Dear Christina:

Thank you for sharing your real name, and for returning to your thread. I am touched and moved beyond words to read your progress. Your thread is a testimony of an honest, intelligent, persevering and gracious woman on the healing path, fully engaged with the ongoing, never-ending healing and learning process. If you are okay with it, Christina, I would like to activate this thread once in a while so to bring it back to page 1, in the hope that more members read and benefit from your exceptional thread.

You started this thread on April 20, 2017, four years and four days ago. You were suffering at the time in the context of a romantic relationship of seven years with a man who communicated with you in dishonest ways, taking advantage of your fears and difficulties by using them to hurt you.

In this post, I will quote what you shared on the days you posted (I will be typing each every word that follows because it helps me process information better this way). In a second post to  be submitted tomorrow, I will share my thoughts about the quotes in this first post.

April 20, 2017: “one of my issues (is) the difficulty to say ‘No’. I have the tendency to always be positive and say ‘yes’..  I have problems to end things or put the necessary full-stop to people, friendships, relationships and bad situations in general that should stop… I feel like being in 2 pieces: one fragile and vulnerable that wants to be loved and accepted no matter what.. and another one that is strong and confident to let go of toxic situations and move on”.

June 20, 2017: “I started psychotherapy to help me understand why I am so afraid”.

June 21: “I have a general problem in saying NO to people knowing I will hurt them or disappoint them, so I always try to be gentle and go things slowly. Oh I have many issues I guess”.

June 23: “I generally do this: If one is upset with me, even if I am 100% right.., I feel guilty and sad. I feel I disappointed the other person and I am a bad person for hurting him/ her. So, I tend to try to calm and ease others and this makes me feel I am a good person… There are good people out there; some of my friends that know (about) my guilt tendencies.. never take advantage of it. But others, like my ex-boyfriend or some friends, can push the correct buttons to create this feeling for achieving their own goals and manipulate me…

“I think as a child, I was feeling I was disappointing my mom once I was doing something childish. She didn’t get angry or punishing me (hit or shout) but many times she was becoming disappointed with me, telling me: ‘oh, that was very childish of you and I didn’t expect it from you, you should be more mature and grown up’. And then was distant and sad and in cases she was not talking to me for much time- that was quite a punishment I guess. So, in my try to win her again I  was trying to be good and make the things she wanted so that I would not disappoint her anymore- behave like an adult and less like a child”.

July 11, 2017 (regarding the boyfriend and the relationship at the time): “he stopped contacting me and put the blame on me for this.. he knew that I had this guilty issues and so he is now trying to punish me with his silence… As I analyzed before, this was always a scary situation for me, having caused pain or anger to others and then they blame me, accuse me and stop talking to me. I was trying hard at the whole relationship to prevent this from happening and I was ignoring my desires and  my needs many times… my inner fear.. of rejection and disapproval and silent treatment as punishment.. from someone I really loved…

(Regarding the first days of separating from the boyfriend at the time): “The first days I was still in fear and shock, I was having nightmares with him yelling at me or feeling I could not breathe, I could not eat well and wanted to cry all the time. I was numb and terrified. Then I felt better but I was still in fear. I was in pain… I am not in love with him anymore and I really want him out of my life even if it hurts…

“I feel like a prisoner who is now free and is afraid he already lost so much time in prison that it does not worth living anymore, he is not aware of the future that comes, he feels so different from the person he was before and starts to believe it was ok being in prison and was not that bad after all cause he was safe and had a routine and protection and no worries for his future and the guards were friendly to him and bringing him food… so it was quite good after all, why was he complaining back then?!”

July 13, 2017: “I was a child so I could not logically understand that my mother withdrawal was not actually caused by my mistakes and that she shouldn’t have behaved to me like this. She was always expecting a lot from me and behave more like a grown up rather than a child. And any childish behavior was criticized and she was showing her disappointment in me”.

January 26, 2018: “psychotherapy.. was the best thing I have ever done in my life… I learned more about myself, my childhood, my insecurities, my inner need to satisfy (others) f or.. their anger/ silent treatment. I learned as a kid to try my best to satisfy my mother and be always like a grown-up, talk nicely, not being sad or angry, never say no… I entered in a relationship with someone (my ex) that was doing the same way as my mom, in a more aggressive way. I only now see ow I was manipulated and emotionally abused…

“I moved from my parents’ house and I now live alone. I try to listen to my inner voice and my desires and needs. For the first time, I discover myself. I take care of myself and I am becoming stronger”.

