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  • #384252
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Dear Anita,

    “the abusive, materialistic mother who cares for appearances, doesn’t need a healthy child, she has no use for a healthy child… But a child? A child cannot give her what she wants. She doesn’t care what a child feels inside.. If her child feels happy and healthy, can she buy anything with it?”

    She cares for appearances, but it’s the reverse, she isn’t materialistic. The reason she doesn’t need an healthy child is because she act as the selfless savior with an healthy child. She prefers a broken child, so she can brag about how she’s been saving her.

    But once the child is adult, two dilemmas happen :

    – her adult child is broken, unfunctionnal, and people notice and tell her mother something is wrong. She takes it as a jugment of her having failed as a mother and is angry at the child, pressing her to appear normal and make a living not for the materialistic aspect she would gain, but to not fail her scenario.

    – but if her adult child make a living, she will live and make a life of her own. And the mother will be alone. Really alone because everyone in her life left her because of her personality, and she’s socially isolated, without a meaning if she isn’t a mother or a savior. So she can’t have the child succeeding too much either. She needs to keep the child’s dependency, so she can have power over her.

    but it was not any kind of love, not even a love of an object kind-of-love: when a person loves an object, she doesn’t purposefully break the object, does she…?”

    Mental illness make people do strange thing…

    “what if she didn’t love you at all.. what if she was/is often angry at you, intending to hurt you, and then doing what she can do to hurt you … and then, once in a while she feels affection for you… is that love?”

    I have no idea… Do purposeful harm invalidate the affection? I don’t know. But it is messed up in any case.

    “but she wants to destroy more than she wants to love.. (?)”

    There definitely are a lot of times when her lack of control over her emotions, and her self centered personality, makes her need destruction more than she needs love.

    Hm. So. Honestly… I never ever considered the idea my mother could NOT love me. Love me in a twisted way, sure, not love me? Then why would have beared all these years of abuse for…

    At another time, I would have say it would be a relief if she ceased to love me, so we could take distance from each other and be healthy.

    But this is different. Answering this message triggered enough hurt and distress for me to cry. I wasn’t expecting his kind of challenging thoughts.

    I think I would be more alright if I lost her love by standing up and taking distance for myself…

    The idea she might have never loved me? It would question so much of everything… It would make me doubt so much things about love. Well, I already have issues on this but it wouldn’t make it any easier.

    The only comfort I could take facing this idea, would be that her inability to love me would come from her pathology, and not the fact I am unlovable. But it is equally worrying.

    I am not entirely mentally sane myself. I have issues with love and be loved. And it would be distressing to think I could also not feel real love because of this.

    I wouldn’t survive if I ended up being damaged on this. If I can’t feel, recognize or trust love then how I am supposed to survive emotionally?

    I am scared.

    once you are able to separate yourself from your mother, to really know who you are vs who she is, what is yours, what is hers– it is then that you can find your individual meaning and personal power.

    I see. It seems like a long hard work to get there. I cannot say more on this tonight, but I acknowledge this statement.

    Linarra

    #384256
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Linarra:

    I would like to thoroughly read and reply to your recent post in about 14 hours from now. For now I have a comment on this: “Mental illness make people do strange thing…”-

    – unless a person is suffering a psychotic breakdown, he/ she is aware-enough of what is happening, this is why a violent parent beating their child stops short of hurting the child badly enough to kill the child, or badly enough to require hospitalization.. and why parents avoid beating their children in public (where child protection laws exist), etc.

    I told you about my uncle early in your thread, that he asked me questions about my thoughts, my feelings, my opinions,  and it meant so much to me. Well, this uncle had a childhood about as extreme as my mother’s, and yet, he asked me those questions, and seems like he asked his children such questions too.. as they grew up to be (unlike me) very functional, from an early age.

    One more thing, my mother, as mentally ill as she was (no less than yours, I imagine), told me that one time: “You think that I don’t know that what I am doing is wrong? I am not stupid, I know. But what are you going to do.. you have nowhere to go”!

    anita

    #384258
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Linarra:

    When I submitted the above, it was before I read the rest of your message. “I wouldn’t survive if I ended up being damaged on this. If I can’t feel, recognize or trust love then how I am supposed to survive emotionally? I am scared“-

    – I am scared too, I don’t want my input to scare you too much… It took me years to understand these things about love that took me minutes to type out for you. I hope you are okay, I want you to be okay! I will be back to you in about 12 hours.

    anita

     

    #384273
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Dear Anita,

    unless a person is suffering a psychotic breakdown, he/ she is aware-enough of what is happening, this is why a violent parent beating their child stops short of hurting the child badly enough to kill the child, or badly enough to require hospitalization.. and why parents avoid beating their children in public (where child protection laws exist), etc.

    I agree. Yet, there were times during her crisis she really seemed to lose touch with reality, enough to make us wonder if she weren’t on edge of a temporary psychotic breakdown. And other times she can seem to be aware and manipulative. It is a thing I was never entirely able to determine with certainty with my mother, how much she was aware and how much she was unaware. The only sure thing about her was her instability.

    I thought about the difference between humans and objects a bit more.

    Some people would lash out at an object if it ceases to function like they want to, but they would like the object alright when it works well for them. An object has no feeling so it isn’t technically a problem to lashing out at them. If someone considers a human as their possession, as an object, they wouldn’t care to break it if it isn’t working well, or be violent to make it work right again.

    I guess you’re right, there’s no love there. Some humans can chose to love and care about an object. So I guess she could have chose to do so for her children. But she didn’t. Or only temporarily.

    One more thing, my mother, as mentally ill as she was (no less than yours, I imagine), told me that one time: “You think that I don’t know that what I am doing is wrong? I am not stupid, I know. But what are you going to do.. you have nowhere to go”!

    My mother also knows what she does is wrong. I think it is part of her motivation for self-destruction. I do not remember mine telling something as obviously incriminating about herself that the thing you mother said, not without any remorse at least.

    Remember when my mother hit me last week and I was alright? I defended myself, just by putting my arm in the way to prevent her foot kicks to reach another part of my body. Just pure reflex. Her foot hit my elbow. She hurt herself by trying to hurt me (at the instant it happened, I could only laugh at the idea of karma. Then I thought “oh no, she might use it against me, say I beaten her up or some kind of bullshit”, because she very often told people about how abusive and controlling her children were towards her.) I came out without a bruise, she came out with (maybe?) broken toes. She didn’t use it against me this time. But she refused to go see a doctor when I told her to. She said she had worse when she was a child, she said that “maybe she didn’t want to heal it as a way to punish herself”.

