Dear Miss:

“my mom comes in to sabotage me… the interaction leaves me feeling sad, negative, and like she’s laid the hammer down. To stop me…. hacking away at me… It’s like she puts this energy in me, and I can tell I’ll be behaving in a destructive way as a result”-

– “How do I protect myself?”- same way you protect yourself from any person who rains on your parade of life, remove that cloud from its position above you by moving out and no longer living with her, and then, stay away from her, do not volunteer to be in her presence.

A  mother is too much of a powerful figure in her child’s mind and life because a child is being formed during those formative years of childhood with the interactions with her mother integrated into the child’s brain. In other words, however your mother is “hacking away at” you, you are likely to be hacking away at yourself when you are not longer living with her or being in her presence.

So two things are needed: to stop the damage by not being in her presence and then if you find yourself doing her job against yourself, attend quality psychotherapy so to function better and better in life.

anita

My problem comes from anxious thoughts. I have this “friend” although I don’t consider him a friend, I consider him someone I’m nice to because I’m scared of him. He intimidates me. I graduate in 4 months and I feel like I’ve spent parts of my senior year scared of what this boy could do to me. He always has drama, some might consider him a sociopath because he starts random problems and thinks he’s always right. It’s clear that he finds enjoyment out of hurting others emotionally (not physically as far as I know). Basically because I’ve talked to my therapist about this, I want to know what I can do to avoid him for example: starting a rumor about me, making lies about me or twisting stories like he’s done to others. When I graduate I want to block him on everything but I’m scared I could run into him. I wish it was as easy as getting a restraining order but I know that I’d need to prove my reasonings and being that he has not threatened me (yet) there’s nothing I can do. Some example of why I think he will lash out on me some day is, he used to get mad when I wouldn’t hang out with him. I found ways around it through saying I hang out with no one and I’m focusing on school. I just want to know what I can do to get away. He knows something about me that isn’t really that serious and the only reason he knows is because he did this thing and I said that I had a similar situation (I wish I could go back and say that I couldn’t relate). Another friend I had also had the same situation and he knows and he no longer talks to her because she doesn’t like him as a person and he never used this incident against her, but still I worry he might you my situation against me. It’s all really stupid but it’s all he has that he could use against me and he could really twist the story around if he wanted to. So what do I do? Do I stay friends with the person who makes me uncomfortable forever Until I finally move away? Or do I cut him off and face the consequences that could drive my mental health down to a spirally black hole and panic to the point where I’m hospitalized? This is something I think about a lot. Any advice would be great during this time. Thank you.