Hi Anita,

Nothing has turned a corner yet, im feeling either tired or angry most of the time, the anger keeps me going without which i just fall back into depression.  I realise that i can never get away from thoughts of my ex, he is part of the wallpaper in there. And at work things just continue to shoot bullets so they ricochet around the room. I feel like im watching a desperate struggle for power from this family member, its a bit insane.

My colleague had a fight with him the other day and he started playing victim …its plain by the actions that he is just greedy, he wants all the money, all the power and is highly controlling. im tired of the games.

Ive avoided contact as much as possible but it will be hard to do.

I don´t miss my childhood, i miss my adulthood! i wonder so much why im so bad at this. I have not had success in any area of my life. Ive needed financial support from my family without which i would just drown. Ive worked so hard to build something up but somehow im paid just enough to live. Its hopeless.

I guess it means that i can´t take care of myself…at all. Even if i try. For most women i know, they get married and then some of the weight and responsibility is shared, life is easier if you are in a partnership for sure, financially but also emotionally. But im also aware, if not just from my failed attempts, that sometimes the stress is just not worth it and there is no guarantee that your other half will want to take care of you in the same way. That was my situation in at least 3 relationships, so maybe i came across as too independent.

My childhood was more carefree yes. I had a lot of freedom and i was in a secure home. No physical abuse. But my mother was depressive and certainly in my teens i remember spending hours sorting out her problems with her. I think i believed in my early teens that i could fix these things. She must have felt very alone herself but is also a very complicated and demanding person. My dad travelled a lot so effectively we were raised without him around much. My sister was also out most of the time, avoiding the family and sulky when she was at home. I felt like she didnt like being around and judging by little comments later in her life, that would be correct. I also took my councelling hat to school with me and when people needed to talk i found it interesting to learn about how they thought about things, trying to iron out the problems and find a solution. My mind is always searching to understand the intentions of other people.

My ex reminded me of my mother a lot. They were very similar in character…easygoing and playful and then able to be sharply unfair or unkind, both Air signs.

Hi Anita,

I think it was a largely carefree childhood but i certainly noticed the similarities between my ex and my mom. Ive met lots of people who blame things that have happened to them on their parents, their upbringing and things that happened out of their control. I think i feel my childhood was great because ive heard stories from other people i knew and they were so much worse.

But i have still got a mother who is pretty unsatisfied with what she has, and in my eyes she has had it fairly good. Certainly compared to her daughters, as my sister and i have both struggled with money. My sister is now doing better as she has a partner and they have been able to build up their own business..but its not been as fortunate as i think my parents had it. Part of the boomer generation stereotype, they sometimes dont understand why its so hard for us. But circumstances have changed.

My mom has gotten somewhat worse in her self-righteousness with older age. My father is obsessive with her, totally focussed on her well-being. But this makes her grouchy and irritable. She says hes driving her nuts. He has always been like this though in later life without work, his focus is now just her. Ive always thought that was creepy and weird. They are always together, which sounds nice but i wouldn’t want it like that. I know my mom would like to do her own thing sometimes but she also plays the victim, and gets him to do most things for her. So the complaining is just part of a game really.

My ex said when he left me that he didn’t want to end up like them, but neither did i. He seemed to resent my dad´s straight laced approach to life, more of a salary man than my ex who was an entrepreneur. I know my dad didnt really like his loose concept of right and wrong, certainly in regards to me. My ex always got on very well with my mom but he was able to charm most women, but he didnt like her bullying way with me.

Listening to myself im already bored with how dull my life sounds. I know what it looks like to others. I wish i had a fantastic social life and felt upbeat all the time and had a bunch of kids and looked and felt “normal”. But i know i dont look and feel normal.

Today my back and hips have been killing me and this chronic pain is something ive never experienced before in my life. It makes me depressed and tearful. The pain is dull like period pain but strong and constant in my hip joints and lower back. Sometimes i feel sick. Sometimes the pain ive felt from missing my ex has been similar to this. So this feels like a punishment of some kind, for not being brave, or moving on or something. I know im sounding irrational and i have to be patient, i think i overdid some exercises and its set something off i dont know what…but its scary to think this could get worse..i suddenly understand how people became hooked on painkillers ..Im not taking anything, ill try to improve with exercise.

Hi Anita, Thank you for the tip for back pain, im fairly sure i overextended due to doing some leg exercise a bit too much. Big mistake as i have been suffering the consequences. I really feel like an old woman with this back problem…of all the things but im too young for that. I did go to the hospital had a check up and they think its facet joint pain..their solution was to give me an injection of steroids to see if that alleviated the pain, then they would know for sure…im not keen to do that though.

Well, about bullying..my ex had a grown son, and when he met my mom he told his dad that she wasn´t very kind to me. I think what he was referring to was the teasing that my mom liked to do. For example it was usual that when i had a boyfriend over and i was making something in the kitchen my mom would tease me and the boyfriend (as it happened with more than one boyfriend) would join in. In this instance i had made dinner for his family (i was extremely stressed because it was not typical for me to cook for so many people) and likely my mom was teasing again. This would be seen as a sort of bonding experience for them at my expense. It seemed innocent to me but looking back i can see that maybe there was something else there.

