Always about them

[October]

I went to pay some money into my mortgage account last week, and found that the account was closed a month ago, and all the money already in there was gone.

It took some sorting out, but in the end it turned out that my ex did it - I think without realising.  It was very difficult for me, and I was in a bit of a state during this and afterwards, as you can imagine.  I have ptsd, and any stress is difficult to handle.  But I managed, somehow.  

Anyway, because my daughter is not well enough to be at school, I had left her with my parents while I went into town.  When I got back to pick her up I told them all what had happened, but I didn't say anything about my own reaction to it.  My mother's response was to say; 'It is a good job that didn't happen to me.  I couldn't have managed that.', and then my dad said the same, 'It is a good job it wasn't your mum.'  Then they talked about her.  

So that is my new saying for when life gets bad; "It's a good job it isn't happening to my mum."  

Bizarre way of thinking, really.

[miaxo]

Sorry to hear about your stressful day.  

My x N makes everything about him as well.

If I mention to him that one of the chidlren is sick his immediate response is, "I think I have been coming down with something." or " I was really sick."   Never has his response been, "How is my son/daughter doing?"

I suppose it has always been about the N's and always will be about the N's.

Hope today treats you better than yesterday.

Best wishes
Mia

[Portia]

Hi October, sheeeesh.

I guess I’d love to have said to them, wide-eyed: “Gosh you’re right! Isn’t it so lucky that this terrible thing has happened to me? At least I can cope, even with all my problems eh? I suppose you would have just given up, lost the house and lived on the street? Well aren’t you lucky it was me and not you.”

Grrrrrr.   Honestly. Please can I be a little devil that sits on your shoulder and says these things? Things like: “It’s incredible that just thinking about this is worse for you mum, than it is when it’s actually happening to me. Well, things to do, people to not see….”.  

Sorry October, hope it’s sorted out okay. Take care.

[bunny]

Hi October,

When you say sorted out, do you mean you'll get some money back?!

Can you do anything about this...?? I'm horrified.

It sounds like your parents are in their own hermetically-sealed world of self-involvement. What lovely people (NOT). I'm sorry you saw once again their total disconnection from other people including their own child.

{{{ October }}}

bunny

[October]

It sounds like your parents are in their own hermetically-sealed world of self-involvement. What lovely people (NOT). I'm sorry you saw once again their total disconnection from other people including their own child.

{{{ October }}}

bunny

My ex said he would pay me back, but his situation is much worse than mine, so I suggested a compromise, and he is going to pay so much a month for two years, which meanwhile gives him some cash.  It may seem an odd thing to do, but he has severe health problems, and I need my daughter to see that I have compassion for that, even though I have to maintain boundaries.  If anything happens to him - and it may - I need her to know that.  

In a way it is good to see my parents' disconnection.  If I can see it then the crazymaking doesn't have the same effect.  And you can harldy miss after 44 years something you never had (not really true, but partly true   ).  You can only admit, yes I am right, it is not there.  It is not something that ever will be there.

In that way incidents like this are not bad for me.  They help me to see the truth.  Shame the truth hurts, but it is still better than the fantasy.

But it has a funny side.  I look at my whole life now, and the recent bit; the abuse, the divorce, the loss of my job five years ago, the ill health since, and I imagine my mother sitting there congratulating herself on having a handy target for the slings and arrows, which therefore do not fall on her.  Absolute classic scapegoating behaviour.

Our Lord asks at one point, what parent would, when his child asks for bread, give him a stone?  The answer is, mine.  

 

[October]

Hi October, sheeeesh.

I guess I’d love to have said to them, wide-eyed: “Gosh you’re right! Isn’t it so lucky that this terrible thing has happened to me? At least I can cope, even with all my problems eh? I suppose you would have just given up, lost the house and lived on the street? Well aren’t you lucky it was me and not you.”

Grrrrrr.   Honestly. Please can I be a little devil that sits on your shoulder and says these things? Things like: “It’s incredible that just thinking about this is worse for you mum, than it is when it’s actually happening to me. Well, things to do, people to not see….”.  

Sorry October, hope it’s sorted out okay. Take care.

Thanks Portia

Of course, that is not the way it appears to them.  To them my mother is a very fragile, emotionally volatile, woman, who needs protection and care.  This is, of course, because the whole world conspires against her personally, and she has to fight a constant battle to prevent it happening.  But to her everything is personal.

I was stressed out, and very unwell, but I did not at any point think it was personal.  I thought it was either a theft or a mistake, but either way it would get sorted, if I could only hold myself together long enough for it to happen.  And it did.  

