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Dear Sofioula:
In this second of only two post, I will repeat parts of what you shared. My understanding of what you shared will follow an *. I will be using the following words regarding emotions: to repress, meaning to automatically, unintentionally remove one’s emotions from one’s awareness, to suppress, meaning to intentionally remove one’s emotions from one’s awareness, as in: I will think/ deal with this later, to mute, and to push down, meaning to repress or suppress.
In April 2019 you wrote: “I ALWAYS, literally, even to my own detriment want to be polite”. Two months later, you wrote: “My anger issues.. I don’t have any.. I got trained to think anger- bad, obedience- good.. Even when a stranger pushed me on the street for example, I wouldn’t say anything, not wanting to be rude”.
You shared that your ex-boyfriend having had a car, and knowing that you were sick and feverish, did not want to give you a ride from his place to your home. Instead, he let you leave his place feverish, on foot, take three buses and walk a long way to get to your home. Your response to him after taking three buses was gratitude: “I texted him that I loved him so much and was so lucky to have him”.
* The reasons you expressed gratitude to your rude and cruel boyfriend at the time were: (1) You were in the habit of being “ALWAYS.. polite”, (2) You were not able at the time to evaluate the situation. When you posted in your thread about the incident way after it happened, removed from it in time and place, you were relatively calm and objective, and therefore, you were able to evaluate the situation and him as “a douchebag”.
(*) But at the time, when you were with him, your emotions, usually repressed or suppressed, quickly rose to the surface, overwhelming you, and as a result, you pushed them down again, feeling numb, zoned out, not paying attention to and not aware of what was happening.
(*) Your high intelligence is evident when you post in your threads, but in the context of an ongoing emotional interpersonal situation, your otherwise fine intelligence is no longer available to you. To act intelligently in an emotional interpersonal situation, a person needs adequate access to one’s emotions, so to be guided by those emotions (and by logic). Without access to your emotions, you had no guidance and you were therefore lost. Lost, you mindlessly, and inappropriately, resorted to your habit: being polite to a person who was just cruel to you.
You wrote in the summer of 2019 (using “zoning off” in place of zoning out): “Sometimes I’m zoning off, completely cut off my surroundings. I can hear nor see anything but just 2 people arguing in my head.. While this is happening I’m in complete memory gap. I don’t know what and if I do or say anything during this time. Nor do I recall afterwards. Strange… Basically I escape.. I’m just on mute”.
In the same summer of 2019, you had an unusual experience, you felt and expressed anger: “Last week, I released some anger to a car driver that nearly got me injured (I told him to go and f@ck himself) AND IT FELT SOOOOOOOOO GOOD! I’m still thinking about it and smile. Best moments of my life”.
Still summer of 2019, you wrote: “Finally after so many years I can understand now. Why and how. The unexpressed anger, the sister competition, the parental dismissal, the strange sexual attitude, the broken relationships and the detachment from self…
“I don’t discriminate against my emotions any more.. Experience everything – that’s living and I’m so deeply grateful for this chance to have been incarnated.. I’m eternally grateful for this forum as well and for your help especially. No joke, everybody asks me, why my face looks different, they seem to get excited and confused to find what I changed in my appearance. And I laugh and smile! At last, organically and intentionally..
“I made no changes, I just found my skin and wore it for the first time! It’s so amazing how an internal process can reflect on the outside…I’ve been ..Sober from all my self judgment, sober from oppressing my feelings, sober from perfectionism. I truly say to you, I feel I was born recently. It literally feels I’m alive, that I just landed on this place and body. Now I realize how truly detached I was from my being”!
* Summer of 2019 (the above 4 paragraphs) was your summer of Emotional Awakening, un-muting yourself. But the awakening was cut short, and the habitual emotional repression and suppression resumed. One day during the holiday season, in December 2019, you felt very lonely, and your pushed down emotions shot up to the surface: “I’m really bad right now. I think I’m going to kill myself. I can’t get him off my mind… I miss him. I’m a failure. I tried to hard. I tried, I can’t. Please help me”.
Some time later: “I have calmed down significantly. My sister helped me through it. I was close to cutting my wrists. It was a very close call. I don’t know what got me! It was psychotic almost…All day, nobody remembered me, to send holiday greetings and such. I felt so alone. And then IT HIT ME soooo strong”.