    My mother’s choice to regret and to be a victim in order to wash out of her wrongdoings is a confusing factor. It always was been. She is very confusing in her ways of doing things. Trying to make sense of actions, especially in times of crisis, was making me insane. She makes everything look unreal and insane.

    I will never know if there could have been any truth in her regrets because we are in a very specific situation of balanced powers.

    We are (the children only) the owner of the house we’re living in, not her. That was the heritage of my father, it wasn’t very legal of him to disinherit his wife so she could have opposed it, but she let it happen, playing the self-sacrificing heroic victim.

    Long after, we discovered she secretly stole a lot of money from my brother’s heritage while he was a minor. While she was doing so and we ignored it, she used the fact she was paying for our food and for the bills to, well… make us shut up when we were expressing anger at being abused? While I was disagreeing with the “I feed you so accept the abuse and shut up” logic, I accepted it, because there’s not so much we could do about it. We were paid/feeded to be abused. If she wanted it to be a transaction, well it could be. This kind of logic was the thing that killed the love for me. When we discovered she had been stealing money, it was a turning point for us. Because it couldn’t be a fair transaction anymore if she’s been twisting the rules.

    She has been afraid she would be thrown out by us. Probably because she’s aware of her wrongdoings. She has been afraid in spite she has been the one to make sure we knew we couldn’t legally throw her out as long as she paid the bill of this house we own. And well, legal possibility or not, we aren’t heartless enough to throw her out. Even if we were heartless, we aren’t able to function without her yet. And she knows it. And she uses this power to keep the abuse going. But, you know, not too much, because she fears the day we’ll be able to function without her. She fears an act of revenge from us.

    I personally wouldn’t do that, I don’t believe revenge or long-term resentment would do any good. My siblings? She better not push her luck too much… They are tired of fighting, but if she breaks them down until they got nothing to lose she has good reasons to fear. That might be why she’s more comfortable to take ‘’ free abuse turn’’ on me than on my siblings, my need for inner peace is stronger than the short-term satisfaction revenge could bring. If anything, revenge would hurt me more, I don’t like conflict and I don’t feel good about hurting someone, even if I had been hurt by. Because, unlike her, I know it isn’t a good enough reason.

    Whether the empathy and love she expresses sometimes are genuine or fake, twisted or inexistent… in the end, she broke the relationship and the trust to a point of no return. It doesn’t change what she did. It doesn’t change I do not want to be a part of that or a part of her. Just like I wish she weren’t a part of me, within the mental wounds she created in me.

    ” I am scared too, I don’t want my input to scare you too much… It took me years to understand these things about love that took me minutes to type out for you. I hope you are okay, I want you to be okay!”

    I am okay, I will be. The hurt cannot be avoided, it has to happen at some point. And it is helpful to have your input to help me think and I appreciate you’re keeping me company during this exploration, it would be harder to cope alone, the distress would have been greater I think.

    I am mature enough to take those things, but I am not guarded enough to be above getting emotional or vulnerable (not during this conversation, not with you). If someone else had given me this input, in other circumstances, I would probably had been too focused on controlling my reaction to give the input a real thought. But I’m allowing it with you. And emotions like fear, pain, or distress can happen. But I trust you, and I trust myself to be okay once the emotions are done expressing.

    The idea of being loved by her, even unhealthily, was among the few good things she brought to me. Even if it was for wrong reasons or an illusion. The idea some part of me could be lovable was reassuring, and I chose to believe that and built confidence in that. It is a bit shaking, to remove some foundations/reinforcement of these beliefs. But I guess it doesn’t make them untrue. I can be lovable, her feelings about me shouldn’t be more relevant than anyone else’s, or my own’s.

    I can be okay with the idea she never loved me. But the act and the deception are scary. I guess I can still learn to recognize better, to not see what I would prefer to see in order to not risk being endangered again by an illusion of love.

    Linarra.

    #384276
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Linarra:

    I read a few words only from your most recent post, just enough to see that you are okay, and felt a relief, feels good to know that you are here, and that you are okay. I remember that you told me that you are patient, so I hope that you are patient as you read the following. What I will do is respond to your yesterday’s post first (parts I didn’t yet respond to), before reading your most recent post. I will attend to one part at a time in your older post before going to the next, and then when I complete going  through your yesterday’s post and then today’s post, part by part, I will not edit anything I wrote before. To me, it is an honest, reliable way to process information and reach the best understanding possible:

    She prefers a broken child, so she can brag about how she’s been saving her“- so, she ..breaks the child in order to show to other adults that she is fixing a broken child. This is cruelty, to break a child on purpose, for any reason.

    if her adult child makes.. a life of her own. And the mother will be alone. Really alone because everyone in her life left her“- I learned that my mother was as alone when I lived with her as when I didn’t, as far as her subjective experience goes. If she felt a togetherness with me (or with anyone else), she wouldn’t be as  miserable as she was.

    When your mother suggested to you that she does not want you to leave her, it was after she has left you long ago, emotionally… (if she was ever together with you, which I doubt). Her subjective experience of being “Really alone” cannot be undone if you keep living with her for the rest of her life.

    “Does purposeful harm invalidate the affection?“- there is a difference between affection and love. Mengele who played a big part in the Auschwitz deaths of millions, and who performed medical experiments on prisoners, causing those patients unspeakable and unnecessary pain and suffering, this same Mengele felt affection to one of the prisoners: a beautiful 4-year old gypsy boy. He liked having the boy around him, dressed him in nice clothes, fed him, and expressed affection for him.. and then one day, he led the boy to the gas chambers and walked  away as if nothing happened.

    Leading the boy to his death did not invalidate the affection Mengele felt for the boy, but I wouldn’t say that Mengele loved the boy. If he loved the boy, he would have made an exception for the boy and arrange to move the boy outside of Auschwitz, to safety.

    “her lack of control over her emotions“- there is a difference between being impulsive and lacking control: if I strongly feel like doing something, and I know that doing it will hurt an innocent person, but I do it anyway because it feels so good to do it, it doesn’t mean that I was out of control. It means that I wanted more than anything to feel good, and doing what I did.. made me feel  good.

    Honestly… I never ever considered the idea my mother could NOT love me. Love me in a twisted way, sure, not love me? Then why did I bear all these years of abuse for…”- the abused child has to believe that her abusive parent loves her. If a mother beats her child 20 times a day, but feeds her once, the child will believe that her mother loves her. A child will perceive her reality any which way, as long as it means that her mother loves her. Because to believe that she doesn’t, means death, in the child’s mind.

