Dear Umaz:

Welcome back to the forums! I hope that it is okay with you that this will be a long reply as I will be paying attention to everything you shared. When I quote you, it is I who is adding the boldface feature to some of your words.

In this thread, you shared that there was a promotional job available at work, and while you (a woman) were considering applying for it, a male co-worker- who turned down the job himself- told you that if you wanted the job, you’d need to be “more positive” and “hide (your) feelings“. As you understood it, he was implying that you were “too emotional“, and that you should not apply for the job. You applied for it nonetheless and received it.

During meetings which you led as a team manager, he ignored you and addressed the male managers instead. The morale of the team was low, people had quit the team, and you told management that this co-worker’s behavior is “problematic and causing a retention issue in the team“. Eventually, you “blew (your) lid off and had a huge argument with him about it all… said some horrible stuff to him“. Management told you that you need training “to be better“,  and that you “need to separate (your) emotions from the job“, saying that “he doesn’t talk about others when he raises complain, implying that (you’re) the only one sh** talking“.

“I feel so gaslit by everyone – but at the same time I am wondering if I’m the problem? Am I only filtering the negative stuff?…  I feel like a failure, like I ruined my career, like a trouble maker, a liability and I feel mistreated. I feel like I’ve been treated unfairly and sometimes I wonder maybe I am the narcissist and not him. Can I please get an outsiders perspective and some advice how to move forward?”

To understand and answer your questions best I can, I will be re-reading your September 2021 thread titled “Am I a narcissist?“- the same question you asked two years later, in this thread.

In your original post back then, you shared that one reason your boyfriend did not invite you to his father’s funeral (in another country) was, as he said, that “he wanted to ‘protect (you) from the pain’“. You wrote back then: “I feel like a liability and not really a part of the family which he claims I am“. Here’s the same word: a liability. One definition of the word (online dictionary): “a person or thing whose presence or behavior is likely to cause embarrassment or put one at a disadvantage”.

I replied to you back then and we communicated for a short while. You shared that as a result of your boyfriend not inviting you, you felt “really abandoned and lonely.. betrayed.. (that) he doesn’t really see me being part of..  his life… my own family did reject me a few years ago and him not including me made me feel rejected again“.

When your boyfriend returned from the funeral, “he was talking about the funeral and told me that his ex’s mum and sister was at the funeral. This hurt me so much and I reacted poorly, I was angry, he again said I was a narcissist. He does call me that often and realised maybe he is gaslighting me. Every time I try to raise my own feelings he makes me feel so guilty about it, and calls me a narcissist“.

I wrote to you back in October 2021: “Like I suggested to you earlier, I think that it is the hurt and betrayal that you experienced when your family rejected you that keeps awakening in the context of your relationship with your boyfriend”. You replied: “Anita, yes you are right, I feel so very triggered and lately I have been thinking about my own family more. Even after 10 years, I feel such a void without a loving family, something I never had but always crave. My parents kicked me out when I was in my early twenties because I didn’t follow the religion anymore and I wanted to live an independent life. What hurts more recently is that my own siblings who I thought could understand me, have also shut me out. I feel so isolated and rejected by them too…. I’ve had a lot of therapy in the past but nothing recently as I’ve been doing relatively well. Also, I don’t find it useful to continuously relive my past. It’s emotionally exhausting and takes away from my present. Plus its expensive…  I know that having emotions is normal but sometimes my emotions are most intense than usual“.

My input today: your emotions, particularly hurt and  anger are sometimes, like you said 2 years ago, “most intense“. Originally, it’s the hurt and anger about having been unloved, kicked out, shut out, isolated, rejected (your words above), as well as really abandoned, lonely, betrayed and gaslit (your words from before) by your parents and later, by your siblings as well. It is within your family that you felt like a liability.

That’s a lot of HURT. And as often is the case, ANGER is linked to the hurt. The anger is about trying to have POWER in situations where you feel very hurt and powerless.

Because you’ve been very hurt and very angry within the context of your family, for too long, never to be resolved-  this intense hurt and anger get awakened/ triggered in adult contexts like in a romantic relationship (first thread) and a workplace relationship (2nd thread). When in these adult contexts you are uninvited (1st thread) or criticized and ignored (2nd thread), the same-old, same-old intense hurt and anger get triggered.

In this thread, some of your hurt and anger are valid: it really is hurtful to be ignored in meetings, especially when you are the team leader. Maybe your male worker has anti-women feelings, maybe he is misogynistic. In any case, it was rude of him to ignore you during meetings. Thing is that the INTENSITY of your hurt and anger were not solely about this workplace-adult circumstance. It’s like there’s a leak from the past and the massive hurt and  anger of the past spill into the present during triggering circumstances.

