Dear Kkasxo:

I read your two posts on the other thread as well as the one here.

“I lost myself trying to please everyone else and now I’m losing everyone as I attempt to find myself again” is indeed a very telling sentence.

This is my best understanding at this point: your mother had her own childhood experience, one that had war in it, maybe lack of food, experiences that you didn’t have, so she figured (as do so many, many parents) that because you grew up without war and without the absence of necessities such as food and shelter, that you had a good life.

Like you wrote: “she’s unable to understand… She doesn’t quite get it”.

She sees trauma as war, whatever she experienced, she doesn’t see your experience as traumatic, or such that justifies causing you so much pain. Like you wrote, “maybe she doesn’t see my trauma as a good enough reason to actually be suffering this much”.

Believing that what you experience in life doesn’t justify your distress means she is lacking empathy for you as well as understanding of you and your situation. But this is not something new, you are just starting to see it now, but it has been so for a long, long time. For example, insisting that your biological father visits you even though you felt hurt and disappointed every time he was late or didn’t show up, she didn’t feel then that hurt or disappointment on your part is justified, so she didn’t feel empathy for the young girl that you were, waiting, hurt and disappointed.

If she felt empathy for the girl that you were waiting for your bio father as he was repeatedly late or didn’t show up, she would have ended his involvement in your life.

What often happens to a child growing up with no empathy or inadequate empathy is that the child becomes very empathetic. It is like a plant growing in poor quality soil, with little water and nourishment, so it grows longer and longer roots trying to reach water and nourishment.

Growing deeper and deeper roots is the “trying to please everyone else” part of your profound sentence, as well as you sharing early on that you are a giving person, giving and giving to others. You were trying to reach people’s empathy and understanding which you lacked at home.

I have more thoughts, but would like to take a break and ask you what you think so far about what I wrote?

anita