Hi Tee,

Has your mother (or father) ever told you that you are making a big deal out of nothing and that you surely cannot be as hurt as you are claiming to be? Have they tried to deny your experience and tell you that you are too sensitive and/or faking being hurt?

I think what I learned is that I do this by intention. That’s probably why I feel guilty.

Anyway, now you are an adult, and you’ll have to create that anchor, i.e. that strong “mother”, within yourself. You shouldn’t wait for your mother to change and become the source of that strength and support – you need to create it in yourself.

I want to give that to me and I don’t know how. I wanna take responsibility. All I can give is to give space to me and it seem I can’t get enough of it and have no control except that it always works out somehow. My dad turns 60 and throws a big party I made shure I have time  and I really want to go but right know it feels like I can’t go. Now I’m creating space for that.

Give yourself encouragement, or seek encouragement (for the things you’d like to achieve) outside of your parents. You can seek it in coaches, therapists, support groups, people who are already doing what you want to do. You need to find an anchor elsewhere and stop expecting her to give you that strength and courage (or whatever quality you feel you are missing).

I’m not expecting that conscious. I think my parents have not much capacity to care for me or they expect me to ask which I don’t do. I think about seeking help and sometimes I did as when I did this post. It takes long and at least I talk to people that I do not have  many impulses to seek help.r I’d need an online therapist and I somehow need to create space for that person and do not know how. I mean you are supporting me in that way out of goodwill <3

It seems that when you tell her your pain, you are still hoping that she would be able to relieve it. But she isn’t. She can’t give you the strength/support/encouragement you are hoping for. So your every encounter is painful because you are seeking something she cannot give you. She is burdening you with her own pain, instead of relieving you of your pain. It’s like adding insult to injury.

Mhh, I wonder if I do belief that subconscious. I think it’s also working with her is like working with me cause I kinda treat myself like she treated me but the last time was too painful and now I need to stay away. I don’t know how long.

That’s why it seems to me you’d need to stop hoping to have your emotional needs met by her. You’d need to start finding ways to meet your own needs and seeking people who can help you in that endeavor. Become emotionally “unhooked” from your mother, so to speak.

It’s good to hear. I need to hear this. It takes so long if I tell something to me. I need have people say things to me. I work on meeting my needs. I belief I need something like a family to be able to do a regular job and live at a place for longer than 1 month.
The things I tried feel failed and I’m afraid if I fail again now it’s too painful.

It seems she doesn’t like it when you don’t show empathy for her. If you are cold and distant. If you don’t let her complain about her problems, right? She doesn’t like your protective shell. And you don’t want to get out of that shell, because it would hurt you even more (what I said earlier: her pain is added onto your own pain, and it is too much to bear).

She needs the connection. She probably feels like there’s something wrong with her when people block. Like I do.  Yes, I need to protect me.

It seems you withdraw into your protective shell, so not to be overwhelmed by too much pain (both hers and yours). And maybe also not to lose focus from yourself, because if you start focusing on her and her problems, you tend to lose yourself, or forget what you want, or start feeling guilty for wanting those things? Perhaps you fear getting enmeshed with her, so you are hiding in that shell, to keep your own space and identity intact.

Mhh, yeah I would. I’m at a point where it is too painful to withdraw from pain. Which is good and also scary.

Ok, so you try to negotiate with her to give you tasks where you won’t feel misused? (because you said you’re only willing to help her if you feel that her requirement is “selfless”). She doesn’t like your conditions and she gives you a strict/angry look (you called it a “fierce” look).

Yes or in your words: ‘a task where I do not freeze’! I’d like to find a way to show her that she can meet her need for support and I can meet my need for autonomy.

Maybe she feels you are too demanding (or lazy/unhelpful), and not her? And that her requirement/plea for help is justified? While you are unjustly accusing her? (As if she’s made responsible for something which is my fault.)

I think she beliefs it’s my duty as her child to support her. Yeah, you say the same thing. It’s most difficult do give to people who think it’s their born right to receive and take it for granted.

It does seem to me that your attitude towards helping her is a defensive stance – you withdrawing into your protective shell and not wanting to be “used” by her, for fear of getting emotionally overwhelmed and overtaken by her. I think it’s a bit of an overreaction, but I understand where you are coming from. You don’t want to give anything of yourself, because you feel so burdened already, that any additional pain of hers (and an expectation to be soothed by you) comes with a risk to overwhelm you. So when she needs help, even if it is as simple as cleaning up the kitchen – you feel it might deplete you even further and take you away from yourself and your own needs and desires.

I think I want her to really see me and see me equal. I have the same right to choose the task as she does. It’s not really about the task it’s about control and me making a statement that I do not wish to be controlled. I want to be asked what I would like to do and what is needed. I want my support to be valued and not taken for granted.

So refusing to help in the kitchen becomes like a self-protection tool, albeit a misguided one, because if I am guessing right, you are still hoping to have your emotional needs met by her. So you are still kind of dependent on her, even if you are trying to protect yourself from her…

I’ll reflect about it. Isn’t it also about the people pleaser thing why I do that in the end? I’ve been thinking that I am dependent on her (subconscious). Cause I noticed that the things which stress her out like go traveling, working a regular job, not misusing drugs, having a girlfriend are things I struggle(d) creating for myself.
It sometimes feels like that I am my mom and my self is this thing I can’t control. And all I wish is that I would not need to care about myself. It would just do what it is supposed to do.

I said it’s an overreaction. But if it is a freeze response (“I draw a line. My body draws a line”), it’s not conscious – it is what your body and your nervous system do automatically. When you are in the freeze response, your rational mind isn’t “online”, so you cannot really control your reactions. So I just wanted to clarify that, because I don’t want to sound as if I am blaming you for being overly reactive. The freeze response is not your fault – it’s an automatic reaction when we feel in danger.

Thank’s for clarifying Tee.

There are techniques to get out of the freeze response, which include moving our body. I am sure you have looked into it already, but here are 3 really useful youtube videos, by psychotherapists that I respect a lot:

“This is what it’s like to be in freeze” and “Unfreeze yourself“, by The Holistic Psychologist channel, and

“Are you stuck in freeze mode? How to turn off the freeze response“, by Therapy in a Nutshell.

Mhh, sounds like I’m quite often in a freeze response or I feel what I can do without getting into a freeze response and only do that.

I hope it helps, if you’re not already familiar with it.

I’ll download the books.

Thanks Tee,

feel free to shorten the text. I been quite emotional today I think I wrote things reasonable but feel free to question and ask and also I want you to know that I do not expect a reply and feel grateful if you do a reply.