Dear Bella:

I will reply further Thurs morning (it’s Wed early afternoon here), but for now:

Relationships with parents can be complicated, especially when moving out and establishing independence. Allow yourself to feel these mixed emotions and try to find a balance between caring for your mother and taking care of yourself.

Practice self-compassion and patience with yourself. Emotional intelligence is a skill that develops over time, and being aware of it is the first step.

Breaking generational trauma is a monumental task, but you don’t have to do it alone. Seek support from those who understand and can relate to your experiences. Therapy can be expensive, but there are other resources like support groups, community mental health services, and online therapy platforms that offer more affordable options.

It’s natural to find it challenging to consistently practice what you learn from podcasts and books. Try to set small, achievable goals and gradually build habits that support your mental health. Start small. Identify one area to focus on and take one step at a time.

Be gentle with yourself. You’re navigating a lot, and it’s okay to take things one day at a time. Celebrate small victories and forgive yourself for setbacks.

More- tomorrow.

anita

Dear Bella:

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings so openly. It takes a lot of courage to acknowledge your struggles and reach out for support.

It’s most important that you acknowledge your feelings without judgment because all your feelings carry valid messages, messages that will help you if you allow them (your feelings aka emotions) to tell you what those messages are. It doesn’t mean that any action taken based on a feeling is okay to take. It means that healing and help come from befriending your feelings. They are here (within you) to tell you things you need to know.

This is what emotional intelligence is about: (1) accepting your feelings without any negative judgment, not saying to yourself something like: I am a bad person for feeling this or that, but saying to yourself: it’s okay for me to feel whatever it is that I am feeling. All my feelings carry messages that I need to hear, messages that will promote my mental health and make me a better person to myself and to others, (2) listening to the messages and making choices that honor your feelings, choices that help yourself and others.

I now want to look into your experiences and feelings:

“I have too much generational trauma that I am trying to break open on my own and address it within my own family”-
– this implies (and correct me if I am wrong or not fully correct in regard to all of my assumptions and understandings) that you feel overwhelmed by the weight of the generational trauma in your family, feeling isolated and alone in trying to resolve generational trauma on your own, without support, or any adequate support, from your family or from anyone else.

“I have moved out and constantly worrying about my mother”- this sentence reveals a range of emotions, including guilt for having moved out, anxiety about your mother’s emotional state, separation anxiety perhaps, ambivalence, overwhelm.

“I am that individual who constantly worries”- this sentence suggests that you have a deeply ingrained habit of worrying, which likely stems from your childhood experiences. Maybe your mother exhibited high levels of anxiety or worry, and you felt unsafe. This easily leads to a heightened sense of vigilance and worry.

For a child to feel safe, the child needs her mother (as the primary or sole caretaker) to be dependably calm, strong, in charge of herself, able to handle her own emotions with emotional intelligence and resilience.

Reads like you didn’t have such a mother, nor a reliable support system during your childhood. In the absence of external support, you may have learned to rely on yourself from a young age, taking on responsibilities prematurely, such as caring for siblings, managing household tasks, or being your mother’s “therapist”, so to fix her, so that she can become the calm, stable and strong mother you needed her to be.

* Parentification occurs when a child takes on the role of caregiver or emotional supporter for their parent, essentially reversing the traditional parent-child roles. This can happen due to various factors, such as a parent’s emotional instability, health issues, or other circumstances that require the child to step in.

Your constant worry about your mother suggests that you feel a strong sense of responsibility for her well-being, which is characteristic of parentification.

When a child is parentified, the child puts her own childhood on hold, taking on an adult role, prioritizing her mother’s needs… until such time that the mother is strong enough to allow the child to be a child again. But when the mother never rises to the occasion, the child gets to be physically an adult without ever being (emotionally) a child. T(his happens to be my experience growing up with my mother).

“I am that individual who has love/hate relationship with her mother”- the love/hate dynamic can stem from feeling overwhelmed by the responsibilities you had to take on and feeling anger or resentment for not having the strong, supportive parent you needed.

Moving out and struggling with independence can reflect the difficulty of separating from a role you were forced into at a young age, that of… your mother’s mother, and feeling that by moving out and focusing on yourself, you are leaving behind/ neglecting a child. You may also feel guilt for being angry at your mother as well as for seeking your own independence.

These love/ hate feelings are valid as they reflect your unmet needs and the emotional burden you had to carry.

“I recently got into a bad fight with my partner where I heard some pretty hurtful things like ‘if you were a man, you’d be a wife-beater’ or ‘that I am an abusive person’ for constantly raising my voice at tasks not being done at home or not taking responsibility of making our new space home because they are busy tending to their own mother… I am that individual that I find faults in every single individual that I cross paths with and form judgements too quickly”-

– Growing up with parentification, you may have taken on significant responsibilities and roles that required you to be in control of your environment and outcomes. This need for control can manifest in your adult relationships, where you feel compelled to ensure tasks are done and responsibilities are met.

Your partner’s comments about you being controlling and abusive for raising your voice may stem from your heightened sense of responsibility and frustration when others don’t meet your expectations. This behavior can be a direct result of having had to manage responsibilities and even parent her own parent from a young age.

Raising her voice when tasks aren’t done might indicate difficulties in emotional regulation. Growing up in a stressful environment where you had to take on adult roles, you may not have had the chance to develop healthy ways to manage your emotions.

The intense emotions you express during conflicts, seems to me, are at least partly a release of pent-up anger and resentment from your childhood. These feelings could be directed at your partner as a misplaced outlet for the frustrations you felt towards your mother or the situation you were in, as a child:

During your childhood, having had to assume roles and responsibilities that were beyond your years created, I assume, a sense of being neglected emotionally and practically by your mother, being that you (and your mother) prioritized her needs over your own. Fast forward, your partner tends to their own mother and doesn’t contribute equally to their shared responsibilities at home, and you perceive this as a form of neglect. This echoes your childhood experience, where you felt your own needs were secondary to your mother’s.

In other words, your partner’s actions can trigger past feelings of being neglected and burdened. You might feel a sense of injustice, feeling that once again, you are left to shoulder responsibilities without adequate support.

Your quickness to find faults in others and judge them can also be a defense mechanism. It might be your way of asserting control and ensuring that things are done to prevent the chaos or neglect you experienced in your childhood.

Understanding this dynamic can help you recognize the source of your reactions and work towards healthier ways of managing your emotions and interactions.

Establishing clear boundaries with your mother and your partner is important. Self-compassion can help you manage your feelings of guilt and responsibility. Mindfulness practices such as meditation, deep breathing exercises, or yoga can help you manage stress and improve your emotional regulation. Continuing to journal so to process your emotions help with clarity. It can be a therapeutic way to explore your thoughts and feelings (here on your thread perhaps?)

Back to the concept of all feelings are valid, all having helpful messages for you, here are a few possible messages carried by your feelings:

Feeling lost and overwhelmed=> message: I need direction and clarity in my life!

Feeling anxiety and worry about your mother=> I needed and loved my mother so very much, from the beginning of my life, I am a loving person!

Guilt about moving out and gaining independence=> message: I have a strong sense of duty and loyalty, I am a loyal person!

Love/Hate for your mother=> message: I still have a strong attachment to her even though she didn’t meet my needs and burdened me so; I need to weaken this attachment and find ways to prioritize and meet my needs!

Frustration and anger at mother, partner and others=> message: I need to be prioritized, I matter!!!

Each of your feelings carries a valuable and positive messages. By understanding the underlying messages, you can navigate your emotions with greater self-awareness and purpose, turning challenges into opportunities for personal development.

anita

I hope to read from you again, Bella.

anita