Pom
just read your first post and have to say your mother comes across as an immature smart alec. I like wit but if in a parental role I would make my child’s self-esteem paramount. As a parent you have a duty to be a role-model . But I haven’t had children so easy to say I know. My parents were never like that anyway so I guess I’m lucky.

Dear Pomplemous:

There is a certain amount of strength in responding as you did to your mother’s “man up/ muscle through” attitude the way you did and still do. But there is way MORE strength in the willingness to see that indeed you were a victim, that indeed you are still paying the price (therefore still partly a victim) and then really, really change things (gradually, with extreme patience and gentleness with yourself).

You don’t want to view yourself as a victim because you are afraid you will lose any and all power and collapse, disintegrate (?). This is why people need help, as in good psychotherapy, to see what was as what it was, and therefore to see what is as what it is, a precondition to make changes that really matter. It is about keeping things as they are or do the hard work of breaking free from what is and moving forward. That is a personal choice.

anita

Dear Pomplemous:

I went back to this thread of yours to show you how, interestingly enough, it so happens, I took your side and Jack took your side as well while the one not taking your side has been your mother and you. I believe this is a real opportunity for you to see something you did not see before. I am doing this not out of anger at you, not at all and from no other motivation but to advance in you the same process I am advancing in myself: healing and what I call, evolving: awakening and evolving.

In the examples above, that you posted in the last five minutes of work, just so to pass the time, you gave examples of things your mother told you. In response I wrote to you that your mother expressed maybe a good sense of humor but not the EMPATHY that you needed. That was siding with YOU, with the child that you were and that child that is still in you (and against your mother’s side). Jack wrote that your mother was a smart alec who did not operate for your own good, for your self esteem. Jack sided with you and against your mother.

You termed my response and Jack’s responses above, that is our individual taking sides with you as “interesting” and proceeded quickly to take your mother’s side and against your own side: I am not a victim, you claim AGAIN: she made me tough, you wrote.

If your mother was right and made you strong and tough, how do you explain your history of drug addiction, your ongoing fear of any commitment, and so forth? How is your toughness manifesting itself- and is it working for you to NOT take your own side?

You, Pomplemous, need to take YOUR SIDE if you are to heal. Get off the “I am not a victim” BS.

Here, again, I am taking YOUR side. So did Jack. How does it feel?

anita