Until today I had the hope she had changed a bit, that she would be more comprehensive regarding my mental health, how the incoming online semester is already affecting my moral. You were right. She won’t never, ever change.

I called her a few hours ago. She asked me if I had started my courses. Yes I did since last monday. “Oh well, it’s going to be easy right”. No it won’t be easy, because online studies mean no on-campus classes and it means 80% of my social life gone. It also means that my ADHD will kick harder and I don’t even talk about my anxiety. “Oh c’mon, it’s your choice, you know why you do that so don’t even start like that”. Yeah, ok, thanks again for your empathy and your kind words, “mother”, I guess.

It’s hard to realize that your own mother refuses to see and understand that she’s the main reason of your sufferings. I’m glad that at 25 I’ve already matured enough to step back and stop taking everything she says too much at heart. Still, I can find comfort along other people as much as I want but all those words, I would need to hear them from her and not from someone else in order to stop being anxious. Well, I thought for a longtime it was the only solution. However now it’s a bit different from before, I can stand for my own opinions and the more I realize I’m detaching myself from her ideas the less she actually affects me. And I also I understand she won’t never change and I’ve decided to stop trying to make her see how I see life. I don’t have the time for that.

“Solution: don’t spend much time with her. Best would be (if you are to have contact with her) is to see her once a month or so, in the presence of other people (never alone!)  In the presence of other people (extended family, friends, strangers), she is likely to stop her “continuous flow of negativity” because she cares what the other people think of her. Here is another idea: bring someone with you when you visit her, so that she is not comfortable to be her negative, critical self in the presence of your companion.” => This is extremely tricky here. To start off since I’m 18 I try to avoid as much as possible the long stays at her place (in average 2/3 weeks during summer, 1 week for Christmas, autumn and spring break). It’s been 3 years now I go back only for summer and for Christmas (and it’s not even for her, it’s mostly for my grandmother who has to constantly fight against her as well..). Can you imagine, Anita, she sees her daughter TWICE per year for a very short period and STILL, she successes to be extremely conflictual/negative and so? It’s unbelievable, I live abroad, we can’t talk on the phone that much due to my schedule and she always find a way to ignite conflicts about so many superficial things?

Now, most part of the time when I’m at her place, my step-father is here (they aren’t married and he spends a lot of times in another house taking care of a garden and so). If at the beginning of their relationship (8 years ago) she didn’t really dare being too much negative, back in the days he was a kind of emotional wall between her and me, now she doesn’t even care. She spends a lot of time being negative towards him as well. I mean, he has his flaws, they are extremely different but she chooses to be with him. It’s even worst now, because well, he’s a very big coward. When she starts to get mad at some pointless stuffs, he doesn’t even try to argue with her, it’s always “yes darling you’re right” and obviously she stops being mad at him because he bows down. What he does is the perfect proof of his cowardliness, many times him and me we agreed about something which was wrong with her and ALWAYS he told me “yes you’re right, but, you tell her, I don’t want to get involved”.. ?????????????? are you her equal or a kind of mental slave??????? For this reason, he has never gained my total respect. Standing for what’s right for us is certainly the quality I respect the most and I expect from people who are closes to me to get this quality. I can’t deal with people who hide behind someone else when they can stand by themselves.

A few times, I brought some friends at home and believe me, she didn’t care to bother them with her attitude. I remember once, a former friend was here and she talked about her summer job. I never work during summer for the simple reason that it’s been 5 years I’m working along the year and I just need my two months holidays because I don’t take holidays otherwise. Again, she succeed to say “hm, that’s great, at least you do something useful during summer, you”. It was like she wanted to humiliate me in front of that friend. Obviously once my friend left, I started to reply back and again she started to play the victim. That was just an example. In general, when people are here and when she starts to act off limits, I can’t stop myself replying and of course she has to play the victim. Many times after she thought I was gone, I heard her saying to people “yes, sometimes it’s hard, she has a strong temper” and blablablabla. Once, I remember, I was extremely mad so I went in front of her and some people and I said “yeah well next time maybe think twice before and I won’t talk back”.

