Dear Sann:

If by any chance you happen to read this, I would very much want to read from you again!

anita

Dear Sann/ Reader:

You first posted on March 10, 2015, seven years, a month and 10 days ago. I replied to you for the first time on June 21, 2015, and you replied to me for the first time the day after. Your last post, addressed to me, was on September 20, 2016, five years and 7 months ago.

In August- October 2015 you shared for the first time about your childhood: “I’ve learned… when I was a child … mockery… the way my parents and family used to (and still) be ‘funny’ at me. By pointing out things that I can’t and in a way that put me down and make me lose confidence in yourself – maybe I’m just too sensitive… so many people have gone through much worse things, with me it was just the way I was treated, there was not really physical abuse, so what am I complaining about…?… one of my parents is dead, and the other does so much for me, so I don’t like to go on about how they didn’t have the best way to raise me, because they did what they could. My mother had major mental AND physical problems herself, and she just wasn’t in control of herself, she had such a hard time with herself, and I think she just wasn’t ready for a child…

“I just remember, my father told me that I had a lot of severe constipation problems already when I was a baby. So yes, that might show that I learned from very little to be blocked on holding myself in – of course I don’t know anything about that time… I have actually, in the past, confronted my parents… Especially my mother, I said some very, very harsh things to her (probably the worst things that a child can say to their mother), then I switched the phone off and didn’t take contact for a year or so. Then we had a talk with the therapist in the hospital where I was, and then some on and off contact again (in a bit an awkward way), and a few years later she died. I can’t even dare to start to imagine what that must have been like for her. Perhaps I am putting so much emphasis on understanding her, because I still feel guilty for that. Almost a year after she died… I became suddenly very suicidal and desperate… it was all the guilt for saying these awful things to her and treating her like that… the reason that I am so afraid to get really into it, more than just with my mind. I might still be afraid that I will have to deal with these words of mine and not being able to deal with all the self-hatred and self-blame that comes up….

“I feel different than you because I don’t think my mother was bad and she didn’t want to hurt me. She was in too much fight within herself and couldn’t cope with herself. She probably wasn’t ready or able to raise a child, but she was not bad”.

June 2016: “When I was a child, it was hard to be real. My mother had a lot of problems, physical health problems as well as emotional problems. When I was in hospital, I saw once on a report that I described her as having borderline – not with those words but because of the way I described her. She didn’t have control over herself, had a lot of self-loathing and worked it out on me. She was very unpredictable, and I was scared of her. she would have big rage-outbursts, shouting and shaking me around. Maybe I was already sensitive as a child, but I was scared. And then at times she would regret and come to me ‘oh my little sprout, you love your mummy don’t you…’ I don’t know if these were the exact words but in that kind of attitude. With a kind of feeling that she needed my reassurance, that everything was ok. Now I realise, that was actually already a kind of helper role that I was taking on. When I was scared of her, and when she burst out in anger, out of proportion, then I was already taking on the responsibility to comfort her, and to tell her that everything was ok. While I was hurt, and scared, but who was there to comfort me, to give me the assurance that everything was ok?

“There was never real affection, real safety. My father was the safe person, the reliable person. I was not afraid of him. But there was also not really affection, or attention. When I was 18, my parents divorced, my mother took me with her but later the court decided that my father should raise me, which is what he had fought for and also what I wanted, because I was scared of my mother. My father did what he could, but he didn’t know how to give me affection. When I was an adult, he told me that he never gave me a hug, or never even put an arm around me, because he was afraid that people would think about child abuse. I remember there was never the time or the space to listen to me. I would come back from school or other activities and wanting to tell something, and he would act with ‘yes, yes…’ on a tone that said, I showed some attention but not whole-heartedly, and then ‘and now I want to watch tv’. Meals were always in silence.

