Dear Sophie,

I’m glad you’re doing well and found the advice helpful.

I’d just like to mention one thing, which I think is important when navigating the relationship with a difficult/entitled/needy parent. It’s the difference between hurt and harm. Your mother might feel “hurt” if you don’t fulfill all of her wishes and meet all of her demands. Entitled people often do – they feel hurt when we don’t comply with their selfish demands.

However, it doesn’t mean she would be actually harmed by you saying No to some of her whims, or refusing to “rescue” her in some of her conflicts with neighbors, or other similar situations, where she is not in actual physical danger, but only her feelings are hurt.

Barbara Heffernan, in the video I mentioned before, says “Compassion does not excuse inexcusable behavior.” So when your mother requires you to get her out of trouble (which she herself created), but she isn’t actually in physical danger (no physical harm would befall her), you don’t necessarily have to jump to her rescue right away. As Alessa said, she might benefit from becoming more self-sufficient. And even if she would resent you (that’s inevitable), it would be better for both of you, on the long run.

Also, people with narcissistic tendencies (not claiming that your mother is one, but in case she is) only learn, i.e. only change their behavior when faced with consequences. So if she makes a mess, and isn’t in actual physical danger – let her experience the consequences of her own mess. Next time she will think twice before getting involved in some unnecessary conflict, or suchlike – because she’ll know you won’t be there to get her out of trouble.

So perhaps the difference between hurt and harm can give you a clue about when to intervene and when not. Of course, I know it’s not that simple, and there are nuances, but perhaps it’s something to consider?

I hope you’re taking good care of yourself and allowing time for yourself during the day, even if it’s just for a few minutes. And that you find the time to visit the gym from time to time!

Wishing you lots of luck and resilience!

Hey Ben,

I belief that I get into victim thinking when I open up to this. But it might be as well some ignorance or fear of helplessness or pride.

Yeah, a lot of people believe that if they admit they are “wounded”, it will keep them in the victim mentality. And they want to avoid that. However, as I said, we can be both wounded and able to heal the wound. If we think like that, we’re not anymore in the victim mode, but are taking responsibility for our healing. We’re not passive takers of abuse, i.e. victims, but we have some agency in our life. And I think that’s a good way to think about it, because it neither denies that there is a problem, but it also enables us to deal with the problem.

My parents choose to have children before they worked on themselves. And they choose to live with their ignorance. They have responsibility too.

Yes, definitely. Many many people have children while still carrying wounds from their own past. And so the trauma is being transferred to the next generation, and the next – that’s the so-called generational trauma. My parents not only haven’t worked on themselves before choosing to have a child, but up until this day, well into their old age. So yeah, that’s definitely their choice.

I know what you mean. I don’t take it personally. It’s like evolution or biology. It just can happen like this. I better deal with it than to take it personal or worry.

Yes, your parents treated you poorly not because it was your fault, but because they didn’t know better. They had their own issues and it seems they were both emotionally immature in their own way. As a result, they didn’t know how to treat their child (or children – sorry, I forgot if you had any siblings?) properly, lovingly, in a way that won’t leave emotional scars.

It’s good that you don’t take it personally – it’s about them, not you.

I’d say that too. It is indeed my responsibility. It seems that I have forgiven them but I don’t want to have much to do with them and I’m afraid of relapsing.

I understand that. You’re still on your healing journey, still finding yourself, still figuring out where your boundaries are. It’s better to stay away from a deeper interaction with them, because you might get hurt again. So that’s totally okay to protect yourself while you’re healing and getting to know yourself and your boundaries.

I don’t think I can heal with my parents anymore.

Yes, you don’t need your parents in order to heal. They can’t really help you heal – unless they were very aware and have worked on their own issues, which would make them more understanding and having more empathy. But it’s better not to rely on them for your own healing.

I do think about physical suicide by times but as long as I don’t suppress it it’s fine. I think it’s normal and I don’t give it too much weight. I don’t like to tell you because I don’t want you to worry. I have to speak the truth.

I understand, Ben. I myself had similar thoughts when faced with the prospect of suffering for the rest of my life, due to my chronic pain and mobility issues. At least that was the thought I was telling to myself – that I would suffer forever – which fed those dark thoughts. But that kind of thinking is called catastrophization, and I know it’s a distortion. And I know how to snap out of it.

But I also know how the prospect of a long-lasting pain, be it physical or emotional, can mess up with our mind and make us desperate. And make us have those thoughts. So yeah, it’s kind of normal, as you say – when faced with the pain that seems unbearable.

I am glad you were honest with me. But I also hope those are just thoughts and you would never resort to harming yourself. I sincerely hope that no matter how hard it seems, you keep on keeping on and never give up on yourself. Because I promise you, it’s a quest well worth the struggle <3

I learned that I hate myself so I had to open up to it and allow myself to hate myself. I had to be a mother who accept her child this way. And I haven’t had it since.

Yeah, every abused or neglected child has self-hatred. I did too. We believe it’s our fault. We believe we’re unlovable. We hate ourselves because we weren’t loved properly. And we weren’t taught how to love ourselves.

