For those of you asking, “how did he treat you badly?”, I have another example I would like to bring up to try to illustrate some of my struggle and what it looks like for me.

In that same dorm, I lived in a suite with 5 girls (each with our own room, shared a bathroom). Me and 2 other girls had lived there since fall quarter, and then partway through winter a new girl  moved in who was in the room directly next to me. She would chat and say hello to the other girls in my suite, but refused any social interaction with me whatsoever. A few times, I said hello and smiled, or tried to communicate about small things that needed to be addressed, like “do you know if maintenance has come yet today?” and she would just stare blankly as if I did not exist at all! If we were walking into the building at the same time, she would speed walk  to unlock the door first and then close it in front of me so I would have to unlock it again just to buy herself time to get away from me (this happened multiple times). This one time I was walking towards the library, and she noticed that we were going to cross paths, and she began talking loudly at her friend and turned around and walked away very quickly. There was another time I found myself standing next to her at the free-store on campus, and I said “oh hey” and she just stared blankly in front of her again. Around the same time, I noticed another girl on campus who just seemed rude to me out of the blue, which disappointed me because she was the head of a club I tried to join. Then I found out later they were best friends, and I thought “maybe that explains it”… It all happened too many times and too consistently that I don’t believe it was just coincidence.

But the point is, it seemed obvious to me that she was treating me differently than others. It was isolating. Now, this is an extreme example, but really similar in a lot of ways to how this other person ended up treating me as well. These things left me feeling undeserving and ashamed of myself.  I didn’t want much other than to just have people be okay with me. Not best friends or study buddies, I just wanted to be treated like a person.  It’s hard enough when you share a space, have class together, and it’s generally a small campus. There’s so much to figure out as it is.

The specifics if the incident seem less important to me at the moment. All the possibilities for why this person was uncomfortable are just a factor. I feel like I want to argue that I wasn’t some stranger, I was a classmate and peer in a class of 20 or so students. We had conversation in class before, I don’t know.

But I think what I am trying to talk about is about the general social “code”. What I think is:

Each person is responsible for their actions and how they treat the other. If you treat someone poorly, you’ve treated them poorly. In some cases that may be more justified, but it’s not that they “made you do it”.

Each individual is responsible for how they are feeling and setting their own boundaries in an interaction (even if it’s just some stranger on the bus).

There is shared responsibility in misunderstandings.

I can think of my own interactions with a classmate that made me uncomfortable. She talked a lot and made some pretty gross sounds eating in class. But in no way did I ever treat her less than or rudely because I felt uncomfortable. I didn’t see it or make it to be her fault for me feeling that way, it was something going on inside of me and my thing to deal with. If she wanted to talk after class, it was my job to say “I’ve got to get going, I’ll see you next Tuesday”. I didn’t want her to feel ashamed of herself just because I personally didn’t like her. I didn’t shun her, especially when I knew it was already difficult for her to be vulnerable. That’s the last thing anyone needs. Sure, I didn’t want to be friends with her, but she deserved my respect just as a fellow human being.

Well, I know we were both at least headed to our dorms, since it was right after class and we had walked into though the door to the building at the same time. But I am not even sure if that’s important. If someone engages with me for more than a couple minutes, I assume they are now an equally responsible for participating the conversation. If they didn’t want to talk for even a second, why would they stop in the first place? Why wouldn’t they just keep walking? It’s not like I am able to hold anyone captive by talking to them. I usually am trusting the other person to end the conversation whenever they want to, if I don’t end it first.

I guess I am confused, should I not say hello to my classmates when I see them outside of class, out of consideration for all the things they might potentially be doing or feeling? I don’t know, I feel like you are then asking me to be responsible for the other person’s feelings here.

I can think of many times when I was rushing somewhere, or just didn’t want to talk or interact, and I always felt very natural saying whatever it was that was needed to move on. Rarely was anyone asking me “Are you okay to talk right now? do you have time?”.

I am wondering what you think should have been done here. Was it that I shouldn’t have said hello in the first place? Or acknowledge to him that we live in the same building? Or that I needed to ask him for permission to say hello to him?

I was wondering, when I talked to him I asked him “why wouldn’t you just say you’re stressed/busy/have to go?” or a simple “see you in class”, I said that this would have made it a lot better for everyone.. he wouldn’t feel trapped and could get on his merry way, and I wouldn’t take it personally. He laughed at this, saying “it’s hilarious that you think anyone in the world owes you that”. Is that true?

hi anita,

…Isn’t this what you wanted from therapy all along?

I suppose so, yes. But it is true that I showed up with very little to work with. At the beginning, all I knew is that I felt lost, and did not know where to go from there. I have uncovered some more specific things about what I want since then. I still have a hard time knowing how I would want those things to become part of my life and what they would look like.

I find what you said about me wanting a mother to be very interesting.

..so quite angrily you are on a strike of sorts: you refuse to unpack, organize and clean. You will not do these things until your fantasy mother shows up

…This especially, I had never thought of it this way. I can see it as a way of “calling out for help”… that someone would see the mess and  be able to tell that something is wrong. I am not sure how conscious I am about the anger I feel around it, but I am open to thinking about it more that way.