A month later, January 2020, you shared what you called a massive update, you met a new guy: “On new year’s eve, I left all the past behind. That door closed… So.. I was emotionally stable… instantly felt hard for him”. Like the first boyfriend, he treated you well at first, he opened doors for you, carrying your bag, paying for everything.
You wrote: “He nicknamed me puppy because he said I was such a yes-girl… (I) agreed to all his terms, when and where we would go”.
On the second week of knowing him, you asked him if the two of you were dating exclusively, he said yes, but “was soooo cold.. I could literally smell his emotional distance”. Soon enough, the two of you “had drinks and then at the back of his car we had a steamy encounter”. Next evening, the two of you “had sex, it was amazing”, he then ordered Chinese and you watched a movie. The next morning he “was annoyed” and later “really cold and distant”. You asked him if things were O.K., “Like a scared puppy, really politely.. said sorry for inconveniencing (him)”. He then threatened to end the very short relationship, and a short while later, he did just that, telling you that he didn’t have any feelings for you. You asked for a final meetup, he refused and then, “he vanished”.
You wrote Jan 2020: “I doubt my ability to judge matters correctly as if I have no knowledge, no experience, no common sense, just a newborn. I always want to double check and confirm with other people if I am thinking and acting rationally”-
* Within an ongoing emotional interpersonal situation, your emotions are too intense for you to endure, so, your brain automatically pushes them down, and without access to them, you are lost, mind-less, unaware.
Three months later, in April 2020, you were attended psychotherapy: “My therapy is going very well! I’ve seen huge improvement. My therapist is very attentive and hands on with CBT. My OCD has ‘relaxed’ up to 80%”.
Four months later, in Aug 2020, you shared that you were diagnosed with OCD the February before, that you have been attended CBT therapy once a week ever since, and that you were optimistic: “I’m happy to update on feeling better overall. I’m past my ex FINALLY and I have deeply and honestly happy to be single.. I’m actually more optimistic and more peaceful than ever. I learned to silence a lot of voices inside and outside my head”.
You added that during the time since February, you “attempted self harm twice. Those came after I couldn’t control my anger due to not trusting ANYONE. Not even what my own mind was telling me… My mind became blurry from anger that it controlled me… I was so enraged my mind was blurry, I felt nothing. Like someone hijacked my brain”-
* The habitual emotional repression and suppression was interrupted by a rush of intense emotions erupting to the surface, overwhelming you. The eruption followed your distress about not trusting your mother, your father and your own mind.
Regarding the two incidents of self harm, you wrote: “The first time was when my sister wouldn’t believe that I was struggling emotionally… The second time my family was telling me that I’m objectively beautiful, that I am loveable but I wouldn’t take it for a second. I believed they lied to make me feel good. I called them liars and other horrible things…They cannot see how I could have any reason to be troubled. Do they perceive me as perfect or something? I’m not.. (those) feel-good words feel like brushing off the actual matter“-
* The first incident of self harm followed your sister “brushing off the actual matter”, the actual matter being.. you (your problems, your emotions, your perceptions). The second incident followed your parents brushing you off.
(*) Your parents were engaged with your sister’s rage. In their experience, your sister gave them a lot of trouble. When you came along, they needed you to give them absolutely no trouble: “I was not allowed to be in a bad mood, make mistakes, be angry, have problems.. I have to be the sun girl”. Your parents needed you to be always like the sun, always light, no darkness. You therefore repressed and suppressed, best you could, your anger, frustration, fear, disappointments- all the emotions that felt like a problem, as well as any of your perceptions and thoughts that your parents could consider a problem.
(*) But what is repressed/ suppressed does not disappear: a bit of it seeps/ leaks to the surface every single day, compromising the brain’s function: the ability to pay attention, to be aware of what is happening, to evaluate people and situations and to make appropriate, sensible choices. Other than the regular bit by bit leakage of repressed/ suppressed emotions to the surface, once in a while, a lot of what is pushed down erupts to the surface in great amounts, hijacking the mind in more severe, alarming ways.
(*) When you did express something your parents considered a problem, sometimes they dismissed you with compliments, such as (1) saying that you are beautiful, and therefore you shouldn’t have any problems, or (2) calling you “the survivor, the fighter, the logical one and the sweetness of their lives”, and in so stating, suggesting that you don’t need their help to survive or to make sense of life, and that you should forever remain the sweetness of their lives, giving them no taste of bitterness- no problems, no drama.
