Thanks so much everyone. 🙏 He was a good boy. ❤️

Hi Alessa,

good to hear from you again! I hope you’ve recovered a little after the loss of your beloved dog ❤️

Yes, I’m a fan of do unto others as well. 😊 I think people have a lot of difficulty with love thy neighbour too, possibly because they have difficulties with loving themselves?

Yes, you’re really super caring with others, at least this is what I’m witnessing on this forum ❤️ And yes, I believe whenever people are harsh and uncaring towards others, that’s because they have a problem loving themselves…

Trauma does make things complicated. One of the hardest things is that once the experience is over it still continues in the mind.

I do have boundaries and stand up for myself. It is just that I don’t try as hard for myself as for other people. Boundaries and standing up for myself is a bare minimum. As you suggested before, cutting back on the effort I put into people who don’t put effort into me. The energy that I spend elsewhere could be spent on me.

Yes, trauma can make us hypervigilant and keen to please others, because that was our survival mechanism in childhood. That’s how we might have ensured to be “loved” and accepted, or even how we prevented physical abuse. Standing up for ourselves might really feel scary, even if we’re in completely different circumstances now, as adults…

It’s good that you do have boundaries and can stand up for yourself. Maybe the problem is that you give up standing up for yourself after a while? Perhaps staying in the relationship is more important to you than the person respecting your boundaries?

I think that most people (at least those who are emotionally healthy) are kind and wouldn’t have a problem respecting your boundaries when you ask them. But there are people who unfortunately don’t care about our boundaries and don’t have a problem crossing them. I guess you have a problem with that kind of people? Those who ignore your boundaries, and then you’d need to stand your ground, but you sometimes have a hard time doing that, because it feels uncomfortable to stay in conflict with them for too long?

I think I’ve been on both sides of the spectrum. Being too hard on people and going too easy on them. It is hard to find a balance.

That’s understandable. Finding a balanced approach is not easy, being assertive, and neither aggressive nor overly permissive. If I remember well, you said that nowadays you’re able to self-soothe when you feel that the other person isn’t respecting your boundaries. Whereas in the past you might have felt unable to self-soothe, and so you felt a greater pressure to react and “demand” that you be respected? Do you think that might be the reason why you’re more “lenient” nowadays?

But perhaps now you’re keen to preserve the relationship and are even hoping that the other person would change if you’re patient enough? And so you put a lot of effort in the relationship (“the effort I put into people who don’t put effort into me. The energy that I spend elsewhere could be spent on me”), even when the person is not really interested in changing their behavior?

This is just an idea, of course, doesn’t mean it’s true for you…

How are you otherwise, Alessa? I figure busy with your studies (and taking care of your son, of course)? ❤️

Dear Alessa,

Sorry for the delay. I had to pick up his ashes and paw prints. I’m getting there now. I’ve been distracting myself with studying and my son is fighting sleep a lot at the moment, climbing out of his crib.

Oh poor you, you’re not getting much sleep then, are you?

How thoughtful to keep your doggie’s paw prints as a memento ❤️ He will forever stay in your loving memory ❤️

It’s not really being loved or accepted though is it? It can easily cause one-sided relationships and leave you in a care taker role with people who are unhealthy.

No, that love is very conditional. They only like you and accept you if you give up on yourself and your own needs, basically. But as children, that’s what we do to make our parents or caretakers happy. And if we don’t heal that, we keep doing that in our adult relationships too.

My therapist used to say to me that as a child I had a tendency for magical thinking and self-blame. I tried to be perfect and prevent mistakes. But new “mistakes” were always found. There was no way to prevent the abuse. It was just who my mother was.

Oh yes, we do that as children. We think that if our parents/caretakers treat us poorly, it’s our fault. And we try to do everything so they would be pleased with us. But as you say, we’ll never be good enough, a dysfunctional parent will always find reasons to abuse us…

I do stand up for myself in the moment. It is just afterwards. I find it tiring to hash things out, especially if the person isn’t receptive. I do still try to do it though.

Right, so you do speak up, but what you find challenging is if the person isn’t receptive, if they don’t respect your wishes and keep crossing your boundaries, right?

I try to keep conflict low in general because my health issues are stress related. After my dog dying, I’m going through a rough flare up.

Oh sorry to hear that 🙁 I hope it will calm down soon…

It is also not healthy to have conflict around a child. Not to mention my tolerance for additional stress is just lower as a parent because I’m already to some extent already stressed. Heck, with a child I barely have time to process my own feelings. Just when he’s asleep really.

Sure, being a parent brings with itself quite a lot of additional stress, that’s for sure. It’s not easy to be a parent… and since you’re a very self-aware parent, you’re trying to be maximally calm and patient with and around your son, and not to show when you’re upset with something or someone, right?