    I think I would be more alright if I lost her love by standing up and taking distance for myself“- how can one lose a love that’s not there. I mean, didn’t she provide you by now with adequate evidence of her lack of love?

    The idea she might have never loved me? It would question so much of everything… It would make me doubt so much things about love“- taking the concept of mutual love out of a context where it does not apply (your mother/yourself),  can lead you to a context where mutual love does apply (a future relationship with a man perhaps).

    If I can’t feel, recognize or trust love then how I am supposed to survive emotionally?“- like I wrote before, a child has to believe that her mother loves her so to survive, it’s instinctive. It is therefore not your personal choice to have believed so far that she loves you. The challenge, as an adult, is to believe what is true.

    I am scared“- please remember that you can end our communication at any time if it scares you too much. I am surprised every time you do post for me, thinking beforehand that you may not.

    there were times during her crisis she really seemed to lose touch with reality, enough to make us wonder if she weren’t on edge of a temporary psychotic breakdown“- it’s part of the histrionic performance: the Actress’s job is to make her chosen Audience to feel/ believe that she is losing touch with reality. And just as the Actress returns to sane behavior when she is off stage/ outside the reach of the cameras, so does the histrionic.

    A histrionic person is mentally ill, of course. Thing is, being mentally ill does not mean being dishonest. But your mother/ my mother are dishonest. If she was honest, she would say: I always feel alone. I feel alone when you are with me and when you are not with me. I really need attention. And I often feel angry at you when you didn’t do anything wrong, etc.  But she is dishonest, so she says things like: I feel alone when you are not with me, don’t leave me. I am never angry at you unless you make me angry. I love you, etc.

    It was very difficult for me to understand and believe that my mother was/ is dishonest. When I finally understood it, I re-evaluated what she told me before, which I automatically believed earlier to be the truth.

    My mother also knows what she does is wrong. I think it is part of her motivation for self-destruction“- if I understand this sentence correctly, then you are assuming that she feels guilty for doing wrong to you (and to your siblings). I don’t know if she does.

    Remember when my mother hit me last week and I was alright? I defended myself, just by putting my arm in the way to prevent her foot kicks to reach another part of my body. Just pure reflex. Her foot hit my elbow. She hurt herself by trying to hurt me.. But she refused to go see a doctor when I told her to. She said she had worse when she was a child, she said that “maybe she didn’t want to heal it as a way to punish herself… She is very confusing in her ways of doing things. Trying to make sense of actions, especially in times of crisis, was making me insane. She makes everything look unreal and insane“-

    – she is confusing because a lot of what she tells  you is untrue. You can’t make sense of a story with a mix of some truths and a lot of untruths. When she suggests regret for her actions, she may be lying. Look at her behavior over time: does honest regret fit into it (?)

    For as long as you automatically believe that what she tells you is true, you will remain confused. It is hard for a daughter to perceive that her mother lies a lot. We can perceive that other people lie, but not our own mother! But really.. why is it possible (in our minds) that people out there lie a lot, but it is impossible that our own mother lies a lot (?)

    I will never know if there could have been any truth in her regrets“- you said it yourself (as I told you in the beginning of this post, I answer part by part, so I wrote the above paragraph before I read this sentence).

    We are (the children only) the owner of the house we’re living in, not her. That was the heritage of my father, it wasn’t very legal of him to disinherit his wife so she could have opposed it, but she let it happen, playing the self-sacrificing heroic victim“- does this mean that you can legally evict her?

    Long after, we discovered she secretly stole a lot of money from my brother’s heritage while he was a minor. While she was doing so and we ignored it..”- you wrote earlier that she is not materialistic. Stealing money from her son points to being materialistic, among other things… (Maybe she told you and your siblings that she is not materialistic and you believed her).

    She has been afraid she would be thrown out by us. Probably because she’s aware of her wrongdoings… she has been the one to make sure we knew we couldn’t legally throw her out as long as she paid the bill of this house we own. And well, legal possibility or not, we aren’t heartless enough to throw her out”- to choose to live with her, if it is a choice, would be a heartless choice for you and for your siblings.

    “Even if we were heartless, we aren’t able to function without her yet. And she knows it. And she uses this power to keep the abuse going. But, you know, not too much, because she fears the day we’ll be able to function without her. She fears an act of revenge from us”– if she feared revenge, she would try to make things right for you and for your siblings, so to de-motivate revenge. I doubt she fears revenge from her adult children.

    Whether the empathy and love she expresses sometimes are genuine or fake, twisted or inexistent“-

    – regarding separating the truths from the lie in regard to what she has been telling you all these years, as well as separating her genuine expressions of emotions from fake expressions, think of it like this: you are presented with a chocolate cake that has (sorry for the image, but I can’t think of anything more fitting), pieces of human feces in it. Will it be worthy to break the cakes into small pieces and separate the chocolate from the feces in order to eat the chocolate parts? You can never be sure that any piece of chocolate is free from a smear of feces. Better throw away the whole cake.

    in the end, she broke the relationship and the trust to a point of no return“- but part of you is still waiting for her to regain the trust (?)

    “I am okay, I will be. The hurt cannot be avoided, it has to happen at some point. And it is helpful to have your input to help me think and I appreciate you’re keeping me company during this exploration, it would be harder to cope alone, the distress would have been greater I think.

    I am mature enough to take those things, but I am not guarded enough to be above getting emotional or vulnerable (not during this conversation, not with you). If someone else had given me this input, in other circumstances, I would probably had been too focused on controlling my reaction to give the input a real thought. But I’m allowing it with you. And emotions like fear, pain, or distress can happen. But I trust you, and I trust myself to be okay once the emotions are done expressing“-

    Right now, more than 2 hours since I started this post, I read the above for the first time, and I am touched by the sentiment there, that you trust me. It means a lot, to me. That you trust yourself feels even better!

    The idea of being loved by her, even unhealthily, was among the few good things she brought to me. Even if it was for wrong reasons or an illusion. The idea some part of me could be lovable was reassuring, and I chose to believe that and built confidence in that. It is a bit shaking, to remove some foundations/reinforcement of these beliefs. But I guess it doesn’t make them untrue. I can be lovable, her feelings about me shouldn’t be more relevant than anyone else’s, or my own’s“-

    – amazing, just as I wrote above: a child has to believe that her mother loves her. You developed what I just stated to: as an adult, it is possible to believe otherwise, and be open to someone else’s love

    I can be okay with the idea she never loved me. But the act and the deception are scary. I guess I can still learn to recognize better, to not see what I would prefer to see in order to not risk being endangered again by an illusion of love“- again, amazing! You and I developed our thoughts in parallel ways although at different times (you six hours ago, I .. a few hours after you submitted your recent post), coming to a meeting place at the end, the same conclusion.. as if we had a conversation at the same time.. amazing!

    anita

    #384291
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Dear Anita,

    I understand your way of answering and I see how it can be valuable to do it that way. For transparency, I will share I do read your whole post before I answer any of it. It is just anxiety-relieving to do it that way and rereading helping me process better. I am patient enough to read your words thoroughly, but my anxiety doesn’t allow me the patience to answer before I read everything.

