Hi Janine,

Where is the money coming from toward your apartment? Do you work? Have a trust fund? Parents (who, you know, are family)?

Most college kids live in a dorm. I had my first apartment at twenty-three. Even though I was two years older, I, too, trashed the apartment through benign neglect.

I would recommend living in a dorm (one room!) and/or roommates.

Also Flylady dot net is a great resource!

School: College is not for everyone. Maybe you should be one of those people that take one course a semester. You won’t get a degree until you’re thirty-ish, but degrees don’t get you too far anyway unless you’re in the sciences or going into a skilled profession. (Just my opine!!)

Meanwhile, get a part time job. This will help focus you and get you out of the apartment. (And back into it to channel surf!)

Volunteer places. Go to church. The gym. Events. If you make one new friend a year as an adult you are doing great! Invite them over so you will have to clean the apartment. Ha! I keep my place “fifteen minutes to company ready”.

Why kill yourself because of some degree, temporary lack of tribe and messy place? Cultivate the phrase, “Whatever”.

Good Luck,

Inky

Dear Janine:

You wrote: “I have avoided talking about my real mother, and upbringing in general, because I have a lot of confusion there…I do not understand her very much at all. I do not know what she wanted.. I think maybe she was incapable of understanding that she could hurt people, I don’t know”- I read only two of your posts regarding your mother and upbringing, and just a bit otherwise in your two threads and I am not confused at all. I will tell you what I understand and believe to be true:

Your mother wanted you alive, fed, clothed, maybe playing with expensive toys, so she took care of those things. Fast forward at 21, you are indeed alive, dressed and you have things in those boxes, in your apartment, but you suffer and are unable to function well because your mother rejected you (not the other way around). She didn’t see you, didn’t hear you, didn’t understand you and never intended to do any of these things.

“From a young age, I can remember hating my mother. I found her repulsive and often outright rejected her”- a young child never rejects her mother. In nature, that would be a death sentence for the young. The fawn follows her mother everywhere, never would the fawn choose to stop following the foe, or attack her mother in any way It is innate in our animal nature. This means that it is your mother who hated you, who felt repulsed by you and outright rejected you. When you sent her photos of winter coats, she outright rejected your choices just as she outright rejected you otherwise.

“Sometimes I even felt afraid to be in the backyard, because I did not want her to see me from the kitchen window. I felt very nervous and uncomfortable to be seen by her”- because you knew that what she saw when she looked at you was someone worthy of rejection and repulsion. It makes any person nervous and uncomfortable to be viewed that way- especially if it is a child being viewed like this by her own mother.

“I felt like I could not show any happiness… like she did not like me enjoying myself. It was easier to be ashamed and feel bad about myself”- because in real life, she didn’t want you happy, she didn’t want you to enjoy yourself because she was angry at you. When we are angry at someone, we don’t want to see them happy and enjoying themselves. We even imagine hurting them, don’t we?

“I do not know what she wanted”- too often she wanted to hurt you because she was angry at you. Not because you were worthy of her anger, but because she was an angry woman.

“She told me.. that her heart was broken by my cruelty to her.. ‘I hurt you? You hurt me! You need to stop hurting me.'”- your mother had a valid anger, someone broke her heart. Maybe her own mother. What she did was to project that valid anger into an innocent child- you!

This kind of projection is almost business as usual for mothers hurt in their own childhoods, to project their anger into their children. When a person- or any animal- feels anger at another, they naturally intend to hurt the object of their anger.

“She would tell me she always wanted a daughter”- I believe that. Problem is when she saw you happy, enjoying yourself as a young child, she got very angry because your child-like spontaneity, not worrying about being rejected- that activated her anger that she was not allowed the freedom to just be. So she made sure you don’t have that freedom either.

“My fantasy mother is mature and can allow space for me”- your mother is immature. Unfortunately it is the kind of maturity that is likely to persist into her old age. Because she is immature, she only has space for herself. She is self centered, like a hurt child.

“My fantasy mother is… dependable.. I would not need to feel ashamed… She is not capable as seeing me as ‘bad’ in any way… I also think about going to the grocery store with her.. When she introduces me, I am seen as good and interesting”- your real mother made sure you will feel ashamed, just like she was made to feel as a child. She sent you the same message she received as a child, that you are a bad girl, and not interesting enough to get to know.

It is very painful for a child when her mother turns against her in anger. It is not a good beginning for a life to have. But there is a way to heal from such a devastating experience. It takes time and work, patience and persistence to keep the work when it feels uncomfortable and distressing (pacing yourself, so to not get overwhelmed with this work at any one time).

If you would like, I will be glad to continue to communicate with you, and in the context of your thread, be that fantasy mother to you best I can. (The condition for such an offer is mutual respect between the two of us, neither one of us turns angrily against the other. Anger needs to be communicated in an honest, contained and respectable manner).

anita

Dear Janine:

No need to apologize for the day delay. No posting time requirements on my end.

“The question for me is of what to do now.. What to do with this emptiness my life and fearfulness about moving about in the world”-

– fill this emptiness slowly, bit by bit, every day. This kind of emptiness cannot be filled in a day and there is no magic involved. You fill it bit by bit, patiently, over a long time.

It is important for you to examine your current relationships and eliminate or greatly limit all relationships that distress you and drain your energy.

Because your parents can afford it, and because you need it, better you find  psychotherapy that works for you and I don’t see your current therapy as effective. You wrote that you enjoy your conversations with him, but this is what a friend is supposed to provide for you, not a therapist. For the purpose of healing (which is often distressing and not joyful), you may need a quality therapist, one that addresses what needs to be addressed and work with you  in practical ways.

Here is the bit I suggest you do today or tomorrow for the purpose of filling the emptiness: plan a daily basic routine for you to follow. Not too much to do, so that you don’t get overwhelmed. It will include wake up  time, a schedule of classes to attend, an hour a day perhaps to unpack those boxes, wash, fold and put away clothes etc., half an hour of exercise maybe, a short guided meditation per day, and so on. Do you want to put together a basic daily routine for yourself and post it here?

anita