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anitaParticipantDear DC:
You are welcome and I hope that you have a good week ahead!
Before I answered your original post in your current thread five days ago, I noticed that we communicated in the 4 pages (Aug 31- Nov 13, 2021) of your first thread Letting go of injustice, but I didn’t re-read it until this morning. I will be doing so this morning.
In your first thread, you shared that you were a member of Strata Committee (SC) which made decisions for the 45 owners who lived in a block of townhouses where you were one of the tenants, and the Treasurer of the SC “has been paying for certain repairs for his own unit without the permission of the SC”.
“I am often the ‘unwelcome’ voice which calls out on such unethical behaviour. Most SC members would not call out such behaviour for fear of retribution… I find it hard to be involved and not blow the whistle on such unethical behaviour…I simply cannot ‘unsee’ things that I see…I continually go out of my way to see that perpetrators do not get away with misdeeds“, you wrote back then.
As I often ask members, I asked you too about your childhood, and you shared that your father died when you were five, and your mother had an affair with a married man who “tortured and abused.. physically and emotionally” you (and your siblings) until your late teens.
You shared this about your mother: “We were parented by a single mother, whom I came to realise is a narcissistic and toxic person. She has little capacity for empathy, is self centred, controlling, critical, etc. If you read about the traits of a narcissistic mother, she has all of them. To this day, each time I contact her (we don’t live in the same country), she would never ask about how I am doing but instead, focus on what she wants from me – in a very ungrateful and demanding way. It is very clear that it is all about her. It is my culture to respect elders… I find myself wrestling with a dislike for her as a toxic person/parent, but a deep care for her because she is my mother“.
On Sept 2, 2021, I wrote to you: ” I want to jump straight into what I’ll call The Core Injustice: the biggest and earliest Injustice that you experienced… I know that it is in your culture to respect parents (and) elders. Thing is, culture does not make an exception for very abusive parents or elders. Without such exception, culture teaches to respect abuse…. What kind of justice is it when a woman is allowed to hurt her children badly for years.. and she get away with it, no one holding her accountable as she keeps abusing them into adulthood: no apologies, no regrets.. no guilt, no justice… Your mother used and still uses her position of power to abuse you and her other two adult children. It is society and culture that give her this position of power to keep for the duration of her life, turning the other way when she uses her position of power against her children… It is society and culture that instill in children this Guilt, a terrible pain of being a bad-boy (or a bad-girl) if you act to correct the injustice of parental abuse… saying: well, look at your mother.. she is elderly now, harmless.. about to die.. don’t upset her now, take the non-physical abuse (as she is too weak being elderly.. to hit you herself or to have an affair with a man who will) for just a little bit longer.. okay? Good boy!”.
Your response on the same day: “Your insights have enabled me to again revisit my childhood, and realise that maybe my preoccupation with justice, albeit a little trivial, stems from what happened during my childhood – and to put in your words, perhaps my attempt to right the ‘core injustice’ that happened to me and my siblings all those years ago. Perhaps within me is an anger – a burning flame – that has never been extinguished“, and you asked: “to heal and move forward, would the way be to accept that all of us are flawed (including my mother), and then let go?“.
I answered: “True: all of us are flawed.. but some people go out of their way to be repeatedly abusive, month after month, year after year, no regrets, no efforts to correct. There needs to be a distinction between being flawed and being abusive. To heal and move forward, do let go after you no longer avail yourself to your mother’s abuse… Many adult children of abusive parents, wanting to heal, insist (because of Guilt) on keeping contact with the abusive parents, figuring they can find a way to not be affected by the ongoing abuse.. it doesn’t work”.
In your reply, you agreed with what I said but added: “I find it next to impossible to go no-contact with my mum. Sorry to disappoint. Instead, I think that I will write her messages to show that I still love her. She needs the assurances as she is now frail and elderly – and has health issues… Perhaps she does love me in her own selfish way. Or perhaps I really want to believe that. While there are tiny moments of love or kindness towards me, they are largely swamped by her abuse…. She is like that, perhaps because of her own childhood and biology. I don’t know that it is her fault“.
