Learning to re-experience my past?

[cogito]

Hey,

 

 

So I guess this is where people introduce themselves and tell other's a little bit about their story.

 

 

I'm a 22 year old in London. I currently live with my boyfriend and cat and I study Psychology at University with the hopes of becoming a Cognitive Neuroscientist.

 

 

I guess I came from a bit of a rocky childhood home. 

 

I’m the eldest of four and I remember that whilst growing up, the house was often full of screaming and shouting. Our father worked until late in the evening and our mother stayed at home. 

 

Out father was physically abusive towards our mother, she suffered from manic depression, and she was also an alcoholic, so as a kid I had things thrown at me, was yelled at, or locked outside at night until my sister let me in. My sister also experienced these things but was a lot quieter and better behaved than me so it happened less frequently for her.

 

 

Our father never really did anything to prevent this from happening. He wouldn't even let me in at night when he got home from work. He would also spank my sister and me and on occasion would use objects like cables or belts. My parents later got divorced.

 

 

I experienced first-hand several suicide attempts by my mother, twice when I was the only other person home to phone the ambulance and perform CPR.

 

 

I tried to commit suicide at the age of 17, was rejected by my friends for being an 'attention seeker', moved school, and ended up in a two year long relationship where I was both hit and shouted at.

 

 

I went to University, moved out of my family home, and started doing really well. Despite this, I ended up becoming really ill. I'd always struggled with eating and self-harm, but it got to the point where I lost so much weight that I got diagnosed with anorexia. I gradually gained weight and my diagnosis moved over into the EDNOS category but I also got diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and a dissociative disorder.

 

 

I've been awaiting therapy for over two years now for various reasons, and I still really struggle to deal with difficult emotions without turning to self-attack. I think it might have something to do with the fact that I find it incredibly difficult to be upset or angry at my parents or my ex. I feel like I did something wrong and that I deserved what I got, no matter how much I disliked it. In addition to this, being angry gets a lot harder because my mother hung herself last year after I cut off contact with her for three months, leaving me with such a tremendous amount of guilt that I don't even know what to do.

 

 

I should mention that I'm using an old member's account so that there isn't any confusion about who this is.

 

[cynicist]

Why would you blame yourself like this? You mentioned preventing several prior attempts by your mother so she was determined to carry it out despite your actions and the effect that it would have on you. Were you supposed to live your life as her permanent suicide watch? What a cruel burden to place on your own child. 

 

So what excuses ('reasons') are there for the abuse they inflicted on you?

[MMX2010]

First off all, I'm filled with sorrow and dread when I read your childhood story.

 

Secondly, did your mother ever attempt suicide when someone else was the only one home to call 911 and perform CPR?

 

 

[MagnumPI]

Well, first I'm glad to see that you found a way to get your words out on here. Hopefully your own account will be approved soon.( I answered you on facebook about it)And secondly, that's just all kinds of horrific. I have a friend who was bulimic and went to therapy. Changed over night. Not a complete reversal, but after the first visit, I thought I was talking to a completely different person. So, that's my endorsement of that. She has a similar background to yours.

 

Are you planning to call in to the podcast?

[Triumph]

 

Hey,

 

 

So I guess this is where people introduce themselves and tell other's a little bit about their story.

 

 

I'm a 22 year old in London. I currently live with my boyfriend and cat and I study Psychology at University with the hopes of becoming a Cognitive Neuroscientist.

 

 

I guess I came from a bit of a rocky childhood home. 

 

 

My father never yelled at me.  Maybe once a month would he raise his voice, and even then it was corrective more than mean.  Anything he ever asked me to do was something he would do himself with twice the effort.

 

My mother was and is a kind soul.  She raised her voice more often than my father but for every 1 angry word she would say it was after 100 words of kindness.  Very loving and very compassionate.  When I had a test or contest I was worried about, she would just tell me if I did my best that she would be proud.  And I always did my best for her.

 

I was spanked by my mother when I did wrong, and spanked by my father with a belt when I really did wrong.  But I would never say that I was beat.  Spanking might be wrong and a huge taboo with stef and others, but there is a big difference between parents that love you and don't know another way and abusive parents hitting their kids.

 

Regardless I was a happy kid.

 

The reason why I am telling you this Ms. London 22yro, is that you really were robbed of a good childhood.  You were robbed of a chance to be a happy kid and I was lucky.  Right now you are letting your subconscious beat yourself up because you were not the perfect daughter.  You're beating yourself up because you could have saved your mother, and didn't.  You've beat yourself up because you're not as pretty as you should be.  Then you beat yourself up for the eating disorder. 