If I had responded as you suggest - and it is very tempting at times - that would have been another personal attack on my sainted mother.  Everything feeds their world view because they have nothing else.  So I didn't bother even trying.  They would have said something like, 'Why do you have to be like that?'

To try to say 'Hello, can anyone see me?' is in my mother's language attention seeking, on my part.  She has subltly made known to my close family (she is never direct) that the way to react is to ignore me, and not feed the attention seeking behaviour.  Rather ironic  that they cannot see the projection, so they continue to ignore the person who is already invisible, and feed the paranoias of the one who actually is always in the limelight, and always at the centre of her own world drama.

[October]

If I mention to him that one of the chidlren is sick his immediate response is, "I think I have been coming down with something." or " I was really sick."   Never has his response been, "How is my son/daughter doing?"

I suppose it has always been about the N's and always will be about the N's.
Mia

That was one of the features of my marriage too.  Whenever I fell ill, and had to take to my bed, you could guarantee that the next day my ex would have it worse, and I would have to get up again and look after him.

There is nothing that we can ever do that is about us.    

Thanks for your good wishes, Mia.  Today is a little better because I can stay home all day and see nobody.  And remain invisible.

[Portia]

Hi October, well, yes, I agree, seeing the truth is better than living in that crazy, confusing fantasy. But it hurts, I know. And this knowledge so far? Some days I look at it and think, yes, it’s important to me to know the truth. I couldn’t live with lies. But it still hurts and the more I look around me, the more hurt I see in other people. Even so, it’s still preferable to the alternative.  

I’m going to return to extraverts and introverts . I think this particular hurt is maybe easier for introverts in one way: introverts don’t need other people to the extent that extraverts do. Really, I don’t need other people very much. I’m never - and I mean never! – invisible at home alone. I’m always me inside my head. My favourite place.  I can be ‘ignored’ by people I value and that hurts because it challenges my ideas, but it doesn’t make me disappear. And you said:

I look at my whole life now, and the recent bit; the abuse, the divorce, the loss of my job five years ago, the ill health since, and I imagine my mother sitting there congratulating herself on having a handy target for the slings and arrows, which therefore do not fall on her.

It’s the imaging your mother that stands out to me. When I imagine, no-one is ever thinking about me and it doesn’t bother me. What I imagine is - I wonder what’s going on in their heads about themselves, never me, or anyone else. Your thoughts seem to be about how people relate to each other and how they see each other. My thoughts are about their thoughts, their internal worlds – and I don’t mean by that what they think of other people, I mean what they think about themselves. And you probably think this doesn’t matter!   If it doesn’t matter to you, that’s possibly because to you, all that matters is people and their relationships. This so important.

Gosh October I think of you today, being ‘invisible’ and me here, being the happy hermit and I wish I could help because you do need other people, but not those like your parents (as if I need to say that eh?). Shall we set up a book-club designed for anyone interested in all things psychological (this is quite likely possible for us to do)? Where you could meet deep-thinking fellow extraverts who would value your very real compassionate and clear thinking? There must be a few people like this, around in the northern home counties (I’m location guessing)? Hey increase heart rate and adrenalin production  now at the thought of it (I am ). Your needing to have your daughter see your compassion is also a clear and wonderful extravert quality.

If I had responded as you suggest - and it is very tempting at times

Difference in the way our brains work? I wouldn’t suggest you ever actually say anything like that! But it would comfort me to think things like that. If it’s in my thoughts, it’s as good as ‘mine’. I don’t have to say it, just think it. I don’t need their reaction, I know what I think and that feels good. I wondered if I could be that little devil, whether it might help you. Like was said here ages ago, “I imagined everyone on the board was standing with me and that gave me courage with my parents, that you were with me”. CBT (correct?) stuff but it can work, so that you’re not alone.

To try to say 'Hello, can anyone see me?' is in my mother's language attention seeking, on my part. She has subltly made known to my close family (she is never direct) that the way to react is to ignore me, and not feed the attention seeking behaviour.

Yeah. I was a ‘drama queen’. Luckily I didn’t need their attention, I had my thoughts, ideas, dreams to occupy me. Most of my family pretty well do ignore me, thank goodness. I wonder if there’s a huge well of anger inside you October? Maybe not. There would be in me. I wonder about the panic attacks. What happens in the supermarket – do you panic because people seem not to see you and you might disappear? Or is it that people might dislike and reject you? Do you try and chat with the check-out people? I’ve forced myself to do this recently, trying to reform my abysmal social small-talk skills. Commenting on the busy-ness of the shop, the weather, asking when their shift finishes, how long do they get for a break….small stuff, but simple connections like that are helping me feel – ha – less eccentric and cut-off? I’m aware that I could easily go too far in my own head and like it. I think if you take the odd risk, if you approach others, if you offer an exchange, people are very willing to communicate and the subject of chat doesn’t matter, it’s the simple connecting with other human beings. It makes a huge difference to how we view ourselves.