In your next post, you wrote: “You have this gift of clarity and getting to the guts of things. I really like that! (I copied and pasted this just now because it makes me feel good to read it). It is true that she could abuse us when we were kids as no one held her accountable. We were little and utterly vulnerable. No way to defend ourselves. Therefore easy for her to exploit within the walls of our house. Cane marks were hidden and I used to go to school with Elastoplast in several parts of my arms to hide those bruises. She hit us to vent her anger – not to help us be better humans. Perhaps she did not understand how else to release her own frustration“.
On Sept 5, you asked me: “Why do you do this Anita? Why do you go into these forums and put in so much effort, time to help people like me? You are also unrelenting and unwavering in your support. Most people would give up. I am curious as there are very few gracious people like you on this planet” (Again, makes me feel good to read this).
My answer the next day: “Because to me, on the other side of my computer screen, I can almost see you: you are a real person, flesh and blood, thinking, feeling.. just like me. I know how you feel when you feel hope or sadness.. pain. You are just like me, so when I am helping you- I am helping myself, no difference. In yet other words: you are important, there is no person in the world who is more important than you. You matter, your experience of life matters no less than mine. You are therefore worthy of my effort and time”
On Nov 13, you posted an update on the issue you presented in your original post 2.5 months earlier: “Managed to deal with the committee issue and exposed the dishonest behaviour within it at a general meeting of all owners. As a consequence, the treasurer resigned, which is an excellent outcome. I have decided to relocate as it is not worth my while to be engaged in such toxicity. I am sure that this is merely a short-term reprieve and there will be further undesirable incidents later down the track“.
And as you predicted back then, there is currently a “further undesirable incident” about which you posted 5 days ago in your second thread (the current).
My input today: (1) It is interesting that on both threads, I assumed that you are a man, and sometime along each thread, I was surprised to find out that you are a woman. I think that two of the reasons I did not even consider that you are a woman are that a– I assumed (wrongly) that your courage to fight-and-right-wrongs indicated that you are a man, a gender stereotype that I need to correct, and b– because you were so kind and gracious to me in both threads, I assumed that you were a man.. Because of my personal experience, I learned to expect aggression from the female gender.
(2) Injustice in the world is massive in magnitude, mind boggling.. almost unbelievable in extent, the extremes of it. Abuse of children and of adults is about the Abuse Of Power: political leaders/ people in the position of financial power abuse the power they have over millions and billions of people.., and parents in countless homes abuse the power they have over their children, and society/ culture at large.. allows it.
If you’d like, we can talk more about any or all of this…?
anita
October 28, 2023 at 9:43 am in reply to: Telling the difference between gut and fear in relationships #423808anitaParticipantDear Seaturtle:
“I asked him if we could go on a walk, hoping to feel connected to him and for it to remind me of why I am doing this, because I love him. We go on a walk and he begins exploring the outdoors and starts leading me down this very torn up valley of dead trees, hard to walk through and calls me a baby for complaining about the mud and the ‘trail’… I kept having to remind him not to keep walking so far in front of me as I stumbled... I truly don’t like his parents relationship, they are so passive aggressive and constantly hurting each other… pretty much live separate lives… I have felt disconnected with him ever since we got here and I want to understand why and find out how to ease this anxiety”-
– Continuing the inner-child theme (“N” is your boyfriend the adult, “n” is the child that he was/ his current inner child), what probably happened is that once he spent enough time in the company of his parents, in their home, his childhood experience was triggered/ became alive in his mind and heart, and N became n: a hurt, sad, angry boy, very distressed by his parents hurting each other passive-aggressively and living separate lives. Very distressed, he led you to a scene that resembles his childhood experience, “down this very torn up valley of dead trees, hard to walk through.. (no) ‘trail‘”.
In his childhood, there was no trail/ no guidance for n. He felt down and dead and torn up as he witnessed his parents fighting. it was hard for him to walk through his lonely childhood, from one hour/ one day to the next. He felt disconnected from everyone. Walking with you down the valley, n (for whom there is no Past vs Present) felt angry at you and disconnected from you, and consequently, you felt disconnected from him.