 

Enough

 

Answer the questions from your subconscious that are attacking you and be done with them.  A person eats because it is good for them.  You are more than beautiful enough already for any man to fall in love with you and any woman should be a little jealous.  You were not the perfect daughter because to be perfect at anything requires a person to know all the important information to make only the best decisions.  No child knows enough to ever make perfect decisions.

 

And your mother's suicide.  It's a lie to say you couldn't have done anything that night to stop her.  It's a lie to say if you hadn't cut off contact with her that she wouldn't have killed herself.  We don't know and it's a lie for anyone to say they do.

But keeping her alive is not the same as saving her.  And what you were doing by cutting the bad out of your life so that you could grow into a stronger happier person was in fact a way to become a daughter who could one day reach back and save your mother. A drowning person can't save anyone else until they are in fact no longer drowning themselves.  Your mother made her own decision. Don't be so arrogant to think you were the only one in her life she could have reached out to for help. 

 

Answer the questions that torment you and put them to rest, and never touch them again.  Arrogance and pride make us think we ever could have made the perfect decisions in the first place.  Don't let those two things keep you from forgiving yourself for making mistakes. 

 

It's ok for a person who made mistakes throughout their life to find happiness. 

[cogito]

Firstly I'd just like to say thank you all for your kind responses, it was really nice to see such helpful and kind replies.

 

To Robert: I understand logically that my mother was bound to succeed one day, I guess I just blindly chose to believe that she wouldn't. And as for the reasons, I still feel to this day that it happened because I was a naughty child or because I'd been too annoying or something.

 

To MMX: I'm fairly certain my mother did it when everyone was home, or perhaps just my father, or any combination really. I remember being rushed to the neighbours a few times because my mother 'wasn't well'.

 

To Magnum: I'm hoping that my time on the waiting list will be over soon, I am looking forward to being able to tackle my issues with a proper structure and support system to guide me. I would like to call in to the podcast at some point, but I'm not really sure what I'd say, I feel like I'd need a properly structured question or something to go in with or something else along those lines.

 

And Triumph: I don't really feel that I was robbed of a good childhood since I never knew that my childhood was any different from anyone else's until I'd already left home, and I did have fun and loving experiences in between the bad ones, particularly with my mother. But thank you so much for everything you've said. I understand that I need to start putting everything behind me in order to move forward and I need to stop blaming myself for things that aren't my fault if I'm ever to be there for my younger siblings and any future children of my own. 

 

Hopefully with a little hard work I'll get there one day.

[MMX2010]

 

To MMX: I'm fairly certain my mother did it when everyone was home, or perhaps just my father, or any combination really. I remember being rushed to the neighbours a few times because my mother 'wasn't well'.

 

 

Okay, if your mother had only attempted suicide when you were around, then she would've (consciously or not) known that you were the special child who would rush to save her. 

 

Other than her successful attempt, did your mother attempt suicide in a fairly-likely-to-succeed way when no one was around?  (Sorry that the question is so morbid, and that I'm texting rather than saying it directly to you.)

[cogito]

It's all right. I don't really know the specifics around the times that I wasn't there to experience first-hand. My family isn't and never was big into talking about things, especially stuff like this, so the ways in which she carried out most of her attempts are fairly unknown to me. I'm aware she tried to slit her wrists and overdose on alcohol or pills a few times, but I don't know the predominant method she used.

[MMX2010]

It's all right. I don't really know the specifics around the times that I wasn't there to experience first-hand. My family isn't and never was big into talking about things, especially stuff like this, so the ways in which she carried out most of her attempts are fairly unknown to me. I'm aware she tried to slit her wrists and overdose on alcohol or pills a few times, but I don't know the predominant method she used.

 

I gotcha.

 

I asked those questions because you feel guilty that you weren't there to save your mother during her successful suicide attempt. 

 

If your mother had a habit of only attempting suicide when you were around, then it could be argued that she had (consciously or not) extremely strong faith in your desire to rescue her.  (But that's not the reality of what happened.) 

 

If your mother had a habit of only attempting suicide when someone was around, and only successfully committed suicide when no one was around, then it could be argued that she (consciously or not) only attempted suicide when people were around because she strongly believed someone would rescue her.  (You're not sure if this is true.)  If, in addition to this, she only successfully committed suicide when no one was around, then it could be argued that her only "real suicide attempt" happened when no one was around.  (I'm sorry for the callous phrase "real suicide attempt" - what I mean is that she successfully committed suicide only when she found the resolve to actually die.)