I wrote way more than I intended, sorry, on a bit of a theorising ‘I-J’ roll there  I better stop. very best October, P

[October]

Hi October, well, yes, I agree, seeing the truth is better than living in that crazy, confusing fantasy. But it hurts, I know. And this knowledge so far?

 I wonder if there’s a huge well of anger inside you October? Maybe not.

There would be in me. I wonder about the panic attacks. What happens in the supermarket – do you panic because people seem not to see you and you might disappear? Or is it that people might dislike and reject you? Do you try and chat with the check-out people?

I'm still confused about the I: E thing, to be honest.  But I find it easy to chat to people in shops - nothing easier.  It isn't real, in the sense that it is not deep or intimate, but it is my way of saying, hello, I can see you as a person, not just part of the shop.  Strangely my mother is also very good at talking to strangers, but in her case she talks about herself.  I never do.  I generally notice if the shop assistant is tired, or looks bored or fed up, and say something like 'has it been a hard day so far?' or 'have you long to go before you finish today?'  Or about the weather.  

But it is all a kind of act, in a way.  It is me acting the outgoing, concerned person.  It is not exactly like pretending, but it is putting my own life to one side in order to notice someone else's.  After all, who would want to hear about me?  

In terms of connecting with people, I am having problems at present.  I went to the dentist the other day, and found myself dissociating a lot to cope, which helped, but afterwards I found I couldn't snap out of it at all.  Very unreal.  Even visiting a good friend didn't help.  The closest we got was when he was talking about his father being ill, and I almost felt like I was human, and part of the world again.  But it was very transitory.

Struggling with this with my t at present too.  She is not real to me, and I have told her this.  She could be a computer screen or a television.  She said is it to do with lack of emotion, and I said no, televisions show emotion, and are not real, and in any case she can laugh with me at times.  So that is not it.  I think it is to do with touch.  I don't do touch with anyone, except my daughter, and I think it is not good for me.

If all the input is either sound or sight, then it will be like a cinema screen, I suppose.  Sometimes I watch television programmes about holidays abroad, and I think why do people pay thousands of pounds to go abroad, when they can see it on the television.  What is the difference?  To me it is the same.  Life is unreal.  Disconnected.  

As for anger, all the anger inside is turned inwards.  There seems to be no residual feeling left at all, except when something else comes along and makes me angry, but it doesn't last.  My first t tried to help me find the anger inside, but he couldn't do it.    All I found from visualisation was a small box with a dead child inside.  The box was at the bottom of a black hole the other side of the universe.  The t said it was not dead, but asleep.  I am not sure he was right.  Still waiting to find out.

[bunny]

But it is all a kind of act, in a way.  It is me acting the outgoing, concerned person.  It is not exactly like pretending, but it is putting my own life to one side in order to notice someone else's.  After all, who would want to hear about me?  

Small talk is a social convention, not true friendship or anything. No one really cares about another person's shift or coffee break. It's just a little way of making the world a happier place for a minute. No one expects a deep sincerity about it. At least I hope not.

I imagine the intrusions of a dental appointment would be really difficult to recover from.

Good for you for telling your t she isn't real to you. I've told mine he is a loser and worse. Whatever you feel, tell it. They're supposed to be able to handle it.

I've also wondered why people travel when they can see it on TV. I prefer to have a safe distance between myself and others but I feel good about it (strange but true). I don't touch people either.

My first t tried to help me find the anger inside, but he couldn't do it.    All I found from visualisation was a small box with a dead child inside.  The box was at the bottom of a black hole the other side of the universe.  The t said it was not dead, but asleep.  I am not sure he was right.  Still waiting to find out.

I think you and he found a very important item: a dead child in a box on the other side of the universe. I don't know why he said it was asleep when you said it was dead (unless you agree with that alteration). Dead children are highly symbolic. People also fantasize about dead mothers (I have). Anyway it means something important. Maybe anger isn't the number one issue but deadness. Just a thought.

bunny

[Dawning]

October wrote:

But it is all a kind of act, in a way. It is me acting the outgoing, concerned person. It is not exactly like pretending, but it is putting my own life to one side in order to notice someone else's. After all, who would want to hear about me?