When I think of the significance of having a mother around, I do not see it to have that much to do with the care taking.  I have thought about this before. I do not think I would be comfortable having someone do everything for me. I often feel quite guilty when things are done for me. My real mother did many house chores and would often use that to back up how much she cared, how she did everything for me, and how I just did not love or appreciate her despite her doing those things. I often did not like her washing my clothes or cleaning up my things. For example, I would hide my dirty laundry because I felt it was invasive when she would wash it for me. I would feel anxious when I realized she had come into my room and taken my laundry when I wasn’t there. I would try to wash clothes when she wasn’t home, and would even feel anxious about her moving my clothes from the washer to the dryer since I often did not get it done before she returned. I did felt appreciative under the nervousness and guilt, but never was fully comfortable with it. What do you think?

I imagine if I did have the fantasy mother around, I would feel as if I was living my life for her/she would give my life meaning. I worry this is the wrong way to feel, but also I have heard other people say their mother is their number-one driving force in their life. A guy I met told me that his mother is what keeps him in school and keeps him from doing self-destructive things because he loves her and would never want to disappoint her. He told me that seeing her love for him and all she had done for him made him value his own life.  Something like this is what I think about.

anita,

About my current therapist: He and I both have been feeling that we are nearing either a change or ending. We discussed yesterday the different modes of therapy that he uses depending on the client. It is possible for us to make a change from psychoanalytic therapy to something else that he is also trained in ( he mentioned EMDR, Gestalt, experiential). He shared that he took the psychotherapy route with me because I seemed most receptive to it. The problem here might have been that I have been directionless, and did not really know what I was looking to get from seeing him. I suppose I did not need to share all this, but the point is that the problem may be solved if I became clear on what I wanted from therapy.

On making a routine: I have made attempts at this recently. A few weeks ago, I set alarms on my phone throughout the day to remind me to do things. I have an alarm to get out of bed,  an alarm to exercise, and a morning and night alarm to clean up. So far I have ignored them all. Maybe sharing it here would make me more accountable.

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by ninibee.

hi again anita,

I have avoided talking about my real mother, and upbringing in general, because I have a lot of confusion there. My parents are fairly well off, and provided me with plenty throughout my childhood. From a young age, I can remember hating my mother. I found her repulsive and often outright rejected her. I am realizing that perhaps this fantasy is not new… As a child, I often wished my parents would divorce and that my dad would re-marry someone else. I do not know what this really says about her, though. This is still about me.

In my present life, I have a hard time connecting with my mother. A recent example is that I recently reached out to her because I wanted her help to pick out a  new winter coat. I knew that historically we rarely agreed things like this, but I thought I would give it a try. I asked her if I could send her some pictures of coats I like, and she said sure. When I sent them, she did not respond to any of them and only responded with coats she liked. If I tried to bring up the coats I liked, she would just ignore me. The way this worked out is: I ended up picking out a coat I knew she would like so that she would approve, even though I do not really like the coat at all. I realize this seems insignificant, but it is a good example of what confuses me about my mother.

Before I moved out of the house, we would argue almost every day. We eventually had it set up so that we agreed to rarely cross paths. I would stay in my room or the backyard, and only use the kitchen when I knew she was not around (this was determined mostly by sound, listening to when she left the house or closed the door to her room). Sometimes I even felt afraid to be in the backyard, because I did not want her to see me from the kitchen window. I felt very nervous and uncomfortable to be seen by her. I felt like I could not show any happiness or vulnerability around her. She never explicitly said  or did anything to make me feel this way, but I felt like she did not like me enjoying myself. It was easier to be ashamed and feel bad about myself somehow.

I do not understand her very much at all. I do not know what she wanted. She would tell me she always wanted a daughter, and that her heart was broken by my cruelty to her. I do not know if I was cruel, but I was definitely not nice to her, nor did I understand how to be nice to her. I tried to talk to her in various conversations to tell her how I felt. I tried to explain that I was being rude because I felt defensive. And she would ask “why do you need to be defensive?” and I would tell her that I felt hurt by her. Her response to this was always something like “I hurt you? You hurt me! You need to stop hurting me.” I think maybe she was incapable of understanding that she could hurt people, I don’t know. I eventually just felt completely hopeless about this, and I still see no possibility for change. I have learned that I cannot keep going back to her.

My fantasy mother is mature and can allow space for me. I imagine her to be dedicated to me. She unceasingly cares for me and I can rely on her. I am not dependent on her, but she is dependable… if that makes sense. I would not need to feel ashamed to go back to her for help or support, she would just be there without question. There is an unspoken understanding between her and I, she knows me so well that we do not even need to talk to communicate. She is not capable as seeing me as “bad” in any way. She sees the things I want as valid, and is simply supportive of them.

I mentioned previously that I imagine making dinner with her, this comes up a lot. I also think about going to the grocery store with her and meeting people. When she introduces me, I am seen as good and interesting. Her positive view of me helps me to be in the world.