Dear Joanna:

I re-read from your posts submitted since Oct 2017. In your original post you shared that you had a skin- picking habit due to your anxiety and that it worsened in 2016 when you were dating a guy with whom you were in love. You wrote about the guy: “He lied to me, cheated, didn’t even promise he wouldn’t and I agreed to all this, because I couldn’t leave“. In Sept 2017, you “ended things with this guy” and “he told me things that still haunt me…  and that I don’t even deserve to break up with because we were never a couple“. Also in Sept 2017, you found out that you had diabetes (not related to being overweight since you were skinny) and you had trouble breathing during sleep, which terrified you.

As you continued to post, you shared that you left your job in 2016 and had money problems, barely able to afford food and bills. You interviewed for work but “no one wants to hire me although I have higher education“. You didn’t blame the guy for his behavior; you blamed yourself for not making him love you: “when I met this guy he reminded me of my father so much, felt so familiar, so nice and safe. And then when I failed to make him love me… I  understand he is a bad person, but I can’t forgive myself I couldn’t make him love me, I keep analyzing every moment which could be different, every conversation which could be better“.

On January 2018, at 31, you shared, that growing up, your father didn’t notice you: “My mother didn’t notice me either. She was angry with my father every day, bad mood and took it out on me, yelled at me… He never yelled, hit or got angry with me… She scared me and he was always nice and gentle to me, but in the bad moments he just never did anything“.

You shared that your father had a drinking problem that started about the time your mother started an affair (you were about six at the time). Following your mother having had her affair for 6 years, your parents divorced when you were 12, so that (you were told) you would have a ‘normal and calm life‘, but instead of a normal and calm post-divorce life, your mother and the man she had her affair with (he was her partner after her divorce) were aggressive toward you: she criticized you and gave you the silent treatment; he bullied you every day.

Before your visitations with your father, at 12 and onward, your mother prepared you to  “to despise him, to have resentment, talked about how he didn’t pay money, how he never called me“, etc. At 12, your skin-picking habit started.

You shared that your mother expressed her anger at your father, at you and at her mother, her brother, her sister, and at other people a whole lot: “I just grew up hearing how bad people are“.

Your mother cared a lot about her own physical appearance and was obsessive and critical of yours: “She used to tell me every day I have thin hair, I’ll never grow long and thick hair… She once told me that when I was 2 years old she shaved my head bald because she hoped my hair would grow thicker. She bullied me about this hair all my life. Funny thing is my hair looks pretty nice and aren’t that thin at all“,

“She used to tell me (that)… I don’t stand straight and I will have a hump (she made me stay in a hospital for this..), that I’m skinny and I don’t eat, that I lisp… saying ‘speak properly, don’t lisp’… She used to make appointments to doctor who taught me to speak“, even though you lisped only when you were nervous and not otherwise.

You shared that you lived in a flat alone (a flat owned by your mother)  for some time, but since Nov 2017, your mother was living with you, after kind-of breaking up with her partner, as you put it.

On Feb 18, 2018, you shared: “I think she would ‘like’ me.. if I wore smart clothes and was married, and had a lot of money. I’m almost sure she would treat me better and respect me“- I already saw a lot of your mother in my mother (my mother too was obsessed with hair being too thin and she was very critical of her own and other people’s physical appearance, pointing out others’ flaws and mocking them), but when I read this sentence (in boldface), it was the first time that I read another person indicating this part of what was true to me as well: my mother too respected women who wore smart clothes, who had lots of money… and I am sure that if I was born with smart clothes on and a bag of money, she would have respected me too!

On that same day, Feb 18, 2018, on page 8 of our communication, I suggested to you to end all contact with your mother (as I have done five years before I suggested it to you). I pursued this goal (of you ending contact with your mother) all the way to April 13, 2018,  page 18, where I wrote to you: “Dear joanna: What is it that is keeping you there? The world is so big, oceans and continents, mountains, many thousands of cities and towns and places-in-the-middle-of-nowhere. And  billions of people. Why are you remaining in this one place, with this one woman.. look in the direction of the rest of the world, find a place for yourself elsewhere, far away?”.

In your response, you indicated no intention- or no ability- to end contact with her, and exasperated I sent you the last post the day after, April 14, 2018,  paraphrased: it’s too distressful for me to witness your suffering living with/ being in contact with your mother; if you ever intend to leave her, let me know and we will continue to talk.

That day was the last time we talked. You then deleted your account (appearing as “Anonymous”) until you returned 4 years and 7 months later as Joanna (capital J).