“I never remember a genuine smile from either of them. I still find it hard to smile genuinely, and usually don’t manage it. Especially when I like somebody. With my mother, later, as a teenager, I remember a lot of times where she would be complaining to me about how bad her life is, and what the point would be to keep living. So as a teenager I was trying to support my mother, listening to her, trying to show understanding, trying to encourage her. She would sometimes give signs in a very indirect way. I remember once, when I was spending the weekend with her, and in the morning would come downstairs and find a paper on the table ‘who to call in case Xx (her name) would die’, and then names and phone numbers in order of priority. This was further making me scared, because there was always a kind of thread (in my feeling) that it would be my fault, that I would be responsible in case she died, I wouldn’t have done enough to help her.

“Also, as a teenager, I felt a huge pressure from my mother, to act as if everything was ok between us. That we just got along well as mother and daughter. A lot of acting. Pretending. Acting in a fake way, with a fake kind of voice. I think this is what really messed me up, because things weren’t ok between us. She hadn’t been there for me, and she had never given me the safety or love that every child needed. Maybe she couldn’t she had had problems with her mother and that had been the way for the previous generations. But then I had to put up this kind of play, which I did, probably because I felt this would be safer than to be honest and rebelling or not playing it. When I would be impolite (I was also a teenager, remember), she would give me comments that would be guilt-inducing. So I think that made me feeling not real, feeling that I had to put up a huge facade and faking, in order to be accepted (and is that not one of the basic needs, as a child?). Pushing myself further away.

“As an adult (now less because I live abroad), my father would sometimes complain to me about his problems with the attitude of his girlfriends’ daughter, who is not very nice to him, even though he does a lot for her. And I would listen, trying to support him. Give him the emotional support that I kept longing for, to get from him. My father tries to support me a lot, on the practical level, and is always there for me when he can. When I was in hospitals and completely desperate and suicidal, he would try in his way, to give me hope, but really listening to me, he just can’t. There was never a lot of physical violence. Anyway, I don’t think the bit of physical stuff messed me up. But psychologically, probably a lot more than I still would like to admit to myself. And these things are more invisible. People don’t notice easily what’s going on with this way of acting. Or, I don’t think they notice, even if they did, it is a lot more complicated and less open. So, I think I have learned as a child, that there is no place for me. People are scary, I have to try really hard to please them and it is nearly impossible. People are cold and distant”.

– to be continued in the next 24 hours,

anita

Dear Sann:

In March 2015, before you shared anything at all about your childhood, in a thread titled isolation – don’t know how to get out of it, you shared: “I live very isolated… I have never been good with contact with other people… I don’t know what to say to people and I don’t know how to act, so I avoid most social situations… I think I’m quite good with being alone, and I have a lot of experience with it. But I feel it’s getting too much now… I’m sometimes so longing to have a few people to feel at home with, people where I don’t have to put on a mask, where I can relax…  where I don’t have to be afraid“.

You were 33 when posting the above. This adult experience is the same as your childhood experience about which you shared later on: (1) Feeling alone/ isolated as a child (“there was also not really affection, or attention… never gave me a hug…  I would come back from school or other activities and wanting to tell something… Meals were always in silence“) => alone and isolated as an adult, (2) Afraid as a child, unable to relax=>afraid as an adult, unable to relax, (3) Wearing a mask at home as a child=> wearing a mask in society as an adult.

* When we spend our childhoods primarily anxious, when we grow up, we keep re-experiencing the same emotional experience of childhood. We keep re-living and being stuck in the then-and there, not accessing the here-and-now.

In June 2015, you shared that you were suicidal and hospitalized a few times, “diagnosed with, amongst others, borderline personality disorder“, had jobs that “were quite random, packaging in a factory, administrative help in a school, librarian-assistant“, jobs that “didn’t last for very long“. At the time you worked cleaning hotel rooms, “cleaning toilets and making beds the whole day“. You had a therapist for several years, one who specialized in borderline personality disorder.

You wrote back then: “Sometimes I can manage for a while, let’s say a number of months, to be more mindful of the way I think about myself and focus on kinder self-talk and then suddenly, even when not much happens, e.g., a few days of more stress and it’s again all crisis and all self-hatred“-

* When we spend our childhoods primarily anxious, as adults, there are times when we experience an awakening of sorts, an awakening that gives us access to the here-and-now, perhaps after being inspired by a movie, or a book, or while traveling,  or following a major change such as quitting an old job, or getting a new one, or moving to another country, and we feel good for it, resourceful and hopeful. But those times don’t last long because every escalation of stress in our adult life (and stress escalations are inevitable) quickly brings back the then-and-there.

