Hi Beni,

Yeah, still skating and I’ve done some hours of construction work.

Wow, it seems your back is pretty stable at the moment, since you don’t feel any pain even after doing construction work. I am happy for you! BTW is construction work something you’d like to do more of, like a hobby or even a full time job? (I am asking because you mentioned that you were doing construction work last year too, when your back injury originally happened).

Let’s hope for the best. True holiday’s coming. What do you have planned?

Going to the seaside 🙂 Swimming should help both with my back and my knee…

You know when adult’s say to kids that they are simulating? Like that. It feels distant, it does affect me cause of the self betrayal.

I often felt like this is made up and I’m in a way justifying something I should rather confront.

Hmm, not really sure I am following… Could it be that you have a bit of a trauma response (a freeze response) when interacting with your mother? And in those moments, you feel dissociated, and therefore it feels like you’re simulating it? As if it’s not happening to you, and you feel separated from it? (Sorry for not always understanding you at first and needing to ask for clarifications…)

I saw it very clear, the ambivalence between being my mum’s child and in a way father.

I would like to express myself. Affection, a hug.

Does being your mom’s child mean (in an ideal case) to show her affection, to give her a hug? But then you worry that she would misuse it and start “stealing” from you (i.e. selfishly meeting her own needs). Stealing empathy, while not showing any empathy for you?

And so you want to protect yourself by not expressing anything, i.e. by being emotionally cold and distant, a little like your father. Which you feel guilty about. But you don’t know how else to interact with her, because you are afraid that she would misuse your empathy, right?

It’s simple things in the household clean the kitchen. Mostly it is support.

It could be that you don’t want to help her because you believe she would misunderstand it and see it as your agreeing with her – as you showing her empathy? Which you don’t want to. Perhaps staying “rebellious” (not wanting to help) means staying independent? Maintaining your own identity and your own will, separate of hers?

If so, I am familiar with that attitude. There was a time in my adolescence when I didn’t want to help much in the household because I didn’t want to be seen as a good and obedient daughter – because that was the last line of defense against my mother’s attempt to fully control me. So by behaving in rebellious ways (e.g. by not helping in the household and being “lazy” and kind of selfish), I thought I was defending myself from total psychological control of my mother’s.

I wonder if something similar is true for you?

Hello dear Beni,

Mhh, In the end I had pain and then I went on skate trip, expected it to get worse but it did not.

Good that skating didn’t make it worse. Which probably means that your spine has developed some resilience and it’s not that sensitive any more.

Juii, I love water sounds great.

Yeah me too!

What I wanna say is that some parents do not take there kid’s experience serious. They say it’s being manipulative. They do not understand that the child may feel very very different about this and that it feels real to the child. It’s an ignorant perspective.

Has your mother (or father) ever told you that you are making a big deal out of nothing and that you surely cannot be as hurt as you are claiming to be? Have they tried to deny your experience and tell you that you are too sensitive and/or faking being hurt?

I know it wouldn’t feel right. If I give her affection in a way I enable something I do not want to enable. I need affection from her first. It gives her allowance to be weak but I need a strong mother. I need an anchor.

Okay, that’s important: you need an anchor. You need a strong mother. You need a mother who is able to soothe you and protect you, not vice versa. It seems she wanted you to meet her emotional needs (e.g. to kiss her and hug her so she wouldn’t feel unlovable), and that’s not something a parent should expect from the child. And you couldn’t meet that need – your reaction was to freeze because it was overwhelming.

Because when a child is afraid, he needs his parent to be soothing and encouraging. He doesn’t need a parent who is equally fearful and insecure. Or a parent who is sad and preoccupied with their own issues and who doesn’t pay attention to the child’s needs. If the child needs soothing, and the mother is preoccupied with herself, or starts worrying instead of being able to soothe the child, the child feels threatened. And one possible reaction is to freeze.

Anyway, now you are an adult, and you’ll have to create that anchor, i.e. that strong “mother”, within yourself. You shouldn’t wait for your mother to change and become the source of that strength and support – you need to create it in yourself.

Give yourself encouragement, or seek encouragement (for the things you’d like to achieve) outside of your parents. You can seek it in coaches, therapists, support groups, people who are already doing what you want to do. You need to find an anchor elsewhere and stop expecting her to give you that strength and courage (or whatever quality you feel you are missing).

I do not know how, yes. It feels like there is no way other than going through manageable doses of pain to go on in that process. I express myself. I hear her pain, I tell my pain. I suffer and take distance.

It seems that when you tell her your pain, you are still hoping that she would be able to relieve it. But she isn’t. She can’t give you the strength/support/encouragement you are hoping for. So your every encounter is painful because you are seeking something she cannot give you. She is burdening you with her own pain, instead of relieving you of your pain. It’s like adding insult to injury.

That’s why it seems to me you’d need to stop hoping to have your emotional needs met by her. You’d need to start finding ways to meet your own needs and seeking people who can help you in that endeavor. Become emotionally “unhooked” from your mother, so to speak.

I would agree to her only being able to accept me if I meet her need.

It seems she doesn’t like it when you don’t show empathy for her. If you are cold and distant. If you don’t let her complain about her problems, right? She doesn’t like your protective shell. And you don’t want to get out of that shell, because it would hurt you even more (what I said earlier: her pain is added onto your own pain, and it is too much to bear).

Yes, I draw a line. My body draws a line. Yes, it’s very essential, it is to maintain my Identity and my will.

It seems you withdraw into your protective shell, so not to be overwhelmed by too much pain (both hers and yours). And maybe also not to lose focus from yourself, because if you start focusing on her and her problems, you tend to lose yourself, or forget what you want, or start feeling guilty for wanting those things? Perhaps you fear getting enmeshed with her, so you are hiding in that shell, to keep your own space and identity intact.

I try to tell my mother to find things I can do. Where I have no blockage but she is not there yet where she can do that. She get’s a fierce look. As if she’s made responsible for something which is my fault.

Ok, so you try to negotiate with her to give you tasks where you won’t feel misused? (because you said you’re only willing to help her if you feel that her requirement is “selfless”). She doesn’t like your conditions and she gives you a strict/angry look (you called it a “fierce” look).

Maybe she feels you are too demanding (or lazy/unhelpful), and not her? And that her requirement/plea for help is justified? While you are unjustly accusing her? (As if she’s made responsible for something which is my fault.)

Is this what is happening?

It does seem to me that your attitude towards helping her is a defensive stance – you withdrawing into your protective shell and not wanting to be “used” by her, for fear of getting emotionally overwhelmed and overtaken by her. I think it’s a bit of an overreaction, but I understand where you are coming from. You don’t want to give anything of yourself, because you feel so burdened already, that any additional pain of hers (and an expectation to be soothed by you) comes with a risk to overwhelm you. So when she needs help, even if it is as simple as cleaning up the kitchen – you feel it might deplete you even further and take you away from yourself and your own needs and desires.

So refusing to help in the kitchen becomes like a self-protection tool, albeit a misguided one, because if I am guessing right, you are still hoping to have your emotional needs met by her. So you are still kind of dependent on her, even if you are trying to protect yourself from her…

Let me know what you think?