*so to be clear, i am not diagnosed with DID, i am experiencing the same symptoms like i wrote above.

Dear anita,

I had to manage 2 very stressful days and i didnt want to rush a new post out without taking the time thats needed to make it meaningful.

Thank you for researching and sharing your findings. I am now very much smarter than before!

For me personally, i felt like the word ,,objectifying” always had a strong emphasis on the idea of dehumanizing a person while not having to compare them to an actual object. This is not a critque in any way to how you understand it in any way, just an explanation about how i used it in the context.

Your experience about being seen, used and treated in this isolated and ,,fragmented” kind of way by your mother made me feel sick. I can also see correlations a lot of experiences of mine in that. I guess this process is what makes abuse what it is. From the perspective of the abuser there have to be parts of a victim that make the abuse ,,worth it” aside from sadism and the feeling of control. I think that by isolating aspects of the personality of a victim they try to control which parts they are presented with, or in short, its a process of conditioning the victim.

Going by what you wrote about your mother maliciously (re)inventing your existence, like your grades or your interest in boys, i feel like that was also an attempt of forcing a conditioning on you to change who you are to someone who would please her.

At least thats the impression i got. Maybe i projected my experiences of conditioning in this, i just see similarities to my life: my father screaming at me for hours for not being ,,good enough”, my mother supporting this by not intervening and making me feel like he was right, my first ex-girlfriend physically and verbally abusing me when i didnt do things she wanted me to do and my second ex hating me for not being able to save her.

I thank you also for your kind words regarding my values!

As i am diagnosed with DID relating to ptsd i am interested if you are as well, if you are okay with sharing about that.

I will ask my next potential therapist as you suggested.

If i may ask, you shared a lot about the process of trauma-related fragmentation or ,,breaking” of ones personality following trauma and your own steady progress of understanding this process as a part of your life. How are you generally doing in that regard? Do you feel like piecing yourself together while still generally trying to grow as a person will have an end? (At least speaking about yourself?) Or do you see it more as a life-long obligation to yourself, no matter if you are ever ,,finished”?

Ed

Dear anita,

after reading about the role of my primary caretaker i will have to think hard about what that means for me, like how many and which parallels there are.

Thank you for clarifying what i got wrong about your experiences. I just got the impression that your mother was kind of playing games with your feelings exceeding just hating or hurting you. Like you said in posts before, she would also use her mask/ persona to seem loving to you (good food, caring when you were sick) and then crush your hopes to enjoy your pain. By saying ,,becoming part of her anima” i was inaccurate, i thought more of her accepting you as a meaningful part of her life, not seeing you as a plaything. I guess one could see that as a push-pull dynamic? Which i guess made it even harder for you to think and feel straight. Ive experienced some similar situations so i was interested if these were comparable. If youre uncomfortable writing about this, please tell me of course.

Regarding therapists i sadly cant share anything specific, my next appointment will be with a specialist without web-presence. If you have general advice id like to hear your most important pieces.

I used to value my ability to be empathetic and to be brave enough to accept criticism and grow with it. I dont know if these were ,,good” values, but i was proud of them because i worked hard to achieve them. After being alone and secluding myself for most of my time in school i chose to explore my understanding of emotions to be a better friend for those who wanted to connect on a deeper level. Criticism used to make me feel like trash, but later i discovered that if i would better myself, i could feel proud of myself for growing. After my recent experiences in the relationship i kind of lost connection with those values, them feeling burnt out in all the confusion about myself.

Ed

Dear anita,

In my life i have been and still am needed a lot by different people, my mother included. While there is joy to be found in helping others its still a lot of pressure. As i said i dont want to need people, i want to want people in my life and i want to rely on them. Like when im asking for help i want to be supported and when im not asking for help i just want to feel accepted the way i am. If i really need people i have been hurt and disappointed so much that i realised that needing people can kill you. I want to need myself and i want to have people in my life that i can rely on, because ive run enough into knives you didnt know were there. I know this sounds kind of harsh, how do you feel about this?

How did you overcame your intense feelings of loss and pain regarding your mother? Acceptance as a process? Time?

