Hi Tee,

I think I had a breakthrough. I can suddenly say fuck off (in a nice way) to people and I say it to everything which appears in my experience and does not meet my needs. Even to myself and I noticed that I can just shake my body like a child which cannot sit still to shake of freeze.

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.

Yes, that’s it.

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

Thanks Tee it really makes a different.

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).

Yes, she kinda knows that intellectually but she has not been able to change it. That’s why I want to stay away atm.

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:

It’s the other way around I do those things when I can get out of freeze which keeps me comply.

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…

I mean I seek to have balance and stability but I will have my own strategies and not my mothers!

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.

Ah I do such things. Maybe I can hug me more. Meditation is like that.

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.

Yes, I agree.

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.

Juii, cool. I think if I can stay in the space I’m right now I’m saved let’s see what happens in the next weeks.