Dear Moomin:

When we experience severe distress in childhood, unless as adults we aim at healing and proceed to heal from that distress best we can, we keep re-experiencing the same distress, as adults, over and over again.

* Here is your re-experiencing of your childhood distress at 46 (from your first post):

Your partner’s action: “I felt (current partner) had withdrawn a lot of affection“.

Your reaction: “I went nuclear! I was examining every action and word from her as a sign I was being rejected and that she was withdrawing. As a result I knew it would only get worse in my head and my behaviour would become so bad I would make myself unlovable and she would leave me. So I forced the issue of breaking up”.

* Here is your experiencing the original distress at 7 or 8  (in your most recent post):

Your mother’s action: “I would get upset and say (to your mother) ‘you don’t love me‘”. I know that you introduced the incident as if you were a manipulative child who copied behaviors she watched in running away movies, but I believe that what caused your upset was that your mother withdrew  affection from you (“you don’t love me”!).

Reaction is parallel to the above:

Then: “throwing a tantrum” => now: “went nuclear”.

Then: “I would get upset and say ‘you don’t love me, I’m going to run away!.. packed up a little rucksack”=> now: “I forced the issue of breaking up”.

Then: “I would get upset”=> now (the nature of the upset is detailed): “I was examining every action and word from her as a sign that I was being rejected and that she was withdrawing.. I  knew it would only get worse… she would leave  me”, “I get the feelings of utmost panic and fear as soon as I believe someone has rejected or withdrawn their affection…. I.. blame myself and my failings for the withdrawal of affection, go over and over things. I can’t breathe, my chest is tight”.

More, you wrote: “I had a very loving childhood”. I read this statement from many members here, over the years, only to find out later that it was not so. A child never thinks something like: oh, oh, my mother does not love me.. but I will be okay. No, a child panics at such thought and pushes such thoughts and feelings down underneath her awareness; she dissociates (“I don’t think I ever thought I wasn’t loved… I don’t remember feeling the panic”).

At 7 or 8, when you told your mother, “You don’t love me, I’m going to run away!”- it wasn’t a calculated, calm child that said that, planning to guilt-trip her mother so to get her “own way!”, such as getting a toy she wants, or expensive clothes. Your own way was about getting her affection back!

You told her that you wanted to run away because you wanted her to realize how badly you were hurting. But how did your mother react to your words and acts of desperation, did she “hear” you, did she see your pain?

No, she didn’t. She made it about her: “YOU’RE running away? I’LL run away”, “With the sentiment being she had more reason to run away, what with putting up with me”.

“All  this to me seems standard childish tantrum stuff”- no, it is not standard childish tantrum stuff, this is a girl panicking, a girl distressed, so much so that she keeps re-living that distress periodically “for 30 years.. I get the feelings of utmost panic and fear as soon as I believe someone has rejected or withdrawn their affection… I weep and wail and curl into a ball, blame myself and my failings”. This distress is the reason you “find it difficult to let someone in and truly be vulnerable to them… I have been living alone for so long that I find it difficult to let someone in”.

“every child will have had some sort of experience of feeling alone and afraid. Parents are human after all”- people are deeply flawed, and your mother was deeply flawed in the way she behaved with you. A young child is most accurate in perceiving a withdrawal of affection by her mother, so I believe that indeed she withdrew her affection from you in ways that were harsh and intended to cause you hurt.

“My first experience of ‘rejection’ was around the age of 17”- your first experience of Rejection was way earlier than that, and it was the experience of your mother rejecting you.

“she had a bank account called her ‘running away money’. It was in fact an old bank account from prior to her meeting my father. It was said in response to the (I think) common, petulant child protestation that I was going to run away from home”.

Let’s look at some online definitions of the word petulant: “unreasonably irritable or ill-tempered, rude in speech or behavior.. easily annoyed and complaining in a rude way”. I don’t think that you were a petulant child. I think it was the other way around: your mother was unreasonable, ill-tempered, easily annoyed and complaining in a rude way when she told her 7 or 8 year old (and probably repeatedly before and after that age) that she is prepared to run away from her own little girl.

It is almost unimaginable, isn’t it, that a mother, at times, intends to scare and hurt her child and proceeds to do so.

anita

Dear Moomin:

It took you less than 15 minutes to read my long post to you, to type a reply to it and submit it. This is too fast, too fast for anyone to consider what I brought to you (it took me a few hours to put together that recent post), especially considering the sensitive nature of the topic.

If you want to, if you are able and willing, take as long as it takes, and reply to me at another time, when you are calmer or in a more accommodating state of mind, accommodating to the aim of exploring, which is what you stated that you want to do (“How this feeling can be as a result of a childhood experience. This point I would like to explore”, your first post).

“I think the description seems a bit harsh on a parent who was probably tired…”- I am not here to harm your mother. I didn’t address my recent post to your mother. I addressed it to you. It is your life experience, in the context of relationships, that has been harsh, and it is your harsh experience that I am addressing and exploring with you, not your mother’s.

anita

* Dear Tim: Welcome back to the forums. If you want to criticize my input to Moomin- you have done the what it takes: you addressed me and proceeded to criticized my input to her. If you want to help Moomin, then address her and offer her your perspective/beliefs/ life experience without mentioning me and criticizing my input to her. Neither one of us needs more criticism in our lives when it is not necessary (you can fully express yourself to one member without criticizing another member).

anita

Hi Anita,

Thank you for your kindness, time and, insight over the last few days. I have found this helpful and comforting. I will continue to explore some of the ideas you have raised with me (particularly the mindfulness meditations) outside of the forum.

Wishing you health, peace and happiness

M

@Tim,

Thank you for your kind words to me.

Wishing you peace, health and happiness.

M