It’s like he took you for a walk down the valley of his childhood, showing you how it was for him, how he stumbled with no one in front of him to guide him, with no clear path ahead.
anita
anitaParticipantDear DC:
In your original post you wrote that you checked with the regulator and verified that indeed it is against the law for her to do what she did. In your 2nd post, you wrote: “It’s also against the law to just go into someone else’s property and then proceed to fix whatever you think is wrong with it… She has done that because she feels protected by ‘the family’. She would not have done that to a family member“.
In your original post you asked: “I can always file a formal complaint against Bella and the regulator will investigate. This will be a mark against her. Question is this – should I? If I did that, I would put her offside even more. However if I did not do that, she may carry on bullying. I would therefore appreciate any advice“-
– Based on my limited understanding, what I’d do if I was in your shoes, would be three things: (1) Do not pay the unlawful bill she presented to you, (2) File a formal complaint against her, (3) Move out…
Unless she apologizes, offers to take care of the bill herself, and corrects any and all unlawful practices against you.
anita
anitaParticipantDear Milda:
You are very welcome and thank you for being as nice and as kind as you are! I want you to keep feeling comfortable, heard and understood by me, and so, at any time that I misunderstand something you are trying to communicate to me, please let me know what it is.
* To let you know, I usually reply to posts by reading, copying and pasting a part of a post, then I respond to that part before I read the next part. Then, I read, copy etc., the next part before reading the next, etc. This helps me to develop my thoughts along the way.
“This situation caused my natural reaction of helping my family, and I want to know how do you think I should have responded to that. I was text messaging with my mother. Started with random topics and (as always) at one point when I asked mother what are the plans for weekend, she replied: well, father is again not talking to me, built a silence wall, so I will be doing my own things, and he his. After reading this message, I physically felt a stress reaction: my heart was racing, head spinning, felt nervous, scared and had an immediate thoughts of “I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING, I HAVE TO SOLVE IT, HOW CAN I COMFORT MY MOTHER, HOW TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM FOR HER, WHY IS FATHER NOT TALKING, I HAVE TO MAKE THEIR RELATIONSHIP RIGHT, I HAVE TO KNOW THE DETAILS, MAYBE KNOWING THE DETAILS WILL HELP ME SOLVE IT”. It was a true reaction of stress, tension, fear.”-
– I am quoting all this because it is so very meaningful. On the 24th when you shared about your childhood, you wrote: “I had a need inside to always solve their problems, so that maybe then I can live in a happy, stable and calm family“- you needed and wanted a calm family because as a child, you were too often, very scared, as is indicated by your scared reaction earlier today. In all capital letters are the thoughts you had as a child, resurfacing.
Notice what triggered this fear reaction: your mother saying, “well, father is again not talking to me, built a silence wall, so I will be doing my own things, and he his“. In your adult life circumstances, there is no danger in what she said, no danger to you, no danger to her (she survived that silence wall for many years). But in the child’s mind, in a child’s world, that silence wall was danger because you didn’t know what will happen next, and what you feared will happen next was something as final and catastrophic as death.
The child that you were is still very much a part of you (true to me as well). The known term for this child is Inner Child. For the inner child (who was traumatized as a child) there is no Past vs Present: there is only Present. She is still living at home with her parents and she still gets scared for the same reasons she was scared back then.
“But I paused. I didn’t write anything, I just put my phone away. Tried to challenge those thoughts and said to myself that I do not have to comfort her, solve her and father’s relationship problems, cheer her etc. But then I started facing new thoughts, which were: ‘How dare you not helping her, comforting her, she is lonely, go do something, say something, you are not taking care of your mother, which is your duty. Doesn’t matter that you do not think that it is your responsibility to do that, JUST DO IT AND DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO HELP HER AND MAKE HER HAPPY!!’. Those thoughts were the ones that made me really sad and stressed out. I didn’t know what to do”-
– Evident here is Role Reversal which started in your childhood: the child-daughter feeling that it is her duty to take care (to parent) her adult mother. The daughter took on that role because… no one else did. Someone had to be the adult, solve problems, create and maintain peace/ safety in the home! Of course, it is mission impossible for a child to be an adult, but the child tries her best.
