Switching voices

[eshkol]

I used to have multiple voices as a child. I'll have to start with the context.

I come from a dysfunctional family environment. My parents did not fight. One of them always left the room when the situation seemed too uncomfortable. Thus, they killed any form of communication between themselves. They did not really connect at all from, let's say, my tenth year of life, perhaps... Anyway, it had gotten worse and worse as I grew up. I became the only thing binding them together and the reason the marriage lingered on. I have only one memory of my parents kissing. They never talked warmly about each other. They were bitter, used sarcasm to supplement the warmness which should be in a family and I have a horrific vacation memory of my father saying he hopes my mother dies of poisoning, so that only we two remain - upon which he laughed, as if it was a regular funny thing to say. I laughed too, then, because I was convinced that was the way things ought to function in a family. I thought that is how people talk with each other. You can imagine the damage done to me from that in interpersonal relationships.

My mother is a neurotic person, overflowing with negativity, hyper-critical of everyone. She is incredibly patronising towards me. I have two half-sisters from her side. They seem to carry the burden of this over-caring, sometimes mentally terrorising mother much better than I. Perhaps because I'm the guy. And they come from a different, much calmer and more peaceful marriage before this one. But it sure makes it hard to validate what I'm feeling. A normal conversation with my mother has about 75 % probability of turning into a shouting match. Because of our current financial situation, I currently have no choice than to live with her.

My father is emotionally awkward, immensely hate-filled and... the most intelligent person I know. As a child, I wanted to talk to him, I wanted to have a father-son relationship. But from about my 12th year of life, I couldn't feel that relationship at all. I wasn't a very rebellious kid, so I suppose I still ached to save the relationship with me father. The only way to have a longer conversation with him was, it turned out, to talk completely un-personal: politics, history, philosophy... and have an argument. A debate. Needless to say, I never won. My father never let me. He always had the truth, and eventhough his truth was always a manipulation of reality, he managed to convince himself it was the truth. Of course, now I'm not referring to politics anymore. His life. His first divorce before he married my mother, where he was dominated by another woman, the (in-)appropriateness of his relationship with his daughter from his first marriage - which I suspect to be incestuous - and, finally, where the truth lies in the very latest chapter: my parents' divorce. Long overdue. Very, very painful. My father owns everything which should be shared property between my parents and will manage to get the vast majority of what the family owns, landing my 50-y.o. mother in a difficult financial situation. He also hurt me the most he could by doing exactly what he knew would devastate me. I have suffered from a chronic illness from my 12th year of age. He basically said that I'm making it up, that my mother is supporting it to get 'his' money from him and that I'm delusional. I haven't seen my father on any regular basis now for about 18 months, and I avoid him. I'm afraid of him.

It's all related, I promise. Now I'll get to the voices.

I used to divide my world into two parts. One: my parents, my family and family friends. Two: all else, mostly friends from school - the outside world. With the group one, I spoke in a high-pitched voice and was incredibly shy. With the group two, I spoke in my natural voice. So, when I talked to my parents and family, I had that squeaky voice and was this shaky, insecure somewhat asocial child. When I was with my best friend from school, I talked rather normally. The problem was, when those two worlds collided. Then, I tried not to speak at all.

Well, then, imagine the terror if I took my friends from school home, or I had to take part in a school performance knowing my parents will be in the audience.

There were very few people who would act as a bridge between those two worlds, if not only one. That was my cousin (male) from my father's side. We used to be great friends, would spend our summers together and would have that love which siblings should have between them. We could spend the whole day with each other, and I felt relatively confident when I spent time with him. When I was with him, I spoke normally, was gregarious, social. When I found myself in a situation when I was with him and had had to talk to my parents, I spoke in that squeaky unnatural voice and thus admitted to him somehow that I had this problem. I never talked openly about the changing of the voices, but he was very well aware of it. To admit that I have this problem, though indirectly, to him, I needed to feel a great deal of trust towards him. I haven't seen him for about two years now, because of the deep divide between the sides of the family with the divorce. I mention him, because he was the link between the two realms into which I had the world so neatly divided.