Overall, yes, she is worried about what people think about her and me as she wants me to be the perfect representation of her success so she doesn’t really “dare” being too negative. Although, many times I felt like when she was in a really bad mood, that she was just willing to “humiliate” me in front of people.

Also, she reproached me to talk to her only because she helps me to pay my rent. No of course I don’t want to talk only when I need to pay my rent. But does she let me the choice when she tells me things such as “yes I’m a bit infuriated, because you’ve been talking about this for a very longtime now and maybe it’s time to change of topics”, “euh.. if i talk about this maybe it’s because I NEED to talk about this and maybe it’s because it’s what currently make me feel sad and anxious..?”, “oh c’mon, shake yourself, ok, but you need to change your minds”. And after that she wonders why I’m closed to her? How comes after all I had already said, she still doesn’t understand that I need more emotional support rather than a financial one? I mean, it’s harsh what I’m going to write but I will stop considering her at 70% a wallet 30% a mother the day she will provide more emotional support, I don’t know..

She even successes to reproach me to ask sometimes for money while she told me “you can ask me money if you really need some, of course I will help you”. 1/I ask her once per year maybe for an extra-money in order to buy.. textbooks which are extremely expensive (equivalency of 80 USD in average) for a student. 2/ it’s not even her who gives me the money but my grandmother..

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“Regarding the guy, you wrote him a very long letter and he didn’t mention it to you during the 1.5 hour chat you had with him the other day- a very long letter is way more difficult to respond to than a short letter. Keep that in mind.” => Maybe I should have been more explicit here. I didn’t mention the letter either during our 1h30 chat and that wasn’t the main purpose to the chat anyway. I agree with you, it’s more difficult to respond to a long letter to than a shorter one. I didn’t mind because, I didn’t expect to see him and I just enjoyed the moment spent together. But, after, I sent to him a message and in that message, I told him that I panicked when I blocked him after sending him the letter, I didn’t want to get rid of him. I valued him and after our chat I realized again how it was easy and comfortable to talk with him. So after this message, I kind of expected from him, not a big message, but at least a hint. He didn’t say anything about my letter and I don’t get why.  => “ I am guessing this: the two of you are anxious people but your individual anxieties express themselves in different ways: you get into a topic directly and at great length, and he avoids it altogether.” => Isn’t he a bit the same tho? When he decided to stop or even before when he got his first panic-attack about him and I, he didn’t seem to mind to dig down with me the situation, actually he was the one who told me “if you have questions, please, don’t hesitate, I don’t want you to be left in a shallow situation”. And even after he decided to stop, I sent him a message where I explained my view about the situation, he replied. So why now avoiding this topic? For my male best friend, this is what he’s doing, avoiding the chat deliberately. I really don’t think that’s complicated to say to someone we don’t feel anything for her when we don’t, it cut off all hopes and in that case, saying something wouldn’t have been going out of blue because I was the one who raised the letter in my message.

“My guess is that he enjoys talking to you in casual settings, such as meeting you randomly, most recently), and in the casual setting of talking to you on the phone (where he is not with you in-person). In these settings, he is not anxious and therefore,. able to be in the flow of the conversation.” => And now I fully realize why after our first and last date he told me “yes I’d like to see you again but as friends if you don’t mind”. Because meeting me as “friend” and not official “love-interest” means a casual setting and therefore not an anxious situation. This is also why we talked that much during summer by messages, because as long as we don’t see each other IRL or at least set up a meeting, I can’t trigger his anxiety, right? Running into each other randomly didn’t give him time to awake his anxiety because he didn’t have time before to overthink about how it will go between us. I think I understand better now when he said “I’m not ready for a serious relationship” but “I value you”. Ehhhh..

Wait, so being interested in a romantic way to someone is a trigger to anxiety? And therefore withdrawing himself from a “relation”/”love-interest evolving into something serious” is a way to “stop” that trigger and so the anxiety? Can you stop yourself to feel something for someone if nothing negative has been done, even though you and this person keep talking and so? Is there a real distinction between stopping with someone because you’re just not ready for a relationship and stopping because you don’t feel the person? I mean, like I told him in the letter, despite the fact that I feel strongly for him, I’m not ready for a serious relationship and regarding all his issues since january and mine, like I told him, it wasn’t the best moment in our lives either..

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Lea.