Does anyone hate being a woman?

[Lea101]

Lea,

I just wanted to tell you, periods don't have to be painful at all.  Many women have found not to have problems with their period anymore once they changed their diet and got some exercise.    I said this before, but I can't stress enough to look into things you can change in your life that can make your period very tolerable.  I used to suffer greatly when I was younger with it, but changing my diet and adding a bit of exercise helped a lot.   Cutting out all caffeine and sugar- especially the last half of your cycle really helps.   Soak in some epsom salts in your warm bath water on bad days.  Take supplements.

I have heard it said that women just accept that a period has to be bad, but truthfully, once you start really taking care of your body, it can be fairly easy time.

Sadly I’ve learned too being very stressed can make for a bad period. There is not much we can do about stress other than to find ways to relax- which you should do. Take care of your body! You only have one!

I’ve had some success when I was obsessed with eating healthy and exercising. So yup, you’re right. Caffeine and sugar are the only things that make life tolerable though
I have simply no motivation to take care of my body at the moment (I really don’t feel the need to live longer), so I guess that’s why I have been complaining about that? Besides the cramps, the mood swings suck too (as you can see from my other posts!)

(And ohmygoodness I am not depressed by the way, I am now aware of how depressing my posts have been, it’s just me venting all of the things I wouldn’t say to anyone I know in real life!)

 

[Sarcelle]

By the way, you remind me of myself when I was your age. I could have written your post at eighteen.

I was too skinny and clumsy and people called me Olive Oyl, after Popeye’s girlfriend. That stung.

 

[Lea101]

I know where you are coming from and I am much older than you are. Believe me, it gets easier as you get older. Strive for spiritual growth through prayer. Once you immerse yourself in the spiritual you will see the world more clearly with all its good and bad and your attitude towards what is important will change. I pray that you in time find peace as it seems you seem to be in turmoil. Maybe you are undergoing growing pains?

I am finding it very difficult to pray without scolding and nagging at God like an angry mother. Except that I’m not I don’t really understand though, I was perfectly fine. It was only a few days ago when I felt so enraged at God?

 

[Sarcelle]

I am finding it very difficult to pray without scolding and nagging at God like an angry mother. Except that I’m not I don’t really understand though, I was perfectly fine. It was only a few days ago when I felt so enraged at God?

Feelings come and go. A priest once told me it is okay to be angry at God. The bigger offense against God is indifference.

I too find it difficult at times to pray without sounding like a whining toddler.

 

[Vivian42]

Oh no, no lists for me. Our class did that and I could easily write all the negative traits and ended up writing one positive. And that positive trait wasn’t thaat special. It was a disaster for me and many girls in my class. Our poor teacher told us to throw the list away and never bring it up again

& I don’t see them as mean or close-minded. I mean, they don’t taunt, they are just aware that I look different, which hurts me because I would like to think I am not. I mean it is common sense to keep your mouth shut and not point out anything, but oh well.

And all the best xx, school is a pain in the butt. Singapore is the worst place to be if you are not into STEM subjects. I am pretty sure I picked the worst career path ever :banghead:

Bad move . The teacher shouldn’t have done so . As long as you think you’re terrible OF COURSE you won’t be able to find anything positive about yourself. That’s what I’m asking you to change : your perspective. Look at everybody around you. Note their good and their bad traits. I started analyzing people like that a year or so ago . Everyone is a mix of good and bad - not a single exception.

The people that make such remarks are most certainly uneducated. This opens many possibilities of bad behavior.

How about what I said about you at the ending of my post? Don’t you think that’s something good about yourself, that you’re able to question the world around you and ultimately try to understand it? I think that tells a lot.

 

[Lea101]

No. I love being a woman. I always have. Periods and pregnancy and the pain of childbirth are just the burden that goes along with the privilege of being a woman.

Women, by their feminine essence, add beauty and a softness to the world in a way that only a woman can. God made us that way.

Think of a little girl twirling in her Easter dress, or a big girl with long sturdy arms and legs climbing trees, or a young lady playing little mommy with a toddler. (Okay, maybe I am describing my own daughters here, and how I see them, but my points still are valid )

I love that about other women. I think women are pretty damn amazing. But I’m a mess! I don’t feel like I represent women well. I’m what you call a “stubborn, clumsy b****”

 

[Lea101]

Bad move . The teacher shouldn’t have done so . As long as you think you’re terrible OF COURSE you won’t be able to find anything positive about yourself. That’s what I’m asking you to change : your perspective. Look at everybody around you. Note their good and their bad traits. I started analyzing people like that a year or so ago . Everyone is a mix of good and bad - not a single exception.

The people that make such remarks are most certainly uneducated. This opens many possibilities of bad behavior.

