Hey Beni,

it’s a joy to hear from you too! <3

Oh, you have been going trough a thing and found some lightness. I’m proud of you!

Thank you! Yeah, it was a kind of a dark night, but I did find light(ness) and hope, eventually…

I wonder what beliefs the knees are connected with.

I’m afraid a part of it is a consequence of an old injury (a fall) that dislocated my kneecap just slightly, and over time caused my cartilage to wear off. But it was a slow and insidious process, and I didn’t get a proper medical advice either, so the damage to my cartilage progressed more than it should have 🙁

But I’m sure there is a spiritual, i.e. psychosomatic component as well, because it is about mobility and movement. And I’ve been pretty immobile and paralyzed in making certain career decisions. During this latest “dark night”, I’ve actually realized what core beliefs were behind it, so I’m working on releasing those.

And there was also the lower-back pain, which was an additional very nasty episode. Thankfully, that’s much better now, although I feel I’ll never be the same again, in terms of the ability to put stress on it. But thank God, it’s much less of an issue than before.

In any case, both of those are problems with physical mobility, and I’m pretty sure it’s related to the psychological aspect as well. And I think that because I’ve become aware of it, it’s easier to manage the physical pain as well.

I revisited a woman in autumn which turns out I’m really attached to. More than I thought. I have been suppressing that for a year before. To keep it short she has no space for me. I think every day of her. I think she’s the love of my life and I don’t really move on and I’m learning to accept that. Also I’m not moving on with my life I’m kinda waiting for her.

“she has no space for me” – meaning she’s not interested in a relationship with you?

That must be hard if you believe/feel she’s the love of your life, and your love isn’t reciprocated 🙁

I’m not moving on with my life I’m kinda waiting for her.

You think she will change her mind? Did she give you a hint that she might?

This is connected to the relationship with my mother inside. I feel way better about her I love her. Outside I don’t care so much.

You mean you love this girl and you’re hurt that she doesn’t want to be with you, but you don’t show it to her? You pretend you’re cool about her rejection? Or you haven’t even showed her clearly that you have feelings for her?

It feels a bit like my parents have died. Also the relationship with my dad is something I reflect more often now.
I feel avoidant about meeting family and old friends.

Oh, I’m sorry about that. A part of your isolation – which you talked about before – is that you didn’t want to relate to people on their terms, but on your own, right? Specially with your mother, you didn’t want to fulfill her “orders” (to clean the kitchen, etc) while she treated you with disrespect. Do you feel that’s still the case – that you don’t want to pretend with people, or conform to their expectations, but you’re also not able to set proper boundaries, so it’s easier for you to withdraw?

I have been staying 3 months in a monastery and will stay another month in june.

Oh cool! How’s that been?

All this has taught me a lot and i can stay present trough more pain and am more accepting with myself. I generally feel peaceful even when in pain and often I can step away from heavy and dark tought patterns.

That’s great that you can emotionally regulate yourself and you don’t slip into dark thoughts. That’s a real strength. To sit with pain, and feel it, without letting it consume you.

Turns out I’m not who I think I am..

Would you elaborate on that?

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“.

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.

Dear Anita,

you’re very welcome!

Ibuprofen and other NSAIDs can be a temporary solution, but as far as I know, they’re not recommended to use on a daily basis, because they can have side effects, such as kidney damage and heart problems. Better solution would be to do physical therapy to strengthen the muscles and relieve the joint. But of course, if you only have occasional pain, be it in the knee or anywhere else in the body, using pain killers is fine.

Dear Anita,

I wish I could be more than I was, so to be there for you the way you needed someone to be there for you.

you are absolutely enough! <3 You don’t need to be more or give more than you’re already giving. Luckily, I wasn’t all alone in my pain. My husband was there with me, supporting me, both physically and emotionally. I couldn’t have done it alone. So don’t worry, I didn’t suffer all by myself, even though I wasn’t present on the forums.

You’re doing a great service to so many people, so please don’t feel bad about “not being enough”!