January 30, 2018: “I felt it was needed to post some of my progress, cause the whole story creates a path and others may find patterns that will help them in their healing process. I still have a lot  to learn about me and also heal, but I feel stronger now, in a deep connection with my feelings and my desires and I manage to see clearly others’ actions too. It is like waking up a little by little…

“It is not an easy procedure as you have to feel again within you past difficult situations and recreate the pain. I was avoiding that for years thinking there is no reason to search for past wounds and suffer again, it is past, let’s go on…(as) though, you simply cover or ignore a wound without understanding how it opened and why, and what it takes to make it heal…

“I was feeling worthy only if others were satisfied with me. So, I was trying during my relationship to be the perfect girlfriend for him.. transform to what he needed, neglecting.. my dreams, my desires, my personal path in this life, taking a new ‘role’ just to make him happy. His happiness was supposed to be my success, my happiness, my accomplishment. And the more I was giving, the more he was asking.. It was a constant agony, a battle, to make it. I only now see how stressed and unhappy I actually was…

“I hope I will be soon able to post even more positive results and realizations. And I hope all these to help others too”.

January 31, 2018: “I am aware that this healing process is still at its beginning, it is like a path actually, that I am trying to enjoy and discover as it goes, without any stress though to meet an endpoint, a destination.. And even if it hurts at times, I must say I enjoy it cause it makes me feel alive and more at peace with myself!”

February 12, 2018: “It is still a tough road for me and in cases, it hurts, but I feel stronger and more confident every day. One of my biggest struggles is not to be afraid of others’ rejection and opinion about me. I have been for years, a child trying to please my mum, for having her love and acceptance and follow whatever she had in  mind for me, to be the ideal ‘like an adult’ child… I am still afraid of re-feeling that pain and I keep on trying to avoid it by letting others manipulate me.. based n their needs and expectations for me (the ideal girlfriend, the ideal lover, the ideal employee, the ideal friend).. as I feel they are going to leave me if I say No or oppose to something they want… At least now, I understand why I am afraid.. how that old pain from a distant & strict mother caused this fear”.

February 13, 2018: “For me, it feels like the Jenga game. I add small pieces every day but sometimes some do fall and need to re-add pieces. The tower keeps getting stronger but some days I see pieces falling, or I notice holes at lower levels of the tower that need attention and I need to remove pieces to make them stronger. Today, for example, I have a kind of  bad day.. And some of my Jenga pieces fell down. But this time I understand better.. and I feel stronger on how to handle it. I do not blame myself for not being good enough, beautiful, smart enough and the rest.. I.. didn’t simply follow his desires.. It hurts, it is not easy to deal with it instantly but I am working on it. I try to see the good things all this caused, search within me and understand me more. I will post soon again, I hope to have more insights from this healing path”.

April 23, 2021: “Hello all.. I was reading my posts today and I can clearly see how far I am now from that person, my old ‘me’. I am actually so grateful for my ex and all he did to me, cause his intense and dishonest actions helped me to finally open my eyes and start taking care of myself. The last years and since my last post here, were a great journey for me; with many good but also bad moments, but they all were helping me to learn something new and heal myself more and more… Growing up to a family where dad was leaving for big trips all the time.. and a mum being very controlling.. I was feeling constantly the fear of abandonment (by my dad) and the fear of rejection of my mom. I was always trying to be the perfect daughter, friend, student, girlfriend, employee etc.. to avoid the pain of rejection or abandonment. Such a constant never ending agony!…

“I still have more to learn… I haven’t built the perfect life, I haven’t solved all my problems, I still learn and I still fall, but I always come back, stronger and stronger. I am also  in a relationship for the last 8 months.. a person that expresses his feelings and thoughts all the time without any guilt or shame.. He is doing compromises inside the relationship of course, but he is not changing who he is, neither tries to change me. I am totally allowed to be myself and express my feelings… I can finally be the child I could not be with my mom in the past. Anger and sadness were forbidden feelings. I now feel accepted and loved no matter how I feel. Fear is still there, but less…

“Mepina is not my real name. I was so afraid back then that someone I know.. would read this and understand it was me. So big was my fear. But I am not afraid anymore for who I am, my choices, my mistakes and my wounds.

“My name is Christina and this is my story and my healing process”.

anita

Dear Christina;

You wrote earlier: “When I was 3-4, I still remember, that I was thinking I had 2 mother, that were identical, but one was the good, loving and caring one, and another that was distant, angry and cold to me. And I believed that my actions would result on which mother would come each time”-

– what you described is known in psychology as “spitting”, as in splitting (dividing, separating) good from bad. This is my understanding of the term and the dynamic around it:

(1) The child does not experience the self (the child) and the object (the mother) as two different, separate entities. The  boundaries between the self and the object are not there yet.