How about what I said about you at the ending of my post? Don’t you think that’s something good about yourself, that you’re able to question the world around you and ultimately try to understand it? I think that tells a lot.

How do you change your perspective though? I always feel like I’m lying to myself. I can see the good and bad in others objectively. And I believe I do the same to myself, although some might disagree.

& and in reference to what you said about me, how did you come up with that conclusion? I have been nothing but whiny in my posts here
And I believe we all have that quality, it’s nothing special. Look at everyone on this forum, for instance. Full of bright people!

 

[Lea101]

Feelings come and go. A priest once told me it is okay to be angry at God. The bigger offense against God is indifference.

I too find it difficult at times to pray without sounding like a whining toddler.

A priest told me the same thing actually, when my mother passed on. But don’t you imagine tapping his foot and thinking “just you wait, young lady” whenever you say something that isn’t so nice? I know I do

 

[Lea101]

By the way, you remind me of myself when I was your age. I could have written your post at eighteen.

I was too skinny and clumsy and people called me Olive Oyl, after Popeye’s girlfriend. That stung.

Sorry about that

 

[SilverShadow22]

I don’t think my secrets are the worst or that being pretty solves everything. What I meant to say that being pretty would solve most of my problems now, like how maybe being smarter/richer/kinder/ etc would solve someone’s problems!

And I’m sorry you had to go through that, you are loved by us

INFJs come out of the woodwork around me, wow. All my friends are xNFJ. No, that isn’t a male personality, but it is somewhat rare. It gives you a mix of qualities that a lot of people don’t understand, and makes you sensitive and self-giving, while also allowing the capacity to give time and energy to others until you wear yourself out.

I, too, am interesting in psychology, because that’s a verifiable abyss of information - never an end to what you could theoretically learn. I think it is a fine goal. It will be an appropriate outlet for your desire to help people.

Sounds like your father is right up there with mine. I’m not sure what to say about an actual inborn ‘deformity’, if that’s truly what you mean. I’ve run across people with very noticeable things that are, shall we say, amiss, and they have jobs and go out in public and seem well-adjusted, but I guess I don’t really know. I don’t see anyone making comments or anything… I guess it’s a stickier situation if people can’t tell if maybe you’ve been hurt… Sounds like they’re genuinely concerned, but I completely understand how you don’t want attention drawn to yourself in such a manner.

I don’t know what to say other than, own it. This is you, this is how it is, if they have a problem, it’s their problem.

 

[Sarcelle]

I love that about other women. I think women are pretty damn amazing. But I’m a mess! I don’t feel like I represent women well. I’m what you call a “stubborn, clumsy b****”

Yes, I hear you.
Pretty much a lot of women feel insecure in their own femininity. Especially for Catholic women who feel they must be beautiful, married and mother of at least a dozen children. There seems to be like this unattainable ideal out there that we feel we must attain if we are to be called real Catholic women. If you are single, or married with no to few kids, a working mom, you feel you are not up to snuff.

 

[Lea101]

Yes, I hear you.
Pretty much a lot of women feel insecure in their own femininity. Especially for Catholic women who feel they must be beautiful, married and mother of at least a dozen children. There seems to be like this unattainable ideal out there that we feel we must attain if we are to be called real Catholic women. If you are single, or married with no to few kids, a working mom, you feel you are not up to snuff.

Ahh ikr. If you’re not a mom, the next best thing is a virgin. Motherhood and virginity are soo valued. Makes me feel sorry for single women who have had sex before? I mean the woman that has the highest honor is both a mother and a virgin!

 

[SilverShadow22]

No, I don’t think the church is telling everyone they need to be a mother, or otherwise a religious…I think they’re just trying to uphold these things as good, when the world is so badly devaluing both of them.

All I ever wanted was to get married. I tried, I waited, I tried, I waited… To no avail.

When I fail at something for long enough, I define it out of existence. I’m now to the point where I’m killing that dream and rejecting it. Maybe it was never my real dream at all.

My best friend has one more year of school left, then she’ll be in a position to make more money, and since I’ll be saving and taking online classes in the meantime, in about two years, we should be able to afford a house together.

I want to try being single, on my own, but not ALONE. I want to do something I can actually believe I can achieve. Maybe I shouldn’t define my dreams down, but this alternate dream is something I actually want, too.

 

[Lea101]

No, I don’t think the church is telling everyone they need to be a mother, or otherwise a religious…I think they’re just trying to uphold these things as good, when the world is so badly devaluing both of them.

All I ever wanted was to get married. I tried, I waited, I tried, I waited… To no avail.

When I fail at something for long enough, I define it out of existence. I’m now to the point where I’m killing that dream and rejecting it. Maybe it was never my real dream at all.

My best friend has one more year of school left, then she’ll be in a position to make more money, and since I’ll be saving and taking online classes in the meantime, in about two years, we should be able to afford a house together.