From what you shared and from my personal, non-professional understanding,  the term narcissist does not apply to you, or to your boyfriend at the time, or to your male co-worker. What applies to you is that when you are triggered, you feel so much hurt, that you can’t see anything or anyone but your hurt. You become self-centered in this way, and therefore, you feel justified in verbally attacking the person you believe had hurt you so much. Like I said, your co-worker was rude to you when he ignored you (not necessarily when he gave you his feedback that you were too emotional, depending on his tone and intent), not thinking about how you’d feel being ignored, and that’s being self-centered on his part.

Here is my advice: (1) next time you feel angry at someone, Notice that you feel angry, Pause (take time out so that you don’t say or do anything being driven by the anger alone/ so you don’t blow your lid off), Address the situation when calm (what really happened? How much of what I feel is valid in this present circumstance? Try to peel the past off the present, so to speak. How should I respond, or maybe I should not respond at all?) and then Respond- or not, and finally, Redirect (get busy with something else). I call this strategy NPARR: Notice, Pause, Address, Respond-or-not, Redirect.

(2) Process that massive hurt from the past bit by bit by sharing about it somehow, either by journaling (drawing and painting as well, perhaps), or in a support group (of people shunned by religious families, perhaps), and/ or in quality therapy..  or here on your thread, and/ or in replies submitted to other members.

You wrote 2 years ago: ” I don’t find it useful to continuously relive my past. It’s emotionally exhausting and takes away from my present“- if you share/ process in a certain way, it may release you from the hold that the past has on you.. fixing that leak I mentioned earlier, so to speak, bringing yourself back to the present instead of taking yourself away from the present. Share from the Hurt, more than from the Anger.

It happens that I use these forums myself to process my childhood Hurt at times, when I reply to members. I’ll do it right here, right now, so to give you an example of what works for me, and may work for you too.

(After a moment): I see my mother’s face in my mind’s eye. She is still young, younger than I am now; Her face is cold and rigid. There is no love for me in her face. Her eyes are dark, there is no glitter in them, nothing that shines, no recognition in them that I.. that I am, or that I am of any value. She looks at me, she talks at me.. as if .. she talks at a thing. Not a person that I yearn to be, but a 2-dimensional thing… MOTHER, don’t you SEE me? ME? Oh my god, I am stuck being a thing, no human 3rd dimension:  my own thoughts, my own feelings, my own preferences, my own.. being human. There is a feeling of being suffocated in this no-space 2 dimensions. MOTHER… Oh, I was going to ask her to see me, but no point in that.. She can’t, she won’t, she hasn’t FOR TOO LONG.

anita

Dear soma

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear soma:

I am fine, at home and soon going to bed. I will reply further Fri morning. Have a good Fri in your part of the world, precious soma!

anita

 

 

 

 

Dear EvFran:

I don’t know if you will be reading this. If you do, I want to tell you how much I appreciate what you wrote in the thread regarding my leaving the forums. I literally cried when I read it. Thank you so much for your kindness and big heart!

How are you and how is your mother?

anita

Dear Peace:

“How could they be so heartless…?“- I asked a similar question in regard to my mother: how could she have no heart for me? And I too was in denial about it, believing that she did love me, she must have…

It was only this morning that I thought: I should contact her just to tell her that I love her too (I’ve been in no contact with her for 10 years, my choice).  But then I said to myself: but she doesn’t love me and no amount of love on my part can make up for her lack of love for me; no amount of reaching out to her with love can bridge the chasm between me (my love for her) and her (lack of love for me).

“.. Why were they so selfish, making me feel utterly worthless and devoid of meaning?“- I no longer ask this question in regard to my mother, I am accepting the very sad but true reality that there is no love for me coming from her. It is a very difficult reality to accept, but moving on to a better reality (at least when it comes to my quality of life in between my ears) depends on accepting this. And not trying once again.. and again.. and again to change the unchangeable.

anita

Dear Stacy:

“Also, thank you“- you are welcome!

“I have the game plan of what will help make me feel like a capable woman, but shorter term goals need to happen and I need to see value in myself right now… I know I have to feel good with myself while I work towards those long term goals and it just feels impossible to go 30-ish years feeling so insignificant and like a burden to suddenly loving myself. It’s the biggest void I’m trying to fill.“-

– a severe lack of self-worth is a huge void, a vacuum, and a very painful one. Like any vacuum, it quickly gets filled with whatever is around it. In this case, it gets filled with self-doubts, self-judgment, guilt and shame, and you find yourself occupied with these painful negative feelings.

Like other animals, our first, instinctual, most urgent need is to survive, and therefore, we instinctually focus on pain for the purpose of confronting what’s causing it (ex., an injury), healing it and stopping the pain. When an animal is experiencing significant or severe pain, it is not motivated to eat or sleep or mate, pain is the singular focus. Similarly, when a person experiences significant to severe emotional pain, the person’s focus is on the pain and what’s causing it; the person is not able to focus on something positive, such as the goal of becoming a capable woman.

