Dear joanna:

What you expressed in your most recent post is something very heavy in you, has weighed on you for so long and so intensely, that is why you thanked me for asking. I will quote and comment.

“Everytime I was going to his place she ‘prepared me’ to despise him…how he didn’t pay money, how..”-

when she did that, she prevented you from forming your own experiences with him. She forced her feelings, her experience on you. She took away from you the opportunity to your own relationship with your father.

You wrote that “She expressed all her anger to (you)”, that includes her anger toward her mother, her brother, her sister, etc., correct?

I think it caused you to believe that people are bad, not trustworthy, and you should be careful because people are bad and will hurt you (“I just grew up hearing how bad people are”).

A big problem is that the very person who taught you how bad everyone is was bad herself, treating you badly, hurting you.

So what she did was to hurt you on one hand and let you know, on the other,  that everyone else will hurt you too. In other words, nowhere for you to go, no one to turn to. Alone in a hostile world.

You knew it on one level, that is why you made the comment to her/ her boyfriend: “You think you’re both so perfect?… I would ask them the sane now. Why do you do this. What’s the point of that”

I may be able to answer that, or suggest a good possibility for an answer because I have a similar experience with my mother (will share about it if you’d like). My suggested answer is that your mother expressed her anger at other people to you or in your presence because it felt good for her to vent. Your well-being was not her concern. Feeling better herself was her concern and her motivation.

She did not think: is this good or bad for my daughter. She felt angry and she vented.

She told you that you had thin hair that will never grow long and thick. There was nothing you could have done, upon hearing this, to change your hair. She said it because she felt like saying it.

She told you to stand straight. Was she concerned for your well-being, thinking that your life will be better if you have better posture? I doubt it because such a motivation is inconsistent with her comments about your hair and with venting her anger to you and in your presence. Your well-being was not her concern.

She told you that you are skinny and lisp. The fact that she told you these things is consistent with her telling other people how they are this and that (negative this and that), and telling you how other people are this and that. Her motivation was anger, anger at your father, anger at other people, anger at you.

A child is one mental unit with the mother, no separation. Her anger was your anger.

The thing with anger is that it doesn’t stay contained in a neat box, that is, your mother was angry at you-> you were angry at yourself.

What happened is that because your mother hurt you, you felt anger at her as well. It is only natural to feel anger at the one who hurts us repeatedly.

It is therefore possible that you a motivation in your self harm was to say something like this to your mother: see how much you hurt me! See what you are doing to me! See my pain?

I would like to read your thoughts and feelings about any part of my post here.

anita