Dear Anita,

I took some time away from this thread in order to look at this situation of mine with fresh look.

Thank you so much for all the effort you put into explaining your thoughts and giving suggestions/help for me. Want to discuss the ones that got stuck in my head:

(1) We need to start telling ourselves that we’re a good person, worthy of love and respect – even if we refuse the role of the emotional caretaker and the “family empath”, which they’ve imposed on us.- you indicated very accurately my struggle. Deep down I feel the worst daughter, because I decided to step away from parents and do not communicate with them/visit them for a while. I feel the worst that I do not listen to their problems, issues and do not soothe them. I feel the worst, because I stopped keeping them the centre of MY life and started TO BE the center of MY life. Even though such decision is helping me to stay more at peace and calm, at the same time it is burning at low heat anxiety inside of me and I do not feel at peace at all. I feel as if I murdered somebody, but took very good care of hiding the body and evidence, so I try to convince myself that all is peace now, but deep down- it actually isn’t. I would really appreciate your thoughts on that feeling. How can I navigate through it in a healthy way. This is a very complicated state of mind, state of being actually.

(2) Throw away old dictionary and start a new one about what is a good daughter, a bad one, what is a good mother, a bad one. This will be my homework. I think this exercise would help me in a road of unconditional love to myself.

(3) What has proven best and most peaceful for me is to reclaim my own voice, to interpret my own story and to no longer doubt my own interpretation- oh god, I never believed my interpretations, because I did not have even one person to support me and say that Milda, such parent behavior is not ok and they are actually manipulating you and you behave the way they want only, without authenticity. I think the biggest change internally started to happen, because by reading book “Codependent no more” interpretations of my family and this dysfunction started to raise inside of me and I started to slowly believe them for the first time in my life. My interpretations and gut feeling was silenced by me, silenced by scared, small me, because I had to survive and listening to those interpretations would not help me survive, so I silenced them. The bloody work now is to give a voice for those interpretations, they still scare me a lot, I still do not know what to do with them…

❤️

Dear Tee,

Wow, insight about first developing inner boundaries before setting the external ones cought me. It made me think how this internal base is missing in me. Parents are projecting on me their decision about when I al a good daughter, when I am a bad one, which behavior is acceptable and approved, which is not. But those projections are all that I know. If they believe I am bad, because I did not soothe their emotional problems and did not solve their issues, how then I should find facts for myself, that in MY REALITY, I am not? Everything I can think off washes away, because none of the arguments that come in my mind are strong enough to withstand parent’s opinion…

Regarding parents’ reactions to my problems (as much as I can remember), my mother would be preoccupied with her problems and did not show interest in trying to soothe me or make me feel better and my father is the “stone” one, he used to say be strong, do not be sensitive, there are bigger problems in world etc.

I think you and Anita are right regarding the letter. If they were not able to hear me when I was a child, in my most vulnerable stage, how can I expect this from then now. I want what’s best, most peaceful for me.

❤️

Dear Anita,

This sounds like a good plan, but for a short period only. I do not want to run/hide from them. I want to be assertive with them, to say no when I want to, to state boundaries, to end the call on my terms and to do everything, I was never able to do. Only this will give me strenght and ability to live my life to the fulliest.
Not talking for X period will only make me postpone the real deal. The real change that needs to happen.
I just do not know how people start behaving differently with their family, when they decide to. My new behavior will raise only many questions for my mother, she will fight to get the old me back, because old me was comforting and enabling her, fixing for her, caring for her. Her fight will include all of the biggest buttons in me- through guilt tripping, making me a bad daughter. I believe this small segment about the guilt tripping for grandmother shows the way she behaves. And she can do much more un order to soothe her anxiety about my behavior. I’m scared to face it, because for me mother=guilt.

Dear Anita,

Yes, very very difficult.

It’s also a relief, a start of a healthier me, but at the same time it’s very foggy and scary place.

The lack of ability to see the next step now that I have stopped communication with parents is crushing me.

If I could only be able to know small next step or knowledge in general, which would be a foundation for my thinking, for my decision making, like a compass, it would be very helpful…

Happy to be able to communicate with you <3

“you feel that something really bad is going to happen to Mom or Dad, and that you’ll be responsible for it”- this is so true. The biggest part of why I do struggle is that I believe that if during this time when I do not communicate with parents something happens to them, to their health, it is my fault. That I an responsible for their health in a sense. Yesterday my mother actually guilt tripped me again as she sent me money and said that this is the birthday money from my grandmother and that at least to call and say thank you would be kind. I didn’t ask for it, my birthday was two months ago, so when I cut contact with her, she thought that I would soothe her by contacting grandmother as she wish. I said that she is not giving me needed space and that I feel bad if gifts are coming with conditions and expectations. So, she pushed the button in me by saying:” well we are not the center of the world, there are still ALIVE relatives.”. So she made me feel that because of the way I decided to not communicate for a while, I am doing wrong for all other relatives, that my need for such space doesn’t matter, because there are ALIVE FAMILY MEMBERS that I should consider. It was always like this, it was always a focus on others by them and this guilt trips me like crazy. If grandmother dies, she might find a way to somehow make me feel that didn’t communicate enough, didn’t nourish the time she was alive, wasn’t doing ENOUGH FOR OTHERS.

I know I will be a mother in the future. I can’t imagine putting that much pressure on my child. On a child I should be just happy that he exists, not by how much he does for others. It’s like a was born with a tag “Born for everyone, use by your needs, parents do not protect this child from usage”.

😔❤️

Hi Anita,

Definitely agree that parents are the ones that did not provide emotional safety and programmed me for unhealthy behavior to be seen as healthy as vice versa.

I do blame them, I am angry, I am sad at the same time. But I want to move further. Their programs are heavy burdens to me not only for my relationship with them, it is any other area as well. So my goal is to start making changes. Yet that stress feeling in the gut, that rush of hormones, leading me to STOPPING and not going further with stating my needs, boundaries no matter what their response is, this is not letting me get out of that unhealthy way of living. So I want to find a way for making it through. I could wait until I am not scared, brave, but that time might never come. So to be that kid, scared of the oven, but once again checking it, because oven is not always hot, this is what needs to happen.

But their words hit me like a bullet. Mom’s sadness hits me like the hardest weight. Father’s scepticism and narcisim is like a punch in the face.
No matter how many books I read, their one sentence gets me into guilt and old behavior…

Dear Anita,

I can’t stop thinking about the elephant story. Something very fundamental is keeping me stuck in this rope. I think the belief engraved in childhood that I am worthy and loveble only if I constantly give to others is one of those.
And people expect from me over functioning.

The real truth is that everyone is responsible for their life, problem solving, emotions, but in me, this is 180 degrees different- it’s that I am responsible for this.

These fundamental programs installed in me keep me stuck. I try to change them by reading books, talking to a therapist, giving myself space and time.

None of this helps. I’m still stuck in this rope and the old programs won’t let me get out of it.

I do not blame anyone, I just do not know what else I should try, in order to be scared, be guilty, but still do the work of change.