    ” so, she ..breaks the child in order to show to other adults that she is fixing a broken child. This is cruelty, to break a child on purpose, for any reason.”

    These words are a relief. While this statement seems obvious (from an intellectual standpoint), my emotions are still making me doubt sometimes.

    I am, unfortunately, prone to self-gaslight. It is a bad habit that isn’t always there, not when at home, not when facing my mother, but when I do tell my side of the story I almost never fail to fall into the trap of gaslighting myself. What if the thing that I say isn’t true? What if I am being dramatic? What if this accusation is me abusing my mother? A most dreadful thought that nourishes my anxiety every time I speak about it. And it is absolutely born from my mother acting like she was abused every time I… pointed out what she was doing was abusive.

    She was refusing this information so much she made me thought myself. Just like she denied/didn’t listen to my suffering so much I started doubting I was suffering. Or suffering enough to deserve an acknowledgment of what was happening.

    There’s a memory that comes into my mind. I don’t remember how old I was. Maybe high school? I was trying to make my mother understand I was suffering (probably from her abuse, or a reproach that I wasn’t doing enough for her, I don’t remember the details but it doesn’t matter), her immediate reaction was to express how much (more) SHE was suffering. I was frustrated and after my words failed to make her understand I wasn’t trying to deny her feelings there but she was denying mine, I had an impulse. It was a desperate attempt to reach the communication the was refusing, I didn’t think much about it but I think it was an attempt to see if she would listen/understand more if I spoke her language: I slapped myself, in front of her and I told her “That’s what you’re doing to me.” I was crying, I was overwhelmed. Her reaction: she looked at me with strong negative emotions and left the room. We never spoke about it again. I felt extremely stupid and in shock. I was horrified both by my behavior, and by the fact she was out of communication to the point she would ignore my pain even when I made it obvious, and in her language. Of course, I never repeated that.

    The lesson I learned from this time was about the impossibility of communication. Now, I think I should have seen there was a lack of caring, a lack of love. The woman who was worried for me for things I didn’t want her to worry, wasn’t worried when I had wish she was. Not too much, just enough for her to acknowledge what she was doing and feel sorry enough to make some change. But it didn’t happen.

    And it was easier to tell myself it was because she was mentally ill than to see the truth.

    “When your mother suggested to you that she does not want you to leave her, it was after she has left you long ago, emotionally… (if she was ever together with you, which I doubt). Her subjective experience of being “Really alone” cannot be undone if you keep living with her for the rest of her life.”

    This is also relieving, at least for the guilt part. If it is like that, then I am allowed to… not care about her feelings as I take some distance.

    “Leading the boy to his death did not invalidate the affection Mengele felt for the boy, but I wouldn’t say that Mengele loved the boy. If he loved the boy, he would have made an exception for the boy and arrange to move the boy outside of Auschwitz, to safety.” 

    It is an enlightening distinction. Even if I wonder how humans manage to separate both.

    how can one lose a love that’s not there. I mean, didn’t she provide you by now with adequate evidence of her lack of love?

    She did, I am still processing it.

    taking the concept of mutual love out of a context where it does not apply (your mother/yourself),  can lead you to a context where mutual love does apply

    It makes sense. It is putting things in their rightful place. It is healthy.

    please remember that you can end our communication at any time if it scares you too much. I am surprised every time you do post for me, thinking beforehand that you may not.

    It isn’t too much, and even if it was I would probably reply. Actually, it is funny, because I feel the same way. While I do not doubt an instant that I would and will reply to you,  I am anxious while waiting for your answer. While I am at peace when replying to you. The peace easily turns into anxiety once the response is sent. “What if it is too much? What if I am too much? What if something I say might make her want to leave the conversation?” I do not censor myself, not anymore. At the beginning I was restraining a bit, to not overwhelm neither you or myself. But your answers were straight to the point and you came back, so I thought, maybe it was okay.

    I am overwhelming myself, no doubt with that if the anxiety is any hint. I do not know if it is the challenge of my thoughts/beliefs, if it is because this conversation is powerful, if it is the amount of vulnerabilty I am allowing with you… I don’t know yet.  But, wow, it’s been a long since had so many lasting and intense freakouts… It is frightening, but it isn’t negative.

    If my mother numbed me, our talks are un-numbing me. I wouldn’t dream of not answering even if I was at risk of some kind of anxious cardiac arrest at some point (figuratively, of course, it wouldn’t happen).

    “It was very difficult for me to understand and believe that my mother was/ is dishonest. When I finally understood it, I re-evaluated what she told me before, which I automatically believed earlier to be the truth.” “she is confusing because a lot of what she tells  you is untrue. You can’t make sense of a story with a mix of some truths and a lot of untruths”

    Fair enough. Outside of my moments of confusion, it has been a well-known fact for me that my mother was liar. A lot of the stories she told people weren’t true. I did witness so many times she lied about verifiable facts, twisted undoubtable truth. So it isn’t that hard to believe she could have been dishonest to me. I think sometimes I didn’t even believe when she told me compliments or when she told me she loved me. Because she lies so much you doubt everything she says. And you guess someone can’t lie all of the time, so you try to tell apart the lies from the truth. It was distressing to guess, maybe it didn’t worth it but it was a survival matter to guess and hope for the best.

    “When she suggests regret for her actions, she may be lying. Look at her behavior over time: does honest regret fit into it (?)”

    If she really regretted it, she wouldn’t repeat the harm she’s doing to me. So the answer would be no.

    “does this mean that you can legally evict her?” “to choose to live with her, if it is a choice, would be a heartless choice for you and for your siblings.”

