweet sister. We still have our Thelma and Louise days to look forward to.
Hello @Emelia8
{Words ~980}
It is obvious that I cannot know you as a person {irl}, however the contact that I have had with you on the forum has been, informative, pleasant and uplifting.
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We, I believe, often choose as a partner {and are chosen as a partner} to be our spouse, and subsequently, that person causes us to feel somehow diminished. Unfortunately, it seems to me to be the application of the practice of "elevating oneself by denigrating another/others”. This can be a product of that person's own low self-esteem, knowledge of which may even cause us to feel sympathy for that person, despite their actions and treatment towards us. I have had that experience with my father (background: Army - RSM) {obviously not in a spousal situation, but similar dynamics} as well as two marriages. It would seem that there may be connections between the way that, and the reasons for which, I have subsequently 'selected' partners and my early childhood experiences.
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Paradoxically, we can even find ourselves supporting and defending the people, in our lives, who have treated us in these ways. Also, there can exist almost contradictory feelings of love and dislike. I believe that we can love a person but also despise the way that they have acted towards us and treated us. We can, in this way, separate our very different feelings toward the one person.
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During my life I have endeavoured to be the best person I can be, in my personal life and relationships, my work, community and social activities. However, I am still dealing with thoughts, such as "what is wrong with me?", and other similarly negative thoughts, at over 70 years of age. As mentioned recently, I am, with counselling support, addressing those self-perceptions that I refer to as negative cognitive perceptions or cognitive distortions. I will continue to work on these perceptions/distortions, I imagine, for the rest of my life. Recently, I said to the counsellor that I am becoming more aware of how entrenched and strongly attached those self-perceptions have become during my life. Unfortunately, I may also see myself as having become, over a period of time, the perpetrator or re-enforcer of those perceptions. I have to learn my part in the process, and be the operator in changing my own thinking. I hope that during that time I will continue to grow in my self-understanding and self-appreciation, and the ways in which I can express those constantly developing positive perceptions of myself in my relationships with other people. As a result of my experience, both in the development of cognitive distortions and my attention to removing their presence and effects, I may also be able to assist others in their responses to similar situations.
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In the moment, I can certainly identify with your words, @Emelia8, which are also echoed in the information on the websites following,
“Instead I am being bombarded by memories of bad times, of cruel things he used to say to me. I feel worthless and without purpose.”
I believe that both my mother {who was with me for the last ten years of her life} and I, shared the experience of having such thoughts.
“I think when you are told this enough times, it just becomes fact in your own mind. So, now that I am without him ... I have once again become nothing, a nobody.”
In these ways we become not only the subject of the derisive comments, of someone else, but in turn, become the perpetrator against ourselves.
While there was little said to me, by my father, that was complimentary, and for any other reason than for his own self-aggrandisement,
“Why is it that you believe the bad things others say of you, but tend to brush off {or even dismiss} the complimentary things?” (which were often said to me, by others.)
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There is discussion, on the following websites, about cognitive distortions, that may be useful and hopefully, helpful:
https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/20-cognitive-distortions-and-how-they-affect-your-life-0407154
"Psychologists use the term “cognitive distortions” to describe irrational, inflated {positive or negative} thoughts or beliefs that distort a person’s perception of reality, usually in a negative way. Cognitive distortions are common but can be hard to recognise if you don’t know what to look for. Many occur as automatic thoughts. They are so habitual that the thinker often doesn’t realise she or he has the power to change them. Many grow to believe that is just the way things are.”
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There is further discussion on the following website:
https://www.healthline.com/health/cognitive-distortions
"Research suggests {A} that people develop cognitive distortions as a way of coping with adverse life events. The more prolonged and severe those adverse events are, the more likely it is that one or more cognitive distortions will form.
"One early theory {B} even suggests that human beings might have developed cognitive distortions as a kind of evolutionary survival method.
In other words, stress could cause people to adapt their thinking in ways that are useful for their immediate survival. But these thoughts aren’t rational or healthy long-term.”
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For our personal development, I think that it is necessary to understand distortions and cognitive distortions in our ways of thinking, that have been self-generated in response to certain circumstances, or alternatively, directly imposed on us by others.
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I most sincerely hope that the feelings that you have and your own self-perception improve in a way that allows you the freedom to experience your life and express yourself in ways that are positive, meaningful to you and others and give you feelings of pleasure, joy and positive self-appreciation.
With My Very Best Wishes
References:
{A} Do cognitive distortions explain the longitudinal relationship between life adversity and emotional and behavioural problems in secondary school children?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5763391/
{B} The evolved basis and adaptive functions of cognitive distortions
