Dear Anita,

I apologise for what may seem like a delay in my responses, please rest assured that I would like to continue my communication with you and will respond as and when I can always.

I must admit, your last response to me almost came as a shock, I had never quite looked at things in this way and perhaps it was a bit of an eye opening experience.

Regarding point 1 and 2, to my understanding your mother could only understand as much as she could understand and therefore would shut down anything that was beyond her level of comprehension. This does slightly resonate with me and my mother. I mean don’t get me wrong, she has always been more like a best friend to me than a mother and she has in the past during my adolescent years shown a lot of compassion and understanding towards topics or areas of my life she couldn’t quite comprehend but I must say I always felt like a failure or disappointment bringing those topics up because I knew that I wasn’t living up to her expectation of what my life should be. I’ll give you an example for better understanding, as a teen (16/17) I had a bisexual experience, in fact a full blown relationship with this girl at the time. In hindsight, it was most definitely just a phase or experimenting, whatever you want to call it which I would say was influenced by the people I was hanging around with at the time etc, nonetheless at the time to me that was serious. Now whilst my mother ‘accepted’ & welcomed my partner to my house, family do’s etc at the time I KNOW she was not happy with the situation. I know because I remember back then opening up our home laptop to look for something online and she had accidentally left her forum open, probably one similar to this, and being nosy I snooped only to find her posts about me and her not knowing how to deal with this phase of mine – again, left me feeling less than, a failure and disappointment despite doing what I thought at the time was following my heart.

Number 3 hit home for me a lot. When I look back on my childhood, I really cannot recall times when I would be ignored or my expression of my needs disregarded, I really can’t so I don’t know if this has much to do with my mother or my bio father actually however there must be a reason why I am the way that I am today. I did live away from my mum and step dad for a total of maybe a year or year and a half when I was about 6/7. Due to the poverty back in my home country, they left to go abroad to settle in and build us a new life in th U.K. before bringing us over a year or so later. During this time I was staying with my step-dad’s mum, who I too call grandma but could always feel that she treats me different to her real grand children, I felt that always as a child. I was extremely unhappy there, I was only young myself and was forced to look after my little sister (3/4) at the time whilst my grandmother worked in the evenings to put food on the table. I was also unhappy because I didn’t feel ‘safe’, I could tell I wasn’t wanted there or loved how I needed to be loved – genuinely. So I used to often run away to my aunties house. She doesn’t have any children and always treated me like her own, I loved being there, I remember we played and baked cakes and I felt loved and ware there. But that was cut short after and I was made to go back to my grandma’s to be with my sister. Perhaps at that point I felt abandoned by my mum? I felt like she had left me knowing I was unhappy? Don’t get me wrong, as an adult I completely understand and appreciate that they left and gave us a good life in the U.K. I know it was necessary to do so, but perhaps it affected my emotional/mental state more than I anticipated now that I try to understand all the pieces. That last bit about either going silent or overstating pain is 100% me, especially right now. I either shout and scream it from the roof tops and when I feel I am not being heard or am being disregarded I go completely silent, never speak of it again and also withdraw from that person… I create a major distance. I cannot believe how much you’ve hit the nail on the head with this one Anita.

Healing has been a difficult one for me Anita. Really difficult, because I don’t know where to start. And even looking back on it, I’m following all of the ‘guidelines’ to healing and it seems nothing is shifting. Being so completely lost for a long time is overwhelming and exhausting and I wonder if I will ever find a way..

Dear Anita,

Yes, my ex boyfriend played a major if not primary part in the events of the summer which as a result have lead me to my depression, anxiety and PTSD. I don’t know whether at the time neither of us considered or thought about that it would be THIS bad but nonetheless it is. His mother did indeed send me threatening messages although she didn’t show up at my place of work, his sister did show up at my house though to ‘talk’ but that was all patronising and abusive too..

My mother, step-father and sister at the time were very much disappointed and heart broken at the time and perceived him and his family to be horrible people. I believe they’re still of that thought, particularly my step-father and my sister, but with time also comes perception.. So in the conversation I had with my mother some weeks ago, which I’ll add she started, she discussed that she doesn’t believe he is a bad person and rather he didn’t know how to behave or manage the situation at the time and we both acted out in ways which may have been out of character to us. With that in mind, she confirmed that she is of the belief that IF I still loved him and thought I wanted to continue a relationship with him then he should be heard out, as he should hear me out and see if that is something that could go forward if that is what we both wanted. She advised that we are only human and that we make mistakes and if I felt that his explanation or whatever was sufficient then maybe he deserved a second chance.. She also went onto say that she is only of that thought because of how well we fitted together and how wonderful a relationship we had prior to this. I think the conversation was her way of saying to me, you’re my child and I love you and I don’t want to make this any more difficult on you than it already is IF you do want to get back together with him.

