Dear Linarra:

Following this post I will stay away from your thread for some time and let you communicate with other members. My reason: I believe that it is ineffective and distracting to have 2 or more parallel ongoing and elaborate conversations (on emotional, personal topics) between the original poster and replying members. If and when I notice that your communication with other members has slowed down and leaves space for me- I would like to return to your thread.

Thank you for suggesting that I do the exercise myself only if it benefits me. You are very kind. I would like to do the exercise later, when I return to your thread.

“Emotions were especially messy things in my eyes, probably because of how little control my mother had over her own emotions…. so as I grew up shutting my emotions down. Now I see this ‘solution’ have its own kind of bad consequences“-

– When emotions are messy, a tidy thinking makes us feel better. Problem is that the function of emotions (before they become messy) is to give us needed information, information to which we have no access if emotions are shut down. When thinking about emotional issues, without needed information, our thinking as tidy (and as fancy) as it may be, is flawed to one extent or another.

A few comments/ thoughts in regard to the exercise you did:

(1) “My mother talk too much. She is angry. She is… She is… She’s worried… She’s angry..  she feels.. she’s reacting.. she must.. she is gonna be angry.. she.. she.. she gets angry. She warns me… she.. she plays the victim… she’s taking action without caring how I feel… Why does she…She’s so loud, so confident. I’m so quiet.” etc.

The histrionic, loud, confident-sounding mother who talks too much is the Actor in her daughter’s life, and the daughter is the Reactor. Often the reaction to her is to become the Opposite of what she is: She is loud- You are quiet, She talks too much, randomly, nonsensically, haphazardly, impulsively indiscriminately- Your talk is purposeful, logical, selective, disciplined, She plays the victim- You overtake responsibility, and so forth.

(2) “When I try to explain, she doesn’t listen…. am I overthinking?”- you talk, but your words don’t land on a receptive brain (your mother’s), so your thoughts remain suspended in mid-air, circulating, having no place to land.

(3) “am I… Feeling too much?“- giving feelings words calms us. Without a word (ex. sad, angry, hurt), a distress is added to the feeling. It is the added distress that makes a feeling messy.

* Sometimes an original poster does not notice a replier’s post  because of double posting, so please let me know if you received and read this post, and let me know if it is okay with you that I return to your thread at a later time (see first paragraph).

anita