Dear Anita,

thank you. Yes, learned helplessness is one of my key issues. I was programmed to feel helpless and to see every problem not as a challenge to master, but as an insurmountable obstacle and something that is dangerous and might get me in trouble. So I was taught to be afraid of challenges – both because they are scary and also because I don’t have the necessary abilities and skills to solve them (according to my mother). Which basically lead to paralysis…

“The courage to change the things I can” – yes, it took me till recently to understand that I didn’t believe I can change some things – because I (unconsciously) believed that I was doomed from the start.

I also want to add that physical pain affects me deeply. My tendency is to catastrophize it, fearing it will never improve and will always limit me.

I had a similar experience with back pain, which lasted for almost 1.5 years. It was a totally new and scary experience to live with chronic pain, which fluctuates and comes back again and again, and you realize you’ll never be free from it. It did get better though, and I’m not feeling as fragile and helpless as before. I don’t feel like a helpless victim to my back pain. So I did develop some resilience there, both physical and psychological.

The thought of losing the ability to walk is frightening. I know many people in real life who struggle with knee pain, experiencing discomfort while walking. Among those who had knee replacement surgery, the majority saw significant improvement, and some even became completely pain-free.

Knee replacement is waiting for me too, down the line, but it’s best to postpone it till a certain age, because the artificial knee has an expiry date, and once you had it “installed”, it needs to serve you for life. So… you don’t want to put it in too soon, if you know what I mean 🙂 And it’s a major surgery, which in itself comes with some risks and a long recovery time, so it’s better to postpone it as much as possible.

Thank you Anita for your valuable feedback, your help, support and continued presence! Keep shining! 🙂 <3

Dear Dafne,

I am so sorry to have left you hanging and disappearing on you. I got into a difficult spot health-wise and fell into depression, because no treatment seemed to help. I talked about it a bit more on the other thread.

But then I saw that Anita has your back and is helping you, and I felt a little less guilty for disappearing like that. I hope you can forgive me, though I know I should have at least let you know that I am still around (alive, but not really kicking 🙂 ), because you said you were worried about me. I am very sorry about that.

I’ve read through your exchange with Anita, and I am glad that with Anita’s help, you’ve become even more aware of the bad influence your mother has on you. And that you’ve decided to go to a retreat and spend some time away from that abusive environment. Have you managed to do that?

I too believe you need to separate yourself, both physically and emotionally from your mother. Because I’ve been learning some more about toxic parents, and one key problem is our enmeshment with them. They don’t let us be a separate person, they feel like they possess us. And indeed, she doesn’t let you move away, she always blackmails you and guilt trips you back into her abusive “embrace.” It’s always like that with toxic parents: they have a hold on us and they don’t let us go (or let us be).

I do hope you are not giving up on gaining your freedom from abuse. I’ve come across additional online resources on how to do that – how to liberate ourselves from the grip of abusive parents – and I’ll be happy to share them with you.

I hope you are fine and hanging in there, Dafne! Sending you lots of love <3

Dear SereneWolf,

it’s been a very long time, and I sincerely apologize for the silence, but it’s been a challenging period, ever since last September.

I’ve been having issues with my mobility for the past 5 years or so, but in September my condition suddenly deteriorated, and I couldn’t even walk for a few minutes without pain. This was a totally unexpected deterioration and it wouldn’t get better, no matter what I tried. The treatment that I was having high hopes for and that had a chance of bringing significant improvement largely failed too.

And so I fell into a deep depression, because I felt pretty much doomed. For the last 5 years, I’d been having a string of bad luck with my health, and this seemed like the last nail in the coffin. I felt as if God or a higher power is against me, deliberately giving me these blows, sabotaging me, not allowing me to be happy. Or at best not caring about me, letting me suffer alone. And I thought to myself – well if God is against me, then how can I possibly ever thrive? How can I ever succeed? I truly felt doomed at the time.

But then, after pages and pages of self-reflection, I’ve realized that this negative and hostile “higher power” is in fact my mother. To me as a child, she was a “higher power” and omnipotent. In fact, Anita used to talk about our parents being like gods to us, and it helped me come to the realization that my mother is this negative, hostile “higher power”, who is against me. And that I’ve been projecting my own parents onto my image of God.