    I think I mentioned it, but not really no. That would be too complicated to do and for not an assured win. It doesn’t worth it, since we do not want to live in this house in particular in the future. (Cursed village, cursed house. Oh, I used to love it so much, I was the last one in my family to still love it. My mother and my siblings saw the abuse of my father in it. I still was able to see the beautiful childhood memories, happiness, so so so much love for this place and my family when it still looked like one. But what happened and keep happening to my family killed the memories eventually, made me numb to the point I can’t feel the love for the place anymore. I don’t care as much about living there anymore. It is just a roof to not be homeless in case we got else nowhere to go.) So basically, if we got enough money for that, it’ll be just easier leaving. Where to? I don’t know. How long until? Uncertain. But as long as she’s alive she’s unlikely to move out before us.

    if she feared revenge, she would try to make things right for you and for your siblings, so to de-motivate revenge. I doubt she fears revenge from her adult children.

    Oh she tried some things, not very lasting and successful, but she isn’t behaving as bad as she used to. Her violence and abuse are less regular since then. It still happens, but she has been improving, and going down, and improving, and again showing it wouldn’t last. My brother pointed “Have you noticed how she acts perfectly well when she wants to convince me to come back home? And how she drops the act when I’m home? It is an act, not a real improvement.” And I trust his judgment on that. Sometimes I do not see the ulterior motive behind her temporary improvement, but that doesn’t mean the improvement will be lasting. She really could be doing it only when she tries to obtain something from us.

    “You can never be sure that any piece of chocolate is free from a smear of feces. Better throw away the whole cake.”

    Very pictural indeed, but efficient. I do agree. It doesn’t worth it. There are other better cakes out there.

    but part of you is still waiting for her to regain the trust (?)

    I have been until early 2020 for sure. Then I didn’t do much check because I was overloaded and kept myself overloaded with work. Or mental breakdowns after too much work. I didn’t have time to wait for her, I had to save myself. I wasn’t able to process everything. I have spent the last few years learning how to survive my situation alone, I didn’t expect recovery for my mother. But I didn’t want to exclude the possibility.

    “You and I developed our thoughts in parallel ways although at different times, coming to a meeting place at the end, the same conclusion.. as if we had a conversation at the same time.. amazing!”

    It is amazing indeed, and it is because it is the only conclusion that makes sense, keeping healthiness in mind. I must warn you but I can’t know if I’ll have a relapse about you. I might have to debunk and figure out a lot more before I am able to not feel like my world is on the edge of collapsing. Because I’m on unknown ground. I might have said that I trust myself, it is mostly a bet I’m making. The bet I’m not going to die or hurt myself too much during this exploration. That I will survive the fear, the anxiety, the loneliness, and the doubts. Thank you for your patience while talking with me until now, I hope I won’t wear it out too much in the future.

    Linarra

    #384292
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Linarra:

    I read your first paragraph and I understand that you need to read the whole post before answering- it’s fine with me, of course (I see no reason not to be okay with you answering the way that suits you). I am about to go shopping etc., and will be away from the computer for maybe 8 hours. It is best that I read the rest of your recent post and reply Mon morning, which is in about 18 hours from now. I want to tell you before I close this post that I am pleased and at times thrilled to be communicating with you!

    anita

    #384389
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Der Linarra:

    I will answer your recent post the way I did yesterday, part by part:

    I wrote to you: “so, she ..breaks the child in order to show to other adults that she is fixing a broken child. This is cruelty, to break a child on purpose, for any reason., and you responded with: “These words are a relief. While this statement seems obvious (from an intellectual standpoint), my emotions are still making me doubt sometimes“- you can see that the statement in bold is true, but you doubt yourself because you still believe that she loves you, that she is capable of loving. So, on one hand you see cruelty, on the other you think/ feel something like: she can’t be cruel, she loves me!

    I am, unfortunately, prone to self-gaslight… when I do tell my side of the story I almost never fail to fall into the trap of gaslighting myself. What if the thing that I say isn’t true? What if I am being dramatic? What if this accusation is me abusing my mother? A most dreadful thought that nourishes my anxiety every time I speak about it. And it is absolutely born from my mother acting like she was abused every time I… pointed out what she was doing was abusive“-

    – it is as if I wrote this paragraph (with two exceptions: I never pointed to my mother that what she was doing was abusive, and I learned the term gaslighting later in life, and never used it). It is recent that I no longer doubt/ gaslight myself. It feels heavenly to not experience THAT mental torture! Like I wrote above, it happens because we believe what is not true and so, we get confused and we keep questioning ourselves. We also confuse ourselves with our mothers. We are not clear about who-is-who: who is the abuser, who is the abused; who is the one who loves, who is the one who doesn’t love, etc.

    * Talking about mother-daughter love: my mother loved her mother, I loved my mother, my mother did not love me. Same with you, isn’t it, according to what you shared.

    she denied/didn’t listen to my suffering so much I started doubting I was suffering“- parents are like mirrors to their children. You suffered and you needed to see your suffering in the mirror: in your mother’s eyes, in her facial expressions, in her voice, in her words. You didn’t see it in the mirror= you didn’t know that it’s there (you still suffer but you doubt that you do). You still doubt your suffering.. are you still looking for it in that mirror (?)

    There’s a memory that comes into my mind…I was trying to make my mother understand I was suffering… her immediate reaction was to express how much (more) SHE was suffering. I was frustrated and after my words failed to make her understand I wasn’t trying to deny her feelings there but she was denying mine… I slapped myself, in front of her and I told her ‘That’s what you’re doing to me.’ I was crying, I was overwhelmed. Her reaction: she looked at me with strong negative emotions and left the room“-

    – this makes me think of the who-is-who I mentioned above: who is whom and who is doing what to whom. You were trying to explain to her that she was the one hurting you, not the other way around, but she reacted angrily, expressing to you.. once again that.. it was you were hurting her.. not the other way around. Similar to my mother hitting me and saying that I was the one who hurt her arm.

    I suppose I kept waiting for years and decades for my mother to finally tell me who is whom and outside that one sentence she said about her doing wrong to me, there was nothing coming my way from her, as far as clarity. I had to get my clarity away from her.

    The lesson I learned from this time was about the impossibility of communication“- I think that I waited for my mother to give me clarity long after I gave up on communicating with her.. meaning, I didn’t really give up.

    The woman who was worried for me for things I didn’t want her to worry, wasn’t worried“- when my mother passionately protected me from other people (ex. hitting and yelling at the teacher that called me “auntie” which offended me for some reason, I don’t remember), didn’t do so out of love for me, but (confused with who-is-whom and who did what to whom), she rushed to protect herself from someone long ago who hurt her, or she rushed to punish someone in her past that hurt her.

    I am allowed to… not care about her feelings as I take some distance“- in your mother’s subjective experience, there’s always been a distance between her and you. She felt close to her mother, not to you. You felt close to her and you imagine that she feels close to you and that she will hurt if you take some distance. All along, not realizing that there is no distance to take, it’s already there as far as she is concerned.

