Dear Changeagent:

You shared the following about your childhood: “I grew up with a mother who wanted me to fix and rescue her. A mother that was also abusing me, unforgiveably at times… I completely forgot about me, because there was no time for me growing up. Everyone had a need they needed from me, and a responsibility and role assigned to me for each person for a very very long time. Started as a very young child. I thought it was normal”.

Fast forward into adulthood, you have lived with a partner who stonewalled you for “extremely long periods”, asked you “to leave time and time again” while you had nowhere to go to, packed your bags and after a few days, asked you to stay. A lot of what she did, her actions and behaviours, resembled those of your mother. And so, she added to your childhood traumas.

On your part, you made mistakes in the relationship, but once you became aware of how certain actions negatively affected her, you stopped those actions. She didn’t see you clearly because “her vision was very blocked by her past and her past partners”. In October she was diagnosed with a Bipolar disorder.

Last month, your “heart and mind could not take anymore”- you broke up with her and suffered a nervous breakdown. Currently the two of you are talking again and “we both discovered we want to be together, but take it slow”. She is currently on medication for her bipolar disorder.

You are considering resuming the relationship with her, but this time, “no fixing or rescuing”.  Instead, you will “allow her to fall flat on her face and help herself, get back up again, whether she does it or not”. You understand that for you to change this behavior, you will have to “undo long term conditioning and brain washing”.

Last night the two of you were having a conversation. In the middle of it she got upset and started to cry. You asked her why she was crying. Her response: “She got up, got a tissue, walked out and went to the bathroom”, and was gone, she didn’t come back to finish your conversation. This was a repeat of her past behavior. It reminded you of the many times this happened before, and you “went to a dark place” in yourself.

“My tears didn’t matter, my expressed hurt over it did not matter and she just went to bed. I went to bed too, just not in the same room. I really wanted to be alone… I’m not in a good place in  myself. My head is a huge mess. I’m so confused about everything.. do not trust my own perceptions about things… I don’t even believe in life anymore”.

My input- you shared regarding your experience as a child: “I completely forgot about me, because there was no time for me.. Everyone had a need they needed from me”- you are back there, currently: you forgot yourself. There is no time for you because she has her needs, and yours don’t matter.

I remember myself as a child, I too forgot myself, there was no time or place for me outside my own imaginings and fantasy life. In reality, I didn’t matter, I wasn’t seen or heard. It was as if I did not exist outside my fantasy life (where I was seen and heard, being an international superstar, dancing in front of large audiences, cheered to).

Outside my fantasy life I was in a dark place, my head- a huge mess, confused, doubting my own perceptions, feeling guilty and ashamed, so desperate to be seen yet enduring eternity in the shadows.

Back to you: I don’t think you can recover from the damage done to you by your mother while in a relationship with a woman who resembles your mother in her behaviors.

I think that you need to reassert that breakup of only a month ago. Rescue yourself. Be the agent of change in your own life- turn the lights in that “Dark place” and find your way out (or show her the way out, again).

anita