Yeah, I struggle with this a lot! My SO says the main reason I have not excelled in my career and become a famous person is because I don't think I can. Of course he also adds that if I'm happy where I am at, then he's fine with that! But he is spot on, I don't think I could, and I wouldn't deserve it if I was.
I often feel weird, different, broken, and not normal at all. I am often plauged by thoughts of being worthless. I haven't figured out how to stop that, I just accept it as being how I am that moment, and try and think of all the reasons it isn't true! Sometimes works.

I don't feel like I'm damaged I seriously believe I am.. I am the poster child for abuse... I was going to go into a huge story of my tragic life but choose not to....It is sad though when I think about it.. It is hard to talk about even acknowledge that it happened... I guess I'm not handling it... I isolate myself and believe it or not this is my social life I don't go anywhere and I had one friend but she died.. I carry my head like a mace..Dope was my equalizer for 22 year's and I've been sober now 3 and 1/2 year's.. I hate my emotion's they are unpredictable..Sorry this sound's more like a complaint.... My childhood was taken and my life as an adult is still in that moment... I get it when you said "it's difficult to overcome these core feelings" I never felt my life was mine and often welcomed death.

IM SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ON THE SAME WAVE LENGHT AS ATHANASIABLUE AND COUNTRYWOMAN. I FEEL WORTHLESS STUPID AND KNOW ONE WOULD EVER KNOW OR CARE IF I DIED OR WERE DEAD .. !!! I TO HATE MY EMOTION'S..!! AS I SAY IM NUMB BUT DEAD INSIDE... AND HOW DO YOU EVER LEARN TO TRUST AGAIN...? X;/DC.

It just breaks my heart in a million pieces to see that it should be the victims that would feel abnormal and worthless, carrying all the negative images towards themselves. Wouldn't it be more in it's proper place that these sentiments should belong to the abusers. After all they are the ones that really did any of the wrongs. Why do we accept to carry these as our own, as if we were entitled to them?

We accept them because it feels safer if we do - it feels like we have some control, which we obviously didn't. But it's hard to accept that we were powerless.

I'm just now finally understanding this about myself...why I eventually fail at so many things despite putting so much effort into them.

I think it's like brainwashing...we've been indoctrinated to believe we are weak and worthless by someone who boosted their own ego by undermining and invalidating ours. Sort of like a parent in reverse...they constantly worked at undermining us instead of trying to support us and boost us up like a parent normally does out of instinct.

It is pretty sad, I've always suffered with lack of self confidence, I think another aspect is our lack of social skills so even if you have the confidence to get training like I did, I didn't have the social skills to do well in the interviews for professional jobs. Also most of the abusers don't see that they did anything wrong, I can't tell you how many times my parents have complained that hardly any of their kids ever amounted to anything, they certainly never connected the dots to it even possibly being the result of bad parenting.

I can only say that I agree and have had the same experiences. My counselor says that my parents did allot of damage, my mom though not part of the abuse, learned emotional manipulation from my father, she taught it to her children, now I recognize it and almost laugh when it has no affect on me. She never told us we would never amount to anything, my peers in school did that.

I felt damaged, worthless, but when I began to set goals and accomplish them, I felt bad for even listening to those who told me I could never amount to anything.

my Mother used to tell me I would forget my head if it wasn't attached to me. She didn't or couldn't understand that I was stupid or forgetful, it was that I had created an entire fantasy life in my head, and I would completely zone out and daydream about it. Looking over my old report cards, my grades were ok, but my 2nd grade teacher wrote about my lack of focus and daydreaming.

I am so there with Joyce2001 & MrEthereal. My mother (herself a victim of molestation) physically & emotionally abused us, but what made it worse was the social aspect. We (sorry, I'm a twin and almost all of my childhood memories are "we" or "us") were mercilessly bullied all through school. I remember sitting in one of those desks where the chair is attached and having the whole desk picked up by two guys and shaken -- for no reason other than they could! I also remember getting suspended for using my fingernails as defence when one girl wouldn't leave me alone. Not being accepted at school or at home, not having a refuge from abuse at either place, really screws a person up. The idea of "feeling" damaged isn't just a feeling -- it's real damage. I feel socially incompetent unless I have a specific task to accomplish (taking pics, taking care of kids, etc.) It's a very rare day that goes by that I don't end up with nail marks in my palms because that's the only self-injury I can think of that doesn't leave evidence behind. I try to act as "normal" as possible for my kids' sake, but it's not easy!

Imagine the following scenario: You have an old sleeping and you decide to buy a new one because it's on sale at a store. Then you decide to take your old sleeping bag, which is still usable, and give it to a homeless man or woman, telling him or her to simply do the same for another person someday in the future.

Here's the question for you: Are you useless to that homeless person? No; you are certainly a worthwhile person to him or her. Now you may have forgotten, but you have done good in your life that makes you a worthwhile person. If you go to a store and buy something, you are helping to keep the people at the store employed. If you have a pet, you are helping that animal be fed and housed and cared for. The fact is that nearly everything you do helps others in some way. So, just from that standpoint, you are a good and worthwhile human being.

As far as being damaged goes, someone once said that life wounds us all. That is not meant to make your suffering any less important, it just helps to make the point that we are all of us made from durable stuff. We fall down and we get back up - again and again. Your ancestors had to endure diseases and accidents and death rates far higher than we do today. As a descendant of them, you inherited their strength, intelligence, and resilience. No matter what was done to you, you can bounce back. You can be like the little bird, who even after a terrible storm, perches on a twig and sings its heart out for all the world to hear. Your broken wing will heal and you will learn to fly again or even for the very first time.

I do think I'm damaged but not so much because of words, but from being around actions of my mother and fathers marriage. It's really warped my inside feelings and perception of a healthy relationship. It's also made me very needy and jealous. It's hard for me to open up to people and when I do now currently, I shut down. I have such a hard time sharing my feelings with others that I'm starting to alienate myself and only talking with people openly online, and that's NOT healthy at all. It's making me VERY sad because I have NO ONE I can confide in AT ALL about how I feel in person and it's murder on me.... The domestic abuse has really fucked me. I even had a one night stand out of stupidity and that's not like me AT ALL. I don't want to become a complete mess. I have to get a control of my emotions before they do me and before something happens to that could ruin my life.

The strange thing for me is that I originally had no feelings of being damaged in a negative manner. I always suspected that I might need therapy as an adult or in my teens, but I didn't feel guilty or ostracized. It was only after things like suggestions from a friend that I "keep it to [myself]" (as not to scare off boyfriends) that I started feeling damaged. Friends would tell me that it was the kind of thing you "hide so people will think you're normal". After telling people (especially boyfriends), they would then act like every time I cried, was upset, was angry, or otherwise emotional, it was because I was damaged, had no sense of rationality, and didn't know how to be healthy because I had been raped at a young age. I often refer to myself as the bruised and neglected fruit at the grocery store that no one wants in their cart.