    “While I am at peace when replying to you. The peace easily turns into anxiety once the response is sent. ‘What if it is too much? What if I am too much? What if something I say might make her want to leave the conversation?’“- the length of our posts are sometimes too much for me. We both respond to multiple items in each other’s long posts.. creating more long posts that take a lot of time and energy out of me. Maybe we can produce shorter posts. But I have no intent to no longer communicate with you. It’s the other way around, I hope to keep communicating with you for months.. or for as long as you want to.

    I am overwhelming myself, no doubt with that if the anxiety is any hint. I do not know if it is the challenge of my thoughts/beliefs, if it is because this conversation is powerful, if it is the amount of vulnerability I am allowing with you… I don’t know yet.  But, wow, it’s been a long since had so many lasting and intense freakouts… It is frightening, but it isn’t negative”– I wish I answered you first this morning, in case you’ve been anxious waiting for my reply. I answered you last because I wasn’t looking forward to the length of your post and the one I expected to put together, particularly given that the content of our conversation is indeed powerful for me too, and exhausting.

    I’ll tell you what, I will submit this post next, just in case you are waiting and respond to the rest of your post in the next post.

    anita

    #384392
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Linarra:

    If my mother numbed me, our talks are un-numbing me. I wouldn’t dream of not answering even if I was at risk of some kind of anxious cardiac arrest at some point (figuratively, of course, it wouldn’t happen)“- it makes me feel affection for you, reading this.

    “Outside of my moments of confusion, it has been a well-known fact for me that my mother was liar. A lot of the stories she told people weren’t true. I did witness so many times she lied about verifiable facts, twisted undoubtable truth. So it isn’t that hard to believe she could have been dishonest to me. I think sometimes I didn’t even believe when she told me compliments or when she told me she loved me“- but like I said before, a child is not capable of believing that her mother does not love her. Are you capable of considering it now, sort of meditating on it when you are calm enough, or tired enough and therefore calmer, thinking of this as a possibility (?)

    “Her violence and abuse are less regular since then. It still happens, but she has been improving, and going down, and improving… It is an act, not a real improvement… Sometimes I do not see the ulterior motive behind her temporary improvement“- imagine living with a violent offender who stabs you with a knife 5 times a day, and you say: he/ she improved, she used to stab me 10 times a day.. and the day before yesterday, no stabbing at all!

    I must warn you but I can’t know if I’ll have a relapse about you. I might have to debunk and figure out a lot more before I am able to not feel like my world is on the edge of collapsing. Because I’m on unknown ground. I might have said that I trust myself, it is mostly a bet I’m making. The bet I’m not going to die or hurt myself too much during this exploration. That I will survive the fear, the anxiety, the loneliness, and the doubts. Thank you for your patience while talking with me until now, I hope I won’t wear it out too much in the future“- thank you for the warning. I understand.

    By the way, a curious thing perhaps: you shared earlier that your language is French (and I assume it is your mother’s as well), so is my mother’s and her siblings’. I grew up with French (although not in a French speaking country). It was my first language, but because I stopped speaking it at 6, I can now understand casual speech only.

    anita

    #384414
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Dear Anita,

    ‘’ I want to tell you before I close this post that I am pleased and at times thrilled to be communicating with you! ‘’
    I am pleased and thrilled too, I’m happy to hear the feeling is mutual.

    ‘’ you can see that the statement in bold is true, but you doubt yourself because you still believe that she loves you, that she is capable of loving. So, on one hand you see cruelty, on the other you think/ feel something like: she can’t be cruel, she loves me!’’

    I think it is more of a ‘’She tried to break me but I am not broken enough. I resisted her, so maybe the abuse wasn’t that bad. Maybe it made me stronger, smarter. I have been able to analyze, to be amused from the insanity at times, I was hurting but I also find interesting how mentally broken this family came to be. I suffered, but I survived. Maybe this abuse wasn’t entirely a bad thing. Maybe, if I was able to cope, my suffering doesn’t even deserve to be acknowledged.’’ I am denying my own pain because I forced myself to be okay and I kind of managed to be? But not in a way that allows me to survive in any other situation… And that’s a problem.

    ‘’ You still doubt your suffering.. are you still looking for it in that mirror (?) ‘’

    Hm, not really? I have not been giving many thoughts about my mother for long (except for our talks of course). I live with her but she’s more of a ghost in my mind, I am not giving her my full attention.

    I guess I am more looking into the few people I was able to confide in. They would be the “mirror”, but when I do confide I am acting strong, so the reflection isn’t exact. They send me admiration for being able to cope, and they do tell me I should leave my home. But they don’t know I am unable to survive outside, they don’t seem fully aware of the extent of my dysfunctionality. They see what they would do if they were me, but they don’t get the full picture.

    Therefore, when I chose to stay, it’s like saying the environment isn’t that bad and that I’m not suffering that much. Which is untrue (I think?). I am just unable to find functionality in the outside world, so I would break down there. I am ashamed about that.

    ‘’I suppose I kept waiting for years and decades for my mother to finally tell me who is whom and outside that one sentence she said about her doing wrong to me, there was nothing coming my way from her, as far as clarity. I had to get my clarity away from her.’’

    In the end, our mothers and our twisted relationship with them couldn’t give us the truth, it kept us in the dark. I understand how figuring out who we are (and who they are/aren’t) can only happen away from them.

    ‘’but (confused with who-is-whom and who did what to whom), she rushed to protect herself from someone long ago who hurt her, or she rushed to punish someone in her past that hurt her. ‘’

    This makes a lot of sense. It was all about themselves, and nothing about us. Even this protection. This is why they never protected us the right way.

    ‘’You felt close to her and you imagine that she feels close to you and that she will hurt if you take some distance.  All along, not realizing that there is no distance to take, it’s already there as far as she is concerned.’’

    I don’t think she’s aware either, but the distance is there. If it wasn’t, she would have seen me as a person. She would have noticed how emotionally detached I was getting from her over the years, how I had to force myself when she asked for hugs. She didn’t notice, she acts as it was all the same, as if I never stop loving her despite the regular abuse. Following your logic, it would be because she still loves the mother who hurt her… She never grew into an adult who knows better. But I still can.

    ‘’creating more long posts that take a lot of time and energy out of me. Maybe we can produce shorter posts. But I have no intent to no longer communicate with you. It’s the other way around, I hope to keep communicating with you for months.. or for as long as you want to. ‘’

    Sorry for the length of my posts. I will try to keep it in mind and keep things shorter. I like our communication, and I like the idea it could keep on for months, as long you also wish to. I will try my best to make my posts more bearable.