Hi October!  I would like to listen to you.   Also, I don't think you have to put your own life *to one side* in order to notice someone else's.  We all deserve attention.  Its just that the N's are attention-hogs and everything has to do with them as you know.  Self-effacement is a rather weird way they seem to get attention as well.  I wonder if you saw a lot of that growing up.

[October]

Good for you for telling your t she isn't real to you. I've told mine he is a loser and worse. Whatever you feel, tell it. They're supposed to be able to handle it.

I've also wondered why people travel when they can see it on TV. I prefer to have a safe distance between myself and others but I feel good about it (strange but true). I don't touch people either.
...

I think you and he found a very important item: a dead child in a box on the other side of the universe. I don't know why he said it was asleep when you said it was dead (unless you agree with that alteration). Dead children are highly symbolic. People also fantasize about dead mothers (I have). Anyway it means something important. Maybe anger isn't the number one issue but deadness. Just a thought.

bunny

Glad I'm not the only one about the travelling thing.  It has to be weird, but at least there are two of us.

The comment about deadness is a good one. I will ask my t on Monday.  

When I told the t before he didn't really want to know - he said it was asleep like Snow White, and would wake up one day.  But that is his story.  To me, it is a body in a box.  Pretty clear image.  Also, it is a stick figure, like a child's drawing.  Not an adult image.

This is really going to sound strange, but if I touch someone they are more real, because they are warm and alive.  But do the boundaries mean that this would not be allowed?  I used to always shake hands with the t at the end of the session, but the last t didn't like it, and although he did it, he always hesitated and looked uncomfortable, and he sometimes said it was not usual.  So after I finished the sessions with him, I stopped trying that with other doctors, even though it would help me.  Perhaps I should ask this t what she thinks.  My current t reached to open the door a couple of sessions ago, and her hand got close to mine and I pulled away very quickly, almost like getting burned.  But it felt like it was to save her touching me, not the other way round.    

Or maybe it is not important and she doesn't need to be real.  But there are not many real people left any more, and it is a bit worrying.  

Thanks for giving me something to think about, Bunny.  
xxx

[Anonymous]

Bunny's thought that deadness of the child is the issue got me thinking.

October wrote, regarding your mother:

... But to her everything is personal....

 and

I was stressed out, and very unwell, but I did not at any point think it was personal.

(regarding what your ex did).

But are you taking your parents lack of empathy for you and your situation...personally?  I bet you are.  Who wouldn't?  But...the lack of empathy they have is not just for you, is it?  It is alll about them and they don't really feeeeel for anyone, it seems, do they?  Do they show empathy for anyone?  I bet not a whole lot.
 
So it isn't you.  It's not personal.  It has nothing to do with you.

Easy for me to say, as Portia points out, it "hurts".  Ofcourse it hurts to think that your parents don't feel or care for you.  It is this lack of feeling their love that hurts, isn't it?  Never having their touch, their hugs, their safe, warm and comfortable love.  Isn't that what kills the child within...makes it seem or feel dead?  Like the rice, discussed in another thread, that is ignored and turns black and dies.

Have you expressed that terrible hurt?  Really released it?

The residual hurt, pain, dead stuff...can turn to anger, right?

Do you think that anger might be from that hurt and pain?

Sometimes I wonder if "hug" therapy might be an idea for people in such pain?  Can you imagine going to a therapist and just letting it all out and hugging for an hour?  It would feel good if the idea wasn't so bizzare, wouldn't it?  The child inside needs those hugs and to let out that hurt.  Your inner child may need to feel really loved and since your parents haven't and aren't making that happen, you've got to find another way.
Love you.

People turn to addictions and promiscuous behaviours etc for the same reason, I suspect.  As awful as that hurt is...it can be soothed.  It's just that they aren't going to do it because they don't have a clue.

But their inability to do that for you is not about you.  It is about them.

((((((((((((((((((October))))))))))))))))

GFN

[bunny]

To me, it is a body in a box.  Pretty clear image.  Also, it is a stick figure, like a child's drawing.  Not an adult image.

Sounds pretty symbolic to me. Your t will be very interested, I think.

This is really going to sound strange, but if I touch someone they are more real, because they are warm and alive.

It doesn't sound strange to me. There are many people who don't feel very grounded without some concrete evidence of the other person.

