Anita, I was thinking the same: your daily routine has changed (and it was not your choice to make).  It’s not nice, I guess.

And I am sure you miss your daily walks  – even for me, reading about them gave me comfort! I hope you can soon return to this routine. Glad it’s getting better! 🙂

feel free to share your thoughts at any time, when you feel like it. We can take breaks from talking about particular things, then go back to them, and we can bring up new things.

Thank you. I like those ideas (taking a break, going back and bringing up new ones). I think I will share them soon.

I am feeling a smile on my face as I am typing this, which is only the 2nd smile in the last few days

Very nice message to brighten my tiring-and-not-routine-at-all day 🙂 (I work from home – which I love, and once in a while I need to work in the office – today was this day).

Anita,

Sad to hear you’re still fighting the flu and it’s not getting much better yet. Must be tiring.

I am good, thank you. Snow has arrived here too. It’s freezing, but coming to warm home is so satisfying.

people’s nervous systems/ bodies break in different ways, just like every glass that breaks, breaks differently, and the mess created by each broken glass is different from any other.

I never thought about it, I thought maybe I had the worst experience and therefore I have all those symptoms.

 good job, if I may say so, and it cannot be done perfectly.

Thank you Anita.

Take care and get better!

Anita,

Sounds like you really need to stay in bed for some time. They say recovering is better when getting some sleep, also during the day.

I hope you get some good, comfortable sleep!

I like reading your clear, organized posts.

Thank you, I thought this works for me as I do not get lost. Nice to read you appreciate it.

Sending a lot of feel-better wishes, Anita 🙂

 I am smiling now because of you.

happy to read this 🙂

Anita, I have read and will be responding to your post on Sunday evening.

Take care and have a good day!

Anita,

I’ll try to write spontaneously. Still I need a lot of thinking and therefore pauses.

I returned from my walk a little while ago- no animal sightings, snow and ice is almost all melted

I googled mountain lion – looks big and powerful, beautiful but scary. Good there is less ice, more safe to walk!

 She felt that it was her job to make sure that I was clean, and she hated this.. cleaning job

Exactly this. I wonder why is that.. Is it not wanting to have family/children after all… It is still difficult to me to comprehend how this behavior may not have roots or reasons – it is a disorder, a personality, something they (our mothers) learned through their trauma but also developed in a way, from what I understand.

All my life I saw it was my mother’s job, duty to take care of me and she hated it. (Later I found out she had the chance to move out to Canada with her high school boyfriend when I was 7, but could not as she was already married and had me.) When I heard it, I thought “now it makes sense why you hate me so much”… but I don’t think it was the reason. She just hated me. (Anita, if you tell me your mother too wanted to move to Canada… I will be speechless 🙂 )

– Only a week ago, it happens that I told a young woman I know: “I was NEVER a girly girl“. From puberty  (which for me started a few years later than my peers) and for much of my life, I felt intense shame regarding secondary sex characteristics and great discomfort regarding the period thing. I never liked the idea- or experience- of being a woman. To this very day, I don’t dress like a woman: I wear jeans, no makeup, no going to the hairdresser, etc., and I keep myself as slender as I can be.. because it makes me look prepubescent.

I relate to this so much. My clothes as mostly black, neutral.. hoodie is my every day look, martens style boots. No earrings, no heels, no dresses (Although I did wore them on some occasions). Prepubescent – a very accurate term.

“She always used to come into bathroom when I was taking bath“- reading this today, I again thought to myself: did I write this?

How is this possible.. How does this happen. I still haven’t come to terms with how can someone fit so well into the description of narcissistic mother: she was not taught this, did not have a course on how to behave, what to say, yet she is a textbook, perfect example, and now…. we are seeing how our both mothers fit such similar description  (I am afraid of saying… “the same” – it’s terrifying, impossible.)

 in her mental experience, whatever she felt and did was caused by someone else, in this case, by me. If she felt angry- I must have done something wrong to make her angry (or I must have thought or felt something wrong and she, having read my mind, got angry as a result). And whatever she said and did while angry, was my fault entirely.. because I made her angry.

in her mind, she did not exist as an independent agency (one who acts, one who initiates, one who chooses): whatever she thought, felt and did… was an automatic reaction to me.

other people (including myself)- in her mental experience- did not have their own thoughts and feelings.. it was her thoughts and her feelings that she was inaccurately projecting into everyone..

So it’s a part of the “assuming”, as I see it. Accusing people of thinking this and that.. getting angry about it and then acting on it.  How delusional.

I remember my usual day was coming back from school, being sad, or at least not cheerful, (every day since early morning her partner was at our place, mocking me, then I was bullied at school- nothing to be cheerful about after surviving this, I would rather call it “tired”) her asking me “What is wrong with you”, me saying nothing, and then she always got angry “so you won’t speak to me now, huh?” and stopped speaking to me for the rest of the day. And on repeat, next day the same. What was on her mind then – is a mystery to me.

it is a terrible existence to be trapped in another person’s sick brain, in the distorted upside-down reality that exists in their brain. It is refreshing to experience freedom from that trap!

It is indeed.

I knew it was fantasy. On the other hand, my mother’s fantasy (that I thought what she thought, that I felt what she felt), she didn’t know it was fantasy and there was no convincing her otherwise.

