Anita, Thank you.

Hoping to get better but for now the cough is really tiring.

It amazes me too, even now when my day is almost finished and it’s 1:20 your time.

Have a good day, Anita 🙂

I do have some oranges in my kitchen, I will definitely eat one in the morning.

I am not that good, had a fever last night and the cough is tiring me. New Year’s Eve in bed, I guess.

Anita, thank you for being so thoughtful.

My friend is also sick, her mother and sister too, and I saw them on 26th.  I feel very tired and had a slight fever. Tried to go to sleep early but I couldn’t fell asleep. Good I can work from home!

Very pleasant to read you were thinking of me. I was thinking about you too today at work. (I read your post about 3pm.)

Sending smiles 🙂

Anita,

How exciting! The snow is completely melted this Christmas Day morning and I can do my usual walk later on, yeah!

What a great news 🙂 Enjoy your day!

thank you. I too am grateful that you are here and I admire your wisdom, particularly in the context of the two of us having such very similar and unique (not in a good way) mothers.

Your welcome 🙂

I think that the idea that healing=feeling nothing when past abuse is remembered or imagined, is not an idea that makes any sense. Not feeling anything in this context is a result of dissociation, not of healing.

That’s interesting. I always thought healing, releasing from trauma would be when I am able to feel nothing when thinking about painful memories. And I always feel guilty I cannot process it that way.

this very thought I just italicized does get triggered when I am given advice by members- when I didn’t ask for advice.

In that case, good that you shared it with me.

a good therapist will not give the patient/ client advice (give the patient answers to his/ her questions), but help the patient reach her own answers. Unrequested advice/ answers is a turn off to many people, making people feel … not trusted to be able to answer their own questions.

I rarely give advise as I rarely.. came up with any..  but that is good to know as well

 it’s like we have the SAME mother: paranoid, eager to defend herself against imagined accusations.

I can hear my mother, in my mind’s ear, saying in this context (and I know that my mother is not identical to yours, although very similar): you think that I am stupid? that I don’t know what you are trying to do, trying to fool me, to trick me, to ridicule me… well, it is you who are a Big Nothing, a Big Zero…. (very elaborated)….!

The paranoid is such a mystery to me. I was taught to assume, we both were, from our mothers, but the difference is we know they’re not our thoughts, but theirs (like in my assumption of my colleague’s intentions – I know it’s my mother’s voice, it’s my habit, but it’s not my inner voice, not my thoughts. The difference is my mother (your mother too) believes it, as you once mentioned, Anita, quite recently (“the paranoid believes”). Because she invents those thoughts, she is the source of those thoughts and has absolutely no doubts about them!

I feel such a relief since I do not have explain things to her. I used to justify people’s actions so many times to her.. “no, I don’t think she/he meant that” “she/he probably didn’t do it on purpose” I always felt like she sees the world/people differently but couldn’t fully understand what it is exactly that is wrong with her. One time she went to the place where you can extend the contract for internet at home and she told me the guy was very talkative, nice, she was excited as he gave her so many good offers and seemed like she was excited about just talking to him. Next day she went to sign the contract and she didn’t… she told me “I went today and looked, he barely saw me.. and I thought: ‘what, does he not like me anymore?’” It was then that I realized something is very wrong with her.. As in she didn’t understand it was this guy’s job to give her offers, he was probably talkative, in a good mood, yes, but what he was doing was his job! And she wanted to sign this just because..it was so fun to talk to this guy. I still can’t fully understand this situation, it happened more.

I always wondered about my mother’s silent treatments, starting in the evenings or nights (after a raging episode), with her sitting all alone in the dark, serious expression on her face, looked like being in a dark mood… silent for days, gradually returning to normal until the next rage and silence.

I also see my mother’s face, her face expression.

gradually returning to normal

Yes, this gradual…process of slowly returning. First she could speak one word, a quiet word as she was still not able to ..fully speak to me. As if she had real trouble speaking! Then she would for example offer me a dinner but still in neutral voice, but I already knew she was “coming back”. But I knew I couldn’t be too much excited, I also acted neutral, responding quietly but politely. Then after couple of hours, maybe next day she fully “recovered” from silent treatment, was fully herself, smiling, happy, talkative, bringing me clothes or baking cakes.

During silent days my life was on pause. I did not exist. I was there, but I wasn’t ..alive. I cried, I used to go somewhere just to let time pass and get through this somehow, until she speaks to me again. When I was somewhere, at the cinema or with some people, all I could think was..my mother. Sometimes I realized how ridiculous it is, I thought “I bet not one of those people is now thinking about their mothers like I do, having only one wish to happiness -her speaking to me again”

it is only in the last few days that I reacted better when asked how I was feeling, being more aware that I was projecting my- my-mother’s suspicions into other people.

Good 🙂 I wish you more of those moments. I am happy whenever it happens, when I can overcome this feeling. I tell myself: I am different, I was only taught to make those assumptions but I am lucky I am not paranoid like her!

 I was angry at the time, angry with you for still living with her, and out of that anger, I wrote to you what I shouldn’t have. I apologize, it was insensitive and obviously, it only increased your shame. I regret it. Since sometime after that time, I am careful to not reply to members when I feel anger or annoyance.

I appreciate it, Anita, thank you. I know I wasn’t honest with myself, I couldn’t see the truth. I was justifying why I still lived with her, explaining myself when the truth was I just couldn’t move, I was stuck. I was afraid of her reaction, afraid how I manage by myself, me, a slouch. Other people started families and build houses, they worked in big companies, but not me, it was not for me. When I got a job in 2016, a good job, not great well paid but very good for start and then I quit because of my nervous ticks, she said to me “you’ll find something else maybe.. maybe not that good, but something. cleaning maybe” – meaning I got this job by chance, did not fully earn it, it just happened to me, I was lucky. Next time when I look for a job will probably get whatever I deserve which is..something much less. How could I believe in myself that I can move out, work and pay rent? Be my own person, when I always “needed” my mother? I was not honest to admit that to myself.

