Dear Helcat,

” It is a parent’s job to learn to manage the situation and their own emotions properly instead of blaming the child.”

I am a nanny to a 20 month year old girl right now. I have been a nanny to 5 other families in the past, it was my job of choice through highschool and college. After college I thought I needed a “real” job so I worked for Verizon, a place that I did grow so I know was meant to happen, but overall not the world I belonged in. I know nannying is not the same as mothering, I get to be off the clock and don’t have to take worries home with me. But, I know what you are talking about here! There are moments I just clean something and she spills again, throws food or doesn’t show gratitude for all I do, infact the opposite of gratitude. In these moments I try to find laughter in myself haha, do I expect this child to walk around properly and express gratitude?? that is a ridiculous image haha. But in these moments I am also reminded that my dad did, he blamed me for being a child. It is hard to imagine a father treating his daughter this way :/ it makes me very sad. I would like to believe that treating this little girl with love through child behavior, can be healing for me in some way?

“You deserved to feel safe, happy and loved in your own home. Such difficult circumstances that you had to grow up in.”

I have heard that having understanding for an abuser can be harmful for us.. I wonder if this is true? Because although I agree, it was a grim childhood in relation to him. I also think of the time he raised me, 2008 starting his own business, 4 kids to provide for while he made no profits for a year while his new business was sinking. Somehow still able to afford the expensive soccer team I was on, have food on the table and have cars for him and my mom. We never lost our house, like many of my friends did. I always had my own room! Is it damaging for me to have sympathy for him? It doesn’t justify his behavior once he got home, but I can understand his lack of energy. And his why he was annoyed at child behavior, we did not thank him when he got home every night, because we were children and didn’t know what he was dealing with at all just to keep us safe in a home with food.

However, and at the risk of sounding incredibly ungrateful and ignorant, I think i would have preferred losing our house and living with less if it meant I got to have a more joyful dad…

“My instincts are pessimistic and say that your instincts are correct about the gaslighting.”

I feel like the answer is both of what you are saying and what Anita said. He is changing the rules on me, and gaslighting me because he is uncomfortable with the image of himself as, Anita put it, a stingy scrooge.

“Has your father ever behaved like that at all before?”

Not in my childhood no. He would always find something wrong. But the thing is, that might be making him change the rules… is that I have become more articulate with my words. I have never typed in words my hyper-vigilance, perhaps seeing it on paper held up a mirror to himself. In my relationship with him, I see a seaturtle with tape over her mouth, tape she saw but didn’t know how to remove. Tape that gave him all the opportunity to speak and not have to hear any opposition, so he just kept criticizing because I just took it.

“I don’t know if you knew she had ADHD before this conversation or if you know much about ADHD as a condition?”

This is very interesting for me to reflect on lately. Because I have been friends with her for so long, and to her credit she has always been this way, so why am I only now bothered by it?  I think it is similar to what I wrote above about my dad. She has been critical of me to a small degree, she just “speaks her mind” as she puts it, but she will be rude like ask me why I still have clothes from 8th grade, “what are you wearing?” or just make fun of me and my style. But I think, because of how extremely critical my dad was, it was not only comforting for me to be criticized, but hers was such a superficial degree that I didn’t see it as a problem. Like I said above, there was tape over my mouth for alot of my childhood, I did not know how to express myself and I thought I couldn’t see myself..cause my dad convinced me I couldn’t. Now that I see myself better, there are things I am now noticing she says that I want to say “no that is false.” But she is unfamiliar with me being assertive, self aware and confident. She talked over me with her ADHD all the time growing up, but I didn’t think I had valid things to say so her filling the air was just comfortable. Now I want to speak more, I have things to say that I feel like are over-due and this is making me realize how much she talks because it is hard for me to get a word out.

“I think a difficulty for you may be that as you have said you try really hard to work on yourself. It isn’t easy the work you are doing but you are doing amazingly and should be proud of yourself. Understandably, you feel like she should try to and see her as an equal in this way…I also think that her being triggered and her comments about her feelings could be hurtful to you? Do you feel hurt by her?”

Yes, and what bothers me is as I am trying to work on myself, like I have told her, she says she is too. But I see the situations she puts herself in and I just don’t know if I believe her. But like it says in the bible, it is easier to see a splinter in someone else’s eye, when there is a log in your own. I know this judgemental view of her is not helpful, but it is hard for me to get rid of when I see contradictions in real time. Her comment that I lacked empathy as a person, hurt me. Because I know I am an empathic person, and the fact she doesn’t see that, hurts me. But it also makes sense that she can’t see it because I don’t have alot for her situation because, to me, it is so obviously an abusive relationship she entered into. Also what contributes to my lack of empathy for her situation is I removed myself from the relationship that was harmful to me, but she complains and yet remains with him…

“The problem isn’t really the ADHD, it is the depression.”

I do empathize with her depression, and I told her this. Because no matter how it got there, being in it is not easy and I understand that part. That is what makes the excessive talking so negative, which highlights the amount of talking because it is heavier.

“For both of you right now, it can be difficult to show someone empathy when you are feeling defensive. What do you think?”

Yes agreed. When you said she didn’t show empathy for my situation, I didn’t think of that, but it’s true. She didn’t see how my position, of being on the receiving end of her negativity, is heavy. Something she kept saying that hurt me too was “ok well I guess I just have to walk on egg shells with you now which is fine but it hurts cause you are my best-friend and one of the only people I confide in.” What she doesn’t understand is how much negativity it is, because I am willing to be there for a friend but she is cannot acknowledge that she very heavy with negativity right now given the volume of her words. Also she is unaware if she thinks I am one of the only people she confides in, when I introduce her to people she talks about all the same stuff she tells me. My roommate, when introduced even pointed this out to me, how much she complained. I wanted to tell this to P when she said no one else has told her this but me, but my roommate asked me not to.

I am feeling self conscious about this thread being all about me and my problems… I am growing so much from all the feedback, but my fear of my authentic self being selfish is kicking in and I don’t know how to resolve it.

Seaturtle