Dear Joanna:

Good to read that you went out for a walk again. Here too it feels like spring, and like you, I know that winter will return.

“Yesterday at work: I misspelled a word during a call and my colleague started laughing hysterically (at me/the funny word I said) and I immediately felt anger that.. he is mocking me… when the only reason he was laughing was that this word sounded funny, that’s all“- I very much relate. I felt that people are mocking me all the time, or very often, I should say. After all, my own mother mocked me and expressed plenty to me that I am.. mockable, not to be respected. It was enough for a person to look in my direction, for me to feel mocked, ridiculed, made fun of.

“It triggered her to hear me laugh“- lots about me triggered my mother, so much did. There was no way for me to live and not trigger her. There was no refuge from her being triggered, except in my daydreaming when I was alone in the apartment, when she was not there.

“She got angry at the very sound of my laugh.. I feel this anger too now, for example when someone is reading a text and is looking at his/her phone and is laughing at something and I do not even participate in this! But I suddenly feel anger at them“- the way I understand it is that when she got angry at you for laughing, part of you identified with her and got angry at yourself for laughing, and at others for laughing. Or said in another way: a young child is not mentally separated from her mother, so when the mother gets angry about X, the child gets angry about X. When because of a disturbing childhood, a child doesn’t get the opportunity to mentally separate from her mother, this lack of separation carries through to adulthood.

“It got a lot better though, less intense, like you wrote, Anita. I am glad you feel that way and that my anger is less intense too“- thank you and I am glad that it got a lot better for you too!

I wrote to you: “She knew it wasn’t her menopause, that’s why she didn’t want to keep the appointment. She lied…“, and you responded: “Exactly! She knew she had to play along, pretend it was menopause, but she knew she did not have menopause in her 30s when she first started abusing me! What a ridiculous excuse“- she didn’t want to admit to her severe anger issues or to address her severe anger issues, so she tried to direct your attention away from the topic; keeping the topic in the dark, by shining the light on another topic (menopause).

“No, I think we did not talk about inner child here yet…  Seems to me like lessening the emotions we feel as we start to deal with them as adults, with the emotional tools we have now, as adults; not as helpless child we used to be – when those emotions were too much. Sorry, just my understanding, may not be right“-  your understanding is right and stated perfectly. The way psychotherapy works (in my experience as a patient) is that first, the therapist teaches the patient emotion regulation skills/ distress tolerance skills which are about lessening the intensity of painful or disturbing emotions, and secondly, gradually reconnect with these (less intense) emotions in a way that works in the context of healing.

“I will read about this and be happy if you will share your thoughts on this“- you can’t reconnect, or re-associate with emotional experiences that overwhelmed you in the past unless you have the skills mentioned above. Only when you are not afraid of being overwhelmed yet again, you are able to get this feeling, that surprising feeling (in my experience) that it was really me who was there. Before this surprising feeling, I had some memories (very few) but it was only a visual image of me in those memories, not me, the actual person. Can you relate to what I am saying? I am asking because if you don’t relate, I would like to try explain it in a different way.

anita