(2) The child can not perceive the possibility that one person can be sometimes good (“the good, loving and caring one”) and at other times, bad (“distant, angry and cold”). The child perceives a person to be either good or bad, not both. Therefore, the child splits her mother into two mothers, just as you did.

(3) the child cannot endure the fear that comes with believing that she has no control, and there is nothing she can do to determine which mother she experiences in her life, so she believes instead that she has control, that there is a lot she can do to determine which mother she will have in her life  (“I believed that my actions would result on which mother would come each time”).

As a result of normal, healthy development, the child learns to separate the self  from the object. As the child matures and becomes an adult, getting involved with other people, she is able to separate the self from the other, and therefore, to understand what the self is responsible for,  and what the other is responsible for.

But when a child has suffered ongoing and unresolved mistreatment by her mother, the separation does not happen adequately. When the now adult woman experiences an abusive boyfriend who  is sometimes affectionate, she splits him into two people: the good boyfriend and a bad boyfriend. She then believes that her actions can determine which boyfriend she gets to experience. She splits not only the boyfriend but herself, trying to be the good girlfriend, believing that any imperfection in her good girlfriend role is an indication that she is a bad girlfriend. And so, every time she expresses anger at him, she believes she is bad and therefore has just invited the bad boyfriend into her experience.  She then tries to be perfect again, caught in a trap.

* By the way, his is the dynamic that happens in the case of an adult woman fitting the diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)- she splits the self and the other into good and bad people, being trapped in the never ending agony of trying to accomplish the impossible: (a) to be all-good, all the time, never feel anger, never express anger, never make a mistake of any kind, be always loving, always patient, etc., (b) to invite the good boyfriend into her life, when in reality her boyfriend is just one guy: an abusive boyfriend who is sometimes affectionate, a bad person who is sometimes good.

The BPD woman gets enraged every time she fails at (b) and terribly ashamed and guilty every time she fails at (a), going between rage and shame & guilt again and again.

anita

Dear Christina:

You are welcome. Once again you sound like a person who truly is on the healing/ learning path.

“I don’t know if it is going to last, as we are very different persons”- if you want to elaborate on it, only if you want to or think it’s useful, please do. I will be back to the computer in a couple of hours.

anita

Dear Christina:

You are welcome to open a new thread if you prefer. I am looking forward to read more from you, here, there, anywhere you choose to post.

anita

Dear Christina (Mepina= screen name):

Back on April 25, 2021, you agreed that I will update your thread once in a while. Almost eight months later, I am doing so. You started this thread on April 20, 2017, almost 4 years and 8 months ago, and your last post was on April 27, 2021. On your first day posting, you shared (in all of my quotes on this post, I will make some grammatical and other edits for the purpose of easier reading):

“One of my issues is my difficulty saying ‘No’. I have the tendency to always be positive and say ‘Yes’. I have problems ending relationships and bad situations in general. I started psychotherapy to help me understand why I am so afraid”.

In the next days, June 21-23, 2017, you shared: “My main problem is that I am afraid to make other people sad or angry. I have a general problem saying NO to people, knowing I will hurt them or disappoint them. I feel that I disappointed the other person, and I am a bad person for hurting him/ her. I generally do this: If one is upset with me, even if I am 100% right, I feel guilty and sad…

“I think that as a child, I was feeling that I was disappointing my mom. Many times, she was becoming disappointed with me, telling me: ‘oh, that was very childish of you, and I didn’t expect it from you, you should be more mature and grown up’. And then she was distant and sad and sometimes, she was not talking to me for a long time- that was quite a punishment, I guess. So, in my efforts to win her again, I tried to be good and do the things she wanted, so that I would not disappoint her anymore- behave like an adult and less like a child”,

January 18, 2018: “I learned as a kid to try my best to satisfy my mother and be always like a grown-up, talk nicely, not be sad or angry, never say no”, February 12. 2018: “I am still afraid of re-feeling that pain and I keep on trying to avoid it by letting others manipulate me. Based on others’ needs and expectations, I try to be the ideal girlfriend, the ideal lover, the ideal employee, the ideal friend, fearing that people will leave me if I say No, or oppose something they want. At least now, I understand why I am afraid, and how that old pain of having a distant & strict mother caused this fear”,

April 23, 2021: “Growing up in a family where dad was leaving for big trips all the time, and mum was very controlling. I was constantly feeling the fear of abandonment by my dad, and the fear of rejection by my mom. I was always trying to be the perfect daughter, friend, student, girlfriend, employee etc., so to avoid the pain of rejection or abandonment. Such a constant never-ending agony!”,

April 25, 2021: “This was my lifetime pattern, without noticing it, of course: I believed that my actions were defining others’ behaviors towards me. If I were a good child, my mother would be happy. If I was a good student, my teachers would praise me. If I was a good friend, my friends would never leave me. If I was a good employee, my bosses would never fire me. If I was a good girlfriend, my boyfriend would always love me and would treat me nicely. A constant and tiring fight to satisfy them all”.

