Dear mapnerd:

The little girl that you were, watching your mother fall apart like that, that child did not react by thinking: “I need to be self sufficient!”-

that girl was very, very scared. Terribly scared. Very unsafe, your world about to end any moment.

* A responsible parent has to practice self discipline and limit expressions of sadness and despair, anger and fear- yelling, crying, throwing things- those behaviors injure children.

How do you think these injuries inflicted on you by your mother, repeatedly, affect your life?

anita

I’ve been reading along with this post because it resonates with me a lot. I share many of the same issues and problems.  I have been going through a breakup for the last 6 months. My relationship lasted 15 years but eventually he decided to end it. I became completely dependant, overly needy, depressed and angry. I believe he has an alcohol dependancy. He is not a full on alcoholic but I have never witnessed him be able to or even want to go more than 1 or 2 days without alcohol. He also tends to neglect his health and over works which is leading to all sorts of health problems which he is completely in denial about and if I mention it he sees it as nagging. On the other hand I am a bit of a health nut and my work life is a mess with long term unemployment now effecting my opportunities. I’m 48, I have a degree, but my lack of confidence and low self esteem seem to hold me back and so I go through life taking on menial mind numbing work here and there to try and make ends meet.

Our relationship basically imploded. It seemed to bring out the worst in both of us. I always had hope that because these issues were all coming to the surface that we could find a way to heal but for him it was all too overwhelming and he didn’t want to continue. When he told me I completely broke down. Even though I could see it coming I never really thought it would end. It’s now 6 months later after we sold our house and we are now living together in a 2 bed apartment and I am looking for another apartment to move into. It is the most difficult and draining situation I have ever found myself in but I don’t feel I have any other alternatives because I have very little income and barely any connections.

I still love him very much and he loves me and living together we are still very emotionally connected but it’s like we are in limbo now and there is a grief hanging over us. I am dreading the day I actually move to my own place mainly because of the lack of income but also because I get very lonely and tend to isolate myself.  I don’t feel like I have a place to belong in the world and fear becoming an alcoholic reclusive like my father has become.

From what I have read of your situation mapnerd, it sounds to me like your mother is more borderline personality than histrionic.  Borderlines lose it uncontrollably when they are triggered whereas histrionic are in a constant attention seeking state in social situations. They cannot handle not being the centre of attention and will be very sexually seductive and provocative.  Your mother doesn’t sound like that.  She sounds from, what I’ve read, to be explosive and lose control.   I recognise this because my mother was/is the same.   My mother completely loses her shit and lashes out at everyone and everything around her. When I was a child she stabbed me with a fork in my arm because I didn’t want to eat broccoli, she wacked me with a steel pronged dog brush and repeatedly hit and slapped me across the face and body as well as hurled obscene verbal abuse at me. Once time she threw a cup of tea at me.  My father was equally abusive if not more so. After my father beat me my mother would convince me to apologise for making him lose his temper!!! Then everything would be ok till the next time he would explode.  Our poor dogs also bore the brunt of their anger at times. It was a very unstable childhood. There were times my sister and I would be spoilt rotten especially at xmas but the abuse was and still is a dark cloud overshadowing the good times.

After reading about your situation I understand mine a little more.   I seriously need to find a way rewire my brain as I don’t see a bright future for myself at all.  I have been practicing insight meditation for over 6 years now. I guess it has helped me get through all this but it is not changing anything or fixing it. It helps me to realise that everything is impermanent and ‘not self’ and how we cause ourselves suffering etc but I seriously need a big wake up call. Like right now it’s 9:30 am and I am still sitting in bed dreading getting  on with the day.  I have so many dreams and thoughts and ideas about what I thought I would like to do with my life but I have never achieved any of it because I have no belief that it’s even possible.  My faith and trust in people is so shattered.

* Dear Mapnerd: the above note is addressed to another member and I hope she reads and respond to it. At anytime you want to post again on your thread, addressed to no one in particular or to a certain person, please do so. I will be glad to reply.

anita

Dear Mapnerd:

I can’t imagine competent therapy not being helpful to you. What fuels the obsession is, I strongly believe, your childhood experiences on which we touched on this thread.

It feels like your obsession and distress is about the guy, but not really. I do wish you attend competent therapy. The days when you feel okay are proof that it is possible for you to feel okay.

If you give in to the obsessing and contact him, you will be disappointed with yourself and end up with more days being distressed and fewer  okay-days. Why make things worse?

Appreciate the okay days. The fact that at times you strongly feel that he can help you, it means that you strongly need help, only  he can’t help you. He can’t help you because, like I wrote above, your distress is not about him. It predates him by many years.

anita

Dear mapnerd:

The sadness you mentioned is about the loss of emotional attachment. There is a sense of safety when you are in the presence of the object of your attachment, and a sense of anxiety (leading to obsessing) and deep sadness when you are away from the object of your attachment. It is similar to the feelings of a young child when separated from the parent, it is overwhelming.

Because as a child, you were not safe with your mother (who was falling apart histrionically in front of you, and repeatedly), your need for safety is now intense. This is why you are intensely attached to this guy and why your anxiety and sadness are so intense.

What fuels your attachment to him is not that the relationship with him was wonderful or that he is the right guy for you (he is not). What fuels it is your lack of safety as a child.

I hope you work on the latter in therapy- hope it is a competent therapy. In the meantime, repeat this to yourself: this attachment does not mean I should contact him. It will harm me if I do. It only FEELS like it will help me.

Does this help at all?

anita

Dear mapnerd:

I am glad you are back to your thread and that you have weeks where you “feel really great” and “at peace with the situation.”

You wrote: “I’m so threatened and hurt by it, again and again”-

Can you define “it” (is it you comparing yourself to the new girlfriend? the idea that they have a loving relationship when you don’t have one?)

Also, you wrote “threatened”- can you clarify the threat: what is the threat?

anita

Dear mapnerd:

It is you being pushed out of his heart while she is in his heart. And the threat is that this is another proof that you are the cause of rejection because you are not worthy enough, not as good as others, specifically the new girlfriend.

Of course, such belief hurts a lot. Thing is, it feels so true, isn’t it? We believe that what we feel indicate what is true. But in this case, it does not. You feeling hurt is not because you are unworthy but because you were rejected, only through no fault of your own. You were a worthy child, as worthy of any. Just as you are a worthy woman, as worthy as anyone, as worthy as the new girlfriend.

anita