* middle-aged woman

Dear Alessa,

seems I did misinterpret some things…. for example, I didn’t know how incredibly courageous you were when you stood up to your stepfather to protect your step-sister:

When I moved in my sister was being threatened with a knife by the stepfather and screamed at. I stopped that very quickly. I just said if you don’t stop picking on her I will report you to the police and you will be in jail so fast your head will spin. If you want to hit someone you can hit me, but you will end up in jail for it. Any just like that it immediately stopped.

Wow, that’s something! You stood up to a man who was holding a knife! And you said just the right things to make him stop and never threaten your sister (or you) again. Kudos to you, Alessa!

I would say for my brother it was mostly about not provoking my biological mother. She had a lot of strict rules that needed to be followed. My brother wasn’t really invested in following them.

I understand your biological mother was very abusive to you, and merciless, and so no wonder you tried everything to prevent her from getting provoked. And when your brother wasn’t behaving well, that was a threat for both of you…

I know you’ve done a lot of healing work on that, parts of which you’ve shared here on the forums as well. You’ve done some amazing inner child work and protected your inner child from your abusive mother. I think you’ve come a long way on your healing journey ❤️

Alcoholism was a theme in both families.

My goodness! How is it possible that you got adopted by a family with an alcohol problem? The mother drinking, and the father threatening his daughter with a knife??

Although you said you and your half-sister were friends beforehand – perhaps that’s how? (please feel free not to answer any questions that feel uncomfortable to you)

I didn’t get too much of the abuse from the family because I would just walk away when they started on me.

I guess they were less abusive than your biological mother, and so you could always protect yourself, right?

I tried my best, but I wasn’t perfect by a long shot.

I think you did great considering the circumstances! You did your best to protect your brother and yourself from your very abusive and dangerous mother. You also did your best to protect your siblings and yourself from your relatively less abusive (but still abusive!) adoptive parents. In my eyes, you’re a hero, Alessa! ❤️

I haven’t had contact with my brother since I left. I gave him my number but he never called.

Oh I see… that’s what I’ve assumed wrong. You’re not trying to help your brother any longer – you’ve lost contact and he wasn’t interested in reaching out to you.

My sister tries her best and grew out of her behavioural difficulties.

I’m very glad to hear that!

Well I guess it depends how important the issue is to me. If it’s not that important I’ll just process it on my own. But if it’s important and requires discussion, I’ll wait for a bit until the person seems like they would be in a more receptive mood.

That’s a very healthy approach, Alessa. Very reasonable. So you’re not avoiding discussing important issues.

Perhaps when you said:

I guess it is just the keeping things inside. I wish that other people didn’t feel so much pain and could see me.

… you meant that you wish people would notice if something was bothering you, or would inquire about you, not only focus on themselves? That they would be more receptive to your needs, without you having to expressly tell them and ask things for yourself?

(again, no need to answer if you don’t feel like it) But yeah, that can hurt… if the relationship is one-sided and one party is sensitive to the other party’s needs, but they’re not receiving the same care and attention in return. You ask them how they are, they don’t ask you how you are…

Anyway, just a thought, please disregard if it doesn’t apply. I think you’re doing a great job giving yourself care and attention – being responsive to your own needs – and that’s what’s most important ❤️

Dear Anita,

You understand and it makes me happy right now, that you understand 😊

Yes I do. And I’m happy that you’re happy 😊

And most importantly, for me, is that you are hearing me and able and willing to adjust what you hear/ see, considering new input from me.

Absolutely! I now understand that this type of exercise certainly wouldn’t do you good. And I was thinking: there are other types of corrective exercises, where we can give love and nurturance to our inner child. Basically, self-parenting exercises.

For me personally, a corrective exercise actually involved imagining a presence of a higher power, who gave me love that I haven’t received from my mother. This of course might not be something for you, but I’m just saying that there are plenty of things we can do to give to our inner child what she hasn’t received from our parents. Unconditional love, acceptance, appreciation, compassion, a loving, nurturing presence: we can give all that to our inner child.