Yes, it’s a completely different fantasy, different purposes.

it was my mother’s PANIC that scared me the most. It was her uncontrolled and histrionically (exaggerated, showy) expressed upset, distress and panic that scared me so very much. It was the alarming tone and loudness of her voice, the extreme despair in her face, in her voice, in her words… she showed me the underside of her arms, showing me where she will cut her wrists and make herself bleed to death…  going on and on and on about how miserable her life was and how much better it would be for her if she didn’t live anymore. It was scary and heartbreaking.

After I answered your question in the morning (spontaneously, for once) I wondered all day “Maybe Anita was right and it was not such a big deal, maybe she was too small and did not even understand this word..”. But now after what you wrote now I no longer have doubts about it being a big deal. It was scary and heartbreaking. – Yes it was. A horror movie, as you once put it. I tried to imagine this situation, I may know it from movies. Scary.

 I kept going over what I said and correcting myself, or I’d say things in a very cautious way, so to avoid being misunderstood or misinterpreted, covering all possible misinterpretations and addressing them before being misunderstood.

I kept feeling that I was making mistakes and that the consequences will be terrible. I felt that there was something very wrong with me, and therefore, whatever comes out of me spontaneously, will bring disaster. It wasn’t that long ago, that I said to myself: it is okay to just type away/ talk/ think because there is nothing wrong with me (not more than with any other person), so there is no danger of something terrible being revealed if I am spontaneous/ not careful.

Interesting how I think the same, remembering to be cautious, careful. My biggest worry is making a fool of myself and offending people unwittingly. And being a burden.

It’s that simple, I agree. I noticed people rarely see it or they just ignore it/it happens to them too.

Anita,

I remember her insisting that she had to wash my hair into my teenage years, to my horror (I was very ashamed of her seeing me naked, but she insisted that I was not able to wash my own hair well, and that she had to do it). I remember when she scrubbed my head, it hurt a lot, her hands dug into my head so roughly that it hurt. And it felt strange at the time, as I was wondering: why is she scrubbing my head so hard…

I wonder why is that.. she was doing something for you, to help I assume, but hated the fact that she had to do it… because you were incapable, in her mind of doing it yourself, as I see it from my experience.

I know it well – my mother being physically rough, having no boundaries. One time I had stomachache and she was so insensitive, rough, it was hell. I remember lying in bed praying for it to be gone, not because I felt sick but because I did not want to deal with her “treating me” anymore. I fell asleep praying many times in my childhood, until I stopped completely.

When I first got my period I was so ashamed, I could not tell her. I remember sitting an hour or so in front of her and trying to tell her what happened, and I couldn’t, words could not come from my mouth. She was asking me: “did you steal something? Did you hit someone? What did you do?” And I couldn’t say it. Might be the reason I struggled with identity, was never comfortable being “girly”. However, I do not hate women as she does. I mostly felt sorry for all the women-victims of her.

She always used to come into bathroom when I was taking bath, or using the toilet. When she was using the toilet, she left the door open. No boundaries, no privacy. She once found pregnancy test in the bin and told me:  “oh..  really nice…well, I will get through this somehow. I raised one child, I will raise another..” I was not a separate person, I was her, she was me. We were one person.

in my mind, I hardly existed; in my mind, she loomed big and I was nowhere to be found. It was like she was Everything and Everywhere,  I was Nothing and Nowhere.

Same here.

I must admit I really enjoy being my own person right now. I was always defined by her, felt her emotions, felt her opinions about me, about other people. Now it’s fading. When I go shopping by bike and suddenly there’s wind, rain and I take too much things so that they do not fit in my basket – I no longer feel contempt at myself. I think: “Wow, that was unexpected!” Feels good, thinking my own thoughts. I think they were there all this time.

 I lived in such fantasies, it was my life most of the time (when she was not talking to me, etc.).

Amazing how we invented a second life for ourselves, amazing how brain works. When I look for memories I see trauma events and fantasy life.. and a little bit of reality, every day life – very little.

It looks like we had .. the same kinds of fantasies. I too had American men fighting for me. (How more alike can we be?…)

Made me smile. I am not even surprised anymore! (Did he have a car? Mine did.)

she threatened suicide quite often. At one point I hoped that she would do it already, but she didn’t.. she just kept threatening that she will.

It is still shocking to me, and I understand why you hoped that.

as I read this, once again, I thought I was reading my own words and checked to see if this is a quote of my words…

I want to say this: I wish it did not happen to you, Anita.

and I’ll mention it again. It’s surreal.

Just wanted to acknowledge this, nothing more to add. Surreal.

Takes me long time to write (I always change, delete some, write again) so have a good day, Anita and a good night.

Anita,

I have read some beautiful responses here from you. Your posts are always kind and wise.

Because of what happened to me, my biggest goal has always been “to not be like my mother”. With time it is changing to: I want to be a kind, good person, respectful, having my boundaries. I see it more and more clearly and I am happy I can see it.

Our conversations inspire me to be better person, nature around my place inspires me,  moments of calmness inspire me and give me hope for the future.

The snow is continuing to melt. Seems like I will be taking my regular walk, 5.6 km (3.5 miles) in a couple of hours. I usually take bear spray with me because there are plenty of mountain lions (in addition to bears) around here. Good thing mountain lions don’t seek human prey… if they did, I wouldn’t be walking outside!

Very nice of you to share it. That is a surprise! Did you ever see one there? (bear or lion). Funny thing I only recently found out that bear sprays exist. I would buy one too, for sure!

I hope you have a good day, Anita, with your usual routine.

I will respond tomorrow morning to the rest of your post.