Green - thread hit home.

[Motherless]

Dear Green -

While driving to work this morning, I was considering posting a thread about anger and self-realization.

Funny how things work out sometimes... someone says it for you.

Other days I am so angry.

I am always so angry and defensive, and have been most of my life. My poor husband is usually at the victim most days. 
I so dislike this aspect of my personality - and catch myself more often than not.

These days my emotions are all over the place, but at least I know what emotions are now. That is real progress for me - being able to look internally. 

I have always had such a hard time looking internally. It seems that I float, looking at a person who really doesn't exist. People who care tell me that I am doing well considering. Am married to the man I love, gone to college, have been professionally employed for over 30 years, etc.
Who is that person? It's as if it's look at myself with some sort of disembodied rationale. It takes me a few minutes to realize who I really am. Mostly I feel like that scared-to-death little girl who spent her life tip-toeing around an Nmother. I still have nightmares about her going into the stratisphere with one of her Nrages.

What StormChild said is so true:

An inability to admit to our flaws, especially when confronted about them.

A super-defensiveness.

There are plenty of reasons for this; we've spent our lives around people whose primary form of recreation involved tearing us down, so any form of critical input is likely to feel like a kick in the gut.

I am super defensive and have a big-time problem with this one.

You asked what other traits were symptomatic?

Being jealous. Being very jealous of what other people have, do, own, physical appearance...I totally forget what I have!

[Green]

Dear Motherless,

I am glad that my rambling served some other purpose than just self-indulgence    (Is this my own N-ishness showing?)

You said that you "catch" yourself being angry and defensive.  I like the way you phrase this, like catching yourself red-handed. When you say "I am always so angry and defensive...", does that mean you think you should not feel that way, or that you don't like the behaviors that follow (like maybe taking it out on your husband)? 

My therapist recently pointed out to me that feelings are different from behaviors. She said that feelings are neither good nor bad - they just are, but behaviors are a different story.  Lately I have been working on identifying feelings and labeling them ("OK, I recognize this.  This is sadness, this is angry, this is anxiety, etc."), and then just sitting with them.  Sometimes I take note of my body  when I am having a feeling. Am I breathing shallowly? Are my face and shoulders tense?  Not sure where I am going with this - it just came to mind.

The disembodied feeling you describe is very, very, very familiar to me.  I felt that way most of my life.  I think Nmoms never allowed us to invite our own minds and souls into our bodies.  I felt this way entirely until about 6 months ago.  Now I feel that way less and less. I do an exercise that might sound kind of cheeseball, but it really works for me the more I do it.  I visualize myself as centered, with the pit of my stomach or diaphragm as the center of something, like a wheel, or an orange, or a round flower.  And I breath and think about that spot that is literally at the center of me.  Somehow, it gets rid of that disembodied feeling. I think this is what people mean by feeling centered. 

Not sure if any of this makes sense.  Thanks for adding more Nspots to the list.  All of this is so helpful.  thank you thank you!

Green

[Motherless]

Dear Green -

You certainly are not rambling... it's a stream of conscious thought coming out of you.

I do "catch" myself (being angry and defensive), the "catching" is recent. I started see the damage I was doing to someone I love, my husband. He lost his Dad a year ago to cancer at 73. He was always patient and caring but after his Dad died he became angry and belligerent. We both almost went down the rabbit-hole. He ended up in therapy (I already had been in therapy for many years). He had to come out and tell me how I was acting to him. I never even saw it.

The trait I was exhibiting I've been told, is a learned behavior. It is not something that is a chemical or an organic imbalance that can be treated with drugs.
It was how my mother got what she wanted - total adoration, and if she didn't get that, all I got was banishment and rejection. It's a self-defense kind of thing that has carried over into me b/c of the way I was treated.
Makes me cringe to even think that I would continue it.

No to the cheeseball and your description makes total sense to me! I do a similar exercise. I try and take myself out of my being and look back. Sometimes I don't like what I see, me being like her, other times it gives me confidence to know that I am a total person.  That's enough to make me cognisant of how I am acting.

Please keep writing - everyone on this board is so terrific and caring. It's so good to hear other peoples stories - makes you feel less alone.

