Switching voices
Posted: July 10th, 2013, 2:19 am
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.
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.
).