My mother certainly didn’t teach me that – she was full of criticism of me. Lacking compassion. Strict, cold. No wonder I developed self-hatred. Because I believed her: I believed that I was unlovable and unworthy.

I guess you too believed the spoken or unspoken message your parents sent you: that you are unlovable as you are. That something’s wrong with you. That’s the core of self-hatred, I believe.

You indeed would have to be the mother to yourself, who accepts her child just as it is. Unconditionally. With all its flaws – even if you deem you have big flaws. Unconditional acceptance is the first step in healing, Ben.

When you say: “I had to be a mother who accept her child this way”., perhaps that’s what you did: you unconditionally accepted yourself, even as a part of you hates yourself. Unconditional acceptance. Now the next step would be to give love to yourself, to tell to your inner child that he is precious and that you love him, just as he is. Because the mother (or a healthy parent in general), she doesn’t just accept, she loves on us. We need to become that loving parent to ourselves.

What seems to work is detaching from the body and the mind. As long as I watch the tension in my belly and create a story like this is trauma and this needs to go away I’m attached.

You can give me your thought Tee. And also if you spot some ignorance you can point me at it.

I think I get it: if you say to yourself “this needs to go away”, there’s attachment. There is a pressure to change. There isn’t unconditional acceptance. But if you just observe the tension in your belly and the underlying thoughts/feelings, without the need to change them – that’s already different. There is no pressure in that, no attachment.

And if you observe all that, and at the same time have compassion for whatever is happening within you – that, in my book, would be true healing. Instead of detaching from the body and the mind, you stay with the body and the mind – observing the struggle and loving the person who is having the struggle. How does that sound?

Aha,that’s good that you got aware of that. Now change can happen more easily. I wish you courage and strength with that.

Thanks a lot, Ben! I need to reinforce my commitment every day. The old patterns are strong, but I am stronger 🙂

Hi Beni,

uhh, a lot of deep stuff in your last post. Dark night of the soul, death (emotional), nothingness, being no one (“There’s nothing behind the mask”).

Was that a Buddhist monastery that you stayed at? It seems the philosophy they follow is to focus on letting go (what you call emotional death), because in letting go, one is freed from pain and darkness, and there is lightness and independence (if I understood it right?):

Also one think a monk told me that dark knight of the soul is this dark thing and we’re here in the Christian countries are often drawn to the dark. But there is this very light and freeing quality while there is loss and often I notice how I’m focused on the dark. So it showed me lightness and independence and that death is nothing to fear (physical and emotional) but I’m still working on that one.

You also said:

It was quite heavy. I felt like if I just let go I would die. I went trough some heavy things and I think about death every day.
But also to die is the end of something so I would say emotional death is an important part where physical death doesn’t work.

Does emotional death mean to cut emotional ties to the people who have hurt you (such as your parents)? Because you say they feel dead to you now:

It feels a bit like my parents have died. … I think the feeling that they are dead is good. It shows autonomy and independence but I’m not trough it there are still parts pulling.

To be honest, I don’t like the term “emotional death”, because it sounds like not just letting go of unhealthy attachments, but also dying emotionally, not feeling things any longer, not caring about anything (or anyone) anymore? I’m not sure if this is what you mean by emotional death?

True healing does require letting go of unhealthy attachments, e.g. letting go of our longing for our abusive or neglectful parents to finally give us the love and validation we’re craving. We indeed to let that go of that desire.

But I wouldn’t call it emotional death because the latter sounds as if we too die emotionally in the process – as if we become numb. Whereas with true healing, we start to truly live and love ourselves (and be able to love others too, in a healthy way). We don’t die emotionally, we are reborn, so to speak.

So I am not sure how these spiritual teaching go about healing? What is considered healing for them?

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Dear Sophie,

I totally empathize with you, because it’s not an easy situation to be in. I’ve got a person with very similar characteristics to your mother in my close surroundings, and it’s extremely hard.

She too is self-destructive, doesn’t care about her health, and then when there’s some emergency (usually of her own doing), she calls her son to rescue her and take care of her. She likes overspending and getting into debt (from which she expects to be rescued as well, taking no responsibility for her spending habits.) She also gets into conflicts with neighbors due to her own antisocial behavior, refuses to cooperate, and then blames the neighbors for being “crazy”.

She is entitled, stubborn, refuses to take responsibility for her actions, and like your mother, expects her son to extinguish the fires that she herself started. She hasn’t been diagnosed with anything, because she absolutely refuses that there is anything wrong with her. But she definitely shows traits of narcissism and possibly borderline as well. And like a true narcissist, she can actually show a normal face in public, feigning a rational, well-educated and well-mannered person, while only her closest family and friends (and next-door neighbors) know her true self.

Her son is on the receiving end of all this, and it’s been very hard for him. He’s grown up feeling responsible for her – he like you is a parentified child. And she uses guilt-tripping (“but I am your mother, I took care of you as a child, now you should take care of me!”) to get him to do what she wants.

He would feel guilty if something bad happened to her – because she’s programmed him to believe that it is his responsibility. But it’s also true that nobody would want to see their loved one get into serious trouble, fall sick or die. And so he needs to balance his care and compassion for his mother with self-protection and not allowing her to ruin his life.