I’ve come across a beautiful short talk by Thich Nath Hanh, on what it means to love another. Although he meant it for romantic love, I think it’s perfect to say these things to our inner child too. I’ve made a transcript of his talk, since you said you’re not really receptive to videos (the video is called “Darling, I am there for you”):

If you love someone, the greatest gift you can give to him or her is your presence.
If you’re not there, how could you love?
And therefore, the most meaningful declaration when you’re in love is this: “Darling, I am there for you”.
Your presence is very important for him or her. And that cannot be bought with money. That could only be practiced by mindfulness.
So breathe in and breathe out mindfully, and make yourself available to your beloved one. That is a practice of mindfulness. “Darling, I am there for you.”
When you’re there, the energy of mindfulness is there, and that energy helps you recognize the presence of the other.
If you’re not there, how can you recognize her presence or his presence?
So you embrace the person you love with the energy of mindfulness. That is the most nourishing thing for him or her.
Otherwise, you’re there, but you’re not really there. Your presence is not true, not real, because you’re not mindful.
Especially when the person you love suffer, your presence is most important to her, to him.
And that is why when you see the person you love suffer, you have to make yourself available right away: “Darling, I know that you suffer, and that is why I am there for you.”
That is the practice of mindfulness.

I loved this phrase “Darling, I am there for you.” I thought what a great thing to say to our inner child. It gives soothing, protection, compassion, understanding… all in one.

It’s similar to what Jana shared a while ago, among her inner child exercises. Thank you Jana, if you’re reading this 😊 Thich Nath Hanh is a gem and a real discovery for me… I very much appreciate his teachings and his peaceful presence ❤️

Dear Anita, I hope you’re having a restful night. Talk to you soon! ❤️

Dear Anita,

W.O.W. You say it so well.. I don’t need to watch all the YouTubes you watched, you are giving me the best of what you watched and IMPROVED ON, I have no doubt!

Haha, thank you! 😊 I’m glad this is helpful to you! ❤️

As for the corrective exercise:

– but if I stop being angry at her, I might let her get close again and hurt me..???

– but if I get to believe that she cannot destroy me, I might let her back in.. I mean, If I don’t perceive her to be dangerous, I may renew contact with her and that’s something I promised my inner child to never do.

Let’s take an example from the animal kingdom: if you see a snake – whom you know is a potentially dangerous animal, are you angry at it, or you know its nature and you seek to protect yourself from it? You don’t even go into areas where snakes are expected, however you’re not angry at a snake for being a snake.

This is how I imagine treating certain abusive people: we don’t need to be perpetually angry at them, because it’s like being angry at a snake for being a snake. Still, we don’t want to hang around with them, we don’t want to have any contact with them, because we know how hurtful and obnoxious the person can be.

In other words, our releasing anger doesn’t prevent us from wanting to protect ourselves. It doesn’t mean we want to renew contact, and even less that we want to expose ourselves to their abuse again.

Frankly, I don’t think anger is the best protector in the long-run (because us constantly being in fight-or-flight isn’t beneficial for us). Anger is there to tell us that we need to protect ourselves. That we shouldn’t expect love from a snake (but only poison). And so we don’t go into the snake pit, and we don’t imagine the snake will suddenly turn into a beautiful princess, or whatever.

I believe that anger is a signal, not a long-term solution. I believe that the goal is to process and release anger and replace it with clarity and clear boundaries, so we don’t feel threatened by the person anymore, but still we’re very aware of who they are and would never expose ourselves to their abuse again.

I wonder how this sounds to you?

I think that the exercise is not a one size fits all strategy or solution. I don’t think that there’ll ever be a time when an adult me can be calm in a room with her, and I think that aiming at such a situation (in a room with her in real-life or in my imagination) would be harmful to my inner child.

I do understand if processing and releasing anger at this point seems very scary to you, and you don’t see it as a feasible path forward in your healing. I totally respect if this is not something you’re willing or able to do, at least not at this point. And that’s okay. ❤️

Dear Alessa,

you’re welcome, and I’m happy to talk about it and better understand you and what you’re dealing with ❤️

I wouldn’t say that I withdraw from the relationship. I tend to just retreat from conflict, manage my feelings and carry on as normal outside of conflict. I self-regulate pretty quickly as long as I don’t force myself to stay in the conflict.

Oh I see. So I imagine you stop talking about a painful topic – something that bothers you but the other person isn’t willing to address – and you let go. You don’t go into conflict, but instead, you self-regulate. And you don’t mention the painful issue to the person any more, or at least you don’t insist on it, right?

And the people that this happens with are mostly your siblings, whom in the past you were taking care of and sort of took on a parental role, in place of your mother (who was very abusive), but also your adoptive parents, who weren’t too caring either.

