Dear joanna:

Regarding the last part of your post, me getting exhausted- I get exhausted every day, this is why I take a break from the computer every day, nothing to do with your thread. It is also true that the latter part of your thread is very meaningful to me, in a personal way, and a few times I was distressed because of the similarities between your mother and mine. Thing is, this kind of distress is a good thing, as it leads to better understanding and more healing on my part. And so, you are helping me, thank you.

Talking about mothers, yours and mine are two different individuals, of course, far from being identical, and I keep this in mind as I ponder the similarities. As far as I remember, I never encountered a mother who repeatedly assigns her daughters bad intentions other than my own mother, and then yours.

You and I are also two different individuals and although we have uncanny similarities in childhoods, we also had different circumstances. This is why it is important for me to remind myself (just in case I forget) that it is you who knows better, the more and more aware you become, what is really going on and what is best for you to do.

Your paragraph before last is very meaningful to me, very encouraging to me. Your third and fourth paragraph are excellent, please me very much to read, how aware you are of reality, seeing it for what it is. Mental health is about seeing reality for what it is, and you are. When you become aware of reality, as you are, it never stops, that is, awareness doesn’t have an end point. There is more and more to see. Once you see what you see (fourth paragraph of your last post), what you see next will not cancel what you saw before, but give it more depth, more detail, more color.

As to some of the quotes from yesterday:

1. Oct 15, 2017: “So I’ve had this skin picking habit due to my anxiety. I always look for imperfections, can’t leave my face alone… I have small scars.”

March 3, 2018: “I don’t hurt myself….Her criticizing doesn’t get to me that much because I  know it’s not me who is flawed. So when I hear she complains or gets angry I now just she just has ‘an episode’ again, and it doesn’t have to do anything with me or what I did”

2. Oct 24 2017: “I still blame my tendency for depression and anxiety for all this, and think that I could have responded differently to (the man) treating me badly, I could have left earlier… Sure other people cause pain but it is also my fault that I let this happen because I’m too weak to leave or stop this. When I think of some people that wouldn’t let this happen to them I get the feeling I am a really damaged person”

March 3, 2018: “My parents failed me and it was their failure only… I give up my own responsibility for this, I refuse to feel responsible for not fixing this family.”

My input: the man you were involved with is indeed responsible for treating you badly. You are not at all responsible for how he treated you, for his behavior, for what he told you. You are responsible for staying involved with him even though he treated you badly (and you suffered for that), but you have zero responsibility, still, for his behavior.

Those other people who “wouldn’t let this happen to them” won’t because either they were treated well as children or they healed from mistreatment as children. You are healing and so, you too will not let this happen to you again.

3. Oct 25, 2017: “my father used to ignore me. He didn’t even do anything bad, he just kept ignoring me. He argued with my mother and I saw he cared and was angry, but me? He didn’t even see me.”

Dec 8: “when I met this guy he reminded me of my father so much, felt so familiar, so nice and safe.”

March 3, 2018: “I was a child and my father was responsible for our relationship and he failed. so then I give up my responsibility in our relationship, because it was his failure, not mine. My role was to be a child and do what children do, nothing more. Not being better, nicer or more cute or pretty so that he would want to spend time with me. He didn’t because he failed as a father, and that was impossible to change.”-

Perfectly stated.

4. Jan 28, 2017: “For most of my life I thought my dad was the problem… He never yelled, hit or got angry with me… Besides ignoring me he never did anything… She scared me and he was always nice and gentle to me, but in the bad moments he just never did anything.”

My input: in comparison to your mother he was the safe place, in comparison. Unfortunately he failed you in a major way: he failed to protect you from your mother. He failed to see you and to help you (“he failed as a father”, March 3).

5. Feb 4: “When my parents divorced and I visited him I had this feeling that all the issues I had back at home, they didn’t matter since I was at my dad’s. He didn’t do anything, everything just disappeared and it was okay.”

Jan 28, 2018: “Whenever he (man) was around I felt like everything would be fine now, and nothing else mattered. I still now feel that when he comes here he will take all the pain away.. the fact that we’ll see each other again brings hope, however illogical”

My input: I italicized the feeling you had with the man who mistreated you and the feeling you had with your father who neglected you- same feeling: safety.

A child has to feel safe sometimes, it is not optional. Since your mother was repeatedly aggressive toward you, you felt safe with your father who was not aggressive toward you. As a child you don’t know more than your experience, you didn’t have a… third parent who was not aggressive and attentive and loving toward you. So you felt safe with the parent who was… not as bad as the other.

As an adult, you felt safety with a man who reminded you of your father. For as long as you felt or feel safe with this man, or when thinking about him, it is because you still… don’t have that third option: a non-aggressive, attentive and loving person in your life. Once you have such a man in your life, you will have something else to compare, and in that comparison a man like the one you were involved with… wouldn’t feel safe anymore.

There are more quotes, but enough for now. I will continue with the others later. I hope you let me know more of your current thoughts and feelings.

anita