Dear Beni,

As I was reading your post, a few things stood out:

I do not have many impulses to seek help

I kinda treat myself like she treated me

I’m quite often in a freeze response

all I wish is that I would not need to care about myself.

It sounds as if you don’t like that you have needs, and you also don’t like that you need other people to meet those needs. Because the people that should have met your needs (your parents) haven’t done the job properly: your mother burdened you with her own unmet emotional needs, to which you didn’t know how to respond but to freeze. And your father wasn’t emotionally present and couldn’t meet your needs either.

I think that’s why you don’t have many impulses to seek help because that was futile in your childhood. You never had your needs met. And so you withdrew into your shell.

I think about seeking help and sometimes I did as when I did this post. It takes long and at least I talk to people that I do not have many impulses to seek help.r I’d need an online therapist and I somehow need to create space for that person and do not know how. I mean you are supporting me in that way out of goodwill <3

Yes, you did seek help here, and I am glad I could support you to a degree <3

she beliefs it’s my duty as her child to support her. Yeah, you say the same thing. It’s most difficult do give to people who think it’s their born right to receive and take it for granted.

I think I want her to really see me and see me equal. I have the same right to choose the task as she does. It’s not really about the task it’s about control and me making a statement that I do not wish to be controlled. I want to be asked what I would like to do and what is needed. I want my support to be valued and not taken for granted.

Your mother didn’t meet your emotional needs – she didn’t give you what she was supposed to – and yet, she had (and still has) expectations on you, e.g. to clean the kitchen or provide other types of help in the household. She sometimes (when she is upset) raises her voice and tells you (sort of orders you) to clean the kitchen, but you don’t want to obey any kind of command, because you expect to be treated with respect. You don’t want to be bossed around. And so you don’t do it. You withdraw from the interaction, which makes her even more angry (having a fierce look).

Isn’t it also about the people pleaser thing why I do that in the end? I’ve been thinking that I am dependent on her (subconscious). Cause I noticed that the things which stress her out like go traveling, working a regular job, not misusing drugs, having a girlfriend are things I struggle(d) creating for myself.

Does it mean your mother sometimes criticizes you for changing places a lot, not having a regular job, misusing drugs, not having a girlfriend? And you feel guilty about those things. Or you want to please her and achieve those things?

You say you’ve tried to achieve it in the past, but failed so far:

I work on meeting my needs. I belief I need something like a family to be able to do a regular job and live at a place for longer than 1 month.

The things I tried feel failed and I’m afraid if I fail again now it’s too painful.

These needs – to have a family, a regular job, and a permanent address – seem to be more like your mother’s needs, not your own. I mean, these things might be expected of you, but are they really your needs? You did express you want to have a partner, but maybe a regular job not so much? I don’t know, I am just inquiring…

When I was taking about meeting your needs, I meant more emotional needs such as self-soothing and self-care. Those are even physical needs, at the level of the nervous system: the need to feel calm in our body, the need to be held and supported and soothed.

There are various somatic exercises for that, such as self-hug, or placing one hand on your belly and the other on your heart and breathing deeply. Those are basic, somatic needs – to feel safe and calm in our body.

I think this would be the first task – to try to meet those needs yourself, or find a somatic therapist who can provide that safe space for you – both physically and emotionally safe space.

You did say you need a hug from your mother. The goal would be to give yourself a nourishing, supportive hug. Or find a therapist who can give you such a hug. With no expectations from you – so that you can simply receive.

I think such somatic practices would also help you with unfreezing. Because you might first need to feel safety in your nervous system, before you can start dreaming big dreams about the future and what you want to accomplish etc. You need to feel that someone has your back while you go out into the world to explore.

It’s like creating a safe space, a place called emotional home. Where you can always go back to find soothing and encouragement. Which you didn’t have at home. So you’d need to create it now, and it’s best done with the help of a therapist you trust.

All I can give is to give space to me and it seem I can’t get enough of it and have no control except that it always works out somehow. My dad turns 60 and throws a big party I made shure I have time and I really want to go but right know it feels like I can’t go. Now I’m creating space for that.

Actually, when you say you are “creating space” for going to your father’s birthday party, what do you mean by that? Does it perhaps involve creating a feeling of safety in your body as well? Telling yourself that things will be fine, i.e. soothing yourself? What does it involve, if I may ask?

Let me know if this whole idea of creating a physically and emotionally safe space resonates with you. I am not a therapist, so I am just guessing and throwing in ideas. I do hope it makes some sense though…