I was definitely more co-dependent and reliant on the other person to help me to feel better in the past because I was not as good at self-soothing.

Good that you’re not relying on other people anymore to feel better about yourself or to emotionally regulate. Sometimes people say something insensitive inadvertently – it’s good that it doesn’t bother you as much anymore. And sometimes people are truly insensitive and lack empathy – it’s also good that you’re not craving their “acceptance” anymore and can self-soothe if they say something hurtful.

I guess with any conflict the issues people have are their issues. I just happen to be there. I don’t feel as threatened by it personally whereas I would take things a bit more personally in the past thinking that perhaps someone might be acting in a certain way because of how they felt about me.

Ah yes, sometimes people behave in not very caring/compassionate/thoughtful manner because of their own issues, not because it has anything to do with us. Sometimes people get easily triggered, they’re overly sensitive, and it has absolutely nothing to do with us.

It’s good that you can remain relatively calm in those situations and not take it personally, i.e. that you can step back and see a bigger picture: that the person is having a problem, but that this problem is not caused by you, but by their their inner landscape, so to speak. I guess that can help us to step back and not react defensively (fight response), but be more calm in our response.

Hmm well I have known people to change over time. But that only happens when you manage your boundaries. It’s a bit slow sometimes. You are right though, people only change as much as they want to

That’s a great observation: that people can change (or at least can change their behavior towards you), but it only happens if you set boundaries. If you just keep allowing hurtful things, people usually will just keep doing it.

Some people – mostly narcissistic – will get offended if we set boundaries and will stop communicating with us. Some will just ignore our boundaries and then if we speak up, they’ll try to guilt-trip us into giving up on those boundaries, calling us selfish or heartless. They’ll use all kinds of manipulation tactics.

I wonder if this is what you’re experiencing when you try to set boundaries? (“I find it tiring to hash things out, especially if the person isn’t receptive”.) That they try to guilt-trip you into giving up on those boundaries?

But I’m glad that some people have changed their behavior once you’ve set boundaries and expressed how you want to be treated. Yeah, some people don’t mean bad, they’re just unaware how their behavior affects us, and they’re willing to change once we ask them to.

How are you doing? ❤️

As I’ve shared on Anita’s thread, I’m experiencing some health issues again, so need to have that checked by a doctor. But I’m trying not to focus only on that and lose my head, but remain calm (or rather, less anxious than I normally would be). So it’s a new challenge, but I’m hoping for the best… 🤞

I have been learning more recently. I think I keep too much inside and I’m afraid of negativity because of my trauma. I want to be more comfortable with people expressing their emotions and I should share mine more even if it makes people feel uncomfortable sometimes. I guess it is about finding a balance.

I do still crave acceptance, but in a different way. I guess it is just the keeping things inside. I wish that other people didn’t feel so much pain and could see me.

Yeah, I tend to hide most of my feelings from my son. But I was doing some research and it said that they can pick it up anyway. It’s called emotional contagion and it can happen just looking in someone’s eyes, or touching them. Fascinating stuff.

Part 2 ❤️

Dear Alessa,

That was tough with your son climbing out of his crib all the time and you needing to cuddle him and hold him while he falls back asleep. If you experience body pains due to your health condition, especially during a flare-up, I can imagine it was really strenuous and exhausting. Good that you’ve thought of a solution with the chair to make things more comfortable for yourself! ❤️

You’re describing an interesting dynamic during conflict: if I understood you well, you’re saying that you’re able to set boundaries, and aren’t likely to budge even if the person is guilt-tripping you.

At the same time, you say you have a problem expressing what’s bothering you in a situation (i.e. expressing your negative feelings), and so you only discuss that later.

You’ve said something that touched me:

I guess it is just the keeping things inside. I wish that other people didn’t feel so much pain and could see me.

Perhaps you don’t feel like sharing your feelings, because you feel that the other person wouldn’t even understand you? That they expect you to be very understanding of them, full of empathy, and never show upset or other negative emotions:

I feel like people depend on me being too understanding and over managing my emotional regulation to keep things off their plate which isn’t healthy. At the same time, I recently learned that retreating from conflict is a bit reactive.

It seems you believe you need to be strong for others, and shouldn’t bother them with your needs and your feelings? And you don’t feel like expressing those feelings to them, because it would be futile? And so you withdraw from the conversation/communication (in order to protect your boundaries), but without explaining what’s bothering you?

Dear Alessa, I apologize if I’m asking too many questions and/or jumping into conclusions here. I just wanted to understand the dynamic better. But if it’s making you uncomfortable and you don’t feel like analyzing it further, I’ll completely understand and respect it ❤️

Lovely talking to you too, Alessa ❤️

Dear Alessa,

thanks, I’m glad you’re fine talking about this ❤️

I’m not very comfortable with people expressing anger and such. … I have a bad habit of not sharing.

