Dear joanna:

We started talking about your mother about Feb 9, ten days ago. You wrote on that day: “So it’s my hidden anger to my mother and many many more emotions which I can’t even name and that are so inconvenient, as we talked about earlier right? Truth is always inconvenient”-

We explored that truth since. In your latest post yesterday, you did what I did countless of times, what most people do most of the time: move away from that inconvenient truth, leave it behind and continue living the same as before.

You wrote in your recent post: “Cutting contact would be best…But right now I guess it’s not possible, maybe (later)… So I have to deal with her… I can’t escape people…But I can learn to not affect me… Anyway it is what it is.”

You feel that you have no choice but to live with your mother, that you can’t escape your tormentor- that was your reality as a child. You feel now that this very reality is the same for you.  And so, you resolve to not let her affect you.

If it was possible for you to not be affected by her, you would have accomplished this a long time ago. You can survive her as you did so far in your life, but angrily, anxiously and …not well.

The purpose of discovering the truth is to not escape it but instead, make changes in our minds  and lives so to fit that truth. A different life is possible for you if you don’t turn away from the truth. It will not be easy to make the changes needed, therefore you may need quality psychotherapy so to further believe in what is true, to correct the core beliefs inflicted on you by your mother,

and to make changes in your life, little by little, one step at a time.

anita

Dear joanna:

No doubt in my mind that not living with your mother and not being exposed to her in any context is good for your well-being. There is no way for you to not be affected negatively by her.

I also know that if and when you move out, if and when you do end all contact with her, life will not be easy for you, not for a long time. The harm she inflicted on you already happened and the healing process will be long after there is no more contact.

I wish it could be easy. I really do wish it could. But reality doesn’t accommodate wishing.

anita

Dear joanna:

I meant that cutting contact with her doesn’t magically make everything better. I used to fantasize that when I cut contact with my mother I will be free and happy. Unfortunately, for too long I felt guilty while not in contact with her so I didn’t feel that freedom I hoped to feel.

Thing is I felt plenty guilty all through the years that I was in contact with her. So as to the first thought you brought up in your recent post- no, it wasn’t worse for me after I cut contact with her, not at all. It got better and better and better for me after I cut contact with her. Life got better for me because I cut contact with her and kept no contact.

(I am glad you check with me when you are not clear about what I mean. I do the same thing when I am not clear).

anita

joanna,

It is extremely hard to let go and separate from our past upbringing.  Our family of origin imprints our unconscious and creates these neuropathways that goes down to our fight-flight-freeze responses.

The Metta Meditation is a good practice for forgiveness.  Your mother did only what she knew how from her own upbringing.  Her fears, hangups, pain, dysfunction came from that.  It’s not an excuse but a basis to understand and ultimately forgive.

The Metta Meditation puts you into this mindset where you think of someone or something that evokes loving emotions, whether a pet or someone that is/was close to you.  Your body is now feeling love.  You sit with that.  You bring into mind yourself and go thru the mantra the Metta Meditation prescribes.  You love and accept yourself while keeping the physical/emotional feeling of loving.  Then you move on to other(s) that are close to you and do the same with her.

It’s a repetitive practice.  That may help you not be so triggered by her, that voice in your head.

Mark

Dear joanna:

I will quote from your recent posts and respond:

“we rarely talk or spend time. But sometimes we do and then I notice how much she makes me nervous”- the sight of her, the sound of her, these trigger the many memories of her in your past. This triggering happens automatically. A single sound can trigger an experience of a lifetime. That triggering may not involve words, that is spelled out thought, only a feeling-experience, such as depression or anxiety.

“She used to talk to me: don’t be nervous… please calm down… so he (you) grows up thinking falling down is disastrous”- her yelling was the cause, you falling down was the consequence. She basically instructed you to not let the consequence of her action take place. It is like someone punching you on the face and instruct you: do not get a bruise! No bruising, please!

“She used to make me more nervous that I would actually be in this situation”- reads to me that her anxiety over the consequence of her actions (such as yelling), further increased your anxiety. What would have helped you would have been if she told you that it was indeed her yelling, her aggression that caused your anxiety, that she would stop those aggressive actions, comforted you, and then, over time, keep her word, until you trust her to do so, until you feel safe.

“I noticed she still makes me nervous but I now resist. It’s very satisfying and freeing”- you mean that although she is anxious, you don’t “catch” her anxiousness automatically, like before, that you are experiencing “(your) own emotions,”, not hers?

You wrote: “I want to set free from her”, meaning to be in her company and not be affected? If so, is this a new experience for you, and you are hoping that you will get better at it?

“I feel sorry for her… She’s my mother. Should I not care because she didn’t value me?”- you care because she is your mother. It doesn’t matter who the mother is, makes no difference. The child cares because she has this role: The Mother.

I will state the following in the first person, and you decide if it is true to you too: I should not interact with a person who doesn’t value me (unless I am held hostage by that person and want to survive the situation).

Regarding your most recent post, you wrote: “I try to not feel it (anger toward your mother, I understand)… sometimes this anger comes. I do not know why… I get angry… empty, useless”- when you try to not feel angry at her, and you succeed, the anger does not go away, it looks for a different object to attach itself to. If the person who has done you wrong is not available as that object (in your efforts to forgive your mother you made her unavailable to that anger), it gets attached to children who have done you no wrong.

And this is the hallmark of abuse, a child being abused by a parent, forgives the parent and abuses her own children. See, the motivation is already in you, to hurt innocent children.

You wrote: “I never yell or get angry at them (children), I just feel it”- I am glad you don’t act on the anger you feel for them. And that if you become a mother you will not act on such anger. Better still resolve that anger beforehand.

anita

Dear joanna:

Glad to read from you again. I do think you are making progress, absolutely.

Your mother “sounds” like mine, what an amazing similarity: my mother too

1. Complained about my “wrongdoings” but insisted that I do not fix those wrongdoings.

2. Blamed me for thinking what I was not thinking, for feeling what I was not feeling, for having intentions I did not have.

#1 caused me to feel and be helpless in life, encountering problems but not even thinking that there is something I an do about it. For example, less than a year ago when it was warm in the house, it did not occur to me that I can open a window.

#2 caused me to suspect myself on an ongoing basis for having bad intentions. I hear voices in my head (so to speak, not in a psychotic way) that keep accusing me. Every time I do anything almost, there is a voice in my head saying: you did it wrong! And you did it on purpose!

I didn’t get it until I did… that that accusation that I was doing things on purpose to hurt others, was so distressing that doing anything, trying to accomplish any physical task, was exhausted. It is.. working under the influence of mental torture.

This is why I avoided physical work for a long, long time.

anita