Which was a huge revelation! It helped me to become more hopeful and optimistic, in spite of being in a pretty bad place health-wise. It helped me accept that a different reality is possible, even though my current reality was pain and suffering. Dr. Joe Dispenza’s videos and testimonies of miraculous healings (which to me proved the existence of a benevolent higher power, who wants us to thrive in life) helped me too.

Over the next few months my knee got a bit better, not quite as before last September, but there are periods without pain and I can go for short walks, which is a huge blessing. And I’ve realized many other things regarding my mother and her “programming”, which explain why I’ve always felt stuck regarding my career, and why I’ve never managed to fulfill my dreams. I feel those blocks are getting weaker and the deeply held fears are slowly melting.

The new day is hopefully coming, the new dawn, I hope… The false belief (that I am doomed) is gone. But there’s a long way before me. I need to start putting one foot before the other, walking the walk, feeling the fear, but doing it anyway… But I truly hope it’s possible, now that the false core belief is gone.

How have you been, SereneWolf? Still slowmading?

Thank you so much for your kind words, for your continual support and for being so gracious and understanding about my disappearances. I know it’s not the best feature of mine. I tend to withdraw when I am in pain, rather than seek support and connection. I curl into my own cocoon. But by doing that, I abandon people who might need my help and support. I am sorry for that.

Hi Beni,

It sometimes feels like that I am my mom and my self is this thing I can’t control. And all I wish is that I would not need to care about myself. It would just do what it is supposed to do.

I think what I meant was that some parts are actually not me, they are someone else. This part’s I send away. These parts often also make me doubt my own boundaries and needs.

It’s like a part of her in me. I want that part to go away.

This part is probably your inner critic: the internalized voice of your mother, who is telling you how you should live your life. Also, it seems this part criticizes and blames you for having needs of your own, for not putting your mother’s needs and wants first. It blames you for wanting to have a life of your own, separately of what she wants.

This part could perhaps be called the “Mother pleaser” (or more generally, the people pleaser): the part of you that feels guilty (and unlovable) for having his own needs and wants.

I think I had a breakthrough. I can suddenly say fuck off (in a nice way) to people and I say it to everything which appears in my experience and does not meet my needs. Even to myself and I noticed that I can just shake my body like a child which cannot sit still to shake of freeze.

It seems you had a breakthrough in the ability to say No to your inner critic: when your inner critic (your “Mother pleaser”) criticizes you for not abiding to your mother’s wishes, you don’t feel guilty as you used to, but you tell it to f*** off. You don’t chastise yourself, but you respect your own boundaries, and your own needs. Is that what’s happening?

My body is very clear about that. It feels like no way. I tried to start a process with my dad but I think he lacks the empathy and curiosity to make me feel save. So I could open up and we could find a way which I can attend.

What do you feel you need from him so you could attend the party? What is it that you fear the most might happen at the party (if you feel comfortable answering)?

I think the main thing is that my mum said:” I don’t even know if you attend at the birthday”. From that point on it shifted and it feels too dangerous to risk my integrity.

Do you feel that was a criticism from your mother? That she was chastising you for not wanting to be at the party (thus showing a lack of empathy and understanding for you)?

I feel it’s unfair to my dad cause he got in between also I do not know anyone else who could help, my mom has no close friends. I could call her psychiatrist.

You mean you would like someone (e.g. her psychiatrist) to talk to your mother, so she would change her behavior towards you, and would stop hurting you with her demands and expectations? So you would feel safer around her?

If so, I am afraid that’s not a realistic expectation, because you can’t really control her behavior. What you can control is your reaction to her behavior.

For example, if you want to feel safe around her, you would need to be able to set healthy boundaries, rather than expect her to be perfectly compassionate and not hurt you with her behavior. In other words, you would need to stop hoping that she would change – you would need to change so that her behavior isn’t hurting you and throwing you off balance anymore.

I am not claiming that you indeed are expecting your mother to change, but mentioning it just in case, because that’s often what we hope for: that our parents would finally change and give us what they haven’t given us in childhood. Which is a misguided hope…