(*) You wrote regarding their compliments: “My disbelief in their statements stems off of the fact that.. I need constructive feedback, either positive or negative.. I don’t need compliments.. When I just hear good words, I get the feeling that my parents want to get on with other things, they don’t want ‘the drama’. Having problems is drama for them. And I can see the boredom in their eyes for having to discuss certain things”.
(*) Perhaps one of your childhood biggest dreams, to be an opera singer (“My second, biggest dream and the one that gives me pain to the gut for not achieving, was to become an opera singer. I was successful at passing the audition for the conservatory and got in”, summer 2019) was about you being un-muted, being heard clearly and loudly by lots of people.
Feb 2020, you shared that your father was often angry, that he shouted at you for making the smallest mistakes such as dropping food of the floor, that he over-reacted to the mistakes he believed you were making by saying to you things like: “You are driving me insane when you do that! Why do you want to destroy your mom and I?”
When your mother believed your father would be coming home from work angry, she instructed you to “pretend/ act like nothing happened/ like you know nothing/ Tell him this or that (with extreme detail).. Please do it for me, say nothing it shall pass, I don’t want any fights in the house”-
* Your father used his anger to mute you. Your mother used her fear of your father’s anger to mute you. You wrote that you love your mother “more than anyone”, and: “I am extremely loyal to my mom, even if at times I have to mute my inner voice, perception, emotions etc.”-
(*) Your mother muted your “inner voice, perception, emotions”, you wrote. You obeyed her and continued to mute your own voice, your perceptions and emotions because you loved her more than anyone, and because you were extremely loyal to her.
You wrote about your mother: “She is so special to me, we had to fight together to stay alive at my birth, because she had complications that could kill us both. Maybe that was imprinted in my subconscious… My mom was emotionally neglected to the extreme and had no real friends, no one to lean on, to fight for her. So, I think I am the replacement of her mother emotionally”-
* When you were born, you did not “fight together to stay alive”- that’s something she told you or suggested to you when you were old enough to understand her words. When you were born you fought to stay alive and she fought to stay alive.. separately.
(*) Later on, feeling so much empathy for her, you tried to be her mother, to take care of her. Muting yourself was part of you taking care of her.
You wrote in the summer of 2019: “I want to confess something, I don’t have friends. As in real friends. Friendly acquaintances that’s all I have… I have a friendly attitude that’s attractive. So how come I screw up at follow ups with people? That’s the mystery!”. April 2021: ” I am questioning why I don’t have any friends at this age, why I have no boyfriend… The worst part is when I realize I have no friends”-
* Repressed, suppressed and muted, your actions and reactions within the context of interpersonal interactions are often enough inappropriate and senseless, and that turns people off to you. For example, (1) reacting to cruelty politely, (2) begging people to meet with you, (3) saying Yes to everything, etc.
(*) To have healthy friendships and relationships, you need to take on, and adhere to the very long, skillful process of un-muting yourself. You wrote: “I always stand up for the oppressed and those being mistreated with fierce passion”- un-muting yourself skillfully, patiently, over time, with some professional, quality help, will be you standing up for the muted oppressed/mistreated you with fierce passion.
*One more thing, I think that the reason you were sexually attracted to your first boyfriend’s expressed anger/ rage during sex was because your sister’s rage was powerful in a very attractive way: it was rewarded by your parents, resulting in their Attention, attention that you did not receive. Therefore, you perceives anger as something attractive/ rewarding. You wanted the attention she got, you wanted to express your anger like she did.. but your anger was muted, not allowed. Witnessing anger sexually, expressed at your body, was extremely .. well, rewarding.
anita
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This reply was modified 3 years ago by
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This reply was modified 3 years ago by .
Dear Sofioula,
what you said about the conditions of your birth could be potentially important:
“we had to fight together to stay alive at my birth, because she had complications that could kill us both. Maybe that was imprinted in my subconscious”
It’s possible, because there is such a thing as body or implicit memory, where we don’t remember the situation since we were too little to remember, but our body and our nervous system does. That, coupled with the fact that your mother later told you about the event, might have formed an image in your mind, that you’re somehow responsible for your mother’s life, for her survival.
You later agreed to adopt her submissive style, as she was pleading with you not to upset your father with any problems – so not to make him angry. If your mother pleads with you to stay silent, and you have an unconscious belief that your rebelling might not only upset her, but endanger her life – then of course, you’d want to stay silent. In other words, if you believe that you raising your voice might literally kill her – it’s a very strong incentive for you to stay silent and accept all the injustice and mistreatment and wrongdoings against yourself. Because your mother’s life is more important.