Your first t sounds like he was out of his depth. First, he didn't want to face a dead child in a box. You'd think he would be excited and feel like an explorer who found the lost city of Atlantis. But no. Then he was uncomfortable about a handshake and said it was "not usual." It's not usual or unusual. Some therapists do shake hands with patients. Yeah, it should be discussed, as you were utilizing the handshake to get some realness. So what- it wasn't a crime. It was grist for the mill. But he made you feel like you had done something wrong, broken the rules, which he never told you in the first place. And which he probably made up on the spot! Out of his depth.

There are entire books written on whether a therapist should touch a patient, and under what conditions. I just read one of these books, coincidentally. There is no rule about it (except rules against sexual touching, obviously verboten). It's up to the therapist and the patient. There are some situations where it's not a good idea, and some cases where it seems to be okay or even helpful.

Tell your t about the almost-reaching-hand-out incident and that you want to know she's real by touching her. Then the two of you to talk about it and come up with some win-win plans of action.

bunny

[serena]

Hi October, well, yes, I agree, seeing the truth is better than living in that crazy, confusing fantasy. But it hurts, I know. And this knowledge so far?

 I wonder if there’s a huge well of anger inside you October? Maybe not.

There would be in me. I wonder about the panic attacks. What happens in the supermarket – do you panic because people seem not to see you and you might disappear? Or is it that people might dislike and reject you? Do you try and chat with the check-out people?

I'm still confused about the I: E thing, to be honest.  But I find it easy to chat to people in shops - nothing easier.  It isn't real, in the sense that it is not deep or intimate, but it is my way of saying, hello, I can see you as a person, not just part of the shop.  Strangely my mother is also very good at talking to strangers, but in her case she talks about herself.  I never do.  I generally notice if the shop assistant is tired, or looks bored or fed up, and say something like 'has it been a hard day so far?' or 'have you long to go before you finish today?'  Or about the weather.  

But it is all a kind of act, in a way.  It is me acting the outgoing, concerned person.  It is not exactly like pretending, but it is putting my own life to one side in order to notice someone else's.  After all, who would want to hear about me?  

In terms of connecting with people, I am having problems at present.  I went to the dentist the other day, and found myself dissociating a lot to cope, which helped, but afterwards I found I couldn't snap out of it at all.  Very unreal.  Even visiting a good friend didn't help.  The closest we got was when he was talking about his father being ill, and I almost felt like I was human, and part of the world again.  But it was very transitory.

Struggling with this with my t at present too.  She is not real to me, and I have told her this.  She could be a computer screen or a television.  She said is it to do with lack of emotion, and I said no, televisions show emotion, and are not real, and in any case she can laugh with me at times.  So that is not it.  I think it is to do with touch.  I don't do touch with anyone, except my daughter, and I think it is not good for me.

If all the input is either sound or sight, then it will be like a cinema screen, I suppose.  Sometimes I watch television programmes about holidays abroad, and I think why do people pay thousands of pounds to go abroad, when they can see it on the television.  What is the difference?  To me it is the same.  Life is unreal.  Disconnected.  

As for anger, all the anger inside is turned inwards.  There seems to be no residual feeling left at all, except when something else comes along and makes me angry, but it doesn't last.  My first t tried to help me find the anger inside, but he couldn't do it.    All I found from visualisation was a small box with a dead child inside.  The box was at the bottom of a black hole the other side of the universe.  The t said it was not dead, but asleep.  I am not sure he was right.  Still waiting to find out.

October - I notice that you are in the UK.  I won't go into the litany of abuse I suffered at the hands of my N mother but will try to document my recovery.  I was like you, I had friends, acquaintances etc. who would talk to me and I would be thinking 'I don't care'.... 'I don't care about ANYTHING'.... I was severely depressed and trapped in my own home.  One day I visited my Doctor's surgery in London and by some miracle, after years of medication and being written off, he offered me a scheme whereby I could enter psychoanalysis in Hampstead (where they all live!!).

This was because the analyst took on 'charity' cases whenever they could.  I was so f***ed up, worse than you.  I went to see him and hated him, thought he was an intellectual bighead.  I did, however, trust him and I went to see him for nine years, three times a week.  Radical, I know!!  I never had any physical contact with him, I knew nothing about him other than his name, address and telephone number but for some reason it worked spectacularly well.  I left his office one afternoon feeling incredibly sad that I wouldn't see him again but with the massive awareness that he had 'brought me back to life'.  I know I did the work and he was the facilitator but sometimes it takes that degree of 1:1  therapy to get well.

I hope with all my heart you get so lucky, I know what the NHS is like - throw drugs at us.

I am now extremely happy, outgoing, the unofficial 'entertainments officer' where I work and loved by many!!  I also reciprocate these feelings.

I wish you all the best.