 

I know the answers to these questions can't eliminate all of your guilt, but I hope they helped with some of it.  

[Tyler Durden]

I would like to call in to the podcast at some point, but I'm not really sure what I'd say, I feel like I'd need a properly structured question or something to go in with or something else along those lines.

 

I would strongly, strongly, recommend you make an appointment to talk to Stef.

 

How about this question:

 

My parents were extremely dysfunctional. My dad hit my mom, and he hit me and my siblings with implements. My mom was an abusive suicidal alcoholic who allowed me to witness two of her suicide attempts. I've attempted suicide myself as well, I've also had an eating disorder, and I've been verbally and physically abused in a past relationship. Last year when I cut off contact with my mom for three months, she hung herself. I feel a lot of guilt and self attack, how do I get in touch with my anger?

[MMX2010]

I would strongly, strongly, recommend you make an appointment to talk to Stef.

 

How about this question:

 

My parents were extremely dysfunctional. My dad hit my mom, and he hit me and my siblings with implements. My mom was an abusive suicidal alcoholic who allowed me to witness two of her suicide attempts. I've attempted suicide myself as well, I've also had an eating disorder, and I've been verbally and physically abused in a past relationship. Last year when I cut off contact with my mom for three months, she hung herself. I feel a lot of guilt and self attack, how do I get in touch with my anger?

 

I wish I could upvote this comment ten times.  Caller, go with this!

[cogito]

I would strongly, strongly, recommend you make an appointment to talk to Stef.

 

How about this question:

 

My parents were extremely dysfunctional. My dad hit my mom, and he hit me and my siblings with implements. My mom was an abusive suicidal alcoholic who allowed me to witness two of her suicide attempts. I've attempted suicide myself as well, I've also had an eating disorder, and I've been verbally and physically abused in a past relationship. Last year when I cut off contact with my mom for three months, she hung herself. I feel a lot of guilt and self attack, how do I get in touch with my anger?

 

Damn. Yeah, you nailed it. Thank you, I'll try ringing in with this. Apparently the call's booked up till October so it looks like there's going to be a rather long wait. But I'll jot this down somewhere and keep it ready for when I get my opportunity. Thank you so much.

[Tyler Durden]

 

Damn. Yeah, you nailed it. Thank you, I'll try ringing in with this. Apparently the call's booked up till October so it looks like there's going to be a rather long wait. But I'll jot this down somewhere and keep it ready for when I get my opportunity. Thank you so much.

 

You're very welcome. I'm glad you're on the waiting list.

 

While you're waiting, I think a good place to start is by getting back to the thoughts and feelings you had when you decided to cut off contact with your mom. It strikes me as a very strong decision and you must have felt some anger at the time. Can you tell me what led up to that decision and what your thoughts and feelings were when you made it?

[cogito]

I actually decided to cut off contact to try and get the message across to my mother that I wasn't happy with the whole home situation that she had going on. My siblings lived with her on weekdays and she often had her boyfriend around who was just a complete tool. He was awful to my siblings and her (lots of shouting and swearing). She wasn't happy, my siblings hated him, she was drinking more, and he on several occasions kicked her out of hotel rooms without any of her things when she had no money or car to get home. In short, he was an ass-hole. I didn't understand why she couldn't leave him when she'd expressed that she wanted to so often, or I guess I was more frustrated, I do actually see why she would have struggled to leave.

 

Anyway, all I wanted was for my siblings to have a nice home and kind, loving mother to come home to, which she was when she was sober and happy. I guess cutting off contact was a sort of protest, and I wasn't so much angry as I was desperate for her to actually be happy for once, and to stop having to hear my siblings on the phone to me upset or crying about arguments they'd had with her boyfriend.

 

When in these situations, I don't much care for myself. I just want to look after my siblings. I would pretty much do anything for them.

[Tyler H]

 

 

Damn. Yeah, you nailed it. Thank you, I'll try ringing in with this. Apparently the call's booked up till October so it looks like there's going to be a rather long wait. But I'll jot this down somewhere and keep it ready for when I get my opportunity. Thank you so much.

 

 

Do first time callers not get fast tracked anymore?

[MMX2010]

I actually decided to cut off contact to try and get the message across to my mother that I wasn't happy with the whole home situation that she had going on. My siblings lived with her on weekdays and she often had her boyfriend around who was just a complete tool. He was awful to my siblings and her (lots of shouting and swearing). She wasn't happy, my siblings hated him, she was drinking more, and he on several occasions kicked her out of hotel rooms without any of her things when she had no money or car to get home. In short, he was an ass-hole. I didn't understand why she couldn't leave him when she'd expressed that she wanted to so often, or I guess I was more frustrated, I do actually see why she would have struggled to leave.