You have a game plan to become a capable woman, having long-term goals that depend on short-term goals.. but these painful negative feelings are in the way: how can you feel like, and become a capable woman, if you are filled with self-doubts, judgment, guilt and shame? (I’ll get to it in a moment).

“you mentioned earlier in one of your posts that even after you moved out and met your external goals, that you still struggled with negative feelings“-

– you are probably referring to my sharing that at the age of 24, I flew across the world by myself- far, far away from my torment-filled relationship with my mother- ending up in New York City during Christmas time (talking about Christmas!), feeling HAPPY perhaps for the first time in my life, positive and hopeful. It was a magical time, a thrilling time. But then.. seeing all the magic, I felt sorry for my poor mother who so often complained about having had a miserable life, never traveling, never seeing the world.. I was filled with empathy for her (I cared too much for her) and guilt, so I arranged for her to fly and stay in NYC. Once she arrived- and even before she arrived- gone was the Magic and back was the Torment.

Imagine that you move out of your loud, chaotic home (as you described it), and find yourself living in a quiet, calm and peaceful home. At first, you enjoy the newness so much, it’s magical!  But then, you think to yourself: my poor mother, my poor sister: they are living in a loud, chaotic home.. Oh, how they’d love living where I am now. And so, you invite them to live with you, and.. gone is the newness and back is the same old, same old loudness and chaos.

“If you don’t mind me asking, but did your work in therapy help build your self-worth and self-trust?“- (1) It helped having a person listen to me and talk to me respectfully. What a refreshing experience. (2) It helped having a person being curious about what I think and feel, a person caring about what’s happening in my heart and mind. Invisibility is what I was used to before. (It was like war was happening in my mind and heart day in and day out..  and no one noticed, or cared).

My mother used to conduct those Shaming Sessions against me, sessions she said I deserved: she would corner me and facing me, she would say out loud, very loudly,  the most shaming words, humiliating me in any and every possible way she could think of. She’d shame me in one way, then figure that there was a better, more effective way to shame me, so she did, and she’d go about it enthusiastically. She was very creative that way, and very motivated. She wouldn’t stop shaming and guilt-tripping me, and hitting me (telling me that the only thing she liked about me was that I silently looked down at the floor when she hit me) until she ran out of words and breath. “Look what you did to me”, she’d say, looking at her hands, “you made my hands hurt” she’d say, referring to having hit me to the point that she felt pain in her hands.

I believed her and proceeded to lived a life that a bad, shameful, guilty person deserves. I was filled with severe self-worth-void, a vacuum filled with shame and guilt. Dissociated much of the time, wishing to die.. and feeling sorry for her, overwhelmed by empathy for her, and none for me. She was still- throughout all this- “the best mother in the world”, her words=>  my words. She did buy me things, toys and clothes and my favorite cake, a chocolate marzipan cake.

Back to your question: “Did your work in therapy help build your self-worth and self-trust?“- it helped but it didn’t build my self-worth and self-trust. What helped me most has been better interactions with people in real-life and my daily participation in the forums of tiny buddha May 2015-Feb/March 2023, resumed recently, including my communication with you and this very post that I am about to submit to you, one I’ve been working on for 3-4 hours so far.

What I shared with you, those Shaming Sessions, I never shared about them the way I did with you this very morning. In the past, when I shared about my Torment with my mother, I was detached, dissociated and didn’t quite believe that it really happened and that it was that bad and I didn’t believe that.. she was the one at fault.

It took figuratively giving my mother the badness that belongs to her, so that I don’t carry  it anymore within me. Removing that badness that filled the void, made it possible for a measure of self-worth and self-trust to take the space previously occupied by shame and guilt. I still feel empathy for my mother (with whom I had no contact for ten years), but I also feel empathy for myself. My sister contacted me six months ago, suggesting that I reconnect with my mother, telling me that she’s getting old, that she has “a lot of good in her”, and that she and admits having  “made mistakes”. No elaboration on “mistakes”. I refused the suggestion.

The pain is still within me this morning, but it is my pain, not her pain. In other words, I now belong to myself and what is mine- is mine, not hers, not my mother’s. My life is not hers and it is not about her, not anymore.

You wrote in your most recent post: “it’s true that my mom and sister are struggling so much with their own issues that they are just incapable of giving me the energy and patience I need. I kind of feel like I’m not able to be a present daughter either right now, I’m struggling with my own issues“- their issues and your issues are not separate issues for as long as you are living with them and for as long as you care about them more than you care about yourself. Choose you over them, be number 1, own your life, make it your own.

anita

Dear Kodi:

You are welcome. The following are my thoughts, understandings and impressions, correct or not- it is for you to decide. It may distress you to read or to consider what’s to follow, so please, be prepared, and you are welcome, of course, to read or not to read, to address and reply to any part, or not. My motivation is to help just a bit, I hope.