On July 11, 2017, you shared regarding a boyfriend: “He knew that I had this guilt issues, and so he is now trying to punish me with his silence. As I analyzed before, this was always a scary situation for me, having caused pain or anger to others, and then they blame me, accuse me and stop talking to me. I was trying hard during the whole relationship to prevent this from happening, ignoring my desires and my needs many times. I fear rejection and disapproval and silent treatment from someone I really love”.

January 30, 2018: “I was trying during my relationship to be the perfect girlfriend for him, to transform to what he needed, neglecting my dreams, my desires, my personal path in this life. I took a new ‘role’ just to make him happy. His happiness was supposed to be my success, my happiness, my accomplishment. It was a constant agony, a battle to make it”.

You wrote regarding your healing process, April 23, 2021: “I still have more to learn. I haven’t solved all my problems, I am still learning, and sometimes I still fall, but I always come back, stronger and stronger. I am also in a relationship for the last 8 months with a person who expresses his feelings and thoughts all the time without any guilt or shame. He is not changing who he is, neither does he try to change me. I am totally allowed to be myself and express my feelings. I can finally be the child I could not be with my mom. Anger and sadness were forbidden feelings. I now feel accepted and loved no matter how I feel. Fear is still there, but less. My name is Christina, and this is my story and my healing process”.

April 25, 2021:”I gave space and time to myself, to look inside me and finally start to take care of me and choose in my life persons who respect me. My healing process, as I said, is going on, and I will post more things here – I am so happy I started this thread back then. It is nice that my feelings and thoughts of that time, were written somewhere”.

My thoughts today:

(1) On April 25, 2021, you wrote: “When I was 3-4, I still remember, that I was thinking I had 2 mothers who were identical, but one was the good, loving and caring, and another that was distant, angry and cold to me. And I believed that my actions would result on which mother would come each time”-I can’t think of a more accurate description of Splitting. When a child’s parent behaves consistently enough, going from loving to gently disapproving, but still loving, the child can see the parent as one person. But when a child’s parent changes his/her behavior drastically, going from loving to very angry, the child mentally splits the parent into two: a good, loving parent, and a bad, angry parent.

Once the parent is split, the child believes that which of the two versions of a parent she gets at any one time is a reflection of the child’s behavior: the good child invites the good parent, the bad child invites the bad parent. And so, the child is mentally split as well, in the child’s own mind.

The child is not aware that she may not the cause of her parent’s very inconsistent behavior. The child instinctively prefers to believe that she (the child) is the cause of which parent she gets because it gives her a sense of control. It is scarier to believe that getting the bad parent at any one time is not up to her, not in her control.

Christina, your story is a strong testament that silent treatments given to a child by a parent are very scary. Your mother did not yell at you or hit you, but her angry, disapproving silent treatments were powerful enough to cause your splitting, which extended into your adulthood in all contexts: friendships, romantic relationships, school and the workplace. Each of the following were split into good and bad: friends, boyfriend(s), teachers, employers.

The cost of feeling safer as a child, believing that you have the power to choose which friend, boyfriend, etc. you get, is a huge cost in adulthood, like you stated: “a constant never-ending agony!… A battle to make it“, a life of taking on different roles tailored to please different people, neglecting your own “personal path in this life”.

I have no doubt that you have been genuinely engaged in the healing process. But I also know that our healing journeys sometimes stop. For example, back in April you were involved in a new romantic relationship. Maybe that relationship didn’t turn out well and that was a stop sign in your healing journey.

A couple of other thoughts entered my mind a moment ago: (1) Taking on roles tailored to please different people (trying to be perfect in this or that role, for this or that person), likely extended to the context of your psychotherapy and led to you doing very well in therapy, (2) It is possible that you did not post here since April because you did not want to disappoint me/ the readers.

Christina, if you are reading this, I would love to read from you again, and I promise you (in case you need this promise): I will not be disappointed of you, nor will I be angry at you!

anita