 

Anyway, all I wanted was for my siblings to have a nice home and kind, loving mother to come home to, which she was when she was sober and happy. I guess cutting off contact was a sort of protest, and I wasn't so much angry as I was desperate for her to actually be happy for once, and to stop having to hear my siblings on the phone to me upset or crying about arguments they'd had with her boyfriend.

 

When in these situations, I don't much care for myself. I just want to look after my siblings. I would pretty much do anything for them.

 

You didn't need to add, "When in these situations, I don't care much for myself.  I just want to look after my siblings.  I would do pretty much anything for them." 

 

I say this because when I read, "I actually decided to cut off contact to try and get the message across to my mother that I wasn't happy with the whole home situation that she had going on.", my instant reaction was, "Whoa....wait a minute.  Your mother was an utter helpless asshole to your siblings AND YOU your entire life, but the only thing you could think was, 'How do I conduct myself such that she'll become a better mother?'"

 

My statement above can't possibly be very effective through message board text, though.  You have to be able to hear the emotion in my voice (empathetic, but also sarcastic and angry - but mostly towards your mother), and be able to respond in real time - preferably with your own feelings (not your thoughts, though they're welcome). 

[cogito]

Do first time callers not get fast tracked anymore?

I'm not sure, at least I wasn't informed of anything like this when Michael emailed me back.On a separate note:I think it's too harsh to say my mother was an asshole, I think she really did try hard and I definitely felt loved by her despite everything. She was ill equipped to handle her emotions and life in general and never had the support she needed to get better. I hoped that one day I might be able to provide that support, but there you go.

[Tyler Durden]

Interesting answers. Since you found my first post useful, I'll share some more of my views with you. It's based on limited information of course, so I may not be right about everything, but it should at least give you something to think about. Here it goes:

 

Your actual childhood situation

You grew up with two parents that you couldn't rely on.

 

Your dad wasn't there most of the time, and when he was you couldn't even count on him letting you inside the house. Apart from that he was also actively making the situation worse by hitting your mom, you, and your sister.

 

Your mom was there, but she was even more unreliable than your dad. She could be kind, loving and happy, sober at one moment. And she could be unhappy, mean, abusive and drunk the next moment.

 

Besides that you also had younger siblings (or sibling at the time?) which meant that there was always someone more vulnerable than you in the house.

 

So simply put, you lived in an often abusive, dangerous, unpredictable, uncontrollable situation and you weren't allowed to express your needs.

 

The story you told yourself

So in order to survive you needed a story to manage your emotions.

 

The first thing you did was normalize your environment as much as possible. That's why you can say things like "I never knew that my childhood was any different from anyone else's until I'd already left home". Which is only possible by being extremely selective in who you talk to, what you talk about, and what you block out. Because pretty much everyone can tell you that having to call an ambulance for your mother and perform CPR on her because she tried to kill herself is far from normal. Pretty much as far from normal as you can go.

 

The second thing you did was turn your mother into a patient and a victim. You basically split her in two. On the one hand you have the happy, sober, loving and kind person that you call your mom. But unfortunately, and through no fault of her own, your kind and loving mom suffered from manic depression, alcoholism, and she also suffered abuse at the hands of your dad. So whenever she did something bad, that's not really her.

 

You can see that very clearly in your opening post actually. When you talk about your dad you say "our father was physically abusive". But when you talk about your mom you say "she suffered from manic depression" while you "had things thrown at you", "was yelled at", "was locked outside at night" and your sister "also experienced these things" but "it happened less frequently for her".

 

There's not a single sentence where you actually say "our mother threw things at me" or "our mother yelled at me". It all just sort of happened. The best example is when you talk about your dad and your mom in one sentence: "our father never really did anything to prevent this from happening". And then you continue with your dad and everything becomes explicit again.

 

The third thing you did was blame yourself for everything you couldn't explain away with the other methods. So you were "a naughty child" who was simply "too annoying" at times, unlike your sister who was "better behaved" than you.

 

And the fourth thing you did was focus on other people's emotions to distract you from your own. That's why you say things like "I need to stop blaming myself for things that aren't my fault if I'm ever to be there for my younger siblings and any future children of my own" instead of "I need to stop blaming myself for things that aren't my fault so that I can be happy".