M~

[Hopalong]

Motherless and Ami,

Massage massage massage

and maybe

dance dance dance

I think things that help us inhabit our own bodies (miraculous containers issued at birth) can do a lot for us emotionally. Sometimes an amazing lot.

If you could do one or the other weekly, I'd love to hear if it helps you...

hugs
Hops

[Motherless]

Dear Hops, Ami & Green -

Again, good to see that the written word offers so much. It is a comfort knowing that there are others out there that have experienced the same kind of of upbringing.
What do I mean upbringing?... more like a torture chamber.

Funny, Ami, you mentioned that if my mother didn't get total adoration there would be a big price to pay. It yet continues: the staff at her Geri-Psych facility still gives us reports about her. She will yammer on ad nauseaum to them about how "wonderful" and "important" and "successful" she was at her job. If no one listens or ignores her, she goes totally mental. One aid cried on the phone to me about it... she was that hurtful. Of course, this poor woman is from some 3rd world country and knowing my mother, she probably would have said something race related. Poor kid, how well I know how you are feeling, and you aren't even her daughter!

Thank God I haven't had to see in her 2 years.

Ami - realizing that my mother was the horror that she was came when I was 45. (You sound much younger than 45 - don't waste anytime getting better inside and out.)
It took me that long, b/c I thought everyone lived like I did. Can you believe that? Talk about being brain-washed.. she did a real good job, didn't she?
You didn't do anything terrible by sending that email.. I wish I could send one like that to my old lady!

Sylvia Path? Yes, she committed suicide - put her head in gas oven. Read her book with an open mind.

Massage? Sounds good right about now!

XO
M~

[Motherless]

Thanks Ami -

I now can see humor in the whole situation now that I get to look in through the "looking glass".

Have a candle I light every night for all on the board.

Sweet dreams!!

M~
xo

[Green]

Hi Ami, Motherless, and Hops,

This stuff about total adoration must be really typical, huh?  It describes my Nmom well.  Ami, you described it perfectly, too when you said, "You could even give it,but if she did not receive it, she would rage."  I had a big turning point when I realized I could never give her enough, she rarely told me what she wanted, I could never guess what she wanted, even if I filled all her demands and guessed or anticipated more, she would still rage.

I don't feel like I am making much sense today.  Insomnia since 3am.

Anyway, how hard is it for extremely empathetic people to read Sylvia Plath? It sounds like I could learn a lot from her if I could just get through it, but i have have a hard time watching insurance commercials without crying!  Not in a depressed way, necessarily, but I feel obligated to empathize and bear witness to other people's pain.  Part of being an ACOn I guess.

Motherless, i like the sounds of your exercise  - of getting out of your body - I will give it a try.  Hops, I also like your ideas for getting into your body.  to add to that list, I also find it useful to go out in nature, walk and feel the breeze and sun on my skin.  it takes conscious effort, though, like taking care of yourself, which can be a pretty challenging commitment.

cheers,
Green

[Ami]

Dear Green,
   I can so relate to what you are saying. It was not rambling-one single bit                                                                               I am feeling all these feelings of sadness just pervading me. I also have my fear stomach ache back. ,Do you feell like you are a little voice at the "bottom" of a lake? The rest of you is just "fake coping skills". the me" who is me" is buried really deep where I can not get at it. HOW to get at it is my problem.
  I am hoping and praying that the process of healing will take it's own way and just bring me where I need to go if I am willing to face the truth.I am hoping that being willing to face the truth is my part.
Is there anyone who has gone through this  and come out the other side and feels connected to themselves? I would really love to hear the "How-Tos.Also, did it take time? Could you rush it? What did you do in the meantime? Did you push yourself to be with other;s even though you were numb and" not real" and did not want to. This last question is a big one for me. How much should I push myself and how much should I be gentle and just let the process of healing unwind?
I feel like a little kid again .                                                           Love   Ami
 

[Green]

Thanks CB and Ami, I want to reply now but am out of time - will get back soon.  Ami, I sent you a PM with some ideas about your poor tummy.  Just wanted to make sure you saw it.

more soon,
green

[Hopalong]

wowowowowowow

CB, this

they can't actually feel it when someone expresses something positive to them.

really NAILS something for me.

This is why loving, loving and moremoremore loving can't "cure" Ns!

