Dear farnaz:

And I apologize for misspelling your screen name: I thought it was far maz, but it has been .. far naz all along? I will read and reply in about ten hours from now.

anita

Dear farnaz:

This will be a long reply. First, I will respond to the content of what you shared like I usually do (quoting you and commenting), and I will share parallel personal experiences from my growing up years. Later, I will respond in regard to the anger exercise goal.

“I’m so, so sorry for misunderstanding“- it’s okay to misunderstand. I misunderstood many, many times and I will still misunderstand, maybe even in this post (please correct me if and where it happens). You apologized for misunderstanding “so, so sorry”)  because, as a child, you were criticized and maybe even punished for misunderstanding.. or the consequences for misunderstanding were not proportional?

“You know my style is different“- I respect and welcome your style!!

About the scene you described: “something happened. I don’t remember exactly, but I know the reaction of my family was not proportional to the situation, that was awful“- this immediately brought a memory to my mind: I was in elementary school, something happened in school, but I have no memory of what happened. What I do remember is my mother’s disproportional reaction: she showed up to the school and made a very big scene (she screamed and almost beat up a teacher and all the students were watching, it was awful).

“I remember my mom was so angry and my brother told her why you bring her (me) in this world after all!!!“- again, I can’t help but compare this to my memories: my ANGRY mother, SO ANGRY (at me and at others at different times). I didn’t grow up with older siblings, nor did I have a brother, but my mother herself expressed, in many ways and many times, that it was not a good thing that I was brought into .. her world, her bad luck, she said.

“They were brutal, I remember my dad was not exactly defending me, but was not as aggressive as them“- by “they” I figure you are referring to your mother and brother. It is my experience too, growing up, that the source of aggression in my personal life were woman (my mother and an aunt), and not a man (my father who lived away as they divorced, but visited and uncles).

“I cried for hours“- I remember one time crying so much that looking in the mirror, my brown eyes turned blue. It doesn’t seem possible, right? But I looked carefully at the time, in the mirror, and I was certain my eyes were blue. It made me stop crying and feel full of wonder because I always wanted blue eyes.

“I had a puffy face next morning when I went to school, and my friend noticed and asked me about that. I didn’t say anything to her. Now that I look back, I think I believed them and that situation made me so miserable, I felt worthless“- my crying for hours and the puffy face were about… finding out that I was worthless. It’s a devastating discovery. It is an emotional dagger to the heart.

“I felt worthless, but not completely. I think even at that time, I realized something is not right about the reaction“- I can easily relate. I found out that I was worthless, but not completely. I knew something was wrong about my mother’s behavior.. her disproportional over-reactions and other behaviors.

“I could forgive my mom more easily but my brother was so cruel“- you shared earlier: “my mom.. put all of us down, she turned me and my siblings against each other“. Seems like your brother reacted to her doing that by joining her when she turned against you, so to be on her side, to please her and gain her approval.

“my brother was so cruel, actually he has not changed that much“- this is telling me that your mother quite consistently and repeatedly turned her children against each other, so much so that (in his 40s, I figure and with his mother no longer alive), your brother is still trying to gain her approval by… being cruel.

“I think seeing that kind of cold behavior from my mother  made myself insensitive  and cold to others too. I realized a lot of stuff I say to people is too direct and hurtful“-

– you asked and shared earlier in regard to other people in your life: “I encounter too many bad people in my life… Have you ever thought: if I can’t trust my family, who I can trust then?… my inner thoughts were confirmed, PEOPLE ARE OUT TO GET ME , NOBODY IS TRUSTWORTHY“- like you, I projected my experience with my family (the social group I was born into) to ===> society at large. My mother was not trustworthy, she was out to  get me===> people out there were not trustworthy and out to get me. You used BIG PRINT in this quote because the lesson (that your family members were out to get you and were not trustworthy) was indeed printed big in your brain.

* I learned over many years, that although there are lots of people who are bad and not trustworthy, all the people that I personally encountered in my life, were not as bad and untrustworthy as my mother has been to me. My chances of encountering people who are significantly better than my mother are much higher than my chances of encountering people who are as bad or worse than her. In other words, the greater society in my personal life has been so far, way, WAY better to me than my mother has been.

“Now that I look back, if I could talk to my mom, I would say you F up , what kind of mother would say that, do you think blaming me and somehow separating yourself from me because of  my imperfections makes you a superior person and good mother????“- I am guessing that she saw in you things she didn’t want to see in herself and that enraged her. Maybe (this is just a guess) she saw in you a weak part of herself that she hated, so she tried to … eradicate that part in her by proxy, meaning, she tried to eradicate you (in some ways), so to eradicate that part in her.

