Dear Ed:

You are welcome as always.

“Things were fantastic in the first year and I honestly dreamt about marrying her one day. After the first year everything that was great turned bad” (original post), “in the first year I managed her through an intense depression and supported her finding a psychiatric clinic..” (most recent post)-

– so the first Fantastic year was one in which she was Intensely Depressed?

“in the first year she would talk with me about her jealousy and fear about me cheating on her, but that was fine with me because this showed that she reflected about herself and cared enough to talk about it in a respectful manner” – reads like the first year was fantastic for you even though she was intensely depressed and jealous because she talked about her feelings with you in a respectful way, not in a way that threatened or distressed you (?)

“but with the decline of the relationship these talks of reassurance slowly turned into straight up accusations when I wouldn’t tell her beforehand that I was going to see friends or family on days we spent separately” – in the second year the peaceful talks turned into accusations that distressed you; she longer treated you respectfully.

“While I can’t help feeling sad for what you went through in your personal struggles, I really admire the confidence with which you can talk about it now and share your insights… I also really admire how proud of you sound of yourself when I read this” – thank you, I appreciate your empathy and kindness!

Can you tell me more about what was Fantastic in the first year with her?

anita

Dear Ed:

When I read your recent post, the one I replied to (right above), it seemed to me that you felt down, discouraged. You wrote: “I still feel like I did everything wrong, like if I had been kinder or stronger ..” what I hear you saying is something like: what’s the point of the explanations, the understandings… when I feel (and think) the same as before.

I just came back from a walk in this very warm/ hot day (not too hot for the walk) and I thought about it. It occurred to me that if you found a meaning to the better understanding, a meaning in understanding people and life better beyond feeling better, that could give you… a motivation to move on, in a certain direction toward a meaningful goal or value.

anita

Dear Ed:

“I have been and still am needed a lot by… my mother…I  don’t want to need people, I want to want people in my life and I want to rely on them…. I just want to feel accepted the way I am. If I really need people I have been hurt and disappointed so much… I know this sounds kind of harsh, how do you feel about this?“-

– what this suggests to me is that your mother needed someone/ anyone (to listen to her, to do for her, to give her.. whatever it is), and you just happened to be there. She needed someone/anyone; she didn’t need or want you. She didn’t accept you for who you are, didn’t love you. You naturally needed your mother but she hurt you and disappointed you and you learned the painful lesson that you can’t rely on her.

“How did you overcame your intense feelings of loss and pain regarding your mother? Acceptance as a process? Time?” – I learned that her lack of love for me was nothing personal because like in the case of your mother (as I understand at this point), for my mother I was a someone/ anyone. She didn’t care to see who I am. I don’t know if she was even able to see me as I was. She had no concern for how I feel or what I think. In summary: she didn’t SEE who she was rejecting and shaming. Nothing personal. (In the past I took her behaviors very personally, concluding that I deserved her rejection and shaming).

“I thank you for your offer to help me regarding finding a therapist. I don’t really know what you mean by that?” – you are welcome. If you provide me with information about a particular therapist (I don’t mean a name or any other identifying information), I can help you evaluate if a particular therapist appears competent, hard-working, empathetic and knowledgeable in areas that you need help. You should evaluate a therapist’s competency based on her/ his website, then ask her questions based on her website and on what you need from therapy. I can help you with the questions and with evaluating her answers.

“You are right, I have trouble regarding meaning and purpose right now… Could you explain your thoughts about that topic a bit more?” – meaning has to do with values, so the question is what do you value most. It is something that we can explore here.

I read the last part of your post- how precious! Reading this made me feel good, thank you!

anita

Dear Ed:

I hope that you are having a nice weekend as well. It’s another summer day here (the daily summer weather started less than a week ago).

“The relationship with my mother reflects into my relationships with women in general?” – no doubt, and the woman’s relationship with her mother reflects into her relationships with men. The primary caretaker (usually it’s the Mother) is the most powerful person (a God like) in a child’s life, and it is during childhood that the brain is formed. So, the mother is Formed into person’s Brain during childhood (a scary and unfortunate situation for many).

Notice, it’s not a gender thing: a woman’s relationship with her mother reflects into her relationships with men even though men are of a different gender. If your father was your primary caretaker, he would have been reflected into your relationships with women.

