I’ll be back to you, Milda, Fri morning (Thurs night here)

Dear Milda:

“Parents are projecting on me their decision about when I am a good daughter, when I am a bad one, which behavior is acceptable and approved, which is not.”-

It’s time that you decide what it means to be a good daughter and what it means to be a bad one.

My mother’s idea of a good daughter was one who doesn’t exist beyond her wishes, her dreams, her needs; one who doesn’t exist but as a extension of her. She didn’t see or hear or feel me. She only saw and heard and felt herself.

Self erasure is a high price to pay for being a “good daughter”, isn’t it?

And isn’t it a bad mother who demands such a price?

I suppose what I am suggesting is that you redefine a “good daughter” and a “good mother” vs “bad mother”.

“I have to start gaining self esteem from other sources instead of caring, comforting, enabling and fixing. How does a person gain that through healthy behaviors?”-

I think redefining things is a good start.. to throw away the old dictionary and start a new one. I mean there are plenty of advice out there in regard to how to gain self-esteem, books are written on it, I am sure, as well as online videos that you can access.

Thing is, for as long as the core belief within me was “I am a bad daughter”.. I couldn’t or wouldn’t love myself because.. it doesn’t feel right to love a bad person… does it, Milda?

🌿 🤍 Anita

Dear Milda,

the first point that you addressed (out of three) is something that I wrote, so I’m going to reply to that one 😊

(1) We need to start telling ourselves that we’re a good person, worthy of love and respect – even if we refuse the role of the emotional caretaker and the “family empath”, which they’ve imposed on us.- you indicated very accurately my struggle. Deep down I feel the worst daughter, because I decided to step away from parents and do not communicate with them/visit them for a while. I feel the worst that I do not listen to their problems, issues and do not soothe them. I feel the worst, because I stopped keeping them the centre of MY life and started TO BE the center of MY life. Even though such decision is helping me to stay more at peace and calm, at the same time it is burning at low heat anxiety inside of me and I do not feel at peace at all. I feel as if I murdered somebody, but took very good care of hiding the body and evidence, so I try to convince myself that all is peace now, but deep down- it actually isn’t. I would really appreciate your thoughts on that feeling. How can I navigate through it in a healthy way. This is a very complicated state of mind, state of being actually.

I hear you, Milda. I think the problem is that you’ve set external boundaries (no contact, no visits) without setting the internal boundaries first.

I think that even if you seemingly (based on your outer actions, or lack thereof) don’t have your family in the center of attention, emotionally, you still do. They’re still the center of your thoughts, because now, you’re worried about what they will think of you, what they’ll say, you’re afraid of their judgment, and you fear that you might indeed be a bad daughter for leaving them “stranded” like that.

Even though such decision is helping me to stay more at peace and calm, at the same time it is burning at low heat anxiety inside of me and I do not feel at peace at all. I feel as if I murdered somebody, but took very good care of hiding the body and evidence, so I try to convince myself that all is peace now, but deep down- it actually isn’t.

Dear Milda, it’s completely normal that you don’t have peace – when you still believe their false narrative. You’re still operating on their narrative, while trying to distance yourself from them. And of course, this causes you to feel very guilty. So guilty as if you’ve murdered someone.

That’s the guilt that you’ve been facing your entire life if you dared not to put your family in the center of your life.

You said that whenever you tried to say No, you were shamed and guilt-tripped. This now is that same guilt – but now magnified, since now you’ve set such a radical boundary – something you’ve never dared before.

I would really appreciate your thoughts on that feeling. How can I navigate through it in a healthy way. This is a very complicated state of mind, state of being actually.

I know it is, Milda. It’s hard because your inner critic (which is the internalized voices of your parents) is super strong and relentless at the moment. This is what you’re hearing in your mind right now.

To counter balance that harsh, critical voice, you’d need to find another voice inside of your mind, Milda. The voice of self-compassion.

Can you find a voice of compassion for the little girl who received so little love and understanding from their parents, and were demanded to give all of herself? And even that was never enough…

Can you feel compassion for the little girl that was trying so hard, giving her heart and soul, wanting to help her parents, to make her mother finally happy… but never succeeded?

Can you feel compassion for the precious, beautiful, most loving, helpful, generous, sweet little girl, who gave her all to the people she loved most: her parents?

I hope you can, dear Milda… because you were that girl. And she is still inside of you. And she is you.

She deserves love, just as you do. She is precious, lovable and worthy, and that’s the truth. Please let her bathe in that truth. Let her bathe in that love, that she so fully and utterly deserve 💖

Dear Milda,

you’re welcome! ❤️

Do you think that my first step has to be thinking about me as a child and feeling grateful for myself? For that little girl, that did her best but still streats herself as a bad daughter, family member, as a bad person at deepest.

Yes, absolutely. I myself am very familiar with the crushing voice of the inner critic, who is bombarding us with criticism, telling us that we’re bad, flawed, inadequate, or selfish, uncaring, heartless, etc – if we don’t do what our parents expect us to do.