I thank you for your offer to help me regarding finding a therapist. I dont really know what you mean by that?

You are right, i have trouble regarding meaning and purpose right now. Before i was content to just live and feel free and let the future and its challenges show me the way and enjoying the good things i had in my life. These days im struggling to find meaning in the things i experienced, in myself or future in general. Could you explain your thoughts about that topic a bit more?

I also have to add that my feelings and thoughts have changed over time. Especially since i found someone who was really interested in listening to me in a personal manner, not judging me and giving the most helpful advice and perspectives in years (you of course).

Ed

Dear anita,

I am sorry for venting so much. Answering your last questions just brought up a lot of feelings.

I hope i didnt digress from the things you wanted to talk about.

Ed

* i just loved the way she would laugh at dumb jokes. how she told me things would be okay when i had a bad day. how grateful she was when she didnt know what to do and i helped her out. i admired her bravery when she opened up about her past or moved on to change things about herself or her appearance.
she didnt make me complete or whole or happy by herself, but having her in my life just made me feel special and i was so grateful to have someone so ,,perfect” in my life and her saying she loved me.

Dear anita,

thank you again for writing so much.

,,you intellectually know that your sense of self worth, aka self-esteem, should be strong and healthy… but it is not.”
yes, this is true, depending on the context. i am not really struggling with low self worth/ self-esteem (i dont hate myself), its more like a constant state of confusion, if that makes a difference.

,,you are vulnerable when women/people treat you nicely, that you feel undeserving of it and all too willing to do whatever they want.. to overaccommodate them?”
yes i am vulnerable to that. while i dont really feel undeserving, i have observed myself being overly accommodating. i dont like this behaviour in me but again my confusion pushes me too often keep ,,indicators” of my worth in my life.

,,maybe she was .. nice to you in the first year, maybe she had reasons to be nice?”
i have thought about that a lot and it really hurts. in the first year i managed her through an intense depression and supported her finding a psychiatric clinic, a therapist and a new job while encouraging her to find new friends after she lost all of her old ones. i dont know how to feel or think about this question.

,,it reads like you grew up emotionally neglected or ignored; unattended to, unacknowledged either positively or negatively?”
yes, my childhood was physically and emotionally abusive, just like the relationship before this last one.

,,She knew that you suffered from depression and ptsd, and yet, she took the time to make a hate-list and hand it to a chronically depressed and traumatized person: this is her true face, her anima, post dropping her mask, her persona.”
this hurts bad right now.

,,I am sure that you had peaks at her true face way before she dropped her mask to such an extent that you noticed”
a therapist i saw recently asked me the same question. and yes i did get peeks at her anima before. it was just difficult to put these moments into perspective. for example in the first year she would talk with me about her jealousy and fear about me cheating on her, but that was fine with me because this showed that she reflected about herself and cared enough to talk about it in a respectful manner. but with the decline of the relationship these talks of reassurance slowly turned into straightup accusations when i wouldnt tell her beforehand that i was going to see friends or family on days we spent separately.

while i cant help feeling sad for what you went through in your personal struggles, i really admire the confidence with which you can talk about it now and share your insights. ,,I took it way less personally when other people didn’t pay attention to me, when they liked other people more than they liked me.” i also really admire how proud of you sound of yourself when i read this.

thank you for sharing the concept of persona and anima, it really helps putting impressions and experiences into perspective. this and your concept of the garden of eden are powerful metaphors i will keep in mind.

Ed

Dear anita,

Thank you for your input and taking the time to write so much. Just in case, dont feel pressured in any way to reply quickly.

I like your analogy with the garden of eden. Reading about your experiences and your perspective resonates with the things i experienced and it hurts like hell.

I will reflect on the blanket and my tinted vision in my past. I think i see myself in your words about not wanting to believe things you already know are true or false.

I will try following your suggestion about replacing blame with empathy. And you are right about not losing something that was never there.

Thanks again for being here and sharing about your own experiences, it really did help me to get a new perspective.

Hope you are doing well.

Ed