    ‘’ Are you capable of considering it now, sort of meditating on it when you are calm enough, or tired enough and therefore calmer, thinking of this as a possibility (?) ‘’ If you mean, meditating and see as the truth or a possibility in the fact that ‘’a child is not capable of believing that her mother does not love her.’’, yes I can.

    ‘’By the way, a curious thing perhaps: you shared earlier that your language is French (and I assume it is your mother’s as well), so is my mother’s and her siblings’. I grew up with French (although not in a French speaking country). It was my first language, but because I stopped speaking it at 6, I can now understand casual speech only. ‘’

    Interesting. You’re assuming right, it is my mother’s language as well. We’re living in France. Does it mean your mother was coming from a french speaking country before she had you?

    I wish I answered you first this morning, in case you’ve been anxious waiting for my reply. I answered you last because I wasn’t looking forward to the length of your post and the one I expected to put together, particularly given that the content of our conversation is indeed powerful for me too, and exhausting.”

    It is alright. It is very understandable our conversation would be exhausting for you, I figured as much. It’s up to me to learn how to cope with my anxiety. I wouldn’t feel good if you had to go out of your way because of those insecurities of mine.  I am feeling bad at the idea of causing you discomfort, so I prefer to take it upon myself and learn to deal with this anxiety. I am very thankful that you care about my feelings though, it is heart-warming. But I also want to do things right by you.

    Linarra

    #384416
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Linarra:

    This time I am not reading and responding part by part. I read all the way to “It was all about themselves, and nothing about us” and stopped because it hit me as a very well stated truth. What followed this unfortunate truth in my life (it was all about her, and nothing about me)- is that my life proceeded (in the home and in the outside world) to be … nothing about me.

    Then I read: ” the distance is there. If it wasn’t, she would have seen me as a person“, and it hit me again. She didn’t see me as a person… fast forward, I lived my life as if I was not a person (one with certain rights, like physical boundaries/ privacy that should be respected). About the distance from her, the distance she created: oh, how so very lonely I was in that distance, and proceeded to be so very lonely, in the outside world.

    how I had to force myself when she asked for hugs“- my skin crawled when she touched me, the warmth of her hand.. I don’t know how to describe it, it was maybe like the warmth of acid burning my skin, or more accurately, burning my soul: that innermost feeling-of-being.

    She didn’t notice, she acts as it was all the same, as if I never stop loving her“- she didn’t see your Love for her, she saw weakness that can be used against you, or something else, but not love. If she saw your love for her, if she felt it, she would have stopped hurting you. (this is a projection I am making, which I feel quite certain to be true).

    We’re living in France. Does it mean your mother was coming from a french speaking country before she had you?“- yes, she was born and lived as a girl in Casablanca Morocco, in the French part of the city. Her neighbors were all European French. She very much admired the French.

    I am feeling bad at the idea of causing you discomfort, so I prefer to take it upon myself and learn to deal with this anxiety. I am very thankful that you care about my feelings though, it is heart-warming. But I also want to do things right by you“- I feel very good answering right now, no exhaustion at all.  I don’t know what you mean by taking it upon yourself to deal with your anxiety- you didn’t burden me at all with your anxiety. I perceive you as a very responsible, socially-conscious person, one who is the farthest from burdening anyone with anything.

    The exhaustion earlier was due to my compulsion to reply to each and every member who posts as soon as possible, so that they don’t feel ignored. Also, it’s due to my other compulsion, which is to reply to each and every point in a member’s post, so that.. nothing gets ignored. In this very post I am working on just that- and it is not difficult: I am not responding to every thing, or almost every thing in your most recent post. Maybe tomorrow, but not today. Also, your recent post is shorter, and it does help me.

    You started your post with “I’m happy to hear the feeling is mutual“- isn’t it wonderful when something positive is mutual? It’s … what I always wanted in regard to my mother: mutuality of something good. Well, it feel good to experience a bit of that with you!

    anita

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by .
    #384419
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Dear Anita,

    What followed this unfortunate truth in my life (it was all about her, and nothing about me)- is that my life proceeded (in the home and in the outside world) to be … nothing about me.”

    It is an awful feeling, isn’t it? Everywhere we go, it feels like we are a minor character in our own story. We don’t get to make the choice, we don’t get to make things about us… It isn’t right.

    About that, when I observed my friends over years, I was amazed how they were so much about themselves. So much that, for a long while, I didn’t even tried to communicate with them about me. Because my mother was all about herself, and didn’t listen, so surely they were like my mother. Over the years, I discovered while it was right for a few, it was wrong for most of them. Some could care, if I dared to take some space. But until I didn’t and when I still don’t, I am/was an object in the background, even of my own life when I let others take all the space. Not everyone goes out of their way to get to know you, as their mind are already so busy paying attention to those who already know how to speak up already, and dealing with their own stuffs too of course.

    All that, meaning… We are doing this to ourselves, because we were taught like this. Making things about ourselves, taking some space… It isn’t always pathological and disrespectful. It can be (and it is recognizable when someone only care about themselves), but for a lot of people… It is just the healthy way, it is just right! Just like they are allowed to exist, take some space and importance into this world, we should be allowed to.

    “She didn’t see me as a person… fast forward, I lived my life as if I was not a person (one with certain rights, like physical boundaries/ privacy that should be respected. And about the distance from her, the distance she created, oh, how so very lonely I was and proceeded to be in the outside world.”

    I relate to your pain a lot, as I’m still like that. Not feeling like a person. Very lonely everywhere. And don’t expect love and respect from anyone (not even myself until recently, I’m learning).

    “she didn’t see your LOVE for her, she saw weakness that can be explored, or something else, but not love. If she saw your love for her, if she felt it, she would have stopped hurting you. (this is a projection I am making, which I feel quite certain to be true).”

    I have no idea what goes on in her twisted chaotic mind, what she does see or don’t see. But I have came to learn a thing for sure, my love CAN’T heal everyone. Whether it is because she can’t see it, because it can’t reach her, because it won’t changer her. My love… didn’t matter. It didn’t make a difference. It wasn’t in my power to stop or change who she is, to make her love and care for me. It never was in my power, never will be…

    I feel very good answering right now, no exhaustion at all. I don’t know what you mean by taking it upon yourself to deal with your anxiety- you didn’t burden me at all with your anxiety. I perceive you as a very responsible, socially-conscious person, one who is the farthest from burdening anyone with anything.”