I learned to ignore parents and just focus on taking care of the house and siblings. I hoped that if I took care of things that there would be less interaction with parents. My siblings always had behavioural issues because of the abuse received from parents.

Perhaps you were managing your siblings’ behavior, so they wouldn’t provoke your parents? Like, you were trying to keep everyone in line (as well as took care of the household), so that your parents wouldn’t become abusive?

I think it’s a few things not just anger that I avoid. Rejection or even just not being listened to.

And when they (your siblings) didn’t seem to care about your feelings, e.g. when they kept doing things that would get them in trouble with your parents – that’s when you felt rejected, if I understood you well? Perhaps them behaving badly and provoking your parents also put you in trouble? Like it was harder for everyone, because they weren’t behaving themselves?

Dear Alessa, I’m aware that this is a sensitive topic for you, and so I don’t want to overwhelm you with questions. But I think I can now better understand some of the dynamic during your childhood and youth. It certainly was tough, and no wonder you tried to minimize abuse, reduce conflict, placate your parents, calm down your siblings… so things wouldn’t get even worse.

You were working non-stop to try to minimize conflict, because conflict had the potential to lead to serious consequences… and so you tried your best to prevent it.

Would that be a fair interpretation?

My heart goes out to you, Alessa, for everything you went through and all your efforts to protect your siblings from even greater abuse. You’re a hero, Alessa, and a survivor. And now you’re learning to thrive, not only survive ❤️

If I understood you well, your brother is still problematic (and perhaps your other siblings as well?) and doesn’t listen to you. However, you’re not trying to manage his behavior (or his feelings) anymore, but are focusing on your own well-being.

You can detach yourself from those painful issues, retreat from conflict and self-regulate. This helps you maintain your inner peace (which you need for raising your precious son) – in spite of potential chaos happening in your brother’s or your other siblings’ lives.

If so, that’s fantastic, Alessa, and a testimony to an amazing healing that you’ve achieved. ❤️❤️

P.S. I apologize if some of the assumptions/interpretations I made aren’t completely true, i.e. if I’ve misunderstood something.

Dear Alessa,

thanks, I’m glad you’re fine talking about this ❤️

I’m not very comfortable with people expressing anger and such. … I have a bad habit of not sharing.

Okay, so you’re afraid (and maybe know) that if you were to express your frustration about something the person is doing, they would get angry with you. And that’s not something you want to experience because it’s stress/trauma inducing, right?

And so you don’t say anything and kind of withdraw from the relationship for a while? I’m asking this because you’ve said: “I recently learned that retreating from conflict is a bit reactive.”

That’s why I’ve assumed that you tend to retreat from the relationship, at least for a while, if you’re feeling upset about something.

Whereas in the past (if I understood you well), you would stay in the relationship and try to appease the person (manage their moods, specially their anger):

I think it’s shades of when I was younger, I used to actively try to manage others moods.

When you were younger, you did your best so that the person wouldn’t get angry with you (or at those you cared about), right?

I heard that all of these things are a trauma response.

Yes, it’s a trauma response, it’s the so-called fawn response. It’s what the child typically does with bullying or otherwise intimidating parents or caretakers (could be alcoholics or addicts too): the child seeks to appease them and make sure they don’t explode and get out of control and hit/harm the child. It’s a self-preservation mechanism.

So if I understood you well, in the past you’ve stayed in the relationship with a difficult person, trying to placate them and neglecting your own needs. Whereas now, you don’t neglect your own needs, and so you withdraw from the relationship (at least for a while), but you don’t share what’s bothering you, because it would cause the other person to get angry.

Am I understanding this correctly?

If so, that’s already a step forward – you’re not neglecting your needs, you’re not giving up on yourself so to stay in the relationship, but you’re taking care of your needs.

And with some people, there’s even no point in sharing what’s bothering us, because they wouldn’t understand it or wouldn’t respect it anyway. So perhaps your tactic is not that bad. Of course, it depends who this person is and what role they play in your life, and how you want the relationship to look like on the long run.

Anyway, good that you don’t resort to appeasing anymore, but can withdraw from the relationship if it becomes too much.

❤️

Dear Anita,

Because of recent practice, I let myself feel what I was feeling, not trying to suppress or escape it, and I watched the feeling of feelings subside. And I talked to myself, saying: Huh.. yes, this is how it was, how it was.. being around her, the mother, that’s the effect I experienced of her being in my life.. the legacy she left in me, this very suffering.

