Dear GIGI:

I came across your post today, March 10, and I’m really glad you chose to share your thoughts here. It takes a lot of courage to open up about such deeply personal struggles, and I want to acknowledge the strength it took for you to write this.

I can absolutely relate to the two challenges you mentioned. In my case, it stemmed from my mother expressing suicidal thoughts to me when I was younger. As a result, I too spent countless nights thinking about her dying. Sometimes, I would pray to the stars in the night sky, wishing for her to stay alive.

When it comes to sex, my mother expressed very negative and judgmental views about it, and this had a lasting effect on me. Like you, I developed my own critical and uncomfortable thoughts around the topic. In fact, even typing the word “sex” feels difficult for me.

I wonder if any part of this resonates with your story. If it feels right for you, I’d love to hear more about your thoughts or experiences.

anita

Dear GIGI:

You ended your post with: “I’ve been to therapy before, but I’ve always been inconsistent. I’ll go for a few months, then either feel like I’m doing okay or get scared of diving into deeper topics, and I stop going. I’ve always avoided talking about my parents—especially my dad. Even thinking about it makes my body anxious and puts me in physical discomfort. Even now, while writing this, I feel dizzy. I’m not sure if I have a specific question. I just want to know if anyone else has experienced similar thoughts and how you deal with them.”

I want to start by saying that I deeply respect the honesty and courage it takes to share your struggles so openly. Understanding how anxious, scared, and physically uncomfortable you feel about discussing your parents—especially your father—I won’t ask you questions about them or your childhood experiences. Instead, I’d like to share parts of my own story where I can relate to what you’ve shared. I hope it may provide some comfort or insight.

You wrote: “I (am) filled with regrets—regrets about not spending enough time with them, not sharing my thoughts and feelings, and not building a stronger, closer relationship.” This indicates feelings of guilt about not having a strong, close relationship with your parents, as though it’s somehow your fault. I can relate. I’ve never had a close relationship with either of my parents. If I ever did as a baby or a very young child, I can’t remember it—I have no memories of such closeness. My parents divorced when I was very young, and my father moved out early on. He played a minimal role in my life while I lived with my mother, who essentially raised me as a single parent. With her, I felt guilty about everything. I believed every conflict or issue in our relationship was my fault.

You also wrote: “I struggle with guilt when it comes to sex. Almost every time (if not always), my dad comes to mind, and it makes me feel disgusted.” This suggests a crossing of personal boundaries in childhood—emotional, if not physical. I relate to this as well, and I’d like to share my personal experience, while adding a trigger warning: Some parts of my story may be uncomfortable to read.

As a child, my feelings were often ignored, belittled, or treated as wrong and punished. I was told things like, “You have no reason to feel sad—you’re so much luckier than other children,” or, “You have no right to feel angry!” This taught me that my emotions were problematic, as though they weren’t my allies but enemies. Over time, I learned to suppress my emotions because they didn’t feel safe to express. I doubted their validity, and confronting emotional topics felt overwhelming or shameful—as if I didn’t have the “right” to feel them. This led to situations in adulthood where I allowed myself to be taken advantage of or abused because I doubted that my feelings about being mistreated were legitimate.

My mother was a dominating, emotionally volatile person who was preoccupied with her own struggles. She demanded constant attention, reacted unpredictably, and often controlled the emotional climate of our home. This left little room for me to develop my own emotional identity or boundaries. I learned to prioritize her needs over mine, internalizing the belief that her emotions mattered while mine did not. I even came to see my feelings as troublesome or wrong. Living in this environment taught me to “walk on eggshells,” suppressing my emotions to avoid conflict and confrontation.

I also became her emotional caregiver. She shared her personal struggles with me at great lengths and in dramatic, histrionic ways, blurring the natural boundaries between parent and child. This is known as “parentification,” where the child becomes overly responsible for the parent’s well-being. Growing up in this dynamic taught me that my feelings were insignificant and that expressing them was selfish or futile. This sense of guilt about my own needs carried into adulthood, manifesting as a reluctance to take up space emotionally or prioritize my own well-being. I often felt unworthy in relationships or undeserving of self-care.

In regard to blurred boundaries between parent and child: growing up, I often felt like I was the “man” in the house, while she was the “woman”— me being the strong one and her being the weak one. Although she was dominating and controlling with me, she often displayed weakness and submission when dealing with others in her life. It felt as though she needed me to step into the role of the strong one, to help her stand up for herself in situations with other people. I tried to do so, but she rejected my help and even punished me for trying (likely because she was too afraid to confront others). Yet, she continued to complain to me about being taken advantage of by those same people.

Witnessing her— a woman—being taken advantage of by others stirred a deep sense of empathy in me. I wanted to protect her, to “be the man” for her. Over time, I internalized the idea that being a woman meant being weak, and I wanted to be the opposite: strong, capable, and nothing like her.

Two memories from my early 20s stand out. In one instance, we were in the small apartment where we lived, and she came running toward me, crying and wailing, her arms outstretched, preparing to hit me. It was a strange combination of weakness and aggression. For the first time, I did something I had never done before: I raised my arms, grabbed her hands, and firmly blocked her from getting closer and hitting me. Her response was unexpected— she melted in my hands, went completely limp, passive, and backed away. She never tried to hit me again.

The second memory is from another moment in my early 20s. I had been drinking some alcohol before she arrived home, and feeling tipsy, I initiated a dance with her— something I had never done before. I took her hands in mine and led the dance, feeling very much like “the man.” Once again, her response was complete submission.

I never fully understood these two memories until this morning, decades later. I now realize that she was confrontational and aggressive with me because I was completely submissive to her—until I wasn’t. When I stood up to her (as in the first memory) or took the lead (as in the dance), I became like the other people in her life: she submitted to me just as she submitted to them. Reflecting on this, I now see how unhealthily submissive I was to her growing up. This submissiveness is why she felt safe being aggressive with me—she had no fear of me standing up for myself.

Thank you, GIGI, for making it possible for me to explore my own experience of childhood blurred boundaries and role confusion. I hope that, in reading this, you find some comfort or insight into your own experiences. Please know you’re not alone, and healing is possible.

anita