    I am glad you feel good. And that you perceive me as responsible enough. I guess I feel the burden of my own emotions, and am very worried it could contaminate others through uncontrollable little signals I wouldn’t be self-aware of.

    Too much empathy also lead me to sacrifice myself a lot in the past, which is something that someone risks when they don’t perceive themselves as a person (with rights and boundaries). If it’s anything you could be also prone to, I just want to avoid that. I don’t want to take advantage of your kindness. I value you as a person, and I don’t want any of my difficulties to be an excuse or a reason to burden you, disrespect you or make you feel like your feelings doesn’t/shouldn’t matter.

    I hope it doesn’t come across like one of those misplaced caretaking behavior you mentioned in one of our previous conversation. It’s just… my way to try to makes sure communication goes right on both sides, as it is very important for me that we do not ignore our own boundaries for the other.

    So it is why, I’m glad you’re able to respond either way is better for you. I am okay with you not responding everything with me (or not responding fast) I won’t take it the wrong way. It is enough if you respond what you feel like responding the most.

    isn’t it wonderful when something positive is mutual? It’s … what I always wanted in regard to my mother: mutuality of something good. Well, it feel good to experience a bit of that with you!”

    I crave for this too, so I agree, it feels good.

    It is silly, but during the last days I wondered if I should tell you how much I liked talking with you, “if I tell her I appreciate her, if I show appreciation… would she feel offended or threatened? Would it be inappropriate? Is it crossing a line?”
    It is probably a projection, because I’m always afraid to care about someone.

    But now I’m glad we established we both feel positive things about our discussions. It is a relief to know that I am allowed to care and feel invested in our talks.

    Linarra

    #384420
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Linarra:

    I read the very beginning and the last part part of your post of a few moments ago, 2:20 am, your time..

    It is an awful feeling, isn’t it? Everywhere we go, it feels like we are a minor character in our own story“- yes, it is.. yes it was, for me. This is how I lived most of my life, a confused observer of other people’s lives, sometimes a passive and confused/ used part in other people’s lives.

    I wrote:mutuality of something good. Well, it feel good to experience a bit of that with you!”, and you wrote: “I crave for this too, so I agree, it feels good“. Not too long ago, I would have felt weirded out by this… as anything close with another person felt weird, unreal, and undesirable. But now- when I read your words, and still, I feel nice, I automatically smiled. It is delightful, a simple experience of closeness… not weird anymore, for me.

    It is silly, but during the last days I wondered if I should tell you how much I liked talking with you, ‘if I tell her I appreciate her, if I show appreciation… would she feel offended or threatened? Would it be inappropriate? Is it crossing a line?’ It is probably a projection, because I’m always afraid to care about someone“- this is it: to care about someone.. yes, that’s what I meant by “closeness” above. I rejected closeness, I refused to care about anyone because closeness/ caring/ love meant pain.

    But now I’m glad we established we both feel positive things about our discussions. It is a relief to know that I am allowed to care and feel invested in our talks“- yes, I definitely feel positive (still smiling). There is no danger in it, not for you, not for me.

    It is now 5:36 pm here, West Coast U.S. Tomorrow morning I will go over a few things you wrote in your last two posts that I didn’t attend to yet. I hope you rest/ sleep next. Bonne nuit, if I may say it in French (?)

    anita

     

    #384429
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Dear Anita,

    I’m not here with the intention of adding up more reading/responding work for you with this message. I just wanted to express my appreciation for you wishing me “bonne nuit”, it is very sweet of you. I was probably already sleeping by then. I responded to you so late because someone had just told me a scary story before my bedtime and it’s easier for me to fall asleep with peaceful feelings. Replying to you was successful in making me feel better and making me forget about my previous worries.

    I hope you’ll be also sleeping well tonight.

    Linarra

    #384436
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Linarra:

    I used to often second guess myself and worry that something I said was the wrong thing to say (or the tone of voice/ facial expression was wrong, or that I should have added this or that to clarify what I meant, etc., etc., etc.) not only to my mother but to other people because I expected other people to be like my mother and give me hell (she went on and on about how I shouldn’t have said this or that, how her feelings were hurt because of what I said, how I intended to hurt her feelings.. then she went on and on about previous things I said in days, weeks and months pervious, all part of a plan I allegedly had, which was to hurt her).

    The second-guessing, the worry, the obsessing, the needing to clarify and explain so to cover all possible interpretations of what I said.. all to avoid a misunderstanding.. all this caused me so much stress and mental torture.

    Yesterday when I wished you bonne nuit, it crossed my mind that maybe it was the wrong thing to say to you and that it hurt you and angered you. (This is my habit, but the distress level was minimal). This morning I answered another member first (I tend to answer the more emotionally demanding and time consuming threads after the less demanding threads), and it crossed my mind that maybe you will check and see that I didn’t answer you first- and that will hurt your feelings! Again, it’s a habit born out of having a paranoid-histrionic mother.

    I’m not here with the intention of adding up more reading/responding work for you with this message. I just wanted… “- I have a feeling that you experienced something similar when you wrote this (?)

    * When I looked at the the “?” above being placed in parenthesis, it crossed my mind that maybe it will anger you to see the parenthesis.. there is not much logic to this second guessing, but then, there was not much logic to my mother’s paranoia: anything and everything could trigger her into giving me hell.

    (I add the parenthesis to the question mark as a suggestion that it is okay with me if you do not answer the question or respond to what I suggested).

    It is only recently that my writing became quite spontaneous, without significant worry.. I think that because I feel closer to you/ feel that I care about you, that the fear (of a person I care about turning against me) increased.

    A list of the recent mistakes that the child in me believed may cause you great emotional hurt and turn you against me:  (1) typing bonne-nuit last evening, (2) replying to another member first this morning, (3) adding parenthesis to a ? this morning.

    I wrote the above to help me process further my experience, hoping it may help you too, somewhat. I just felt guilty for not responding to every point in your most recent post..  that I am a bad person if I don’t say “thank you” for you wishing me to sleep well… All of this is exhausting. So, instead of giving in to all those doubts and second guessing, I will not respond to every point in your most recent post, or in any future post (In any post I submit to you, if there is something I did not respond to that you would like me to respond to- please let me know what it is).

    *And .. of course, I worry about having written “this is exhausting” right above, worrying that it was the wrong thing to say because it will probably make you feel badly for allegedly exhausting me. But.. no, not true: I am processing these things, becoming more aware, and that helps me further with my healing.. plus, the distress in regard to all my alleged mistakes here really is minimal.

    Next, I will reply to your previous two posts of yesterday.

    anita

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by .
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