Dear sossi:

“So you think that everything I do and all the experiences I have now are basically stemming from the difficult relationship with my mother? I see the point. Maybe.. its hard to correlate for me but i can see what you mean“-

– For a child through adulthood, an ongoing, years and decades long (5th decade in your case) difficult relationship with one’s mother is very powerful, and significantly affects one’s mind, heart and life circumstances. It is not that “everything” that you do, and “all” your experiences are stemming from that difficult, and still ongoing relationship, but a lot that you do and experience is stemming from that difficult relationship.

For example, in your post yesterday, you wrote: “I’m feeling successful and confident….people feel its unfair somehow”- this is how your mother responded to you feeling successful and confident. For example: when you brought boyfriends home and when you told her about the home renovations you accomplished, she stole your boyfriends’ attention away from you and she stole your good feelings regarding the home renovations. So.. fast forward, everyone is your mother.

Thing is the kind of business you are in really is very competitive and your workplace reads toxic, and these two things have nothing to do with your difficult relationship with your mother. If it is impossible to do this job and be mentally and physically healthy, then you should remove yourself from the business and/ or from that workplace. The fact that you keep working there ad paying for it with your health is a consequence of your difficult relationship with your mother. For one, you shared recently that she has been discouraging you from quitting the job, no matter the costs to your health.

“I know very well how that felt (being very happy or feeling accomplished) and then to see the look on someone´s face and immediately feel guilty and that it would be better if they feel happy or confusion, why aren’t they happy for me? To feel a sense that somehow my fortune was damaging to others“- this is your experience with your mother. I am not making this up, it is you who shared about it. Why isn’t she happy for you? Because in her mind either you are happy OR she is happy, can’t be both.

“The thing is this….I also see what my father´s behaviour created because he would be the first to bend over backwards to make my mother feel better, at the expense of us or anyone else around them“- he is playing by your mother’s rules, for her to feel better, someone has to feel worse, someone has to pay.

We children through adulthood tend to think that our mothers are on our side, because they are supposed to.. we don’t really get it when they are not on our side, and we keep acting as if they are on our side.

anita