In August through October of 2015, you shared “I am in general very tensed and serious and worry too much…  I’m usually so frigging tensed that to be spontaneous doesn’t seem an option…it is not just my work, in general I always feel that I have to try to adapt to the other…  So, most of the time I feel like a chameleon. I’m automatically changing the way that I talk, my volume, my speed… to the other person…and I do that with most persons… When I talk to people at work (at the moment my main point of reference), I don’t just talk in a relaxed way, but I seem to talk in an asking, insecure way, as if I’m asking a question the whole time and needing reassurance from them… I feel as if I’m a little child… I feel constantly in such a terror” –

– an adult of 33 or 34, still a little child, still very tense, still worries too much, still experiencing the terror of living with your mother; a chameleon adapting to your changing, unpredictable, threatening mother.

“In general, I am a lot more spontaneous with strangers and for example with hitchhiking, then with people who I have to see regularly again. It is probably obvious why… the risk is much, much less with people I won’t see again” – strangers seen today but not tomorrow feel safe; the mother you saw regularly and with whom you were stuck, she was the source of such a terror.

In June 2016, you shared: “It’s a while ago that I wrote here… I had to move house a lot and didn’t have internet…  There was one guy, from an Asian country, that was very nice and supportive towards me. After a couple of months, I realised that I had feelings for him … We never really saw each other much, because I work in the morning and he in the evening. We would still see each other sometimes at the end of my shift, but never really talked with each other… I had to move to the hostel, my new job gives me a lot of stress” –

– lots of moving from one temporary residence to the next, from one job to the next: no home, no stable job, no real relationships, only glimpses of such.

I wrote to you on June 12, 2016: “We have so much in common: our mothers so similar… like you, I did not have much trouble living in a foreign country. And I too hitchhiked a whole lot. I too felt very good with people I will never see again. What scared me all those years was my mother… Your description of your mother is the closest to mine of ANY description of any person I heard in my lifetime. My mother was borderline too, and histrionic. Unpredictable, raging, suicidal, blaming, scary. My fear was always to be trapped, like I was trapped with her. My moments of happiness were hitchhiking, being on the way there, and it didn’t matter where ‘there’ was, as long as it was away from her”.

You shared in June 2016: “I don’t read newspapers, when I buy them, they usually end up being unread, piling up in my room (or tent, at the moment…) … I am finding it very hard to read newspapers, it takes me a long time to read even one article. I read a few sentences and I zone out. I read a sentence, and the next sentence I have already forgotten the name they were mentioning in the previous sentence. This worries me actually. About the capacity of my mind, if I am getting unable to even read a news article, let alone a book?” –

– Ongoing elevated anxiety/ stress harms our cognitive functions, this is why it takes me so much time to read and understand members’ posts. I re-write almost every post so to be able to understand it. My ability to process information in writing, as challenging as it is, is superior to my ability to focus on and understand a person speaking. Most of what a person says to me, most of the time, doesn’t register.

– to be continued in the next 24 hours.

anita

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by .

Dear Sann/Reader:

You indicated that you were diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) (“diagnosed with, amongst others, borderline personality disorder“, June 20, 2015) and that you have seen a therapist who specializes in BPD (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) for 8 years or so.

From the American DSM-5, in regard to BPD: “A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, of self-image, and affects as well as marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts as indicated by five or more of the following: … Identity disturbance: Markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self… Affective instability caused by a marked reactivity of mood, for example, intense episodic dysphoria, anxiety, or irritability…”.

In your threads you expressed a pervasive pattern of employment instability, residential instability, affective instability, a lack of relationships (“I live very isolated, there’s barely anybody that I know personally“), and a very stunted sense of self, a stunted self that for decades hated self: “I struggle a lot with self-hatred…  Still a lot of self-loathing… from the tiredness, all of my old familiar self-hatred is getting its grip on me again, and I seem to slowly be sinking into it a bit more and more“.