If this is the case, you’d need to accept that your speaking up and protecting yourself from abuse will not endanger your mother. You setting healthy boundaries isn’t dangerous for her whatsoever, but it’s vital for you to have a healthy life.
Dear Sofioula,
I am very happy that what I said made sense and resonated with you.
One more thing that makes me uncomfortable though, is that I told my ex that I wanted to be married by 27 – 28 and that was the official reason for our break up (others became apparent to me later). Since that’s not happening, I feel so bad for not doing as I said. In my eyes it’s him telling me “I told you so” and it drives me crazy. How do I deal with that?
What you told your ex was not really your true desire, but the expectations of your parents speaking through you. Even if it were your own desire, we have the right to change our minds. A year ago you were thinking one thing, and now, with an expanded understanding, you believe something else. That’s how we grow and evolve – nothing bad about it.
What makes it bad is when you believe that changing your mind or making a mistake is a bad thing – something that your father taught you to believe. He made you a bad person for making a mistake (although changing your mind isn’t even a mistake), and you believe it. You’d need to tell yourself it’s your father’s programming, and there’s nothing wrong with changing your mind or making a mistake. You can tell yourself a little mantra: “I have the right to make mistakes”. Or “I have the right to change my mind.” And “I am not a bad person because of it”.
Regarding therapy, CBT does have its limits. What helped me was body-oriented, somatic therapy, which works with the body and emotions too, not just with the mind. Because we can understand everything on the rational level, and yet be unable to truly change our behavior and our reactions in day-to-day life. Working with the inner child is super helpful because our inner child holds those subconscious beliefs and emotional wounding. Once we get in touch with our inner child and get a corrective emotional experience in therapy, that’s when we can truly heal and it shows in our everyday life too.
Sorry for the capslock. It’s just that I felt so angry with them. Especially my dad. This is what I have to put up with every single time I’m about to make a decision, whether it is buying a car, dating someone, ordering take-out of FOR GOD’S SAKE spilling water on the freaking table. CONTROL CONTROL CONTROL. So unbearably controlling.
It’s okay that you feel anger, it can be healing. You said in previous threads that your father used to yell at you if you’d accidentally drop food on the floor, or such little things. It’s almost like he needed every excuse so he can vent his anger. He was full of anger, but it wasn’t your fault, it was his personality. He might have been angry at his controlling mother, who knows, but he was never allowed to express it to her, and he never saw the need to deal with it in therapy, so he vented whenever possible. It’s easiest to vent at children because they’re weak and subordinate. My mother used to yell at me too, for tiniest things. It’s how they manage stress. But it’s terribly damaging for the child…
Also, the need for control. My mother used to control me too, I think because of 2 things: 1) she feared for me – she was/is a person based on fear, and 2) she didn’t trust that I can take care of myself, or that I can make good decisions for myself. She brought me up with lots of criticism and condemnation, lots of scolding, yelling, telling me how wrong I was in this or that way. If you’re constantly told you aren’t good enough and there’s something wrong with you, then the child stops believing in oneself and its inner voice. The internal compass gets messed up… and eventually, we really might start making foolish decisions and act in weird ways, but it’s the result of our upbringing, not because there’s something inherently wrong with us – as our parents would want us to believe.
Your father’s anger and the need for control are the result of his own unresolved issues, and also of lack of basic understanding that the child isn’t his ownership, his “project” that he can mold into an obedient soldier, or a doll, as you said. The child has its own unique personality, its own desires, its own temperament. It needs to be treated as an individual, not as the parent’s ownership.
My mother treated me like her ownership, and I believe your father did that with you too. There was no place for your unique individuality, for your desires, for your goals and dreams – you need to fulfill what he wants and thinks is best for you. That’s the epitome of an authoritative parent. If you don’t obey him, he believes you don’t love him.
So the above would roughly be the answer to your question of why he has to control you, patronize you, worry about your potential failures, and tell you “I told you so”. He probably won’t change, at least not spontaneously, but the good thing is that you can change, in a way that you aren’t susceptible any more to his fears and attempts to control you, but can be your own person and choose your own life and destiny. It’s not easy to do, but it’s possible, step by step, to reclaim the real, authentic you <3
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This reply was modified 3 years ago by
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