Hello Confused:

“It is but I don’t know how to explore it.”- how about journaling about it, privately or here, in this thread, just type whatever comes to mind into your compute screen, type one sentence before you know what the next will be.. just let it all come out of you as it will, preferably in a relaxed state of mind..?

It has helped me to do so many times.

🤍 Anita

Would you say, Confused (soon to be Clear 🙂) that the most influential relationship in your life was the one with your mother, simply because it took place during your formative years (childhood)?

Could you do a journaling exercise (type out whatever comes to mind, as in a child telling it like it is, with that childhood honesty and spontaneity) in regard to that formative-years relationship?

🤍 Anita

What dis she argue about, what were her complaints in regard to you?

She didnt have any specific complains about me, maybe a bit regarding the house cleaning (cause i liked to help), but she would call me words while she was angry with other things, such as “retard, moron” and other stuff, which i almost never failed to say back to her lol. It was mostly intense arguing-fighting.Sometimes she would yell at me because of school or things that i accidentally broke in the house, maybe call me lazy too. I think there were other things too, but i can’t really recall right now. To be fair, she would call me nice words, expressing her love to me, hug me, kiss me aswell, it wasnt always fighting and negatives, a mix of everything really.

Hey, Confused: She should have never, ever, never called you “retard, moron”, or a “nothing”, not a single time!

“To be fair, she would call me nice words”- no, it doesn’t make it fair.

My mother too said nice things- in-between the hateful things she said. All it did was to confuse me.

There’s no “equal time” for hate/abuse, as in neutralizing the hate/ abuse with nice words.

Anita

Hey, Confused:

It’s very nice of you to have forgiven her. I just don’t want you to.. Confuse forgiveness with acceptance of the abuse she inflicted on you, as in you have deserved it. because you didn’t deserve e it, and no matter how difficult her life has been (and I wish it hadn’t), it didn’t give her the.. what’s the word, permission or.. moral right to hurt you.

Empathy for her is okay, it’s just that you deserve empathy for yourself.

🤍 Anita

Hi Confused

Sorry to chime in but didn’t your mother have Tourette’s? For people who have Tourette’s 1/4 of them suffer from fits of rage where they have no control over their behaviour for a brief time. Do you think she might have been one of the 1 in 4? 🩵

If she was one of these 1 in 4, it would still be horrible that you went through these experiences with her. But it would be because of her condition as you say. It is such a shame, because a child shouldn’t have to deal with these things. 🩵

And the way that this symptom is calmed is by leaving the person alone. 🩵