Happy I got away from this mindset. I am so good at being my own person now.

my mother told me she loved me no matter how bad I was. And she did a lot for me, for example, she took the bus and walked a long way for no other reason but to buy me my favorite cake, … If it was love that motivated her, it was a very, very short-sighted, temporary kind of love, one that evaporates whenever she got suspicious of me, which happened way too often.

I read about love bombing in narcissistic abuse and it fit perfectly in my case. Also I think the purpose of this was to convince me (and herself) how good of a mother she was. There were times I thought she loved me (still confused about it) but I was always disappointed when she changed after couple of days, and wasn’t so sure about this anymore (her loving me).

 I was not at all planning to get her into trouble for hitting me, I am sure of it (I was being hit at the time!). In her mind, I was the villain who had an evil plan to hurt her.

Again, a mystery to me how the paranoid’s mind works. Maybe her own thoughts from the time she was being hit as a child, but still, not being able to doubt at least – if this is real or made up by her sick mind.. Part of me feels sorry for them, for seeing the world they way they see it, never knowing how people can be good, kind, without hidden agenda.

Anita,

You are not responsible for my projections into other people  (I am less likely to project my mother into you than I am likely to project her into other people!). What I heard was not you talking… I heard her talking.

I appreciate this and thank you.

Please take you time, I know it’s a long post.

Merry Christmas, Anita!

Anita,

but you are good with words, in my experience of reading your words.

Thank you 🙂

I have a long, long history of struggling with words, as in: what to say (or type), what words not to say..  what didn’t I say (what did I forget to respond to) but should have; going over my words in my head to detect wrong words, or missing words.

I too, struggle with words and I understand you very well. I sometimes delete words when I think they are too much.. not appropriate. Re-living conversations thinking what I should have (not) said. Not a good habit, I guess.

I am making progress on this matter, but I still struggle. For example, only a moment ago, when I read the beginning of your post before last, where you wrote: “Anita, thank you“, I thought to myself (with some distress), paraphrased: Joanna said “thank you” at the beginning of her post, but I didn’t start this post with “you are welcome”! Did I say “you are welcome” in my last post yesterday? I should check to see if I did!

Please do not worry about this. Nothing bad will happen if you do not respond to something or use wrong words. I appreciate your posts very much and I am not critical of them.

What is this all about? It is about my mother policing my words, accusing me of words I said and words I didn’t say and should have said, accusing me of intentions that I did NOT have when I said this word or the other word, accusing me of purposefully not saying what I should have said, etc.

Most people are not like your (and my) mother. Not judgemental, not accusing of bad intentions. I say this to myself too and I think it’s good to remember.

*I noticed (as I often do when I write about my mother) that right above, I used the present tense: “It is about my mother…”- I didn’t have any contact with her for nine years and yet, her mental representative in my brain is still policing my words.

Do you sometimes use past tense when talking about difficulties related to your mother’s abuse?

As far as words of affection, like using “precious” in regard to you, that felt awkward, uncomfortable, but it doesn’t feel as uncomfortable now, to use it… precious Joanna (see? I used it again and … I feel fine!)

Thank you for your honesty! I really like this word and I am happy you wrote it to me and that you are more comfortable with using it 🙂

good, remind yourself of this repeatedly, as you walk in the park, and at other times.

I will!

“‘Children…  maintain that this psychological defense mechanism—known as dissociative amnesia”...I remember thinking ‘That’s why I have so little memories from childhood’“- I read the same thing and thought the same thing. 

we are very much alike and also have similar realizations 🙂

I can relate (not surprising). I had trouble myself putting together into one person the two extreme images of my mother: the cold, cruel, angry, hateful one… and the warm, kind, affectionate .. seemingly loving one. Which one was my mother? And consequently, who am I: If she is the hateful one, then I am her victim; if she is the loving one.. then she is my victim.

I remember thinking not too long ago: if my mother was always bad, consistently bad (cruel, hateful, etc.)- my life would have been so much easier because I would have known she was bad and I would have completely stayed away from her, not having her in my life at all. But because of the mix.. I was a mess, didn’t know who is whom and what to do.

That is exactly what I was thinking.. Seemed to me I realized much later than I should..that my mother is in fact abusing me. I resent myself for it. I had those thoughts in early childhood, yes, that I hate her and she is evil, but once my parents got divorced and she started talking about my dad’s drinking, how it was “impossible to live with that men” I was so gaslighted, more and more each day, because I started spending more time with her – living with her only. One time my dad came to visit me and she started yelling at him, he was just sitting here and listening. I started crying and she told him “see what you did to a child??!” and he.. didn’t know what to say, he was silent. I knew I was crying because she was yelling but I didn’t tell her that, I .. knew I had to play her game: that I cry because he came here, because I saw him. But I knew that wasn’t true. What she did to my mind is terrifying to me!

another aspect of same mother= same daughter experience… it is amazing how much of us is formed as a result of our childhood (aka formative years) experience with our mothers.

Nothing more to add here. I agree, it’s amazing. I sometimes wonder am I similar to some of my ancestors, grandparents? Who am I, what would be my talents etc if it wasn’t for the abuse shaping most of my personality.

– both our mothers were very fragile, unstable, unpredictable, suspicious, paranoid.. quick to detect anger when there is none, and react angrily: accusing, persecuting… and the persecuted smiles so to.. not further disturb the one already so very disturbed.

Sad truth.