That's it! It's not being a "woman who loves too much"...it's that quantity and quality of love don't even register, except superficially.

thanks, wow

Hops

[Green]

Ok, I am back now with a little more time,

CB, thank you for your gentle words.  I have been all over the place emotionally today, so the reminder about the source of some of it is helpful.  Your way of describing Ns is so to the point: "It's like they have had a giant shot of Novocaine, and no matter how many ways you try to touch them, they just can't feel it.  And, being N's, they blame you for not touching hard enough."  that is so true, CB.

Ami, I feel your pain, and hear you struggling, determined to make things better for yourself.  Keep it up!  Yes, my voice feels small and drowned, too, sometimes, but it gets better, I promise.  If I had to guess from reading your posts, I would say that I felt like you sound about 6 months ago.  Change for me happens in a combination of gradual accumulations of knowledge, sudden light bulb moments, and subtle shifts in thinking. Sometimes it takes your emotions and gut reactions awhile to catch up to what you have learned in your head.  I don't know how to make it go faster.  But it will help to spend  as much time as possible respecting yourself and giving yourself credit, looking and listening to yourself, just sitting with yourself and seeing where you are.   I once spent a lot of time saying to myself that I didn't want to feel the pain and sadness and hurt, that I couldn't bear it and that I should just stop feeling that way.  Only by accepting those feelings, and welcoming them back into myself did they begin to dissipate. 

What to do in the meantime?  I think just listen to yourself and try to observe your feelings and thoughts.  How do you feel when you get together with friends?  let that be your guide as to how much time you spend with whom.   I think your idea about being gentle and just letting the "healing process unwind" is what really helped (and is now helping) me. I still have a long way to go - I am telling myself these things as much or even more than I am telling them to you.

Love, Green

[Ami]

Green,   You have said so many helpful things in that post. Today, I felt much more in my body when my friend ,Maria, came over.  I felt so happy to be more in my body. I have been so lost for so long.I think the answer is to be gentle with myself and "ride the process like a wave". When I wrote the question about this- that answer is what struck me.
 I know that I have made progress because I feel more"real". I assume that it will just get better and better and that I will get whole at the end.
  It helped to hear your 6 month time because it feels like that would be about the amount of time that sounds right. It is slow ,but not that slow.
  One thing that I feel happy about is that my goal concerns me and does not involve other people and that is progress. IOW, I want to get whole,not have my mother or husband love me etc. My goal is one that is inside me.
  Green, when you said that your mother mocked you because you were a virgin. You should see some of my old posts where Janet, Peace and I talk about this very thing.
  There is something where they want to destroy our innocence. There is something in them that they want to destroy any type of "beauty" or "sweetness" in life.For example, my mother loves to ridicule how I love my dog or how my kids love me. Anything that involves me having joy or being whole and esteeming myself gets her in the 'Let's Destroy "mode.
   She has a radar for zeroing in on a little budding of self esteem and has to destroy it before it blossoms.
 I want to tell you a story about the summer that I was 16. We went away for the summer. We lived next door to a guy and girl. My mother became friends with the girl(age 30). This girl had been a high price call girl. I told my mother that I did not like this relationship. My mother laughed at me.Later, she and the girl would laugh at me because I wanted to stay a virgin and also I was studying math and other subjects in the summer.They would sit together and laugh at me. Later, I found out that this girl tried to seduce my brother (age 14). My mother had another similar friend who tried to seduce my brother. This time ,he told my mother and she laughed and  dismissed it.
   I told her today by e mail that she and my father were dead to me.I said that she practically killed me and with the little of me that is left, I am not going to let her kill the rest.
   I knew that she was starting the 'dance' to  pull me in. I want so badly to have a mother to love me that I had to stop it now. She literally almost killed me this time.
  Your personal story of healing really helped and has given me the courage to go forth with my stomach aches. I think that I was afraid of the sadness under it. However,now I know that it will just be a stage. Also, even while I am sad, I feel more "real' so  I guess that the sadness is a healing thing.
  I am so glad that you are on the board, Green. Keep writing. You have  a lot of wisdom   Love Ami

[Stormchild]

Ami, please get the stomach aches checked out... they could be ulcers, and if so, they can be treated and cured.

[teartracks]

Hi Motherless,

Just wanted to say, Hey, how are you?  Hope you'll keep us up to date on your story.

tt