Dear ninibee:

I can relate to you feeling shame for what you posted in previous threads and avoiding re-reading those posts. I felt uncomfortable this morning re-reading my old replies to you, November 2019- March 2020: I came across cold/ unempathetic, business-like, sometimes impatient, somewhat angry, and too confident. I am surprised that you put up with me for as long as you did. Back then, I apologized to you for having been impatient, but I can see now, that following my apology, I continued to  come across as cold and unempathetic.

I am glad that I made progress since March last year. I am still inclined to be academic/ business-like, still inclined to not express softness/ empathy, but way less. In the past, I used to experience such intense negative feelings (like you do), wanting to kill myself, etc., that when I felt empathy for another person, it felt too intense/ too painful, so I removed that empathy from my awareness, and adopted that cold, business like style.

Currently, I am able to feel softer emotions, like empathy, not in the intense, overwhelming way as before, so I feel it long enough to express it. It still surprises me, it being a new way of experiencing life and a new way of interacting with people.

(Also, I was used to my mother’s kind of empathy for other people: superficial and insincere. I didn’t want to be like her and thought of my coldness/ harshness as being sincere).

This morning, I re-read much of what you shared, and I want  to retell just a bit of it. I know you wrote that you are afraid to look at what you posted, and I will keep it in mind and will retell only a bit of what you shared before, except for the topic of your childhood- I will elaborate on that one.

One more thing before the retelling: when I started to re-read your posts this morning, I was impressed by how intelligent and educated you come across at such a young age, being 21 when you first posted. I was also impressed by your perseverance, you kept posting even though the subject matter was difficult, and even though I was mostly cold, unempathetic, and impatient.

Some retelling: in November 2019, you were 21, attending college, but failing classes and dropping classes midway, barely did an hour or two of work in a day, spent a lot of time doing online shopping, watching YouTube videos, etc., or just lying around in bed, your apartment was a mess, half unpacked (boxes lying around), unwashed dishes in the sink, and your overall feel was: “I do nothing and offer nothing”.

About your childhood: today, as I read about your mother, it’s clear to me that she has been extremely self-centered, thinking, feeling  and behaving as if… there is no one in the world other than herself, no space in her mind for any other person, but herself. Growing up with that for a mother, there was no space for you: no space for your thoughts, your feelings and your experience of life.

When you lived with your parents before leaving for college, you kept away from your mother as much as possible, not wanting her to see you, so you stayed in your room and came out to the kitchen only when you heard no sounds indicating that she was around. When you were in the backyard, you were very uncomfortable at the thought that she may be seeing you from the kitchen window, “I felt very nervous and uncomfortable to be seen by her”, you wrote back then.

This is so, I believe, because she had let you know many, many times, that what she saw when she looked at you was not acceptable.

It is not that your mother believes that she is so great: she rejects a lot about her own self. But unaware that she is rejecting a lot about herself, she rejects a lot about you.

Let’s look at what happened when you tried to communicate with her regarding her complaints that you were cruel to her:  “I tried to explain that I was being rude because I felt defensive… and I would tell her that I felt hurt by her”. Her response: “she would ask ‘why do you need to be defensive?… I hurt you? You hurt me! You need to stop hurting me”!-

– You tried to have a meeting of the minds with her, being honest about how you felt and what motivated your behavior toward her. She automatically rejected your honesty, not considering what you said at all, not for a moment. All she heard was that some thing out there said that she (your mother) was offensive. She then immediately jumped to attack the perceived attacker: I am not offensive, you are!

I wrote above that she heard “some thing out there” because she did not view you (or any other person, I imagine) as a person who is entitled to her own thoughts and feelings. For her, other people are.. things that are not entitled to have their own thoughts, opinions, preferences, likes, dislikes, etc. In her world, she is the only person.

No wonder you had a hard time connecting with her, no wonder you argued with her a lot, no wonder you tried to not cross paths with her.