Since i was with my ex for some years he would hear me complain about my mom´s unreasonable behaviour whenever she was acting up and would also see it for himself time to time and i think he concluded that she was a difficult person. but i know he also liked her as they were similarly sharp and could bounce off each other. Since we had broken up, i had called him once out of desperation as my sister and parents had caused a rift and i couldnt handle their behaviour..i felt i was going to have to just leave them behind. It was typical for my sister to visit, build up a tension between her and my mother, cause a fight and then take her flight home and forget about us for a while..leaving me with the pieces. The only person i felt i could talk to was him, since he knew me a long time and my family problems.

I feel im rambling on and can´t structure my thoughts at the moment.

About feeling upbeat- im so used to my downward looking depressive nature but would like to be more hopeful. I think the influence of my mom has always been depressive. I have a friend who said she didnt think she had ever been depressed. She can get angry and upset but she doesnt ever seem to stay in a low mood. I have times lately where i just want to stay in bed all day.

Hi Anita,

I think my lumbar pain has been localised on one side …this has been something that flared up last winter..i really think it was me doing too much lifting of heavy things by myself. Its hard to avoid computer work for hours on end, but i try to get up and move around..In fact i just had to change my job to accomodate this problem. I used to sit in the office 5 days a week glued to the desk and i knew i couldnt do it anymore, not mentally (with my combative and non communicative management) and not physically because of this..its like it made the decision for me! Im now a sales agent, so i can do most of my work from home but have much less income security on commission. It seems like a nuts decision in this market but i just couldnt do it anymore.

im also worried because when i was a teenager i had a serious traffic accident and my hip/s was fractured (i dont know for sure but not enough for surgery they said) I was about 16 and was under concussion, couldnt remember the accident. After this i remember i had back problems (shoulder and neck pain) years after, at different times in my life..i never really put it all together. I have only a file of papers that described my injuries generally but i may have to call up a hospital if i want to find out exactly what they were.

Regardless of that, many YEARS later, i now have a lower back problem that when it flares up…my hip joints and lower back are just awful, its hard to describe but its like a burning aching like fire and no position seemed to ease it. Its calmed down today a bit more so that has only been 2 intense days thankfully. I had been visiting a chiropracter but it was not improving…just a day or two after visiting them, i would have back ache again but nothing major. I stopped going because although he helped alignment of the spine it was really expensive and then i had experienced a lapse when i couldnt walk for a week…i decided to stop and just recover at home.

This time, i think i overdid my exercise routine, doing some leg lifts (only incremental movements) which means the hip joints are stretched. I dont really know which specialist to see anymore. A friend said see an osteopath maybe worth a try or back to the chiro.

On the subject of my mother, i think i have a hard time crystalizing and clearly viewing what the problems are. At times we bond well in certain ways but in many others she had a lack of understanding, empathy and seemingly would turn any event back to focus on her own life and problems. You could start talking about something that was bothering you …and find yourself once again, going over her childhood issues with this friend she used to know, or something about that person or family member etc.

I feel guilt in saying these things too. My parents have done a LOT for me, they´ve had to because for some reason everything has been difficult for me. No one hit me and at times theyve been very supportive saying they can always help. As an older woman now, i have doubts sometimes about my mothers honest intentions and behaviours. Can it be a strange jealousy of her own daughters? This competiveness and need to control that reveals itself in fights where she suddenly asserts, “this is MY home, MY car, MY etc”.

Its age old to me now, im used to it. But i know that my mother puts on a best behaviour around non-family members…which to her includes friends, boyfriends/partners of some years. I think my sister has knowingly and understandingly kept her partner from interacting too much…because of this problem. But in a funny twist, i feel my sister is developing a similar know it all behaviour…

For my parents, i dont know what their issue is with “other” people. But im sure its that they cant control us if we are with someone else. They have a need to be the authority.

So i guess it comes back to failures again, this suits very well…these failures in my life mean they will stay the authority. They have more money than me, a successful relationship, children. I have not. Somehow i feel if suddenly it changed and i met some guy and we had more than them…it would bother them, they would shrink in size maybe. Its sad isnt it, to think you have a sinking feeling of introducing your family…because your mother might end up sulking and/or crying in the bedroom because its not her spotlight?

My parents have only met 2 of my ex boyfriends parents…including this last ex. other times they have ever met “other family” there has been what feels like nuclear fallout from what i hear about it afterwards. My former ex partner´s parents were very different to us socially and my mom really felt instant dislike ….which she still reminds me of to this day, 15 years later. She also had a big problem with my sister´s ex father in law, they seemed to get on at first and then there was an incident at her wedding which was unforgiveable that i never saw. They also instantly dont like my sisters current inlaws because they are living marginally closer to my sister and their grandchild. I think all of this is about control. They feel enormous jealousy.

So with this backdrop in my mind, when my parents met my ex´s parents i was really nervous…to my surprise they seemed OK with each other, no insults thrown by way of the wrong thing said or anything…just..ok. My mom did something really weird though. They were sitting around a table and talking and she suddenly, like a young girl, got up and sat on my dad´s knee as she talked to them and laughed girlishly. As i was there, i thought it was highly bizarre behaviour. No one reacted like anything weird had happened but she had never done that before.

Bearing that in mind, his parents did well just to take it all in their stride. I liked them very much as well. Since nothing horrible happened i thought it was like a miracle.