Dear Linarra:

I acted as I didn’t exist or mattered during most of my life, to a point I myself have difficulty identifying my needs/wants. Sometimes I have a hard time even feeling real. I guess I have been successful in shutting myself down.. . Most of my friends…  just accept me like that.. yet it doesn’t really feel like a good acceptance either. I don’t know if they are even aware of why I’m so quiet, or if they care enough to get to know me… If you have any kind of advice or guidance to provide or experience to share, I would gladly read it”-

– I shut down too, I too acted as if I didn’t exist or mattered most of my life. One time, I was a teenager and I was with my mother visiting her brother (my uncle). I was quiet as usual, because I knew that if I said the wrong thing in front of my uncle/ anyone- I’d be in trouble with her. What happened next, on that one occasion, was that my uncle asked me questions, questions about me, about what I thought, what I wanted- to be asked about me never happened before, no one tried to get to know my thoughts and feelings before, not in a positive, inviting kind of way. It felt so.. refreshingly new, like I was alive..  like I was a withering plant and someone poured some water on it. (I wasn’t able to answer him because my mother was sitting right there).

What if I asked you questions, like my uncle asked me, would you like me to do so?

anita

I also need to tell my boyfriend to never say bad dog

* Dear Zeeza: you posted on the wrong thread by mistake. I will reply to you on your own thread when I am back from my walk!

anita

Dear Linarra:

This will be a long post. I hope you have the patience to read through it, part by part perhaps, taking as much time as you need. When I quote you, I will italicized the quotes:

“Do you have people in your life now who ask you questions and care for the answer? “- yes.

“And are you in a place where you can answer them safely now?“- Yes in regard to specific, concrete questions asked in a positive, curious, inviting way (tone of voice, facial expression) like my uncle asked me, ex.: what do I think or feel about this or that phenomenon or situation, No in regard to general, abstract questions (no matter the tone/ facial expressions of the person asking), questions like:  How-was-your-day? Did-you-enjoy-(whatever)? How-are-you-feeling? and the worse, for me: Are-you-okay?

When asked the latter questions, I feel as if I am attacked, and I automatically recoil/ withdraw, feeling uncomfortable. I then search for a quick, vague answer (ex.: I-am-fine-and-dandy,-thank-you), hoping to get rid of further questioning as quickly as possible.

“I am sorry your mother made you feel unsafe, and that you weren’t able to reply to your uncle because of her“- thank you for your expressed empathy. I wasn’t able to reply to my uncle’s specific, concrete questions, asked with curiosity and interest, as if he really wanted to hear me because my mother was sitting there looking at me with that threatening, disapproving look, saying nothing, but delivering the message: I-am-going-to-kill-you-if-you-say-anything/the-wrong-thing.

Fast forward to adulthood, when asked a general, abstract question, unless I come up with “fine, thank you”- I am suspended in a land of what-do-I-say-to-not-get-in-trouble, in danger of falling at any time, so to speak. Concrete questions and language makes me feel safer: I can hold on to something concrete and not fall.

“My mother also participated in my quietness. She would talk over me, didn’t give me time to answer, wouldn’t listen to what I say (even when she’s been the one asking)“- this was my experience with my mother.

“She made me feel like no matter what I would say it wouldn’t matter, so I ceased to try at some point“- same here. Ignored so blatantly, talked over, disregarded- it was as if my thoughts and feelings almost ceased to exist: pushed down, suffocated, dying but never dead.

“When someone hears you and it gets you into trouble. I experienced that with my mother too. When she wasn’t ignoring or preventing me to express myself, she was out for war and drama. Spared no one, so we had to be careful not to fuel her. Which was difficult because she could start over the most little things, so the safe way was to share as little as possible“-

– My mother was histrionic, loud and wild and into drama, particularly tragedy with a touch of violence. If I said the wrong (in her interpretation)  word or words (equally problematic, if I failed to say the right word or words), or if I said the right word in the wrong tone of voice, and she was in the mood to react- all hell break loose as she went on to perform a tragic/ aggressive scene on a figurative stage: a performance that I (the audience) was not able to escape, had to stand there watching the whole thing. Sometimes, the performer came down from the stage so to let me know in-person how upset she is, getting the audience involved.

“I would gladly answer your questions if you have any, Anita“- I read and re-read what you posted in your three posts regarding your ongoing emotional experience in childhood and onward, so to lay out a foundation for questions to ask you. Here is what I see as the themes of your emotional experience:

1) Shame and humiliation: “I had a difficult childhood… It was neglectful, humiliating, shameful… I am very socially isolated and I am too ashamed of my situation”

2) Fear: “I had a difficult childhood… sometimes violent…  it could easily take a threatening turn and go out of control… I had general anxiety issues for as long I can remember, they lead me to freeze or back off “.