Back in 2019, you still tried to connect with her. You gave an example of such an effort: you wanted a new coat, so you sent her photos of coats you liked. Her response: she did not respond to any of the photos you sent. Instead, “she only responded with coats she liked“. You then tried to again bring up the coats you liked. Her response: “she would just ignore me”. Your response to her ignoring you: “I ended up picking out a coat I knew she would like so that she would approve, even though I do not really like the coat at all”-

– in your mother’s world (which has been your world because you were a child, and worse: her child)- there was no space for you. There was only space for her. And no matter how many times you tried to please her, she never allowed you into her world as a person.

You wrote: “My parents are fairly well off, and provided me with plenty throughout my childhood”,-plenty, except for the space for you to be as a human being! What good is having expensive toys and clothes etc., when a person does not have the space to breathe her own air?!

“From a young age, I can remember hating my mother. I found her repulsive and often outright rejected her”- no wonder you rejected the person who took your air away, who did not let you have the space to just.. be.

“As a child, I often wished my parents would divorce and that my dad would re-marry someone else”- your father might not be a great parent, but he was not as bad as her: he did not suffocate you like she did.

“My fantasy mother is mature and can allow space for me“- you needed space all along, the space to be you.

“My fantasy mother… knows me so well.. not capable as seeing me as ‘bad'”- your fantasy mother (1) knows you, (2) does not sees you as bad.

Your real-life mother did not want to know you- not any more than she wanted to know the parts of herself she wanted to keep hidden. She considered those hidden parts bad, and she considered you bad.

“My fantasy mother.. sees the things I want as valid”- your real-life mother sees what you want, who you are, as invalid, from the coats you like,  to your very soul.

But worse than invalid, she sees you as bad, this is why you didn’t want her to see you, why you stayed in your room and came out when she was not around to see you, and why you felt so anxious about her touching, handling and washing your dirty laundry: “I would hide my dirty laundry.. would feel anxious about her moving my clothes from the washer to the dryer”- your body touched your clothes, and you didn’t want her that close to you.

“My fantasy mother is mature”- your real-life mother is stuck somewhere in early-life development. Reads to me, and I am not a professional, that your mother suffers from a personality disorder, which is pervasive, long-lasting, having originated in her childhood, and unlikely to get better.

Understandingly, you were angry at your mother early on, and your anger showed when you were in Elementary School (“I was in a support group for students with anger management problems in 4th and 5th grade”), and it showed in middle school, and in high school, and still, I imagine. A few of the people you got involved with away from home were rude and crude (a boyfriend that I hope is an ex by now). A few others, I imagine,  were probably okay, but you were too fast to perceive them as offensive and you turned your anger at them.

In February- March 2020, you shared that you felt “very stupid and ashamed” of the posts you submitted, “I do not like reflecting on how stupid I am”, you wrote, and: “Many people tell me I have lots of problems and that I am difficult”-

– sure, I imagine it’s true, just as it has been true about me: I was difficult too, I had lots of anger and I mistreated people who did not really offend me. Like you, I was not born that way, I was made that way because I had the misfortune of being born to my mother, a very disturbed woman suffering from a severe personality disorder.

When a person is mentally healthy, the person is also a good person to oneself and to others. I was neither for many years. I had to take on the long and difficult healing process to heal as much as possible for me, and to become a good person. I hope you take on that healing process as well.

You shared early last year that when you vomited while on an airplane as a baby, you figured your mother’s reaction was: “She was probably horrified and disgusted, and probably took personal offense in the situation… ‘Oh god, how come this happened to me‘ is probably what she was thinking”-

– see, it was all about her all along, from the beginning of your life with her. When you were sick on the airplane, she did not think at all about you and your experience, but about herself and her own experience.

“she generally disapproves of things I do or am interested in. It is a dismissive disapproval… she entirely rejects any idea or interest I have unless is it something she already likes herself or agrees with already.. I was basically entirely rejected by my mother”.

Fast forward a year and a month, April 2021: you live with your mother, living “with unrelenting shame”- it is no surprise.

Clearly, you need to get far, far away from your mother and use your parents’ money to live away from them and to attend quality psychotherapy. Your intelligence and perseverance on your various threads is evidence, in my mind, that you can do a lot of healing and that if you persist, by the time you are in your mid-twenties, you will be in a much, much better place, having your own space, a healthier mental space as well as practically, your own home.

anita