Dear Anita,

Thank you for opening up this conversation with me, as it is important.  I will try to explain both broad and specific.

I want to start with my mother.  She was incapable of regulating her emotions, her distress, so it would blurt out at any time, inopportune times, any time.  With no regard for what was going on in the other person’s life.  Then she would be over-ridden with guilt for causing the other person distress, and then feel like a victim even more because she “can’t help herself.”

A generic example would be something like I am in my room studying for an exam, stressed, she comes in slowly with a worried look on her face.  And I say what’s going on.  She says oh its nothing.  So I say no come on mom, I know something is wrong.  So she begins to tell me about something ridiculous such as whether we need to wait to reply to an invitation because it may make us look desperate, anything.  She then senses my annoyance, and I may even say this is not the right time for the conversation.  So she then becomes sullen, and a woe is me, well I don’t know how to control it – because I felt worried and sad.  Gosh I can’t help it.

I have this quality.  I don’t have it with the average person.  I have it with people who are closest to me.  I have had this pattern in every long relationship (romantic) of mine (2 previous boyfriends).

I continue to have an issue with not thinking before speaking.  Since all that has happened, I have told you that my husband has changed a lot.  He has gone from quiet, supporter – to more of a traumatized angry person himself.  Given that he has lived through all that has happened over the last few years and beyond, he is no longer blind to it.

He often says that I speak with nervous energy, talk just to talk. I never understood what he meant by that – but I see it now.  I see that I often do this around others just to fill space.  Perhaps I am feeling uneasy in my own self at that moment for whatever reason (well I always feel uneasy baseline because my body is full of repressed emotions) so this could be why.

Now my husband has an exam next week, and last week I did exactly what my mother does in above explanation.  I would start talking about something triggering, stressful, or a topic I “know” would cause him active stress.  It is as though while I am saying it, I don’t even realize, and have no control.  And as soon as it is out I see – it is a habit, like a tic.

So what is in my way of implementing the practice of thinking first?

I think it has to do with my ability to process what I am going through inside me, on my own.  I notice that my mother was never able to, it was blurted out to the universe every other second.  Where did this lead? healing? no, all it did is make her more crazy and make those around her (us) more crazy.  I am at risk of doing this to my husband.  I already have.  But my point here is that what is in the way is that I don’t have the appropriate coping mechanisms to deal with distress.  Just like her.

A side example is this, while we were thinking about where to live a month or so ago, we went to visit a house.  It was on the rural border of the town we were looking at, not by the city center, but the more isolated corner.  I knew this, but it was something worth seeing just to see – why not. This was MY choice mind you.  I went, with the real estate agent, was pleasantly surprised by the inside of the house, but had a strange sense of unease with the outside.  I called my husband to stop by on his way home from work.  he did.

So when we went home, I projected out.  I started saying things like, I don’t want to live in an isolated big house, and there’s no one around there – and it may seem okay now but it will be so lonely in the winter.  (ALL THINGS my mom used to say). and yes, those are objectively true in my case as the location was not the right fit. But see Anita, it was MY idea to check this house out, and even invite my husband to come see it, which he did happily.  Just to go home and pretty much be angry at HIM for this home being a bad location, and almost blaming him and saying I don’t want to live in this sort of place!

To me this sounds like, someone who doesn’t have a good idea about what they are feeling, how to process it, and how to cope – it is projected out onto the first available supportive listener..