“So, if I understand correctly, you understood that you were objectified by your mother?” – (objectified: degraded to the status of a mere object or treated like an object). I was going to say yes, but then rethought it: no, she repeatedly treated me like a person that she hated. I don’t think she hated any object that much or for that long. She knew I had feelings and enjoyed hurting my feelings.

“Just the way you said that she didn’t SEE you as a person, a daughter, a loved one and more like a nuisance which wasn’t worth dropping the facade and wasn’t worth becoming part of her anima?” – you ask good questions, Ed, questions that make me think (thank you!). Yes, she often saw me as a nuisance, but she did drop the facade/ Persona for me when she expressed her hate for me: her hate was her anima. With other people her facade was on to the extreme: she was the nicest, most generous, kindest, most loving person in the world. (There were a few times when she got so angry with a few others, that she dropped her facade and gave them a bit of hell).

“Sadly, the last ones I visited were problematic, one straight up started blaming me…” – sadly indeed, there are lots of incompetent/ low quality therapists, this is why I offered to help you evaluate a therapist before seeing her or him, asking questions, etc.

“Values is an interesting topic, considering my struggle my with self-worth, I can see the irony in this” – Maybe you would like to answer this question: what is it that you do value about yourself?

anita

Dear Ed:

I just noticed that you submitted a post to me, just as I was to submit to you the second post of the day. So, before reading your most recent post, I will send what I prepared. Later, I will read and reply to your most recent post:

In your recent post, you asked me: “So, if I understand correctly, you understood that you were objectified by your mother?” –

– it happens that even though I heard a particular word many times, for many years (ex., objectified), and knew what a word means, I lose the connection between the word and the definition and so, I look it up. This is what I did in my last reply to you, I looked it up and added to my post: “objectified: degraded to the status of a mere object or treated like an object”. I answered your question based on this simple, literal definition.

Interestingly, after I submitted the post to you I read another member’s post, and that member mentioned the word “objectify“, in the context of the sexual objectifying of women. Next,  I looked into a study on the topic, and  2 hours and 13 minutes after submitting the post to you, I submitted a post to the other member on the topic of sexually objectifying women.

As a result of the latter post, I now have a more comprehensive, less literal understanding of the word. I will now use  the definition of sexual objectification to the context of a child’s objectification: A child’s objectification by a parent occurs when a part of the child’s whole being is isolated from the totality of the child and treated like as an isolated part, one not connected to the whole.

I will now answer your question: “So, if I understand correctly, you understood that you were objectified by your mother?”-

– yes: (1) She isolated the part of me that needed to be (reasonably) fed and focused on that part as if it was the only part that made me who I was, isolating it from the rest of me, not caring to notice any other part. She unnecessarily forced fed me when I was a baby, causing the baby that I was great distress. She witnessed the baby’s distress (she told me that later in life), but continued to force feed me regardless.

Later on, as a child and onward, she regularly over fed me, insisting that I eat more and more, even though I expressed distress over it many times. No matter my distress, she overfilled my plate and then.. more. She isolated my digestive system from the rest of me, and the rest of me (the expressed distress over being over fed) was ignored and dismissed, repeatedly and for many years.

(2) She isolated the part of me that loved school and bragged about my study habits and grades to everyone who’d listen, causing me great embarrassment because she exaggerated my grades to other people and because she went on and on bragging.. but she didn’t express to me any pride in my studying… it was all for other people. She exaggerated and misused part of me selfishly, ignoring and dismissing my distress about it.

(3) She repeatedly told other people that I didn’t like boys, that all I cared for was school. But I didn’t tell her that I didn’t like boys and she never asked. She made it up, she invented a part of me that didn’t exist and bragged about it.

There are other examples, no doubt, but enough for now.

Back to the study about sexual objectification of women, in the conclusion, it says: “The current literature makes it clear that sexual objectification is both directly and indirectly linked to various mental health distresses and disorders in women, including anxiety, depression, disordered eating, and reduced experiences of flow and productivity” – same can be said about a child being objectified by a parent: it leads to various health distresses in children, anxiety, depression, disordered eating and (in my case) greatly reduced experiences of flow and productivity, effects that extend to adulthood and not uncommonly increase and get more complicated in adulthood.

anita