Part of her, of the child, becomes a pre-mature adult/ parent to her parents. Being still a child herself, living in a home that feels unsafe, she doesn’t have the emotional (or other) resources to parent her parents, but she is driven to do it anyway.
“I wrote to my mom: ‘Oh ok, get it‘. That’s it. No comforting thoughts, no questions, solutions, nothing. After writing that I felt very bad, as the worst daughter ever”-… as the worst.. parent (to your mother).
“And I feel till this moment that I made a wrong decision, that I had to help her, that she is poor and sad, with no one around to help her, I am the only one that can do it. A huge guilt inside of me. I would appreciate a lot your insights on this situation, maybe this could help me reshape the way I think and see situation.”-
– the child-parent (you) is feeling guilty for not helping her “daughter” (your mother). Talking about role reversal.
If your mother really was a child and you really were her mother, you would have had the opportunity to make her a happy child because she would be in her Formative Years when under your care, her brain developing/ being in the process of being formed- with your input, your care in it.
As a child, you unknowingly took on an impossible task: to change a sad brain that is already formed into a happy brain. Mission impossible. But someone had to make the home safe and no adult took on the task, so you did. And you did the best a child can do to accomplish mission impossible.
As you can see by reading your mother’s words, you failed all these years to.. silence that very loud silence wall in her home. You failed because any child/ daughter would fail.
We will talk more about this, for as long as you want to.
anita
anitaParticipantDear Saje:
“Why did I speak up? Because I am important“- Yes, you are! You are important, and I am glad you spoke up!
“I made the decision to put myself first. To remind myself that I am important as much as anyone else. I deserve to be seen, to be heard and to be celebrated“- beautifully articulated!
“I spoke to my sister about it. She said I was asking too much“- I disagree with your sister.
“I am a middle child and without a doubt I have the middle child syndrome. Growing up I never received the attention, care and love that I wanted. Everything felt so conditional“- it may be that your sister and perhaps your other sibling.. and maybe parents, all got used to not giving you the attention that you need, sort of in that habit…?
(We communicated for a short while back in July 2021 in your first thread, by the way).
anita
October 26, 2023 at 10:03 am in reply to: Telling the difference between gut and fear in relationships #423761anitaParticipantDear Seaturtle and hatchling:
You are welcome!
“I read something on a different forum platform… when I said “my body’s learned response to love… the real solution is to actually unlearn my body’s learned response to love… I was referring to this idea of training my brain to put receiving love into a non-danger category”-
– I think that I get it now. I was perplexed yesterday in regard to the idea that love can be perceived as danger. Here is what I figure:
This is what you wrote about your father: “if I wasn’t doing things to his standards I received a very cold version of him, versus his warm personality when I was doing something he defined as efficient and effective” (Oct 10).
At one point on, in your child’s mind, these two versions of your father mixed, so when he gave you his very cold (angry, disapproving) version, you felt badly, and when he gave you his warm (affectionate, approving) version, you felt either a mix of good and bad, or you just felt badly.. or indifferent. But you didn’t feel good because his very-cold-version was pre-imprinted in your brain Fast forward, when someone gives you love, in your mind, you are experience the mix that you received in childhood.
And so, it is not love that you are rejecting, but the mix of love and disapproval/ anger.
“I fear that if I allow people closer than an arms distance, they will see behind my mask and be disgusted and reject me“- from one point on, when your father gave you his warm version, you knew it was only a matter of time before he gives you his cold version, and because a parent is a figurative mirror to the child, you figured that he was only reacting to.. two versions of you: the Approved Version (the mask) and the Disapproved Version (underneath the mask).
“My question is this, Is my brain defending me from love?“- no, the brain defends itself from anger and disapproval, not from affection and approval.
