Hi Beni,

Yeah, still skating and I’ve done some hours of construction work.

Wow, it seems your back is pretty stable at the moment, since you don’t feel any pain even after doing construction work. I am happy for you! BTW is construction work something you’d like to do more of, like a hobby or even a full time job? (I am asking because you mentioned that you were doing construction work last year too, when your back injury originally happened).

Let’s hope for the best. True holiday’s coming. What do you have planned?

Going to the seaside 🙂 Swimming should help both with my back and my knee…

You know when adult’s say to kids that they are simulating? Like that. It feels distant, it does affect me cause of the self betrayal.

I often felt like this is made up and I’m in a way justifying something I should rather confront.

Hmm, not really sure I am following… Could it be that you have a bit of a trauma response (a freeze response) when interacting with your mother? And in those moments, you feel dissociated, and therefore it feels like you’re simulating it? As if it’s not happening to you, and you feel separated from it? (Sorry for not always understanding you at first and needing to ask for clarifications…)

I saw it very clear, the ambivalence between being my mum’s child and in a way father.

I would like to express myself. Affection, a hug.

Does being your mom’s child mean (in an ideal case) to show her affection, to give her a hug? But then you worry that she would misuse it and start “stealing” from you (i.e. selfishly meeting her own needs). Stealing empathy, while not showing any empathy for you?

And so you want to protect yourself by not expressing anything, i.e. by being emotionally cold and distant, a little like your father. Which you feel guilty about. But you don’t know how else to interact with her, because you are afraid that she would misuse your empathy, right?

It’s simple things in the household clean the kitchen. Mostly it is support.

It could be that you don’t want to help her because you believe she would misunderstand it and see it as your agreeing with her – as you showing her empathy? Which you don’t want to. Perhaps staying “rebellious” (not wanting to help) means staying independent? Maintaining your own identity and your own will, separate of hers?

If so, I am familiar with that attitude. There was a time in my adolescence when I didn’t want to help much in the household because I didn’t want to be seen as a good and obedient daughter – because that was the last line of defense against my mother’s attempt to fully control me. So by behaving in rebellious ways (e.g. by not helping in the household and being “lazy” and kind of selfish), I thought I was defending myself from total psychological control of my mother’s.

I wonder if something similar is true for you?