There was a time when the inner critic was the dominant voice in my head, and my internal dialogue consisted of my inner critic berating me. I really believed that I was a horrible person, full of flaws, a freak, unlovable, unworthy, etc.

I believed that I deserved that criticism, since I exhibited some problematic behavior (I was suffering from an eating disorder), so I felt that my self-criticism and even self-loathing were justified.

It wasn’t until I’ve learned about the concept of the inner child – the pure, innocent and totally lovable part of us – that I could start loving myself. Because I felt that even if the adult me, the addict me, might not deserve love (which was actually false, but this was my reasoning at the time), the child me definitely deserves it.

And so I could start appreciating that pure, innocent, precious part of me, which was constantly criticized and berated by my mother, who didn’t get love, warmth and gentleness, but rejection. That little girl certainly didn’t deserve such treatment, because I was a good child, a good pupil, I was behaving well, I didn’t make any trouble for my parents… so I knew it wasn’t fair, I knew it wasn’t my fault…

And this is how I started loving myself. This is how I developed another voice in my head: the voice of a loving, compassionate parent – something I never had while growing up.

I think that’s the first step in healing: to connect with that compassionate voice within. So there isn’t only the inner critic in our conscious awareness, but also the inner “parent”. We need to become a good, loving parent to ourselves. And that’s how we can resist the onslaught of the inner critic and not slide back into guilt, self-loathing and repeating the old patterns…

❤️

Dear Milda,

I never believed my interpretations, because I did not have even one person to support me and say that Milda, such parent behavior is not ok and they are actually manipulating you and you behave the way they want only, without authenticity.

That’s very unfortunate, Milda. Does it mean that to this day, there is no one in your extended family (grandparents, other relatives), who actually sees what is going on and supports you?

How about your therapist? Do they support you? Because not every therapist knows what it means to be a victim of narcissistic abuse (which you most probably were/are). Do you feel supported in your therapy sessions at least?

The problem with narcissistic people is that they behave very differently in public (even with other family members, who don’t live with them) than in private. They may appear like the most loving parents, or the most loving and caring people to the outside world, while only those who live with them know what kind of people they really are.

So there is an element of deception there, where the victim is not believed by others, because the narcissistic person tends to pretend in front of other people, and so it’s hard for those people to believe the victim.

Have you experienced something like that: that some people, including those in your extended family, don’t really believe that your parents are so bad, because they appear very differently to the outside world?

I think the biggest change internally started to happen, because by reading book “Codependent no more” interpretations of my family and this dysfunction started to raise inside of me and I started to slowly believe them for the first time in my life. My interpretations and gut feeling was silenced by me, silenced by scared, small me, because I had to survive and listening to those interpretations would not help me survive, so I silenced them.

Yes, for the child the attachment to the parent or primary caretaker is a matter of survival. The child needs to stay attached, and for that, the child needs to believe that the parent is good and means well. As a result, the child concludes that they are bad, and that they need to change so that the parent would finally give them the love and care they need to survive.

Another reason why we believe our parents’ interpretations is simply that the child’s mind is like a sponge, it’s very “programmable”. We build our self-image in the relationship with our parents. So if they treat us like we’re unlovable and undeserving – we’ll start believing that about ourselves. And if certain behaviors make them pleased, and they give us “love” and approval (albeit conditional), we’ll try to do more of those behaviors, even if it’s at our own expense.

In other words, we need to believe our parents’ view of us, in order to try to have our needs met: both physical and emotional. Getting validation and approval from our parents is an important emotional need, and so we’ll do anything to get that need met.

If our parents or caretakers were the kind of people who were never pleased with us, or were only pleased when we did exactly as they told us – we’ll grow up into adults with little to no self-esteem, believing that we are impossible to love, or undeserving of love. And that’s what I believed happened to you, Milda (it happened to me too).

The bloody work now is to give a voice for those interpretations, they still scare me a lot, I still do not know what to do with them…

Those interpretations come from your child self, i.e. your inner child. The task now would be to expand your awareness and your sense of self to also include other voices, such as your adult self, who sees things more objectively and knows that you’re not such a bad person as your parents (and your inner critic) claim you are.

I believe the best way to start expanding your sense of self is to develop the so-called observer self: e.g. when you start feeling guilty about not meeting your parents’ demands, to pause and notice: “this is me feeling guilty for not tending to my parents’ needs, but tending to my own needs instead. I have the right to tend to my needs. I am not a bad person for tending to my needs.”

You said:

Throw away old dictionary and start a new one about what is a good daughter, a bad one, what is a good mother, a bad one. This will be my homework. I think this exercise would help me in a road of unconditional love to myself.

Yes, you can do affirmations where you tell yourself what a good daughter and a good mother really means, to counter the false definitions and imprints you’ve received from your parents. That too can be a part of the objective, observer self, who is affirming the truth. This can help you not feel overwhelmed by guilt and fear whenever you don’t give in to your parents’ demands and expectations.

Anyway, the goal would be to develop this objective and compassionate observer self, which can change our inner dialogue and counteract the harsh voice of our inner critic.

❤️