I want to try being single, on my own, but not ALONE. I want to do something I can actually believe I can achieve. Maybe I shouldn’t define my dreams down, but this alternate dream is something I actually want, too.

Why on earth can I relate to you so much? I just got out of a girls’ school and I am so upset about my future! I want to get married, but I know perfect guys do not exist. And I cannot imagine spending the rest of my life with someone that could make me miserable. And if perfect guys are real, they’ll ask me for my friend’s number. Oh well. Now I’m wondering if I actually want marriage at all. I definitely don’t want to be single though. Maybe I’ll have an early death? God knows. I just wish he could actually reply instead of smiling quietly to himself from up there, you know.

 

[SilverShadow22]

Why on earth can I relate to you so much?

Partially because INTPs and INFJs are destined friends. We click on the level of mental functions. Because my best friend in an INFJ and I’ve spent my whole life trying to understand her, and we can spill our hearts to each other when we can tell no one else.

Because I recognize echoes of myself in you.

 

[Lea101]

Partially because INTPs and INFJs are destined friends. We click on the level of mental functions. Because my best friend in an INFJ and I’ve spent my whole life trying to understand her, and we can spill our hearts to each other when we can tell no one else.

Because I recognize echoes of myself in you.

If only I can find INTPs in real life

 

[jmjZelie]

I love that about other women. I think women are pretty damn amazing. But I’m a mess! I don’t feel like I represent women well. I’m what you call a “stubborn, clumsy b****”

Okay now wait a minute. This post just breaks my heart.

Lea, you are a few years older than my oldest daughter. I cannot imagine her saying something so awful about herself as you have said about yourself here. When I try to imagine it, it makes me cry.

Never ever ever engage in abusive self-talk like that, please. Never ever call yourself vile names. And most importantly, never even think that or believe that about yourself.

Imagine for a moment, that you were not you, but you were someone else looking at you. Imagine being in the shoes of someone who cares about you. What would that person say to you right now? Show yourself that same sort of kindness and compassion.

Self-loathing thoughts are offenses not only against yourself, but against all those who love you and against your God, who loved you into being from all eternity. God made you as pleases Him, and you DO please Him. Don’t you know that God is watching over you at every moment? It is not that He is just waiting to catch you being bad, which a lot of people mistakenly assume. No. He is always watching you because He loves you SO much that He cannot take His eyes off of you. And He wants to share with you His own life!

I suspect that you have unwittingly been exposed to a load of cultural garbage about what women are valued for, and it has turned everything upside down. I remember being a teen, and reading magazines, even just the covers, and feeling totally inadequate. And watching TV programs? They proved to me how horrible I was. I only started to heal after I quit the TV and magazines. Our culture and the media is full of poison, for women and men. You cannot consume that poison without dying inside. So please, be kind to yourself and give yourself time and space to heal without TV programs and magazines continuing to harm your soul.

 

[SilverShadow22]

They will be the quiet ones, like you. And if they do talk, it won’t be about chitchat, it’ll be weird, bizarre, interesting things no one else cares about. And a well-adjusted INTP won’t give a thimble for your appearance, they will appreciate candid discussion about things no one else wants to bring up.

I break the stereotype (somewhat) of the sloppy INTP, but you can also keep an eye out for that ‘nerdy’ person who sits quietly by themselves, staring into space, the one who forgets to comb their hair or has the buttons crooked on their shirt.

Honestly, since I somehow attract NFJs, given the opportunity, I think either you’ll find them, or they’ll find you.

 

[SilverShadow22]

Also Lea, I think it’s important to realize that you don’t REALLY hate being female, and you don’t REALLY wish you were a man… First of all, no one can compare it, because no one has ever been fully both. (You can change your appearance via surgery but that doesn’t give you male chromosomes or a male soul and it doesn’t give you the experience of growing up as a male.)

What you actually want is the male standards applied to you, AS A WOMAN. Men don’t have to live up to standards of female beauty - but they have to live up to a different set of standards for men, which you would fail even more spectacularly - because neither you nor your soul is male.

The bottom line here is, you only have to try living up to MORAL standards. Anything society sets as a standard is dull and meaningless by comparison. You don’t have to beat yourself up over not being able to meet standards that have no validity in the first place. Set yourself real, practical, and helpful standards, like finishing school. Learning more about your faith. Praying every day. Something that is actually good, that you can actually do, and forget about the rest.

 

[Sarcelle]

Partially because INTPs and INFJs are destined friends. We click on the level of mental functions. Because my best friend in an INFJ and I’ve spent my whole life trying to understand her, and we can spill our hearts to each other when we can tell no one else.

Because I recognize echoes of myself in you.

Hi, INTJ here. I can relate to you both.