Dear Milda:

You are welcome!

“I am as scared, with fear and in danger as a little child…  I feel the same and I let those thoughts and emotions control me the exact same way that it did when I was a child- keeping mom’s company, cheering her up, comforting her and doing everything I can to fix the situation and how mom is feeling“-

-your healing will take removing your focus from how your mother is feeling to how you are feeling, and it will take lessening your fear (via emotion regulation skills).

Because as a child you needed to look up to an adult for safety, and the adult available to you was your mother.. she was your hope for safety. So, you focused on her, and you tried the best you could to fix her (and the situation) so that she can become the adult that you needed her to be. Focusing on her became a mental-emotional habit. This habit needs to change, but like any kind of habit, it is not easy to change.. but it is possible.

“Actually another problem there is that I have an older sister…  I decided not to talk with her and just delete her from my life as she was giving only negative emotions to me“- it was possible for you to delete your older sister from your life because while you were growing up, you didn’t look up to her as your hope for safety, or as a significant hope for safety. On the other hand, it will be very, very difficult, if not impossible, for you to delete your mother from your life because (to the child within you), she is still your primary hope for safety (this is why you still focus on her).

“But mother used to say to me, that I have to talk to sister, I have to fix this, I never understood why. I never understood why do I have to fix deep family problems“- because your mother (and father) didn’t feel capable of fixing deep family problems.. and didn’t.. and someone had to.

“because none of the parents were/are in adult role, they always step back and do nothing, waiting for me to fix family problems. I feel a huge guilt inside of me that I am not trying to fix anything, because living without my sister in my life is all good to me, I never miss her, but seeing that my mother is devastated because of that makes me want to comfort her and get back with my sister JUST BECAUSE OF HER, not because I WANT IT. This constant feeling that I have to  shape my life somehow in order for my mother to feel good is exhausting me”-

– it is exhausting to regularly FOCUS on someone else’s feelings and function instead of focusing on your own. Imagine you are on the driver seat of your car: You know your destination. You want to turn right=> you turn right. You want to turn left=> you turn left. You want to avoid a collision=> you avoid it. You want to park=> you park.

Now, imagine that you are on the passenger seat of your car and your mother is on the driver seat. She doesn’t know where she wants to go, so you try to help her figure it out: do you want to go shopping? Do you want to go to the doctor’s?, etc. Let’s say she says she wants to go shopping, but she doesn’t know where to shop, so you try to help her figure it out: do you want to shop for food? For clothes?, etc. She looks tired as she drives and you watch her anxiously: you are afraid that she’ll get into a collision with another car, so you try to warn her, maybe you hand her a bottle of cold water to keep her awake, or turn on the air conditioning to make her more alert…

It is all very exhausting, isn’t it, to have someone else in the driver seat of  your car. It’d be so much easier to take the driver’s seat of your own car/ your own life.

“I do not want to feel the guilt“- it will take you taking the driver seat of your car/ focusing primarily on your life while feeling guilty. (Practicing emotion regulation skills will help ease up the guilt a bit).

“I try to understand that family problems are not for me to fix, and because I was doing that for so long from a very young age (comforting everyone in the family), my parents got used to that and they are always waiting for me to care for them and help them”-

– you got used to trying to fix family problems and comfort everyone in the family, a habit still fueled by guilt, a long-term habit, from a very young age… a habit that will be difficult to change.

“I feel so sad for that, always scared when I see my mother calling me“- there is an association, in your brain, between your mother calling you and fear.

“(I) just want to be in peace. But I do not feel the peace as I never felt it in my childhood. What are your thoughts on that?”- all your efforts as a child to bring peace to yourself failed (understandably, as it was mission impossible).

“What is the deeper work you think I should do on myself?”- start with committing to no longer do what has proven- long term- to fail.

“I see myself as a highly sensitive, emphatic person, being in a reverse role in my family and it is draining me completely. Is there an way of changing this role reverse?”-

– it will be easier to change it in the context of your parents if you no longer had contact with your then because they are still fueling your old, long-term habit of trying (and failing) to fix their problems. But of course, Guilt (with a capital G) is in the way.

“Do I have a chance of living my life as a child and not as parents’ (more mother’s) emotional support?”- when you say “living your life as a child”, you mean while having contact and interacting with your mother? Can you elaborate on this question?

anita