Dear Erin:

I can very much relate to having a disapproving, negatively critical mother. I understand why you don’t feel free to be yourself, living with her, and I understand you “still unwilling to risk doing anything that may allow me to be (emotionally) hurt by my mum. Even though I know she’s just another person with their own issues and opinions, I can’t seem to convince myself of that.”-

The reason for you not able to convince yourself that your mother is just another person, I believe, is that it is impossible for a child to see her mother as just another person. Really, there is no mental separation between the child and the mother. At one point, as an adult, you experienced the freedom and wellbeing of such a separation, but living with her again, you are back to the same child/ mother dynamics.

The negatively critical mother becomes our negatively critical Inner Critic. The Inner Critic is the mental representative of the mother. Living with her gives it more power and keeps you imprisoned in fear, too fearful to be yourself.

My long journey to be myself, to separate from my very disapproving mother started with my first competent psychotherapy six years ago, continued when I cut all contact with her two years after, and still ongoing, as the separation I need is not only from the person but from her mental representative in my brain (mind boggling, really).

anita