 

Obviously you didn't create this story entirely on your own, you had a lot of "help" with that. But this was the story you lived in in order to survive your childhood.

 

Your current situation

But the problem with these kind of childhood stories is that they only work in a situation where you're basically a prisoner. They don't work when you're an adult, in fact, they work in the opposite direction. Because everything you do to minimize, ignore and excuse people's bad behavior makes it harder to recognize the people and situations that you want to keep out of your life.

 

That's why it's so vital to become aware of the stories you tell yourself and start living in reality. But it's also difficult, because you used those stories to keep certain emotions at bay. And getting rid of the stories means allowing yourself to experience all those emotions that you have suppressed up to this point.

 

You still use all four tactics that you used in your childhood, although I can clearly see that you worked on number one. I think you normalize a lot less than you used to. But seeing your mom as a patient/victim is still very much there. Blaming yourself is obviously still there as well. And you also still place more focus on your siblings' feelings than on your own.

 

Your mom

I think the best topic for you to focus on right now is your mom. Firstly because she is at the center of all the dysfunction and getting a clear view on her will help you with everything else. And secondly because she's no longer alive, which allows you to process all your history with her without having your actual mom interfere with the process. For example, you could get extremely angry at her without having to worry about what she would do to herself or anyone else if she heard that.

 

Obviously this is quite a big topic and it will take some time to process it all. But the main thing is that you just start questioning the story you have for her.

 

What does your mom look like if you drop the labels "manic depressive" and "alcoholic" and you consider all of her actions as individual choices?

 

Why do you call your mom's boyfriend an asshole, but think it's too harsh too call someone who chooses an asshole as a boyfriend and keeps exposing him to her children an asshole?

 

Why does she get off the hook for all the mistakes that she made when you don't even let yourself off the hook for far smaller mistakes?

 

These and many other questions like it are the questions you should be asking yourself. And they're not rhetorical questions either. You really believe in the story that you've told yourself about your mom and right now that's an unfounded belief. If you want to know the truth you need to submit that story to rigorous questioning.

 

It's a lot easier to do when you have a skeptic listener to help you. But since you will have to wait a while before you can talk to Stef or to a therapist my advice would be to start working on this on your own. I think you can make a lot of progress if you use a journal and all your critical thinking skills.

[Triumph]

And Triumph: I don't really feel that I was robbed of a good childhood since I never knew that my childhood was any different from anyone else's until I'd already left home, and I did have fun and loving experiences in between the bad ones, particularly with my mother. But thank you so much for everything you've said. I understand that I need to start putting everything behind me in order to move forward and I need to stop blaming myself for things that aren't my fault if I'm ever to be there for my younger siblings and any future children of my own. 

 

Hopefully with a little hard work I'll get there one day.

 

Forgive me for the harshness of my post.  Emotional traps are far harder to attack than logical traps.  Feelings of guilt and self esteem are particularly difficult to address as for every argument against them, there are several counter-arguments for the unspoken mind to seize on and keep us prisoners.  My post was designed to attack some of these emotional traps.

 

I myself have issues of guilt from 2 suicide attempts by two young men I was in charge of when I was in the military.  The hazing was pretty terrible, and the abuse was only getting worse.  I knew some of my guys were thinking about suicide, and I did try to stop the hazing.  But it was not enough. 

The one attempt was more a cry for help and the other, the guys passed out before he could finish a third bottle of sleeping pills.

 

So I used to self-attack about it, if only I had been there at the right time to stop it.  Or if only I had given him a little more encouragement to keep going and said the right thing.  There is truth in it, which is why I couldn't stop self-attacking.  If I had been there at exactly the right time, neither one would have tried to eat a couple bottles of pills to kill themselves in front of me where I could've stop them.  If I had given them more encouragement and watched them closer they wouldn't have tried to kill themselves that night.  And that is a truth.

 

So I am not saying one day when you are stronger, you will stop self-attacking yourself .  What I am saying to you is to understand the bigger truth, just like I did.  I could have prevented those two kids from almost killing themselves for 1 night, if I had been smarter, faster, or more compassionate.  But the night after that?  Or two days later?  A week?  A month?  The truth of it was I couldn't stop the source of abuse that was the reason that caused them to try and kill themselves. 

 

The only real solution to that situation would have been to of had the rank an authority to of stopped it.  That was something I was already working toward as a goal for myself.  I just wasn't there yet.

And I believe, if you think about it and are honest with yourself, you will realize that you were already doing what you needed to do in order to rescue her one day.  You just ran out of time, and that is something no one can do anything about.

