Hi Katie,

Looks like you’ve had some helpful feedback/notes from Anita, etc., but I will follow up to the questions you asked me (at least I assume you were asking – maybe what you wrote was purely rhetorical):

And I don’t know what this processing looks like? Sitting at home alone, reflecting? Just doing things that I enjoy? You can see how I feel quite lost and confused sometimes.

Processing is *exactly* what you said, sitting with the feelings and reflecting on them – pouring them a figurative cup of tea and ask, “OK feelings, who are you, what are you about, what am I to learn from you?” Listen to what they have to say, and say your peace in return. (I know this sounds a little new-agey/woo-woo, but I’ve found it works.) Give every feeling their own moment/attention: the ones you have about your mother, J, R, S, that jerk that cuts you off in traffic – everybody. Eventually the feelings will have said everything they need to and then they’ll be able to go away.

And yes, dealing with feelings doesn’t mean running from them or numbing them. (I hear you about doing everything you can to blot them out – food and television were my distractions of choice for years!)

I’m not saying you need to go into therapy, go on some meditation retreat, become a hermit (I mean, you can if you think it would be helpful!) – but do carve out the time. Posting on these boards is a good first step!

Again, best of luck to you my dear.

Dear Katie:

You wrote that at 32 you “have a string of failed relationships”- how can it be not so? The three adults in your young life: your mother, your bio father and your step father were unreliable and abusive in one way or another. You, as a baby, were a clean slate. What you became was a result of your interactions with these three. Those years are called our Formative Years because our brain is formed, connections are made, many, millions of connections. Since the adults in your young life, in the two decades of your childhood were grossly incompetent, at the least, to parent you well, the connections made in your brain are understandably not congruent with a healthy relationship.

It can’t be otherwise until you weaken some of those connections and built others, in other words, it can’t be different until you unlearn old thinking and believing and learn new thinking and believing.

One thing to unlearn is the belief that you are unworthy. Who the three adults were in your young life was never an indication of your worth- they all preceded you.

It takes therapy with a competent, empathetic, trustworthy therapist to uncover the old core beliefs, the dysfunctional MOs and learn new.

You asked last: “What am I doing so wrong?”- here are possibilities and you are welcome to develop any or all:

1. You choose men according to whom your mother likes (as if she has exhibited good choices of men in her life)

2. You are still trying to reach out and get acceptance, worth from either one of the three (mother, father)

3. You are still not seeing clearly who your mother is, who your father is and therefore, you are not seeing who you are. The former is a condition for the latter: you have to see who your parents are before you can see who you are.

anita

Dear Katie:

I am glad you are back to your thread. Even if you ended all contact with your mother, you would still need to go through a long process of a mental separation from her. You suggested in the last line that you hope to separate from her while remaining in each other’s lives. The way to do it, other than in the context of psychotherapy, is to pay attention in your interactions with her to how you act around her and how you react to her. Paying attention, also known as Mindfulness is a necessary skill I started learning in therapy. Can’t heal without paying attention.

We normally act and react automatically, without being aware and so we keep the same old same old, not healing, not moving forward, not making needed changes.

To make needed changes in your interactions with your mother, pay attention- it is mind boggling what you find out when you notice. Some of the interactions with your mother are unhealthy. Identify them and change them.

Maybe you can keep a journal with notes of things you find out by being mindful daily, to your relationship with your mother and with anyone and everyone else, even interactions with strangers.

Hope you post again and again.

anita

Dear Katie:

You are welcome. Since you are not able and/or willing or needing psychotherapy, Mindfulness, then is Key.

Be mindful, aka pay attention, not only to your reactions but to the actions of the people around you. Your mother is the most significant person in your life still, so pay attention to who she is. It is so important because in determining how to act with a particular person, you have to know WHO that person is.

You’d think you know your own mother, but oh, no. Parents and adult children are the least likely people to know who the other is.

Who is your mother? For one, she has displayed bad judgment about the men she married and she displayed bad judgment about staying with an abusive man and about having sex with him after separation for a couple of years, if I remember correctly. She is not dating, hasn’t for a while and so she has little to no experience in making a good choice in men and she has little to no experience in having a good relationship with a man.

Logic would say: you should not listen to her input on your choice of men and on your relationships with men. Simple logic, isn’t it?

Stay with this point, if you will, re-read it.

Whenever you took your mother’s input seriously regarding men, you did because part of you believed she is wise about men. But that belief is incorrect. If you see your mother objectively regarding her choice of men and her relationships with men, then you would know, really know that on these issues she is very unwise and therefore, taking in her suggestions and comments regarding your choice of men and the nature of your relationships with men is very unwise.

This is just one little exercise in mindfulness, this last observation. There are many more and if you make them over time, you will learn WHO your mother is and therefore how to act with her.

anita