“I will have to get to know hatchling more…“- yes, get to know her more. It will make a huge, positive difference in your life!
anita
anitaParticipantDear Stacy:
“Considering how much we talked about wanting to have our own spaces. We even joked about getting excited over buying our own dish cloths someday”- you talked and joked but didn’t do anything, ex., you didn’t buy dish cloths.
“I’ve been crying so much again over him lately”- crying over a lot of talking that felt good. I am mentioning the difference between talk and action in the hope that it will hurt you less if you see that what you lost was.. talk and how good that talk felt. But practically, your life post breakup is the same as it was pre-breakup.
“I think I am going to just have to accept that the pain is here to stay until further notice. That’s all I can do, just let myself hurt without making myself feel bad about it, no matter what anyone else has to say about my process“- excellent resolution! Accepting hurt (and other feelings) instead of feeling badly about.. feeling them, lessens the hurt. You should not have others’ judgment about your hurt be added to your pain.
Above and in earlier posts, I repeated the Talk vs Action Factor, hoping that it will lessen your hurt, but I didn’t yet succeed, and that’s okay. Instead of repeating this factor again, I let it go, and I accept that you feel the hurt you feel for your reasons, and that you are entitled to hurt about the breakup for as long as you do and at the intensity that you do.
“I just hope something eventually clicks for me and the pain will lessen someday“- I copied, pasted and read this part after writing the above (this is how I answer posts, copying, pasting, reading & replying before I copy, paste, etc., the next part). So, when you wrote in this part that you hope “something eventually clicks“, I thought about me repeating the factor above, which did not click, and that’s okay.
“Letting myself just imagine not crying over him and hurting so much constantly would be a win for me. And like you said, proving to myself that my life has value to keep going“- I hope that this happens for you… but (in accordance with the Acceptance Factor (accepting feelings as they are), I will not pressure you in any way to feel any differently than you do and for as long as you do.
“I got a car update today. The repair bill stands at $700 so far… Also, a few months ago I noticed a small pea-sized like ‘ball’ in the right side of my neck… now it’s at least twice that size as I just noticed it again today at work…. and have an appointment scheduled for December – the earliest they could see me. My consultation alone is going to be $220. It’s impossible to save money like this“-
– the cost of health care in the US, for way too many people, including myself, is horrendous, and there is shortage of medical staff, the reason for late scheduling. I hope that you keep your stress level as low as possible and that you are physically okay.
anita
anitaParticipantDear Milda:
You are very welcome. “It will be hard now to start living, thinking, talking differently..“- it will be a struggle but you can succeed, one day at a time. Most likely you will find yourself, again and again, doing for others, or agreeing to do for others because the behavior you are trying to change is an old habit. Changing a habit like this requires time and patience with yourself because the progress you make cannot be linear, as in: from now on, I behave differently all the time. It will be a stop and go process, going reverse and then forward. Over time and practice, your new behavior will be a new habit.
“Anita, as you seem a very intelligent and wise person, maybe you know some good books/podcasts/youtube videos regarding this topic that I am struggling with? Setting boundaries, how to stop being the care-giver to others, start to live my own life?“-
– (1) I repeated your words about me seeming very intelligent and wise because it makes me feel nice to read these words.. hmm, I hardly ever read or hear such words said about me (I suffer from significant case of ADD, and in-person, when talking to people, I am less intelligent than most), so, thank you for this experience of reading your words this morning.
(2) One reason I do not read books or listen to podcasts etc., is my ADD, it is difficult for me to remain focused on what I read/ hear, especially when what I read/ hear is not articulated in the simplest, clearest, most direct way. I didn’t read a single book, including self-help books for more than a decade, and I never listened to podcasts or You tubes on mental health issues. (The format of these forums allows me all the time I need to rearrange what I read and process the information, so it works well for me).