And now, in regard to the anger-exercise: when you typed the above paragraph, were you sitting down? Perhaps you want to stand up straight with your head held high and repeat the above out loud, with a strong, confident voice, and add to it, if more occurs to you…?

anita

Dear Farnaz:

Thank you for wishing to give me a hug, I wish to hug you back! I will read the rest of your post and reply Sun morning, in about 10 hours from now.

anita

Dear Farnaz:

As I read the beginning of your post: “thank you for your kind… accurate (words)… give you a hug.. but“- I felt good about you saying that my words/ my understanding was accurate. When I read the “but“- I felt as if you were about to tell me how I was NOT accurate, take away your compliment about my words being accurate, and that you were going to take away the virtual hug. It was as if the idea that my words can be accurate and appreciated as such is … too good to be true. Whatever I said to my mother (as a teenager) when I tried to bring things to her attention so to improve HER life (and our relationship)- she rejected as INACCURATE. She was vicious in how far she went to “prove” that I was Wrong, Wrong… and again, Wrong.  And so, I expected you to do what my mother did. This is what I mean by projection.

I kept reading, and to my pleasant surprise, your “but” was about sharing about signing a lease on an apartment and moving out from the house where you once lived with both parents: C o N g R a T u L a T i O n S !!!

“It’s exciting and sad at the same time, but more exciting. I feel this is the end of an era… I think the change of place can truly help me“- The End of an Era. I like that, and I can see how the move will indeed help you!

“I hope you are having a good day too“- interestingly, I had a very good day yesterday because the weather was the nicest it has been in a long, long time, and I took a long, brisk walk under the bright, warm sun.

“She was very critical, as you can imagine, and close minded, I couldn’t be honest with her, I didn’t talk about stuff that happened to me because even though maybe she didn’t blame me in that moment, she would use it against me later FOR SURE“- when my mother started a Rage Attack, she brought up everything I allegedly did wrong from the beginning of time, so to prove that I was indeed Wrong, Wrong… and again, Wrong. In general, I remember her talking A LOT (to her sisters/ others, mostly on the phone, and to me as an audience, her talks were monologues). Even if I wanted to talk, there was no space for my talk, and she never asked me questions about my thoughts and my feelings, not that I remember.

“She was educated and she put so much pressure on us to study and once she called my sister a slut because she had a bad grade“- my mother used that word too, in regard to other women, including in regard to my younger sister, when my sister was a teenager, repeatedly. And she greatly elaborated on that word for humiliation purposes.

“My brother…  I’m truly disappointed that he is closedminded and never listens to anyone, and he is lazy and unmotivated“- are you also disappointed and angry at him for being like your mother was: closedminded, never listening to you? And for being unmotivated to.. open his mind and truly listen to you?

“I know part of her rejecting me is actually not approving herself as good mother, I can only guess that applies to your mother too“- I didn’t quite understand this sentence. Can you explain it to me?

“But we don’t need their apology or acceptance anymore, do we?… we don’t need them to acknowledge that they were wrong“- better not need what you never got and never going to get (an apology that includes a sincere awareness and admission of them having been wrong for so very long).

“Have  you tried to talk to your mom about how she made you feel?“- yes, I did try to talk to her many, many.. many times, but she attacked me when I did, again and again… and yet again. My mother is constitutionally unable to look into herself and do so honestly . She used to literally cut off (in photographs) her head off. I remember being young, going over a photo album, photos of her family..  but her head was cut off in almost every picture, if not in every picture. I remember I asked her why, and she said that she is ugly. My mother would rather cut her head off than examine it.

“Or maybe you wrote about it to yourself?“- I did a lot of that, in diaries, which unfortunately she read and was angry, of course.

“And how did you feel after your own anger exercise here last time“- I felt a tingling sensation in my chest area and a surge of optimistic energy.

anita

Thank you for the note, Farnaz. Take all the time you need. (I will be away from the computer for the rest of the day).

anita

Dear Farnaz:

“I anticipate an attack from  people all the times… even when everything seems to be ok… I remember I was ten or eleven… I was telling my mom that when I was crossing the street the bus driver stopped the whole bus so I could go safely and I was so proud of it and my mom said it was because he realized that you are a stupid kid and he should be extra cautious with you…. she seemed fine that day“-

– (1) the result: anxiety is not limited to times when things seem not okay: it extends to times when things seem okay… no break from anxiety when the source of danger (“mother’s explosive nature“) is present. I took my breaks when she was not home, when I was alone,  daydreaming to music.

