Dear Tara:

Like I wrote in my previous post, I wasn’t able to access your previous threads and our previous communications in those threads earlier today. After submitting my first post today, I re-read through your previous threads, and I am amazed by how much we have in common in terms of growing-in our families of origin. Actually, we have more in common than I thought back in 2022, when we last communicated, and I am quite shocked at this revelation this afternoon.

Your first post was on July 14, 2020. Five days later, on July 19, you shared: “I don’t remember much of my childhood, I know that my parents fought a lot, but I don’t really remember any distinct memories from those events… I was always in trouble for various random reasons almost all the time when I was younger, and I believe it because of this I felt I could not confide in anyone. I do not remember confiding in my mom much until about the point of 18…

“I don’t remember any direct details from any of my parents fights except very vague memories. I remember a time, not even sure what age I was at, standing at my parents door listening to them scream at each other, I remember crying, feeling as if it was my fault, because a lot of the fights I believe involved their ways of parenting me. I don’t remember exactly what I felt, as I can’t think back to my feelings much before the age of around 14-15. I remember my mom talking to me about their fights even from a young age, about how horrible and mean and angry my dad was, even though me myself didn’t directly experience his anger as far as I know or can recall.

“I was mostly in trouble for various normal reasons, such as messy rooms, bad grades, attitude towards my parents, talking back, defying their wishes, such as talking to boys or texting and making social media accounts when I was not supposed to. When I was a bit older I remember my mom and I often screaming at each other when I reached my teens for things like missing curfew, not doing as well in school, etc. and the only direct thing I can remember saying from these fights is something to the extent of ‘you only punish me for the bad things I do, you never tell me you’re proud of me for anything'”.

On June 19, 2022, while living with your parents, You shared: “As I have been staying at my parents’ house nothing too horrible has happened, but my mother still tends to complain about my father and her relationship with him constantly. Another thing is my father also tends to have small angry outbursts when little things don’t go his way. I always go into my room to escape the anger, though it’s not directed at me, I hate the cussing and yelling and screaming over the smallest little inconveniences in his day. It gives me feelings of anxiety”.

On Aug 7, 2022, you shared: “Throughout my life, my mother has always been unsupportive and extremely judgmental of any relations I have had with males, and I think this too also contributed to the feeling that I needed to lie about my whereabouts.
Recently, they caught onto this lie easily (I really didn’t hide it well) and I ended up having a conversation with my mother about what has been really going on and apologizing for lying to her and my father. This conversation did not go the best. I was told that I quote ‘need therapy’ and that ‘she knows it’s not casual.’… This spiraled into my mother listing everything that I have done wrong while living in their house, and threatening me to move out and also to get rid of my dog. Since this discussion, my mother has not talked to me in 4 days”

Aug 8, 2022: “I decided to try and make amends with my mother, and write her a little apology card with a small gift and flowers. I left them for her before I went to work today, then I got a text from my father telling me it was a very sweet and thoughtful gesture and she cried. Then proceeded by him telling me she is going to stay with her friend for a few days? I am so confused on what is going on in this situation and why this situation lead my mother to the extremes of leaving our house. I am unsure what to do and feel as if I am walking on eggshells inside our home. As soon I get home I say hello to my father, who is always in the living room, and then immediately go into my bedroom for the rest of the day. I feel as if I am trapped here in some weird way. I also don’t understand my mothers reaction to this whole situation, I am confused and unsure of if this whole ordeal is my fault or doing or not”

Sept 17, 2022: “This is where it get’s difficult, as I have written before, my mother tends to be very disapproving of every single interaction I have with men. Whether this be casual, or in a relationship. Last post I made, I lied to my mother about having a casual relationship with a man, and this ended in dramatics. She ended up leaving for a whole week to go to her friend’s house, and then came back like seemingly nothing happened. I am wanting to go out and have relations with men, as I am young and in my 20s, but every single time I want to go out I feel the need to lie about what I am doing now. I also can’t go to places or to houses that they don’t recognize when viewing my location, because then they will blow up my phone asking who I am with etc. To clarify, I am not a deadbeat doing illicit activity or doing anything more than having fun and going out and living my life outside of their home, but this seems to be the problem to them. I am working 2 jobs, 40+ hours, and going to college part-time. Even the smallest things in my life I feel that I have no privacy in, my mother does not even knock before she walks into my room. I feel stuck and hopeless and like I will be living the life of a teenager until I find some miracle that will help me move out of their house. I am stuck between lying about where I am going and inevitably getting caught and yelled at, or being truthful about where I am going and still getting yelled at and reprimanded like a child. I am unsure what to do and can’t seem to find any escape from this place. Every time I leave the house its ‘where are you going?’ Even if it’s just the smallest errand I have to go run. I don’t understand and I don’t know what to do”.