More in regard to the similarities between our mothers, I wrote to you on March 1, 2018: “Your mother ‘sounds’ like mine, what an amazing similarity: my mother too 1. Complained about my ‘wrongdoings’ but insisted that I do not fix those wrongdoings. 2. Blamed me for thinking what I was not thinking, for feeling what I was not feeling, for having intentions I did not have“. The day after, Marh 2, 2018, I wrote to you: “In all of my communications on the website, I believe that this is the first time, on your very thread, that I come across a case of a mother clearly refusing the daughter’s offers to correct what the mother complains about, and accusing her daughter for having bad intentions“. I then elaborated (paraphrased here): you (joanna) described an incident when your mother was angry at you for placing your things in the kitchen. When you offered to remove your things from the kitchen (a logical, sensible, simple solution), she accused you of having the intention not to help her, but to hurt her (to “show her“) by offering your solution. (I can almost hear my mother responding to the same offered solution by saying something like: you think that I didn’t think of this solution myself? That I am stupid??? As if I offered the solution with the intent of making her feel stupid).

I asked you: “did your mother accuse other people as well for having bad intentions against her, for trying to show her? what did she mean by showing her?”, and you answered on March 2 (quotes and paraphrased): “Yes, many times she accuses people“, for example, when your mother wore a new dress to work, she accused a co-worker of buying a similar dress “on purpose“, so “to show her she (the co-worker) is better (than your mother)”. Another example, “When someone doesn’t invite her to a wedding, someone we do not even stay in touch with, she says it’s on purpose“. Another example: “Our neighbor made a noisy party – she says he does this specifically to bother HER“. Another example: “Other neighbor’s kids don’t say good morning to her or us, or to anyone I assume, she says their mother told them to not say good morning specifically to her because they want revenge for when she did renovations and made noise“. There were other examples where she routinely- and with no supporting evidence- assigned people with bad intentions and expects the worse of them.

I fast forwarded through the remaining of the pages and didn’t see anywhere that I mentioned Paranoid Personality Disorder as it applies to my mother or yours. I’ve been aware for some time that my mother fits the diagnosis very well, in addition to Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

Wikipedia/ Paranoid Personality Disorder (I am substituting the cautions “may be” or “may have” with “(are)” because there was no maybe in my mother’s behavior) : Paranoid personality disorder (PPD) is a mental illness characterized by paranoid delusions, and a pervasive, long-standing suspiciousness and generalized mistrust of others. People with this personality disorder (are) hypersensitive, easily insulted, and habitually relate to the world by vigilant scanning of the environment for clues or suggestions that..  validate their fears or biases. They are eager observers. They think they are in danger and look for signs and threats of that danger… not appreciating other interpretations or evidence.. People with PPD.. have a tendency to bear grudges, suspiciousness, tendency to interpret others’ actions as hostile, persistent tendency to self-reference.. Patients with this disorder can also have significant comorbidity with other personality disorders, such as schizotypal, schizoid, narcissistic, avoidant and borderline.”

Britannica. com/ self-reference: “an exaggerated tendency to self-reference—i.e., to systematically misinterpret remarks, gestures, and acts of others as intentional slights or as signs of derision and contempt directed at oneself. Self-reference becomes paranoid delusion when one persists in believing oneself to be the target of hostile actions or insinuations”.

When your mother attacked you for suggesting to remove your things from the kitchen, she didn’t think something like: joanna is trying to help me (and is therefore a good daughter/ person), and is suggesting a logical solution. Instead, she thought something like (this is what my mother would think): joanna is mocking me and suggested a solution so to let me know that I am not capable myself of finding a solution (and therefore, joanna is a bad daughter/ person).

In summary: growing up with a paranoid mother (one fitting, no doubt in my mind, the PPD criteria) is a horrific experience: She didn’t only portray … everyone as malicious, she portrayed me, her own daughter, as malicious, misinterpreting my words (said with no intent to mock her or hurt her, and often said with the intent to help her) as malicious. The result: untold suffering on my part, expecting the worst of people, trusting no one, doubting my own intentions, believing that something is very, very wrong with me, with my thinking itself;  chronic confusing, and distress. When I was absolutely sure that I was not guilty of a particular intent she accused me of, I tried to explain to her the truth.. I really, really tried but I failed every single time. All my efforts to explain were cut short and interrupted with her listing of “proofs” that indeed I was intended to hurt her. What a TORTURE.

anita