(2) you were proud of yourself, proud that the bus driver thought that your safety was important enough for him to stop the whole bus, just for you. Your mother’s response: to hurt that very pride you felt, to take the air out of that pride. (You were safe crossing the street that day but you were not safe telling your mother about it).

“I think (brother) is so afraid to admit (a wrong) because it’s like being wrong in everything in his life. I mean, when you question one thing, he feels I’m questioning his whole existence“- my mother was like that, this is why when I tried to communicate with her honestly (and no matter how gentle I was with my words so that she doesn’t get offended), if she detected that I was saying that she did anything wrong, her reaction was automatic:  attack! In her mind, I was attacking her, so she launched a counter attack.

I too felt that any criticism I received- from myself and from another- was a devastating criticism, as if all of me was criticized. It’s a reaction of a shame-based individual: any and every criticism is seen as evidence that the whole self, the whole being is criticized. (My reaction was to attack myself; I spent lots of time in self-torment).

“I’ve always thought my mom was a miserable person, there was always something wrong in her life, she hated herself as a woman, and she tortured my sister and I more than she did my brother… Now your mom telling you that she thought she was ugly is not strange at all , she didn’t like herself and she saw you as an extension to herself, so she didn’t like you either“-

– yes, they were both miserable and my mother too hated herself as a woman and she abused me and my sister. My 2011-13 therapist told me that he thinks my mother fit the borderline personality disorder diagnosis herself. Maybe your mother fit it too. About my mother seeing me as an extension of her (as if there is something that connects me to her), that doesn’t ring true to me because she expressed to me in so many ways that I was a STRANGER to her, no connection whatsoever. Or so I felt,

I am glad that the weather is sunny and very nice where you are at and that you get to jog today!

anita

Dear Farnaz:

Our experiences really are similar. In my daily communication with thousands of members since May 2015, it happened only twice before that I came across members whose mothers resembled my own so much: you are the third.

“I agree with you , I think my mom might had  BPD and a little bit of narcissism“- most often a person who fits the diagnosis of one personality disorder, also fits symptoms of other personality disorders. My mother: primarily Borderline and Histrionic.

“She also had experienced trauma from the past“- it takes serious trauma to lead to a person fitting the requirements of a personality disorder. My mother’s trauma included the death of her mother at an early age, an alcoholic abusive father, a sadistic older sister, an orphanage-like institution and more. Very sad. My trauma: … my mother.

“As my brother who refuses the therapy at all costs. It is sad and the only way I can see to handle that is distancing myself . I tried to help him but it’s pointless“- to get to and stay in therapy, a person has to be able and willing to risk being wrong about something. Otherwise, there is no fixing or correcting faulty thinking, which is what much of therapy is about.

“I read about BPD when I was diagnosed myself, that people with the disorder feel empty inside and try to preoccupy themselves with others’ attention, even if it’s negative. I feel they just want to influence people no matter in positive or negative ways“- they want power and. My mother wanted power over me because she felt too powerless otherwise.  I was her opportunity to feel powerful and it was exhilarating for her.

“You couldn’t be gentle enough, you weren’t supposed to even think they can be wrong, and I think it’s their strategy to silence any criticism with exaggerated anger to have an upper hand all the time“- I couldn’t have said it better. This very sentence that I quoted here makes me feel that you understand what I went through more than any person ever did.

“I was so closed off to people , honestly I still am but much less… I’m curious about your friendships from childhood till now, did you have problem having good friends. I know finding a good friend is hard but it’s much harder when you don’t feel safe in your home with your mom“- in elementary school, I think it was, a girl from my class visited me, but like anyone and everyone present in the apartment where I lived with my mother, she- my mother- would take center stage and talk with the guest exclusively (including with a child my age, at the time), and I would be on the side, a non-entity. In high school, I visited a girl from my class who told me that she was my friend and she meant it (it was exciting!). One evening, my mother was angry that I wasn’t home for a meal she prepared for me, so she walked to that girl’s apartment building, found us talking outside and walked me back to the apartment kicking and pushing me along (with her feet and hands), for a faster walk. The girl walked along, watching and hearing my mother insulting me. Sometime later, that same girl was angry at me in class and loudly said in front of everyone: I did you a FAVOR being your friend!

anita