“My Dad and I were eating lunch one day and he suddenly said ‘Everything that comes out of your mouth is negative‘“-

– I know that it is not true that everything that comes out of your mouth is negative because you’ve been trying hard throughout your threads to state the positives, and you stated positives even without trying. Examples: first, original post, 4th sentence, Sept 2016: “I am happily married with a 5 year old son; we have our own house in a small town and a dog…“; Nov 2017: “My husband is in turn very loving and sensitive to my feelings“;  Aug 2021 (addressed to me): “Thank you so much for your kind and supportive response“; July 2023: “ I actually have a pretty good life – happily married, employed, have a house, a wonderful son“; Sept 25, 2023 (your most recent post): “My parents… are having the time of their lives. For the most part, my Mother’s anxiety is a thing of the past, as is my father’s negativity“.

So, why (I am asking myself) did your father say that everything that comes out of your mouth is negative? The only reason I can think of is that he was angry at you, and therefore, he was- not empathetic- but rude to you.

“When I mentioned to my Mom that that bothered me, she said she agreed“- so both unempathetic toward you. I mean, if your mother was empathetic, she’d ask you (if she didn’t yet know) why you are so negative, or she’d apologize for instilling negativity in you (“they instilled it in me in the first place“, it being negativity).

“I get it, they’re trying to make me aware of how negative I am“- (1) they are not aware that you are already aware? (2) are they not aware that they instilled negativity in you; they think that you were born negative and it has nothing to do with them..?

“but I don’t respond well to ‘tough love’“- like the song says, “what’s love got to do with it?” A child is invested in seeing her parents in the most positive light; often, children (into adulthood) interpret their parents’ expressed anger and even abuse as “tough love”. (I say it’s tough.. but it’s not love).

“There are many reasons for my negativity – not only is it ingrained I’m me, but I’m unhappy at work. Every job I have ends up that way, because I’m easily stressed“- if negativity is ingrained in a person during childhood, it doesn’t disappear in the context of work, or adulthood. Negativity instilled in childhood is far reaching and it contaminates a variety of adult contexts.

“I’ve always had this silly vision of myself as a 50s housewife“- 1950s/ early 60s TV series do depict traditional homes as peaceful homes.

“A few years back I quit my job and took 2 months off. It was the happiest & healthiest I’ve felt since my maternity leave“- I  had a happiest and healthiest 2-months off my anxiety and depression when I first left my mother and country and travelled to New York City during Christmas.. Magical. But then I got together with my mother in NYC and the magic turned to anxiety and depression.

“I resent that my parents are so happy & carefree, because I want it so badly for me, too“- happy, carefree, after a lifetime of stress? (I wonder if they are recently retired and are experiencing their own temporary Magic)

Currently, you are 42. In your previous threads you shared: “I..  battled anxiety and depression all my life… I have had severe anxiety and depression since I was a teenager” and in this thread: “I’ve had anxiety and depression all my life“.

Previously: “My Mother-in-law lives in a little cottage by the lake. Visiting her is one of my favorite things to do – she’s very calm and loving and loves to laugh. her sun porch and backyard bring such peace to me, I feel like I’m away from it all. It’s hard to leave. In a way I feel like I’m driving away from heaven, back into hell (the real world)“-

-your life growing up at home, with your parents was very stressful, unloving, no laughter… no peace.. hard to live in.. hell…?

“I don’t blame myself for their anxiety, nor do I blame them” (2023)- but you blame yourself for the anxiety they instilled in you?

“I have good relationships with my parents” (2016)- at what cost?

“Unfortunately, I’m doing the same thing with my son. I’m aware of it and I try to keep it in control, but I fear I’ve instilled it in a him. He has different triggers than I do, and he’s not nearly as anxious as I, but I see it” (July 2023)- is experiencing so much anxiety on your part, for so long, and passing it on to the next generation.. is it the cost/ the price to pay for you having good relationships with your parents, not rocking the boat with them?

“Is it okay to want to be happy?” (the title of this thread): it is okay to blame your parents (“I .. don’t blame them“) for what they are responsible for- for no other reason but so to remove the blame from yourself, to free yourself from guilt that doesn’t belong to you (“I have so much guilt… I feel like a horrible person“, July 10, 2023), .. Free yourself from unearned guilt, and you’ll free yourself from much of the anxiety and depression you’ve suffered from for so long.

Easier said than done, isn’t it?

anita

Dear Luna: I will read and reply in about 11 hours from now.

anita