 

For me it's not that I have stopped self-attacking, it's that I have answers for the questions I use to attack myself.

[cogito]

 

 

Tyler: I guess that everything you've written there is pretty much true. I've actually been told about the splitting I do with my mother before, it's really hard to not do it. I really struggle to see her as much more than a person with a shit hand dealt to them. Maybe because having developed problems of my own I can see how unhealthy behaviours become so automatic and hard to pull out of that they seem impossible... Either that or I just don't want to tarnish the nice parts of my mother. When a person you know to be kind and loving does bad things in such contrast to their other behaviour, it feels like it simply couldn't really be them, almost like a complete personality reversal. It's hard to put the two together to make one person, it doesn't feel like it makes sense. When I drop the labels I have for her, I tend to just see a sad person, and it makes me in a weird way, happy that everything's over for her. 

 

I don't know, sometimes I think that her being dead makes it harder for me to be mad at her. I don't want to criticise her or remember her faults for fear that it'll ruin all that I have left of her, after all, she's the only parent I had who I felt loved by and it'd kill me to lose that. 

A horrible confession I had to my sister, which she actually agreed with, was that I thought it was so incredibly unfair that we'd lost our mother and not our father since she'd been the only one who cared for us. She was the only person to which we could go to where we'd have a chance of feeling like we were at home.

Which thinking about is fucking depressing.

 

Now that I see my previous friendships and relationships were far from good, I do want to be with good people. I am incredibly introverted though and barely leave the house if I don't have to so my long-term friends basically consist of my boyfriend, his best friend and family, and my siblings. I guess I'm okay with that though. People stress me out and actually having to deal with them face to face on a regular basis is a chore that I'm actually pretty happy not doing.

 

I  also want to be able to experience emotions properly instead of this emotional constipation I find myself facing with the occasional uncontrollable outburst. I'm hoping once I get onto the therapy programme that I can start working on it in a more efficient way.

 

Blaming myself and prioritising others is a bit further down on my list because I find it incredibly hard to give much of a shit about myself, but I understand it's something I need to work on in order to be a good model in the future to kids and my youngest two siblings.

 

 

 

Triumph: It's no problem, I understand I have my hangups about this. Criticising my mother is something that results in a lot of hostility on my part and I really need to work on it. And yeah, I was (and still am) building towards a future where I could afford to perhaps put my mother through therapy and be there to support her financially so she wouldn't have had to rely on her boyfriend, but time did run out, and it was really shitty. I need to see that what happened happened and I can't harass myself forever about it.

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for sharing and I'm glad that you've had the time to work out your own issues. It's going to take some time and work, but I hope I will eventually be able to see things properly and act accordingly.

[MMX2010]

I will briefly share my own ultimate conclusions about my parents, having been raised by an abusive father who ruined the best parts of my mother.  (Both of my parents are still alive.)

 

I currently live 2200 miles away from my parents, having just moved less than a month ago. 

 

If I were told that my father is dying, I wouldn't feel anything.  He has brought all of his loneliness upon himself, and he procrastinates so thoroughly because he cannot face what a shitheap he has made of his life.  I wouldn't fly back to see him before he dies.  I wouldn't attend his funeral.  I expect him to be cremated, because it's cheaper.  I also expect to ask my siblings, "Would either of you mind if I dumped his ashes in a sewer?", and I expect them not-to-answer, giving me their silent permission to do so.

 

If my father dies first, my mother will be free.  But her freedom is only one of opportunity, not attitude.  With therapy, she could work out some issues, begin to make new friends, and acquire some small semblance of peace.  But she is old, frail, eternally psychologically defeated by my father, and is, therefore, unlikely to take advantage of her opportunity. 

 

------------------------

 

If I were told that my mother is dying, I would feel sad.  She took a lot of punishment trying to protect us children from my father's assholery.  But taking that punishment only prevented worse outcomes; it didn't make us happy, good, well-adjusted adults.  So, on the one hand, she has my respect for trying to protect us.  But, on the other hand, I have to transform my respect into mild contempt in order to free myself from their marriage. 

 

I can't cast my mom as the helpless victim because I've already done that AND doing that has only made me irresistibly attracted to single moms with sweet natures who are being browbeaten by their husbands.  Having tried one such relationship, I promise you that they don't work!  (Once I feel like I've "solved" her essential self-esteem problems and helped her move forward, I get bored of her.....even when she's left her husband to be with me.)   

