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anita,
You said, “Maybe that’s the emptiness you talked about at the time, not having anyone to live for, is how you put it, if I remember correctly.
Is that it?”
I can remember at the time thinking if I had someone to share my goals/projects/achievements with that I would be more motivated in life. For much of my life, I have been solely motivated by getting attention (or connection). As you can imagine, sometimes this was very unhealthy. Sometimes it was more neutral, or even somewhat positive. For example, I use to go to swing dancing classes just to be around people. I actually do not know if I liked swing dancing or not (and at the time I had absolutely no idea if I liked the dancing, I just knew I liked the social event).
In regards to that time in my life (that I made that post 2019), I remember thinking a lot “why should I put in all this effort to go to college and be successful in life if at the end of the day I have nobody to there for me that would care?” I felt life is worthless/empty without connection. And that is where my fantasy mother came in. A fantasy of a positive connection that would motivate me to make positive change in my life. Additionally, it seems easier to value yourself/see your worth when you have someone who holds that view of you.
Dear ninibee:
The following is a beginning of my research. I plan to continue Wednesday morning when I am rested. I understand that you may not be in the mood to read this post (or the next), maybe you are not focused enough, maybe you just don’t feel like it, and that’s okay. You don’t have to read it and you don’t have to respond to its content. It is not like a college class where you have to pay attention, do homework and pass a test. Read it if and when you feel like it, and respond to the content of what is to follow, or not.
Because you observed your mother being uncomfortable touching babies, it could be that she didn’t touch you often when you were a baby, and it could be that her touch was not gentle or prolonged, that she touched you as if you were an object: quickly and in a matter of fact kind of way, wanting the contact with you to be done and over with as quickly as possible. Also, being uncomfortable when she touched you and when interacting you otherwise, probably showed in her face and in her voice. You were able to observe her discomfort when you were a baby and a young child, just as you were able, as an adult, to observe her discomfort with other people’s babies.
I don’t know if and how your father, and/ or a nanny or a household worker that touched you when you were a baby, and what were their facial expressions and tone of voice when they interacted with you.
What follows are quotes from two sources that are very relevant to the topic. I will add and elaborate on what follows tomorrow.
hello motherhood. com: “Healthy, effective contact with your baby includes cuddling, gentle massage, stroking and holding your newborn”, “Lack of physical contact can prevent normal development and can even lead to higher rates of illness or death in infants”, “The first contact a newborn has with you, his mother, sets off cascades of hormones in his body that benefit his health.. Your touch can lower the levels of the stress hormone cortisol in his body, leading to better sleep patterns in infancy and a tendency to be less fearful or inhibited later in life”, “contact.. promotes bonding and makes the baby feel more secure and relaxed. Touch.. facilitates the bonding process from the first moments after birth. Healthy bonding.. helps your infant develop better psychologically and socially later in life”.
Scientific American. com, how important is physical contact with your infant?: “Touch and emotional engagement boost early childhood development, but can children recover from neglectful environments? Many children who have not had ample physical and emotional attention are at higher risk for behavioral, emotional and social problems as they grow up…
“some children from deprived surroundings such as orphanages, have vastly different hormone levels than their parent-raised peers even beyond the baby years… children who experienced early deprivation also had different levels of oxytocin and vasopressin (hormones that have been linked to emotion and social bonding)…
One of the things infants learn early in life is that their actions affect others’ responses—they sense that they’re active agents in their environment.. They learn that probably most readily through other people because people are responsive to babies. Babies catch on very quickly that their actions get a predictable response—you know, ‘I smile, Mom smiles back’—not all the time but most of the time. They develop a sense that ‘I’m a causal agent.’
