Dear Georgia:

I asked because in another thread very recently, I became more aware of how children are scared of a parent’s anger. You mentioned your mother expressing self-pitying, and being dramatic (exaggerating/ magnifying), but I don’t remember that you shared anything about her being angry with you/ with other people.

In your recent post, you wrote that your mother “often showed anger”, and you qualified anger by saying that it was more an “exasperation” than anger, and again, you used the adjective often, with an added very: “she showed very often exasperation throughout my life and in daily life”.

I looked up online for a definition of exasperation: “irritation: keen or bitter anger”, “the feeling of being annoyed, especially because you can do nothing to solve a problem”. So, exasperation is a mix of anger and frustration about not being able to solve a problem, or make things better.

It is my understanding, still, that children can’t help but get scared/ fearful/ anxious when their parent displays undisciplined anger and other undisciplined/ exaggerated/ magnified emotions. It gives the child the message that her parent is not in control, that her parent can collapse (and die, perhaps) at any time, or that her parent can harm the child. (Anger precedes violence, in nature. Animals are afraid of anger because anger is the threat of violence).

I didn’t yet respond thoroughly to your post of two days ago:

“My therapist thinks my anxiety expressing itself so forcefully and through the need of reassurance is a subliminal way for me to feel like a child again and reach at my parents. I agree with her because I can’t eat without my mother near me, since she’s the one who knows how to act if someone chokes”- what I understand from this is that you.. need so desperately to feel safe with your mother that you regress to a young child stage of needing your mother there when you eat, like a baby clinging to her mother while nursing (?)

“I explained to my therapist that I actually don’t like to express myself with my mom because 1. She has to put herself at the center of the emotional show going on”- so.. you place yourself in the center by needing her with you while you eat, watching you eat, focusing on you eating, instead of focusing on herself (?)

“that’s what I need. To feel seen, heard, to be able to relate to… I actually use my daydreams to ‘exist’ somewhere.. my inner child.. gets really.. scared when people don’t react to me“- by having your mother watch you eat in case you choke, you are making sure that .. she will react and relate to you (?)

“People who are irresponsive disturb be and make me feel like a child again”- your mother was responsive to her own feelings, to her own self-pitying, to her own exasperation.. she was not responsive to your feelings, to your emotional experience.. she was not responsive to you.

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by .

Dear Georgia:

You expressed yourself so well in this recent post, it struck me how insightful and clearly you articulated your understanding, I am impressed.

You definitely need “her soothing presence”, good to read she can be a soothing presence for you, regularly and continuously, I hope.

anita

Dear Georgia:

You are welcome. I too hope that your parents understand your need for them to be a consistent, reliable soothing presence in your life. You deserve that, in your life.

The ivy imagery, without looking back, I remember that I wrote to you about you, as an ivy, growing any which way that was possible for you, and because growing out (experiencing life as an adventure, socializing, connecting with others) was not possible for you, you grew around and around and inward, which would fit with the sort-or-living, but not really, which you described today: “the obsession-compulsion.. mental habits, the daydreaming, the numbing… don’t know how to ‘live'”- is that what you meant by the ivy imagery (if not, please remind me).

Your realization today, looking at yourself in the mirror, “no glow.. eyes are so tired… brain being a mash.. empty eyed shadow of her former self… an extreme example of how I feel about myself”- interesting, because I noticed, since you came back to your thread, particularly in your most recent post and the few before it- you sound  better, you appear better, to me, significantly better. You may not feel it, or know it because you are with yourself all the time. But after I didn’t “see” you for awhile, I noticed a significant difference, no mush. Not like it used to be. I may be wrong, but that’s how it looks to me, from where I am.

anita

Dear Georgia:

From what you shared about what your therapist told you, I like her thinking and I am very hopeful that she will indeed continue to help you. What she said is so very true: OCD is about trying to control the inner emotional experience, a way to sort of neutralize overwhelming fear. If I do C (the Compulsion), the fear attached to the O (obsession) will go away, is the thinking behind Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Also, it is interesting: we are never afraid of something that exists solely outside of us, we are always afraid of the emotion inside of us. When a mountain lion approaches a deer, the deer wouldn’t run away if she didn’t feel the overwhelming emotion of fear.

“My extreme feelings kill me” is  the title of your thread, back to the deer: when the deer feel fear as the mountain lion approaches, it is that extreme fear that feels like it will kill the deer, unless she runs.

Anxiety is about feeling that fear when there is no mountain lion approaching right there and then.

* I am following the Covid-19 situation in countries where winter is in progress, Europe and the U.S. are two such places, including Italy. Keep yourself safe, Georgia and I hope so much that this will get much better next year.

anita