Dear MES, the main suggestion I would make is that you begin to pay more attention to yourself, and how you feel about things. What do you like? Dislike? Want? Need? Enjoy? Start writing down everything you can notice. The answer to your future career lies nowhere but in you, and you can find it by paying attention to your own feelings. I hope this suggestion helps. You deserve to be happy, and I believe you can be.

My childhood was extremely stressful/chaotic. It was spent with my brother, dad and I simply trying to SURVIVE. We never really knew what state of being my mom was going to be in when we got home from school. She might have taken a load of sedatives and be out of it, she might be superman, or she could be raging over something/anything. Or, as was often the case, she might not even be there, and had gone to a stress center/inpatient facility while we were at school. She has cancer now, and is in hospice, and I’m having a hard time knowing how to feel about the whole situation.

My dad, who I’m really close to now as an adult, not knowing what to do or how to cope himself, worked constantly so that he was able to get away from the situation, and pay the always growing heap of medical bills that she accrued from all of the appointments, inpatient stays, and expensive medications that insurance barely covered, as well as feed and clothe 2 very small kids.

We spent a lot of time with his parents, who were old farmers and as stated above, very “hard”. We did not discuss the situation with my mom, rather, they (with good intentions) tried to distract us from it. They were not great at supervising us, and from 3 & 4yrs old and up, we were gone for hours during the day, playing in their 26 acres of forest, learning to fend for ourselves. This made us extremely self sufficient, and in many ways I am so thankful for it, but as a result of that, and from our home life being so chaotic/stressful, my brother and I both have developed CEN.

I did the questionairre, and answered yes to every single question.

I guess my question is, now as an adult, along with not having much access to my emotions (actively doing the exercises to work on this) especially during this stressful time, I am also having a hard time because I will be going back to work full time after this is over, and I don’t know what I WANT to do. How do I go about discovering this? I don’t have the money to commit to counseling, and our insurance barely covers it, so I’ve been trying to read all the books that I can, and do all the exercises within, but with regard to work, the books come up short.

College was never discussed in our house, as we were all just trying to SURVIVE the chaos, and I never got a chance to really think about what I want to do with my life. No one ever asked me as a serious question about what I wanted to do “when I grew up”.. I don’t really know what types of things interest me, and have spent the last 15 yrs bouncing around different careers and hobbies.

My adult life has been spent taking care of the needs of my mom with her mental illness and now with her cancer, although this sounds morbid, now that she’s coming to the end of her life, I will now have a chance to pursue a real career, and my husband wants me to do so, but it’s terrifying to commit to spending all that money on college with no real plan in place.

It was great you had company and were able to stand up for yourselves. I can relate because I have never been a favorite and if the boss did like me to start with someone managed to falsely turn them against me. I have had some horrific experiences in my jobs where narcissist, bully-type people have made my life hell. I had to resign. I stuck it out as long as I could but my health was failing. I am a CEN but have learned a lot of skills but nothing seems to be reliable. I treat people well, I am quiet, respectful but people walk all over me. Others get away with murder. Calling off sick, being careless, constantly using cellphone etc. I don’t do any of these things but still find myself in trouble. If there is nothing they can find fault with then I take the blame for others’ problems. I am totally anguished over it. Sometimes, I try to speak up. Sometimes I bottle it up but in the end the whole thing turns into a meltdown because I can no longer deal with it. I either sneak away which is becoming the norm for me now or I find a way to resign because in the past they ended up discharging me. I don’t want that to happen again because I was doing my job above and beyond which I will not do any more.

I absolutely see myself in this article. I never use up my vacation days, have received numerous awards at work, never ask for anything and always receive great performance reviews. However, I have always been convinced that they are going to fire me at any moment. It is sad what a dysfunctional childhood can do to someones confidence.

Everything I read on your web page helps me so much. I grew up with 2 alcoholic abusive parents. Neglect was just one of the many things my siblings and I dealt with.

I never turned out like my parents. I have raised 2 wonderful children into adult hood and I am so proud of them. However, the pain of childhood revisits me often. This web page, along with a wonderful therapist has truly been a life saver for me.

Keith

Good for you for speaking up! Every time you override that CEN voice it gets weaker. You will do great tomorrow.