And then I felt empathy for myself, I redirected my attention from where it’d normally go (guilt for the mother’s suffering, me being bad.. that PAIN.. orbiting around her being the Center) to me being the Center, my Center, being on my side and.. the distress CALMED down. I didn’t – don’t feel guilty.

That’s great that you could observe all your feelings and feel empathy for yourself as you were experiencing those feelings. As a result, you haven’t slipped into guilt, which would have been your automatic reaction. You didn’t start feeling guilty for choosing yourself over your mother, for protecting yourself from your mother. You chose yourself, and you didn’t feel guilty about it. That’s great! I think that’s great progress, Anita! ❤️

It’s all been just TOO MUCH. I am scared of her now as much as I always have been, an imagined look in her eye, the sight of her face, her voice, imagined (if I was to talk to her/ see her)- to me, it feels terrorizing.

Little girl Anita is so scared of the Mother- Monster in her life.

I’m sorry to hear that, Anita. But it’s understandable, because you were all alone with your Mother-Monster, and no one to rescue you. There was no escape from her, and you weren’t even sure if you needed to escape or you needed to become “better” so she would finally stop persecuting you. I guess a part of you wanted to escape, but a part wanted to stay and please her, so she would finally love you and accept you, right?

A way to heal the inner child is by giving her a so-called “corrective emotional experience”. The way it happens is that we imagine a distressing situation from the past, and then our adult self “steps in” and intervenes, i.e. protects our inner child from the abusive parent. Our adult self intervenes on behalf of our inner child. By doing that, we rewrite the old traumatic imprint and with that, the habitual traumatic response too.

Ideally, this is done with a therapist, in a safe environment. But it can be done on our own, if we’re anchored in our adult self and have absolute confidence that our adult self can protect our inner child. If we feel we can be a good, loving parent to our inner child.

I wonder how you feel about doing something like that – that the adult Anita intervene on behalf of LGA and protect her from your mother, in a rehashed situation from your past?

I’d also like to say that in order to strengthen our capacity to be a good, nurturing parent to our inner child, we need to be able to feel calm and relaxed in our body – because that’s how we calm our nervous system. We cannot be a good parent – neither to our inner child nor to a real child – if we’re stressed and anxious.

You’ve mentioned embrace on the other thread, and it occurred to me that you might want to try the self-hug exercise, which is great for calming our nervous system. It’s basically putting our left hand under our right armpit (a little below it), and our right hand on our left shoulder, which simulates a hug. And then breathing.

You can look it up on youtube, in a video by Irene Lyon (who is a somatic practitioner), and the video is titled “DIY: Ancient Anxiety Medicine.”

❤️

Dear Alessa,

That was tough with your son climbing out of his crib all the time and you needing to cuddle him and hold him while he falls back asleep. If you experience body pains due to your health condition, especially during a flare-up, I can imagine it was really strenuous and exhausting. Good that you’ve thought of a solution with the chair to make things more comfortable for yourself! ❤️

You’re describing an interesting dynamic during conflict: if I understood you well, you’re saying that you’re able to set boundaries, and aren’t likely to budge even if the person is guilt-tripping you.

At the same time, you say you have a problem expressing what’s bothering you in a situation (i.e. expressing your negative feelings), and so you only discuss that later.

You’ve said something that touched me:

I guess it is just the keeping things inside. I wish that other people didn’t feel so much pain and could see me.

Perhaps you don’t feel like sharing your feelings, because you feel that the other person wouldn’t even understand you? That they expect you to be very understanding of them, full of empathy, and never show upset or other negative emotions:

I feel like people depend on me being too understanding and over managing my emotional regulation to keep things off their plate which isn’t healthy. At the same time, I recently learned that retreating from conflict is a bit reactive.

It seems you believe you need to be strong for others, and shouldn’t bother them with your needs and your feelings? And you don’t feel like expressing those feelings to them, because it would be futile? And so you withdraw from the conversation/communication (in order to protect your boundaries), but without explaining what’s bothering you?

Dear Alessa, I apologize if I’m asking too many questions and/or jumping into conclusions here. I just wanted to understand the dynamic better. But if it’s making you uncomfortable and you don’t feel like analyzing it further, I’ll completely understand and respect it ❤️

Lovely talking to you too, Alessa ❤️