(3) About how to be “Setting boundaries, how to stop being the care-giver to others, start to live my own life?“-here is what I suggest: next time you find yourself automatically saying or doing (or thinking about) something in accordance to the old habit, apply the following strategy which I termed NPARR:
Notice (that you are thinking about doing for others, or you just offered someone to do for them, then Pause: let’s say you just told someone on the phone that you will help her with X. To pause would mean to tell that someone that you need to get off the phone right there and then, and will call her back in ten minutes or so.
Next, Address the situation: is X reasonable for you to offer (sometimes you will want to help other, and maybe this is one of these times that helping another makes sense). Or is X not reasonable to offer, and offering it was driven by the habit you want to change.
Next, Respond-or-not: say and/ or do something or not. Let’s say you thought about offering help (you didn’t offer it yet), you Paused, Addressed the situation and decided to not offer help. In this case you do not respond (you don’t offer help, you don’t help). Let’s say you offered help already, on the phone, you Paused (got off the phone), Addressed the situation and decided that X is not reasonable. Next, you Respond: you call her back and tell her that you take back the offer. You can tell her why (that you are trying to change your habit, etc.) or give her another reason.
Lastly, Redirect: think or do something else, move on to another topic.
What do you think about this strategy?
anita
October 25, 2023 at 1:25 pm in reply to: Telling the difference between gut and fear in relationships #423740anitaParticipantDear Seaturtle: I will read and reply by Friday.
anita
anitaParticipantDear n2life:
You are welcome. I am glad it was not a major stroke and I hope that you are keeping your dally life as stress-free (or stress less) as possible..! Please do keep making progress and post here again whenever you feel like. I will read and answer whenever you do.
anita
anitaParticipantDear DC:
“This building manager, call her Bella, asked for her contractor to go up to my unit because of a leak to a family unit below. I allowed her contractor to my unit and did not think more than that. Three weeks later, Bella give me a bill for $2,500 and said that I urgently need to pay the bill. No forewarning, nothing. I checked with the regulator and it is against the law for her to interfere with my private property, without my consent”-
– If there was a leak from your unit to an apartment below, I suppose the leak should have been fixed. Is the bullying you are referring to about (1) the contractor entering your apartment so to fix the leak, or (2) Bella presenting you with the bill?
anita
October 25, 2023 at 11:15 am in reply to: Telling the difference between gut and fear in relationships #423732anitaParticipantDear Seaturtle:
“Yesterday morning, after reading the posts on this forum, I attempted a conversation with hatch. I told her I wanted to hear her, to come forward and I would not turn her away“- good job, Seaturtle!
“I am acting in a Play right now, a Shakespeare, it is my first time acting on a stage with other talented actors and people having to pay to come see it“- C o N g R a T u L a T i O n S ! ! !
“Last night… hatch was desperate to feel accepted by the group I am working with… I thought the answer to all this was to ignore it, but now I think maybe I have just been ignoring hatch?“- yes, do not ignore hatch. Continue to pay attention to how she feels, and when she feels anxious, comfort her. Take good care of her, according to what she needs at any one time.
“I read about how important a parents consistent love is to our self esteem, and feel my hatchling was insecure about love”- she needs you to love her consistently.
“By allowing hatchling to surface, is it typical for insecurities to arise?“- yes.
“I truly thought they were solved but maybe I was just ignoring hatchling and the real solution is to actually unlearn my body’s learned response to love and learn to see how others do care about me? I often feel my friends don’t care about me and do things without considering me .. and this is all being directed at N! what do you think about this?“- I am not clear about what you are asking here. Can you rephrase it clearly?
“I will look into ‘healing your inner child’ books“- don’t forget the workbooks which provide you with practical opportunities to communicate and interact with hatchling .
“Do most people just walk around with their inner child in a tamed cage?“- part of maturing is taming (effectively and kindly parenting) the inner child, so to not act impulsively when thoughtful action is the right thing to do, etc.. It’s the over-taming/ the imprisoning of the inner-child that is the problem.
“Will hatchling always be in a naïve insecure state? or can she be a mature (inner) child“- the inner child stays the same (remember there is no Past for her: it’s always Present). It is the adult part of you that is able to perceive Past vs Present; it is the part that’s responsible for maturing, and it needs to guide, help and love hatchling, so that together you will have the best life experience that’s possible for you.
