Anita,

“I immediately felt anger that.. he is mocking me… “- 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.

And I can relate to this so much: “It was enough for a person to look in my direction, for me to feel mocked, ridiculed, made fun of.” One time I met a neighbor when taking out the trash and she said “Hi” and I immediately thought: “is she mad at me? Do I look funny?” and then I thought “oh my god, am I crazy?… she just said ‘Hi’! for god’s sake..”.. It’s really ridiculous what thoughts come to my mind sometimes but at least I know that those thoughts are ridiculous and just my imagination, not real.

lots about me triggered my mother, so much did. There was no way for me to live and not trigger her.

So real for me too. I remember eating a carrot and my mother asking me to leave the room. (Not only one time, almost every time I ate loudly. I still trigger myself when I eat loudly)

My mother used to tell me: „when someone is a young mother and has a baby and this gets overwhelming and there’s this anger, this..urge that you want to almost throw your baby out of the window”. She used to tell me this over and over through the years, those exact words.

I never thought about this until recently that this is how she felt towards me – this anger, she hated me so much that she wanted to throw me out of the window, literally.. and she even repeatedly told me about this! Isn’t this amazing..how I never actually understood this is how she feels about me, even though she specifically told me this. 

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 … 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.

True.

 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 am googling and reading about emotion regulation skills, coping skills, healthy ones.. I try to incorporate some of them in stressful situations, like the smell, seeing, hearing. But not sure if I do it right and use the full potential of those exercises.

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.

Not sure. I imagine myself in my bedroom, my parents yelling, I was shaking and having tics. I am trying to imagine it is me, there, but now-me, me as an adult and them at that time. But.. not sure what I should do next with this and whether I understand it. Maybe I need more time to read or perhaps you would like to explain it in a different way, maybe it would help. Thank you for bringing it up Anita, it’s very new and interesting to me.