There were other ways this compulsive division into two worlds would manifest itself.

I remember we were to go on a skiing trip with my family once, including the said cousin. My parents would pick me up from school on Friday (or Thursday, that's unimportant) and we would drive. This was a problem for me, though. I was leaving the world of school (which I actually perceived as somehow 'dirty') and went to enter the world of family-and-related (somehow 'pure'). I remember I had this anxiety of wearing my school clothes to this trip. You see, in my socially anxious thinking, the clothes from school were stained, dirty, from-the-outside, so I couldn't stay with my school clothes on, because I was entering the other world. When we arrived at the hotel, I had to change immediately into different clothes, in order to finish this transition. This wasn't abnormal for me then. I used to change my clothes often when I came home from school, to 'purify' myself from the filth of the 'other' world.

My mom took me to a psychologist once, because of the changing voices. I can't remember how old I was back then, maybe 8, 9. He didn't tell us anything valuable, really. I believe this was not the therapist's fault, though. I remember my mother and father were upset by the psychologist somehow suggesting that we're a dysfunctional family and my problems stem from that. They couldn't accept this. I remember my mom mention something to the effect of: 'He thinks that we fight all the time.' Well, she was right in hinting that this was not the case. My parents didn't fight. They never got around to it. They rather chose not to talk at all.

I wanted to feel validated. To feel recognised. To feel home. I even created this crazy division between family and non-family.

I'm 18 now. I don't have the changing voices thing anymore. But I feel incredibly nervous and powerless confronting any one of my parents. I never feel at home and I seldom feel recognised as someone having gone through trouble, as someone with an actual chronic medical condition, as someone who meant it well with my family, nevermind the yelling, the coldness, blaming my parents for not getting an earlier divorce than they did. I am responsible for a large chunk of it all. But it would help me so, so much if my mother and my father came to me once and said 'sorry'. I will not get that.

I sidetracked again. I find it difficult not to include the whole story. I'm posting this hoping that someone will identify with the changing of voices. It would mean a great deal to me to read different stories of people with this problem.

Thanks.

e.

[shanarchy]

Hi e.,

I can relate somewhat to your story. I didn't realize it until recently that the screaming matches between my Mom and my sister or myself made our family even more dysfunctional. I used to think I was really good at it.

About wanting either of your parents to tell you they're sorry, my sister expects the same thing...and she's 42 now...still waiting. I'll tell you what I tell my sister: if you need their apology, go straight through to forgiving them and you'll feel better sooner.

What I did was something my therapist suggested that's called "the empty chair" (at least, I think that's the name). The exercise goes like this:
1. You put 2 chairs facing each other somewhere you feel comfortable and safe...and where you are alone.
2. You prepare to have a conversation with your parents (both or one at a time). Get yourself in a state of mind where you are as calm and assertive as you can.
3. You imagine calling your parent to come in, take a seat, to have a conversation with him, her or them. (From your part, speak aloud as you normally would.)
4. Visualize them throughout the exercise coming in, seating down, looking at you, being receptive to your words. Also, it's a one way conversation, they don't get to say a single word.
5. The conversation goes in the following order:
You invite them in.
You all seat down.
You tell them anything or everything negative you feel and/or think. (This is where you tell them all the things they've done wrong or how they hurt you or whatever, the thing here is to let them know about the things that have bothered you.)
Then, you tell them the positive part (like, telling them you forgive them and after all you've been through you really feel love for them...or whatever, the thing is that it ends in a positive note.)
To finalize, you let them know the conversation is over and they can leave. (Here, you imagine them getting up from the chair and walking out the door.)

The mind is a wonderful/terrible thing and imagination/visualization is very powerful, so much that the mind can react as if the imagined were true. (You may quote me ).

Hope you try it and hope it helps.