“Although I have work to do I feel like I just saw through a huge wall I felt was blocking me. I am eternally grateful to you! and myself!“- You are welcome and thank you!
anita
anitaParticipantDear Stacy:
I am fine, thank you, Stacy. Good to read back from you!
“I always found it hard to understand why he hadn’t moved out by now, even to just a tiny apartment outside of the small, utopian retirement town he lived in because he made decent money compared to his expenses… Near the end of our relationship, he revealed he wasn’t even working completely full time at his main job anymore and was actually making more money housesitting on the weekends. I found that odd and wondered why he had chosen less hours. I say all that to say that perhaps he really was not in a place to actually want to move any time soon, even if he felt like he wanted to in theory“-
– in practice, we most often choose the easier option. For him, it was easier to live with his parents than it was to move out. It is easy to talk about what we’d do in theory; it is difficult to do. I figure that he hasn’t moved out of his parents’ home because it has been easier to stay, and that he chose less hours because.. it was easier.
“I definitely can’t imagine being someone not filled with shame or guilt or crippling insecurities“- do not underestimate the power of the imagination: give it a try.. Please do IMAGINE being someone filled with a sense of having some power over your life, of making your own choices as a resourceful, capable person!
anita
anitaParticipantDear Milda:
You are welcome.
“I had a very chaotic childhood, my father had serious drinking problem, so mother was always thinking on the next step, most of the time tired, scared or just with thoughts floating somewhere else… I had a need inside to always solve their problems, so that maybe then I can live in a happy, stable and calm family with happy parents… what I do all day is thinking of others, feeling what they feel, thinking on how I can cheer them up, which advice I should give… This high sensitivity helped me to go through my childhood, to get parents love, but now this high sensitivity doesn’t serve me, it exhausts and I feel as I have never lived my own life, because I had to think of others and help them live their life“-
– I quoted all of the above because you articulated it so well, excellent awareness of the problem.. one that I can relate to, being that my childhood was chaotic too and my focus growing up was on my mother. I didn’t live my life (in my mind).. I lived her life. This became a habit and all through my adulthood, until most recently, I didn’t live my life. The frustration of not living my own life has been intense. It still frustrates and angers me, the concept of not living one own’s life, as in not being the central character in your own life, but a side character, one on the outside looking in.
As a child, I was powerless in real-life terms and my existence depended on my mother: her choices, her moods; and so my focus was on her. Fast forward, as an adult, I did/ do have real-life power, but in my mind, I didn’t. In my mind, I was still powerless, and therefore I focused on others.. mistakenly believing that everyone else has the power that I don’t.
My advice: (1) Exercise power over your life every day, in small ways and in big ways, gradually, patiently. it can be in as small a way as in how you choose to fold your laundry: do it your own way, the way that makes sense to you. (2) Expect distress in the process: your compulsion (habit of the mind) is to focus on others. When you practice otherwise, it will feel uncomfortable. You will have to talk to yourself when uncomfortable, telling yourself that discomfort is expectable. Then calm down and persist in practicing the new behaviors that are about practicing as much (ethical) power over your life as is possible for you.
anita
October 25, 2023 at 9:15 am in reply to: dealing with someone who doesn’t deal with their emotions #423727anitaParticipantDear Danielle:
“If you have any ideas, I am all ears to try them! He is kind, but he is a stubborn person, as well. (as we all can be) so I don’t want to push and it blow up in my face”-
In your original post, you wrote: “My boyfriend and I have a very different way of dealing with problems. I face them head on, and he funnels them down until they eventually boil over – often times rather chaotically.. every single day, he brings this home with him and in some way, takes it out on me“-
– Make a rule: every single day when he gets home from work, he has to take a hot (or cold) shower- before or after he eats- and lie down for 20 minutes, listening to his choice of calming music. If you are home/ when you get home, add a relaxing massage to this 20-minute practice while work stuff is NOT discussed at all.
anita
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