“There’s research that shows babies like to be imitated. We interact with babies much differently than we interact with peers. We tend to imitate behavior back to them in an exaggerated way, which is exactly what babies need, and it helps them learn about their own emotional experience. Seeing it reflected back helps them understand themselves at a very basic perceptual understanding…. If the mother was depressed and therefore not emotionally engaging with the baby, those babies are at risk because those babies are not learning about themselves…. The more experience babies have with someone who is going to be emotionally engaged with them, the better off they’re going to be…
Read more from this special report: The Mother-Baby Bond
“It’s not that anything is cut in stone. I don’t want to give the impression that if babies don’t get this they’re marked for life. This early understanding of self and early understanding of other is developed through interaction. It teaches babies basic lessons that they have some agency in the world, so that allows them to explore the world and feel like they can affect their environment as opposed to just being helpless to whatever happens to them. We’re basically a social species, and we learn those things through interacting with others.”
anita
anita,
I want to start by saying I appreciate the research you have done, and now shared with me to help me better understand myself and my experiences. Here are some things I found interesting/relevant as I was reading:
1. “Your touch can lower the levels of the stress hormone cortisol in his body, leading to better sleep patterns in infancy and a tendency to be less fearful or inhibited later in life”
This fits that that perhaps I was not given this type of bonding touch. My mom herself companied to me that as a baby, I was a terrible sleeper, did not like to nap, and would wake them up throughout the night. I became extremely inhibited and fearful by the age of 5, and have been throughout my life.
2. “Many children who have not had ample physical and emotional attention are at higher risk for behavioral, emotional and social problems as they grow up…”
This reminds me of the reason I originally began this thread. I was feeling shame about my life long history of behavioral and social issues. This is relatively unspecific and simply put, but relevant.
3. Everything you have shared about being a “active” or “passive agent”, and the pattern of “learned helplessness”
These ideas are new to me. I can see in what you put together that I have displayed a pattern of learned helplessness. In some ways, I do feel it is true for me. Specifically around when you said “feeling that there is something terribly wrong with you for not taking the actions needed to be taken” … I did feel this way, I blamed myself and held myself as the one responsible for my misery I was in. I am not sure if that fits in. I will have to look more into learned helplessness. Perhaps I was in a state of thinking “I have caused this for myself and I want to change it, but I don’t know what I need or how I can get out of it”… That seems to fit. I may have some ideas, but many times I am still so unsure and lack the confidence to make any change with my ideas.
TeaK,
I had written out a paragraph in response to and then it got deleted somehow. It won’t be as good as what I originally wrote, but here is basically what I said:
I thought about what you said today while eating a salad for lunch. My mom came into the kitchen and asked what I was eating, and I felt uncomfortable and I didn’t want to tell her (I had to tell her, but I said it as boring as possible)… But I thought this was a strange reaction to have. I think in a normal situation, I would have said “I made this really delicious salad. I actually made it up on the spot and it turned out surprisingly well. Do you want to try some?” This is when I thought about what you said about kids wanting to share their achievements with their parents. Its a rather silly example and I am not sure if it even makes sense… but in this case, if my salad was an achievement, I not only did not want to share the news of my great achievement with her, I wanted to avoid the possibility of her seeing it or commenting on it. For a moment, I wished I had not made a salad at all.
I don’t understand this well, but it is like I am afraid to share my achievements (or even make an achievement). I don’t know if this answers your question in any way, but I think it goes beyond a lack of motivation.
Dear ninibee,
you’re absolutely not wasting my time, and I don’t feel you’re spinning around in circles, and I am so glad you’re posting. I believe we all were able to understand a little better the reasons for your unrelenting shame – which most probably stem from your very early childhood, and are related to your mother not meeting your needs. They have nothing to do you with being unlikeable or repulsive or shameful. Try to understand at least that. It wasn’t your fault that your legitimate needs weren’t properly met.
I know it’s hard for you at the moment, and you’re identifying with your older self, who might have done some shameful things, but remember that it was all a reaction, a consequence of your childhood wounding. You, as a young, confused adult, were in pain, and you behaved accordingly. What Anita said a few days ago was so true, and it resonated with you: “I was mentally unwell, confused, desperate, in pain, and therefore likely to act in shameful ways. And I did.”
So try to see your shameful acts not as a reflection of your true self, but as a consequence of being in pain. And then try to see beyond them, and see in front of yourself that little adorable baby who needed to be lovingly touched and cuddled and cooed to and smiled at, and enjoyed that she exists… but she wasn’t. She was rejected. And she started to believe there’s something wrong with her, she started to feel shame, she might have even felt she was a creep, a monster… (I felt that about myself). And when we’re in so much pain, we need ways to soothe or numb ourselves, and we act out.
Please try to see it as it was, and have compassion for yourself, because none of it was your fault. And please keep posting here, you have nothing to be ashamed of, and you’ve helped me too with your sharing <3
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 