Well recently it seems she’s had a change of heart. Despite the fact that she doesn’t know any details at all of our recent communication she now thinks I am out of my mind for even considering this relationship. We had a brief altercation about this yesterday as I admitted that unbeknownst to her I have indeed been severely struggling over the last few months and I have lost myself completely in the process, so her various advice over the last few weeks is also loosing me and confusing me even further. I have since shut down the conversation all together and said I will not discuss any of this, and I don’t mean just my ex because he is the least of my worries right now, with anyone from this point forward. It is too hurtful and like picking at a scab which is nowhere near healing. I think this in turn has created somewhat an awkward atmosphere at home so I have chosen to ‘run’ and go away for the weekend to breathe.. and I will be looking for my flat in the oncoming weeks as I NEED to be alone in this. More than anything, I want and need to be alone without having to explain my every move to anyone when I am clearly unable to even explain it to myself.

I mentioned earlier on another thread, ‘I lost myself trying to please everyone else and now I’m loosing everyone trying to find myself’.

Dear Anita,

It is interesting that we are discussing this at present as my mother seems to have had a change of heart and now disapproves of any contact with him & his family all together. Shock.  I guess you’d say she’s come to her senses?

My trauma is the events of the summer which I have been unable or unwilling to speak of on the forum. They’re somewhat directly linked to the split but the split from my ex partner is not the trauma in question, I have experienced heartbreak before and wouldn’t say it is a traumatic ezperience. It is tough, yes, but traumatic? No.

Dear Anita,

It is interesting you mention the girlfriend as once I was slightly more grown up I often wondered whether him cutting contact with me had anything to do with her… although she was always very kind to me in person. Even often covered up for my bio father when he would lack contact with the usual ‘you know what he’s like’ etc.. I guess I’ll never really know.

I don’t really remember her ever telling him off, I’m sure she did but just not around me – the things I know now about her ensuring he was around etc are only known throughout the past few years since I am an adult and can understand it better. My mother never said a bad word about my dad to me either, she always apologised on his behalf if he didn’t show but didn’t dwell on the subject too much. When I say she didn’t dwell on it I mean she didn’t try to make up excuses for him, nor did she tell me, her small child, that he is basically a useless, unreliable alcoholic. She’d just apologise, affirm she is sure he would’ve liked to have been there and ensured I was having a good day anyway.

Honestly, I can’t fault her for how she has dealt with it. I know she always tried her best, unfortunately for me his true colours showed when I became an adult.

Dear Anita,

Yes, I remember my biological father often missing visits, being late or being reminded by my mother about my birthdays/school plays etc. I guess the older I got the more I understood that he wasn’t able to make the conscious effort to be a part of my life and instead had to be constantly monitored by my mother however I appreciated that he was still around until I turned 18 that is.

I remember things like him taking his new girlfriend to his sister’s (my auntie’s) wedding.. I was so upset. I often wondered why this new woman in his life was his priority and I could never be? I must admit though, it has been quite some years since me and him have had any contact at all and I don’t think about it often anymore – perhaps the reason why I didn’t think this played a part in who I am today but I am happy to explore that if it means that I can deal with these demons of mine.

In regards to my parents and their hopelessness, I don’t think that had much to do with the break up of my relationship itself although they understood that was difficult for me, rather it was about the amount of pain, trauma, betrayal etc around the break up. I suppose they never pictured their daughter, their own flesh and blood going from a healthy, loving relationship to being absolutely traumatised and broken to my core. I didn’t expect it either. I think as the whole situation went on for over a month there came a point where they too were tired and felt helpless as they wanted to do everything in their power to help me, to take the pain away and they just could not. But yes I do agree, although they too were hurting, perhaps they should’ve done it behind closed doors just as I did so that I didn’t have to witness it and as a result retrieve to healing on my own so to not witness them hurting again.

‘Without new understanding you are like a person in a dark room, bumping into walls or furniture, getting hurt and bruised. With empathy alone, you get something like: “oh, it hurts, let me put a Band-Aid on it, it will feel better soon”, but you keep banging into furniture and walls, keep getting bruised because you are still in a dark room!‘ I absolutely love this Anita, and it has felt like this for this for many months now. I am trying, I really am trying to understand this new ‘life’ that I am living, although it doesn’t feel like living much at all, it more feels like I am in autopilot just getting through my days because I have no other choice.