Dear Kkasxo:

I re-read your recent post to me and noticed something I didn’t notice before-

You wrote yesterday: “There were times my mother and sister sat with me feeling hopeless, helpless because they were unable to change anything, I felt the sadness from my step-father who walked around the house with no purpose unsure what to do  with himself, again because he couldn’t help. That hurt me, it hurt me a lot to see them like that, worried and helpless– it made me want to put on a brave face”-

But why do two  parents, mother and step father, express such hopelessness and helplessness when their young daughter, 25 or 26, experiences an ending of a 2.5 year romantic relationship  with a young man in his early twenties?

I mean, it is not the end of the world, romantic relationships end every day for millions of young people all over the world. The life of their daughter has not ended. There is still hope for her!

Why the hopelessness and helplessness?

What they communicated to you reacting the ways they did,  was that you are indeed hopeless and helpless and that they are too, and so, clearly you are … hopeless and helpless. And indeed, hopeless and helpless has been your attitude since August of last year when you started posting.

Instead of hopeless and helpless, they could have, or I should say, a set of parents could have reacted this way: … we know it hurts and we see you hurt, but you will be okay and we will help you be okay. We will figure it out, we will work together to understand what happened. Then, smiling at you confidently, looking confident, not helpless.

That would have given you confidence in them being okay, them being able to help you,  and in you being able to help yourself.

Instead, with hopeless and helpless, you were left alone, worried about them (having that extra burden to  carry, their distress on top  of yours), putting on a brave face but with nothing underneath that face to accommodate or sustain being brave, or having courage.

I understand that you are a private person regarding sharing personal information, particularly on a public forum. I welcome you participating in a conversation with me here, on this thread, but I understand that you may not and I am okay with your choice either way.

One more thing: when dealing with emotional turmoil, as you  have experienced in the last eight months, empathy from others alone is not enough. New understanding is required. Without new understanding you are like a person in a dark room, bumping into walls or furniture, getting hurt and bruised. With empathy alone, you get something like: “oh, it hurts, let me put a Band-Aid on it, it will feel better soon”, but you keep banging into furniture and walls, keep getting bruised because you are still in a dark room!

anita

Dear Kkasxo:

I will do what I can do here to help you find that light switch and turn on the lights, communicating over time, if you want.

If we don’t have clarity, if we don’t see what is happening, there is no hope other than “getting through” the days. I hope you can do better than just get through life. Better live it with clarity, make a good use of your youth, of your excellent intelligence and evident social skills and live a remarkable life!

Reads to me that it would have been better if your mother, once she knew your bio father’s ways,  saw to it that he  would not be in your life, instead of making it possible for him to be in your life the way he was.

When he missed a visit, you felt disappointed. And he often missed visits, you wrote. That is a lot of disappointment, hurt, sadness.

Your mother often reminded him about your birthdays, school plays, etc. You figured early on that he didn’t really want to be in your life and that is why he “had to be constantly monitored by my mother”. This means that every time you were aware of your mother reminding him of an event and monitoring him, she sent you the message that … he doesn’t really want to be in your life.

She had good intention, thought you will feel loved having your bio father being in your life, but in between his actualized visits, the message delivered to you by a father that had to be.. forced to see you and by a mother who insisted on forcing him was that…  he didn’t love you.

When you turned 18 he ended all contact, is it because he felt that your mother couldn’t make him be in your life once you were no longer a child?

anita

Dear Kkasxo:

You are welcome. The assumption that he ceased all contact when you turned 18 because you were legally no longer a child reads reasonable to me. Maybe your mother pressured him through the years to be in contact with you for as long as you are a child. Maybe he had a girlfriend/ new wife who wanted him to have nothing to do with his ex wife/ daughter and pressured him to have no contact once his daughter is no longer a child. I don’t know.

Back to your experience in regards to your bio father being in your life before you were 18, do you remember hearing what your mother told your bio father when he was late to visit you or when he didn’t show up-

do you remember what your mother told you about him/ about the situation when he didn’t show up?

anita

Dear Kkasxo:

You wrote that you don’t remember your mother “ever telling (your bio father) off”, that she “never said a bad word about” him. “She’d just aplogise, affirm she is sure he would’ve liked to have been there”.

I figure she knew that he would not have liked to be there, but she hid the truth from you, or tried to hide the truth, to protect you.

This leads me to think about something that puzzled me before:  after the “traumatic event” (title of this thread) in June last year, when your boyfriend at the time turned against you and sided with his mother, an event that caused you a lot of pain, pain your mother was acutely aware of, sitting with you “feeling hopeless, helpless… worried and helpless”, following that event, she encouraged you to get back with your then ex boyfriend, telling you how wonderful the two of you got along, bouncing off each other.

I was wondering at the time why she would encourage you to  get back together with the man she believed was responsible for all that pain that you suffered, pain she was so acutely aware of.

Can you explain that to me?

anita

Dear Kkasxo:

“my mother and myself are similar in the sense that we always tend to look for the ‘good’ in people”- I think it is a good thing, to look for the good in people because it is there. But when a person repeatedly harms another, better protect oneself, better choose accordingly.

Your bio father harmed you by repeatedly, over a period of years, showing up late or not at all to visits with you, and you were left hurt and disappointed every time. Instead of your mother looking at the good in him and allowing him to disappoint you again and again, she should have looked at how he affected you, looked at how you were hurt and disappointed. She then should have stopped insisting that he re-enters your life and insisted instead that he stays out of your life.

Regarding your ex boyfriend, you wrote: “I suppose maybe (your mother)  is of the belief that we are only human and we make mistakes and if we are truly sorry for this, then we should  be entitled to make things right and be given another chance”, and that what she communicated to you something like: “if this (resuming a relationship with him) is what you want, I will stand with you all the way”-

-problem is that you presented his mistake as a TRAUMA that he inflicted on you June last year, a trauma that led you to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder eight months going.

But what is trauma?  What do you mean by using the word trauma and the term PTSD?

You shared that you and your boyfriend back in June had a difference of  opinions,  his mother got involved in the disagreement, siding with her son and against you, your boyfriend then walked away from you and ended the relationship.

You experienced that event and the breakup as a trauma. Do you mean that every breakup of a romantic relationship is a trauma inflicted by the person initiating the breakup against the party that doesn’t want the breakup and feels hurt as a result?

anita