[Jose]

Hi Eshkol, thanks for making this thread. I've dealt with switching voices a lot and still do it to this day. I think I can pinpoint the time around when it started happening, I was 4 and I would talk really soft and high pitched to get more attention from my parents, as if they would have to listen closer and coddle me like a baby. I grew up painfully shy and was always a stand offish kid. I didn't have problems making friends, but I never liked to interact with adults outside of the few relatives who I felt understood me. I remember having one friend sleepover at my house and in the morning if he'd wake up before me, he'd go downstairs and talk to my parents, have them make him breakfast, etc. I always envied how comfortable he seemed around both kids and adults, like he could be totally himself in either world, whereas I had to divy up the kind of person I was depending on who I'm with. I used to get in trouble a lot when adults would overhear me telling dirty jokes, I know it must've shocked them to hear such things coming out of this seemingly innocent kids mouth. I get a kick out of it now, too. I only really feel like myself when I have the freedom to make fun of whatever I want with no reprecussions, and I grew up in a family with a very serious, intellectual nature. I can't help but think that I developed a sense of humor to rebel against how boring and self serving my parents conversations are. I really relate to what you said about how you only communicate with your dad through debate ( hey, that rhymed ). I've never been able to come to him about personal issues or things that are bothering me, because all I get is a lecture about what I'm doing wrong. Even when we do talk about a subject, he always has to take the floor as if I should be prepared to write notes on it. He doesn't realize how fast this makes me lose interest in what he has to say. The third time I get interrupted trying to chime in with my two cents because what YOU'RE saying is more important, I'm done giving a fuck about listening to you because I'm not getting the same respect. This is really the core of where my speech problem lies, not feeling validated by the people I'm closest to. I swear to god my mom misinterprets every single word I say, and my dad will shoot me a look as if the very opening of my mouth is an inconvenience to him. Growing up like this, it's no wonder I'm so socially awkward and insecure. I've never been able to fully come into my own around either friends or relatives, I'm stuck in some sort of limbo. It's a really frustrating thing, not being heard. It's just made me crawl further inside of my shell, and the only real remedy I can think of for it is to spend more time around the folks who appreciate me, less around the ones who see me as a burden.

Thanks for reading, I have a lot more to say on this topic.

[eshkol]

- shanarchy,

I've tried this thing with replaying uncomfortable situations and going different paths and interacting with people the way I wish I would or would have, in my mind. One of my doctors recommended me that. So far, I haven't been able to go past the barrier of my mind telling me this makes me crazy. But I will. Thank you. I suppose it'll be easier when I have the concrete steps written down before me. I always like a well-organised manual.

I think I will indeed quote you, but rather the first paragraph you wrote.

I didn't realize it until recently that the screaming matches between my Mom and my sister or myself made our family even more dysfunctional. I used to think I was really good at it.

Oh, the bittersweet irony of life. I totally identify. Screaming matches are my schtick, I suppose.

Thanks, be well.

e.

- Jose,
I feel your pain. Not feeling validated by your closest ones. Falling into limbo whenever in their company. Not being heard by them. It hurts like fuck.

It's good to read a similar story. It warms my heart. It shows me that we're all patterns, that who we are is determined by what we've gone through, and that there's many of us fucked up in such similar ways.

If you have more to say about this, please write it all. Or message me. Or post a thread. Just let me know when you do.

Take care.

e.

[shanarchy]

LOL eshkol...thank you, I needed a good laugh.

[letteggs]

Shanarky,

My therapist had me do the "empty chair" thing as well. However, I did it as a way to tell the younger version of me that everything would be ok. I've got severe PTSD as a result of medical tests that were forced upon me several times a year for 10 years. I remember sitting in my therapist's office the day we did the "empty chair," and just completely breaking down as I felt every emotion come bubbling back up. It was so clarifying. I no longer had to be the scared little girl who acted all brave and strong all the time. I was free to cry.

It was the highlight of my therapy sessions until I met with a new therapist who finally diagnosed me with Sensory Processing Disorder, which made me realize that all of my "quirks" that my family would rail on me about were my form of self-help and soothing.

"Empty Chair" is definitely one of the best ways to talk to yourself to show you the feelings and direction you really need.

LettEggs

[gfyourself]

This empty chair thing is a good idea thanks for posting about it.