Your mother expressed to you that she didn’t want to live, that she was considering suicide, and she repeatedly and unpredictably raged at you. Automatically, you believed that you deserved her rage because you were bad. As she raged at you, and in between the unpredictable episodes of her rage, you were afraid of her. But you were also afraid for her, afraid that she will die. In addition to these fears, you were afraid that if she dies, it will be your fault: “there was always a kind of thread (in my feeling) that it would be my fault, that I would be responsible in case she died“.

The combination of your mother’s vocalized suicidal ideation and her raging at you, led your child mind to believe that you are bad, that you are the reason that she wanted to die, and that meant that you were a threat to your mother’s life. A girl loves her mother very much and will protect her mother from danger. She will fear and hate anyone who is a threat to her mother’s life. When the girl perceives herself to be the threat, she will fear and hate herself.

“I’m sometimes so longing to have a few people to feel at home with, people where I don’t have to put on a mask, where I can relax…  where I don’t have to be afraid” – afraid of people, but also afraid for people, afraid that they will get hurt by being close to someone as bad and as dangerous as you. So, you stay away from people, and when you are around people, you keep yourself locked in, hidden under a mask… afraid to relax because then the dangerous self will come out and endanger others.

“I don’t think my mother was bad… she was not bad” – you thought that you were bad… and that your badness was a threat to others.

Wikipedia reads: “People with BPD may base their identity on others, leading to chameleon-like changes in identity”, which fits with what you shared: “it is not just my work, in general I always feel that I have to try to adapt to the other…  So, most of the time I feel like a chameleon. I’m automatically changing the way that I talk, my volume, my speed… to the other person“- afraid to be you, hating you… you rush to be anyone but you.

“I said some very, very harsh things to her (probably the worst things that a child can say to their mother) … and a few years later she died… Almost a year after she died… I became suddenly very suicidal and desperate… it was all the guilt for saying these awful things to her… I am so afraid to get really into it…  to deal with these words of mine…  to deal with all the self-hatred and self-blame that comes up“- you stood up to your raging, abusive mother at one point, but later on, it added to your feelings of badness and hate toward yourself. When an abused child naturally feels anger toward her abusive parent, she feels guilty for that anger (especially if it is expressed) and sees it as proof of her alleged badness.

“I am in general very tensed… I’m usually so frigging tensed that to be spontaneous doesn’t seem an option……When I talk to people at work… I don’t just talk in a relaxed way, but I seem to talk in an asking, insecure way, as if I’m asking a question the whole time and needing reassurance from them… I feel as if I’m a little child… I feel constantly in such a terror”- too afraid to be spontaneously you, too afraid to relax when around people, afraid that the bad, dangerous self will come out and harm every0ne in sight, got to restrain her, keep her from escaping and creating havoc.

True guilt is brought on by a realistic understanding of one’s behavior and its consequences to oneself and to others. False guilt is an oppressive burden that is not based on reality but on the warped views, ideas, and attitudes of others.

When a child is being abused by a parent (a parent who the child looks up to as all-good, all-loving, always-right), it doesn’t make any sense, and it feels terrifying, so to make sense out of it and to feel less terrified, the child figures: bad things happen to me because I am bad; I am bad and therefore I deserve the harsh treatment I am receiving; I am so bad that my mommy had no choice but to punish me. These thoughts bring a (false) sense of order to the disordered life of the abused child.

If the child realized that the abuse is indeed not at all the child’s fault, then the child will also realize that there is nothing that he/ she can do to prevent or to stop the abuse, and the child will be stuck in terror and helplessness. Believing that the abuse is the child’s fault, gives the child a (false) hope and a sense of control: there is something she can do to prevent and stop the abuse: I can prevent the abuse by becoming ‘invisible’ or by being a good boy or good girl. 

When the child takes on false guilt, it allows the child to see the abusive parent as a good parent who is only reacting to the badness of the child. It always feels safer for a child to be with a good parent vs a bad parent… so she believes her parent is good, no matter what.

More later.

anita