3) Partial death of self/ minimization of awareness: “I acted as I didn’t exist or mattered during most of my life, to a point I myself have difficulty identifying my needs/wants. Sometimes I have a hard time even feeling real. I guess I have been successful in shutting myself down from existence… I’m so quiet… zoning out.. I run on automatic mode a lot“.

4) Lack of trust in people and social isolation: “I ceased to trust and love my family… I am very socially isolated .. I have difficulty relating to my friends. .. I don’t feel comfortable with most of them… when it comes to open up it always felt pointless or unsafe.. I’m unsure people would tolerate me if I were something else than this quiet presence they invite sometimes… people could be so destructive to themselves and others, especially their family… So many behavior I witnessed made no sense and were scary and hurtful… I’m still worried someone will jump at me, telling me I am a burden and not deserving the help I’m seeking… I just hope I won’t meet too many people denying me during this journey“.

5) Feeling alive and aware: “What saved me during my darkest times, and the only reason why I decided to keep on living despite my life being a mess, is creativity. I love writing and drawing, it makes me happy, stimulated, and my love for it always gave my life meaning when nothing else could“.

Question: do you think that it will be possible for you- some time in the future-  to trust me, this person behind your computer screen (on record are my thousands of replies to members in the last six years)- to not hurt you, to not deny you in your journey here, on your thread?

anita

Dear Linarra:

I do hope this is the rare space you need it to be, I will do my part in  making it so. I want to re-read your recent reply (and anything you may add to it, as you are always welcome to post again) when I am rested tomorrow morning, in about 13 hours from now.

anita

Dear Linarra:

“I’m glad you have people in your life who care about you and your thoughts, and that you are able to answer the concrete questions when they’re asked in a positive way“- I learned that it’s good enough if there is just one such person, who from time to time genuinely cares about my thoughts and feelings. Once in a while there are others. I think that a lot of the people, most of the time, do not selflessly and genuinely care about the thoughts and feelings of others: too many people are too busy and/ or too troubled to have the mental space to genuinely and attentively attend to others.

In previous posts,  you wrote: “I’m encountering some difficulties on my healing path.. I myself have difficulty identifying my needs/wants. Sometimes I have a hard time even feeling real… I do confide my pain to some friends, sometimes, but it doesn’t make me feel better… I struggle reaching to myself and my feelings so I will need to reconnect with my inner child somehow“-

– When you experienced the powerful emotional traumas of your childhood, the traumas that shaped you to such a large extent, you didn’t have the vocabulary you have today. You therefore did not have the thoughts you have today. Back then, the child-person that you were, was way more emotional than intellectual. The person you were then is not the same person as you are now.

The following quotes are taken from the quote right above:

“I do confide my pain to some friends, sometimes, but it doesn’t make me feel better“- you have shared about your pain to friends, and here, on your thread, using vocabulary and developed thoughts that did not exist back when you were a child. As an adult, you use information that you gathered in college perhaps, in books and online sources that you read after your childhood traumas already shaped you. When you share about your childhood using words, thoughts, ideas, analyses- all which did not exist when you were a child- it is not really the child you were that is confiding. No wonder confiding with others as an adult did not make you feel better.

“I struggle reaching to myself and my feelings so I will need to reconnect with my inner child somehow”- you have to speak her (your inner child’s) language if you want to reach her/ reconnect with her.

The “difficulty identifying my needs/wants” may be resolved by reconnecting with the child you were, using her thoughts, her vocabulary, to which her real, genuine emotions are attached, and once you do, you will not have as hard a time “even feeling real“.

Let’s look at what you shared in your most recent post to me: “It seems like your mother was a lot like mine. ‘Histrionic’ is also a term we use to qualify our mother’s behavior, among my siblings. Very wildly performative and dramatic, tragic and aggressive… And the audience involvement too, at times… So humiliating, especially when she’s onto you. Your (and your sanity too, to some extent) privacy only exists if you do not exist, or do not let her know about your existence“-

– Back when you were a child, the term histrionic was not available to you. The wording wildly performative and dramatic, tragic and aggressive was not even close to the wording going through your child brain. There were no intellectual, if any, conversations between you and your siblings about your mother. Back then the experience of humiliation was probably purely physical, no words.

Here is what I suggest, consider in your next post doing the following exercise: share about your childhood experience with your histrionic mother using very simple, child-like vocabulary, avoiding any wordings, ideas and analyses that you read about and thought about as an older teenager and adult. If you are not willing and/ or able to do this exercise- that’s fine with me. If you think that it might help you if I will do this exercise (regarding my own experience with my histrionic mother), on your thread- let me know. It will be difficult for me, and I have never done it before online, but I am willing to try.

anita