In the last 6 months I’ve been learning more about narcissism and have come across a fantastic resource for adult children of narcissistic parents. A psychotherapist Jerry Wise has numerous videos on his youtube channel on how to do exactly what you’re seeking to do: become your own person and liberate yourself from your mother’s grip. A video that can serve as an intro into his approach is titled “How to Raise Your Self-worth Even if Your Parents Destroyed It“.

His main premise is that growing up with a narc parent, we inevitably get emotionally enmeshed with them, because they make us so, via guilt tripping and expecting us to meet their needs, not vice versa. So we need to liberate ourselves from that emotional enmeshment and feeling guilty for having our own needs, desires, goals.. basically, for having our own life and being a separate person from them.

He calls this process self-differentiation. He has dozens of videos, a free webinar, and also a paid program. I am mentioning this because you say you’re currently on a tight budget, so perhaps, if you resonate with his approach, this can be a cheaper alternative to individual psychotherapy, and still serve as a blueprint or a spreadsheet that you said you’d like to have. Although I have to say, I myself haven’t taken the program, I only watched his free videos.

Another useful video I can recommend is How To Heal From A Narcissistic Parent, by Barbara Heffernan. She is talking about whether to cut contact or not, and how the most important thing is to cut the entanglement, i.e. become less emotionally attached. And then we can decide how we want to relate to them – whether to reduce contact and set strong boundaries, or cut contact completely.

This is such a huge and complex topic, and these are just some ideas to start with. You’ve got a really great insight into your situation and an amazing self-awareness, and I am sure that you’re able to start walking this path of self-differentiation, slowly but surely. It’s a blessing that you’ve got a supportive husband – that’s so precious! I too recommend that you don’t let your mother draw him into her schemes (perhaps he could block her number or not pick up the phone when she is calling? Because a narcissist will indeed use all entries and all possibilities, if you let them.)

Dear Anita,

Well, every solution is a temporary solution, isn’t it Tee?

I was referring to a regular, daily use of a drug, which can be detrimental. That’s why it is recommended to use only temporary. Not sure why the need for relativization?

I’m sorry, but I don’t feel that the discussion about my chronic pain or ways to treat it is relevant or helpful, specially not here, on SereneWolf’s thread. I would like to return the thread to him, if that’s okay with you, in hope that he will see it and reply in due time.

Dear Beni,

it’s been a long time since we’ve communicated, and I apologize for not replying to your last post and disappearing again 🙁 My health suddenly deteriorated last September (chronic knee pain becoming much worse and no treatment seemed to help), and so it made me really depressed and at the end of my rope.

But then I’ve started journaling about it, for months and months as this was going on, and I’ve come to some pretty important realizations about myself and the core beliefs that are keeping me stuck. Which of course have to do with my childhood and the way I was parented and “programmed”, so to speak.

Over time, I could surrender those false beliefs, and my knee got a bit better too, so life seems manageable again 🙂 And I feel hopeful again…

How have you been, Beni? How is your relationship with your mother? I’d be happy to hear from you! <3

Dear Anita,

thank you for kind offer.

Tee, I have to admit—it feels a little strange to be offering you support, after all the years you’ve spent helping so many people on the forums with their struggles, and doing such a remarkable job at it. It makes me wonder—what could I possibly say that you don’t already know?

I was touched when I saw that you’ve reached out to me this March and expressed your good wishes and hope that I’d return to the forums (I haven’t seen it at the time you posted, but only now, in May). It showed how much you care, and it meant a lot to me. Already that in itself is a huge support – acknowledging someone, expressing you’re thinking of them and hoping they are doing fine. It really is, Anita. I don’t think there is anything else you need to do to help me at the moment. And I kind of am not actively asking for help – I need to put my own insights into practice, choosing trust over fear. So wish me luck with that! 🙂

Please don’t disappear again, Tee. If there is any way I can help you, in a way I wasn’t able or willing to help you before- please let me know. Don’t go back to Isolation and Depression. I care about you, Tee (previously TeaK.. remember?)

To be honest, writing each single post takes me quite a lot of time. I am very slow, and I cannot be super active on the forums with other activities in my life. I can’t become a regular contributor, like you are. But I returned to show that I am alive and not to betray the people I was communicating with. And I am glad that I returned and felt your warm welcome! <3

(previously TeaK.. remember?
I do remember, and there is a reason I’ve changed my user name. So I’d like to stay Tee, if possible 🙂 Thanks!

Dear Alessa,

thank you so much, that’s so kind of you! <3

Yeah, health has been a major “catalyst” for me – causing me great pain, but also leading me to greater insights about my core issues. I’ve realized I am not only physically limited, but also that I am holding limiting beliefs, which have held me back for a long time. And the true limitation was my belief that I was doomed to fail. That there is no point in trying, because I would fail anyway.

I wasn’t aware of this false belief, but I’ve been definitely feeling its consequences: being stuck, unable to make a move, forever procrastinating. Perhaps it’s not by chance that my physical issues are all about being limited in movement…

Alessa, thank you again for you welcoming words! Wishing us all healing and thriving!