Okay, so you’re afraid (and maybe know) that if you were to express your frustration about something the person is doing, they would get angry with you. And that’s not something you want to experience because it’s stress/trauma inducing, right?

And so you don’t say anything and kind of withdraw from the relationship for a while? I’m asking this because you’ve said: “I recently learned that retreating from conflict is a bit reactive.”

That’s why I’ve assumed that you tend to retreat from the relationship, at least for a while, if you’re feeling upset about something.

Whereas in the past (if I understood you well), you would stay in the relationship and try to appease the person (manage their moods, specially their anger):

I think it’s shades of when I was younger, I used to actively try to manage others moods.

When you were younger, you did your best so that the person wouldn’t get angry with you (or at those you cared about), right?

I heard that all of these things are a trauma response.

Yes, it’s a trauma response, it’s the so-called fawn response. It’s what the child typically does with bullying or otherwise intimidating parents or caretakers (could be alcoholics or addicts too): the child seeks to appease them and make sure they don’t explode and get out of control and hit/harm the child. It’s a self-preservation mechanism.

So if I understood you well, in the past you’ve stayed in the relationship with a difficult person, trying to placate them and neglecting your own needs. Whereas now, you don’t neglect your own needs, and so you withdraw from the relationship (at least for a while), but you don’t share what’s bothering you, because it would cause the other person to get angry.

Am I understanding this correctly?

If so, that’s already a step forward – you’re not neglecting your needs, you’re not giving up on yourself so to stay in the relationship, but you’re taking care of your needs.

And with some people, there’s even no point in sharing what’s bothering us, because they wouldn’t understand it or wouldn’t respect it anyway. So perhaps your tactic is not that bad. Of course, it depends who this person is and what role they play in your life, and how you want the relationship to look like on the long run.

Anyway, good that you don’t resort to appeasing anymore, but can withdraw from the relationship if it becomes too much.

❤️

Dear Alessa,

you’re welcome, and I’m happy to talk about it and better understand you and what you’re dealing with ❤️

I wouldn’t say that I withdraw from the relationship. I tend to just retreat from conflict, manage my feelings and carry on as normal outside of conflict. I self-regulate pretty quickly as long as I don’t force myself to stay in the conflict.

Oh I see. So I imagine you stop talking about a painful topic – something that bothers you but the other person isn’t willing to address – and you let go. You don’t go into conflict, but instead, you self-regulate. And you don’t mention the painful issue to the person any more, or at least you don’t insist on it, right?

And the people that this happens with are mostly your siblings, whom in the past you were taking care of and sort of took on a parental role, in place of your mother (who was very abusive), but also your adoptive parents, who weren’t too caring either.

I learned to ignore parents and just focus on taking care of the house and siblings. I hoped that if I took care of things that there would be less interaction with parents. My siblings always had behavioural issues because of the abuse received from parents.

Perhaps you were managing your siblings’ behavior, so they wouldn’t provoke your parents? Like, you were trying to keep everyone in line (as well as took care of the household), so that your parents wouldn’t become abusive?

I think it’s a few things not just anger that I avoid. Rejection or even just not being listened to.

And when they (your siblings) didn’t seem to care about your feelings, e.g. when they kept doing things that would get them in trouble with your parents – that’s when you felt rejected, if I understood you well? Perhaps them behaving badly and provoking your parents also put you in trouble? Like it was harder for everyone, because they weren’t behaving themselves?

Dear Alessa, I’m aware that this is a sensitive topic for you, and so I don’t want to overwhelm you with questions. But I think I can now better understand some of the dynamic during your childhood and youth. It certainly was tough, and no wonder you tried to minimize abuse, reduce conflict, placate your parents, calm down your siblings… so things wouldn’t get even worse.

You were working non-stop to try to minimize conflict, because conflict had the potential to lead to serious consequences… and so you tried your best to prevent it.

Would that be a fair interpretation?

My heart goes out to you, Alessa, for everything you went through and all your efforts to protect your siblings from even greater abuse. You’re a hero, Alessa, and a survivor. And now you’re learning to thrive, not only survive ❤️

If I understood you well, your brother is still problematic (and perhaps your other siblings as well?) and doesn’t listen to you. However, you’re not trying to manage his behavior (or his feelings) anymore, but are focusing on your own well-being.

You can detach yourself from those painful issues, retreat from conflict and self-regulate. This helps you maintain your inner peace (which you need for raising your precious son) – in spite of potential chaos happening in your brother’s or your other siblings’ lives.

If so, that’s fantastic, Alessa, and a testimony to an amazing healing that you’ve achieved. ❤️❤️

P.S. I apologize if some of the assumptions/interpretations I made aren’t completely true, i.e. if I’ve misunderstood something.