Like me, you have few memories from your childhood because a lot of what you experienced back then was negative, and you therefore dissociated from your memories and emotions, pushing your emotions down/ in (growing in), aka suppression and repression.

Like me, you grew in in an angry home: anger between your parents and anger directed at you from one point on, as you were always in trouble for various random reasons, accused and blamed, listing everything you (allegedly) did wrong. Anger in the home scared and scarred you, as it did to me. And like me, you couldn’t confide with anyone, and wouldn’t confide with your mother, as a child.

My parents had terrible fights (before they divorced when I was 6), and like in your case, my mother talked badly/ complained about my father to me (as well as talking badly about everyone else, sooner or later).

Now, here is the commonality we have that I didn’t notice until a couple of hours before: “Throughout my life, my mother has always been unsupportive and extremely judgmental of any relations I have had with males.. ‘she knows it’s not casual.’… my mother tends to be very disapproving of every single interaction I have with men. Whether this be casual, or in a relationship… I have no privacy in, my mother does not even knock before she walks into my room… Every time I leave the house its ‘where are you going?’ Even if it’s just the smallest errand I have to go run. I don’t understand and I don’t know what to do“-

– Both of our mothers were angry at their husbands (when married to him), and both did not have a positively close and intimate relationship with a man for the entirety of our childhoods and beyond. As a result, they got inappropriately close to their daughters, walking into your room without knocking (walking into the bathroom to wash me..), and both acted like.. jealous men when it came to boys or men in our lives. Isn’t this amazing..? It’s called emotional incest.

Notice her reaction to when you gave her a card, a small gift and flowers: she cried and left the home for a few days. I think that she was jealous of the attention you gave to the men in your life, jealous of your romantic interest in them, and when she received some.. romantic like gesture from you, she was so overwhelmed, she had to go away for a few days. This is my understanding of what happened.

How do you feel about my understanding: is it too overwhelming for you to consider it?

Now to your recent post, a year and five months since your Sept n2022 post, in light of re-reading your older threads: “I have never been able to keep friends for a long time“- maybe partly because of loyalty to your jealous mother.

“I’ve been in a notable amount of failed relationships, some serious and some not, which I have ended up ending all of them“- again, maybe you ended all, or some of your romantic relationships partly or wholly because of loyalty to your jealous mother?

I shared with you in my earlier replies, before I re-read the previous threads, that my mother isolated me from everyone.. from herself and from everyone else. She didn’t want me to be close to anyone. Maybe that’s why she didn’t want me to answer her brother (my uncle). It’s like she wanted me all to herself but couldn’t have a close.. an appropriately close relationship with me or with anyone else. And throughout my life, I felt that being close to anyone beyond a moment here or there, was a betrayal of her.

“I am currently in a relationship now, but I am starting to get that “it’s not enough” feeling again. Once again, I feel guilty…  Am I the only one who goes though this?“- guilty for .. betraying your mother? This is what I went through..!

“There is some kind of longing in me for something more, only I don’t know what that something is. At this point, I’m insatiable. No relationship is good enough. No job is good enough. No career path is good enough. No friends are good enough. I don’t know what is missing…Am I the problem? and what even is the problem?“- the longing I had was always the longing to be loved, not as a thing or a possession (of my jealous but unloving mother), but as a person with the right to my own thoughts, feelings, choices, initiatives.. my own life. To be really ALIVE, with emotions free from suppression and repressions, directing me (together with rationale) to live my life as.. as if it was my own, not my mother’s.

And like in your case, nothing was good enough when I was missing (guilt free) me in the driver seat in my own life, too.. loyal to the one who took unfair, inappropriate.. and inhumane possession of me.

If you would like, feel free- if you will- to post again and let me know what you think of my replies today.

anita