 

I wouldn't fly to her hospital bed to see her.  I wouldn't attend her funeral.  I expect her to be cremated because it's cheaper.  But I would keep the urn in a dark corner of a rarely-visited closet.  And on those rare occasions when I see it, I'll feel mildly sad and say, "I'm sorry your life didn't work out for you.  Thank you for trying." 

 

My father will die within three months of my mother's death because he has no personal self-caring skills, and doesn't realize just how much my mother propped him up. 

 

----------------------

 

I tell you this, cogito, not to guarantee that you'd see your mother the way I do were she still alive.  But to merely offer a possible way that you might have come to see her. 

 

Hope that helps. 

[cogito]

I tell you this, cogito, not to guarantee that you'd see your mother the way I do were she still alive.  But to merely offer a possible way that you might have come to see her. 

 

Hope that helps. 

 

Hey MMX, thank you for telling me that. Thank you so much. I was shocked to find that reading this actually made me cry.

 

I find it so unfair that there are people who live their lives in such a state of sadness, sort of by choice, but also because they've been beaten into submission. It seriously bums me out. Even more so that the children of these people need to distance themselves in order to achieve a better life.

 

I'm so sorry that you went through all that you did, it sounds like you had a very similar childhood to my own, and that really fucking sucks, I'm glad you're so far away now and I hope you've been able to work on things too.

 

Funnily enough, I actually have my mother's ashes kept on my bookshelf where I keep a photograph of her which reminds me of her at her best when I need it, but for the most part I pass it without much notice. I loved her and still do, but she wasn't a very good mother.

[Tyler Durden]

Tyler: I guess that everything you've written there is pretty much true. I've actually been told about the splitting I do with my mother before, it's really hard to not do it. I really struggle to see her as much more than a person with a shit hand dealt to them. Maybe because having developed problems of my own I can see how unhealthy behaviours become so automatic and hard to pull out of that they seem impossible...

 

I understand that it's hard, and she probably did have a shit hand dealt to her. I also agree with you that once you've developed unhealthy behavior it can be very hard to pull out of that. You can relate to that.

 

But what you can't relate to is being as messed up as she was, barely able to take care of herself, in a relationship with an abusive man, and deciding to bring not one, not two, not three, but four innocent children into that situation.

 

That's what makes her unsympathetic.

 

If you've been dealt a shit hand you can choose between two paths. You can either take the path of alcohol, messed up relationships, and other unhealthy behavior. Or you can take the harder, but rewarding, path to work on your issues until you've resolved them and are in a position to have children. But you can't do both at the same time, that's when you lose every right to play the victim card.

 

Imagine your sister did that. Imagine she got addicted to alcohol and got in a relationship with an asshole. It would be understandable since she too was dealt a shit hand. But imagine she would then tell you that she had decided to get a baby with this man. Wouldn't you be like "What the fuck?! How irresponsible are you? You know how much shit we had to go through as children and now you're repeating the same damn cycle?"

 

Because that's what your mom did. It's not a kind and loving decision, it's very self-centered actually.

 

Either that or I just don't want to tarnish the nice parts of my mother. When a person you know to be kind and loving does bad things in such contrast to their other behaviour, it feels like it simply couldn't really be them, almost like a complete personality reversal. It's hard to put the two together to make one person, it doesn't feel like it makes sense.

 

Yeah, it's freaking crazy. I've known people like that too. They just go into crazy mode and when they come out of it they don't even understand their own actions. But they don't want to understand it either. They don't want to be held responsible for what they did. They're just like "I'm sorry alright! How many times do I have to say it for you to stop bringing it up again, leave it in the past already" and if you don't confront them they're happy to not say anything about it at all and pretend it didn't happen.

 

And on the one hand that makes it harder to see their actions as coming from the same person. But on the other hand it makes it easier, because the very fact that they're so unwilling to reflect shows how aware they are of what they did. If it was genuinely out of their control they would respond with curiosity, they would be like "yeah, I don't know why I did that, but I can imagine it was scary for you, I really need to figure out what triggered this and I understand that you don't trust me anymore". But they react completely different, because they know they had control over their actions and they just don't want to be reminded of that and they don't want to accept responsibility for it.

 

When I drop the labels I have for her, I tend to just see a sad person, and it makes me in a weird way, happy that everything's over for her.

 

I guess that's good.

 

I don't know, sometimes I think that her being dead makes it harder for me to be mad at her. I don't want to criticise her or remember her faults for fear that it'll ruin all that I have left of her, after all, she's the only parent I had who I felt loved by and it'd kill me to lose that. 

A horrible confession I had to my sister, which she actually agreed with, was that I thought it was so incredibly unfair that we'd lost our mother and not our father since she'd been the only one who cared for us. She was the only person to which we could go to where we'd have a chance of feeling like we were at home.

Which thinking about is fucking depressing.

 

I think this paragraph right here holds the key to your healing process.

 

When you were a child you couldn't get angry at your mom because she was so incredible unstable that you had to treasure those moments when you felt safe. You had to hang on to them as much as possible, and getting angry at her would put you at serious risk of losing those moments of safety.

 

You even say "it'd kill me to lose that". Which is quite accurate actually. What if you got angry at her and she actually decided to kill herself and you and your siblings would be left with just your dad. That was a seriously frightening scenario. So you avoided that, and kept focusing on the happy moments.

 

But that's not your situation anymore. Now you're an adult, you live somewhere else, and your mother is no longer alive. It would not kill you to get mad at her. In fact, you would be just as safe as you are now, and you also wouldn't forget the good memories you have of her. You would just be putting them in perspective.

 

The feelings of depression are only there because you're keeping yourself trapped in this position. You want to get mad at your mom, but this fear is holding you back. And you shouldn't let it. It's no longer necessary. Once you can get past this fear you'll feel a lot better.

 

And you deserve to feel a lot better.

 

Now that I see my previous friendships and relationships were far from good, I do want to be with good people. I am incredibly introverted though and barely leave the house if I don't have to so my long-term friends basically consist of my boyfriend, his best friend and family, and my siblings. I guess I'm okay with that though. People stress me out and actually having to deal with them face to face on a regular basis is a chore that I'm actually pretty happy not doing.

 

I  also want to be able to experience emotions properly instead of this emotional constipation I find myself facing with the occasional uncontrollable outburst. I'm hoping once I get onto the therapy programme that I can start working on it in a more efficient way.

 

Blaming myself and prioritising others is a bit further down on my list because I find it incredibly hard to give much of a shit about myself, but I understand it's something I need to work on in order to be a good model in the future to kids and my youngest two siblings.

 

All in all I think you're heading in the right direction. But I really hope that you'll allow yourself to get angry sometime soon, it would be very healthy.

[MMX2010]

Hey MMX, thank you for telling me that. Thank you so much. I was shocked to find that reading this actually made me cry.

 

I find it so unfair that there are people who live their lives in such a state of sadness, sort of by choice, but also because they've been beaten into submission. It seriously bums me out. Even more so that the children of these people need to distance themselves in order to achieve a better life.

 

I'm so sorry that you went through all that you did, it sounds like you had a very similar childhood to my own, and that really fucking sucks, I'm glad you're so far away now and I hope you've been able to work on things too.

 

Funnily enough, I actually have my mother's ashes kept on my bookshelf where I keep a photograph of her which reminds me of her at her best when I need it, but for the most part I pass it without much notice. I loved her and still do, but she wasn't a very good mother.

 

I'm 38 now and I never thought I'd say this to a 22 year old woman, but I'm glad I made you cry.    The shedding of emotions is the clearest path to personal progress and healing. 

 

What struck me most about your post was the realizing, "I loved her and still do, but she wasn't a very good mother." 

 

You're allowed to feel complicated feelings about your parents, no matter how much they try to enforce simplicity-of-feeling upon you. 

 

Only my feelings toward my father are simple: I don't love him, don't respect him, don't admire him, don't wish to emulate any part of him.  My feelings towards my mother are complicated: I only somewhat love her.  I admire certain parts of her, while realizing that many of those parts were destructive towards her.  I respect her a lot, but she doesn't have any moral authority over any of my actions.  I don't seek her advice on anything. 

 

A couple of days ago I cried about my mother.  I looked back at her life and realized that she only taught me two skills: (1) work really hard - which she taught me by emulating and expecting me to follow, and (2) suppress my emotions - which she taught me by emulation-alone. 

 

I'm struggling just a bit to find a job in my new location: have been running into obstacles that ought not slow me down, but have.  And I realized that if I only "worked hard and suppressed my emotions, (loss of confidence in the face of obstacles)" then I'd maximize my chance to both establish roots here and have a life that I can be proud of.  But the instant I told myself that, my eyes teared up, and I said, "Damn, mom.  All that heartache, all that pain, and all that heartache that we both suffered - (you, obviously more than me) - and it just might turn out that the only skills you taught me are going to be enough.  Not enough to make me happy, but enough to get me started on the road to happiness.  And if we accept that this is really all that a parent wants, then in your eyes you really did do a good job.  Your pain was worth it..."