Most Important Issue For You

[gratitude28]

As I said before, I am reading Children of the Self-Absorbed by Nina W. Brown. In it, she asks what is your biggest problem and these are the ones she mentions: 1) Valuing yourself 2) Accepting your limitations 3) Maintaining boundaries 4) Inability to trust your parents or others 5) Inability to access emotions 6) Inability to forgive your parents 7) wanting your parents to be different

So... which one is your biggest issue and what are you doing to move forward???

Love, Beth

[gratitude28]

I will add that I think mine is the inability to forgive. I need to get over it, I know. The other issues are there, but not as big for me...

Love, Beth

[JanetLG]

Beth,

Mine is inability to forgive NMum. I've known her behaviour was abusive for over 20 years altogether (13 years NC), and although things are a lot better now, regarding how I obsess about her, the not forgiving is the main problem I'm left with.

However, I've read in several places that 'forgiveness' might not be sensible, or justified. If she felt REMORSE, I'd try to forgive her, even if I never felt able to have a relationship with her ever again, but she's NEVER even hinted at remorse.

 I think I need to get to the stage of feeling something slightly different from forgiveness...I want to feel a kind of healthy non-feeling about her. You know? Like 'I'm not bothered any more about what she DID, and I'm secure in the knowledge that I won't let do anything in the FUTURE'. It's almost like I want to feel a kind of apathy, but I don't think that's quite the right word.

To reach that stage, I talk it over with my husband ( a lot!! He deserves a medal!!). I've had counselling and therapy in the past, but I'm sick of that now - too much navel-gazing, and not enough answers. This board is a better way to get things out of my system.  Time is a great healer, on its own.  I have recently started going to a Unitarian church, and there it's OK to experience God as a feminine idea - I have found that this is very helpful to me, as I can now experience a female 'mothering/nurturing' that I never got from my own mother.

Janet

[Ami]

Dear Beth,
  Thank you for doing these  insightful threads.They really promote a good discussion.I have all of the qualities on your list. The one that hurts me most is inability to access emotions.
   I have been "obsessed" with the first Paul Potts audition. i have watched it over and over. I am not sure why but I think that it is b/c I see the emotions in the people and feel them in myself.. I love Piers Morgan's face as Paul sings. It is raw emotion--- awe, joy, beauty, and depth. . I see the emotions of a child before the N mother "slapped " them out of him.
   I wish that I could find a man like that.I want to be in a place where those  emotions exist . I have a deep yearning for this However, I think that it is not a man that I want ,but my own emotions. I still really don't understand this whole thing. If anyone could see this more clearly, I would appreciate it.
  I think that the heading of valuing ourself also involves accepting limitations,maintaining boundaries and trusting yourself. I think that when our love for ourselves was "stolen" by the N, many other related things went with it. If we had something we valued, we would care, maintain and treat it well. When we lose value for ourselves,it is as if we are rolling downhill very fast. We are gathering dirt and debris on us and at the end we are a mess. I see myself as covered with the dirt and debris.
 I am cleaning it off little by little.
    I want to share something really wonderful. It relates to Janet's desire to fell"nothing" for her N mother. What I think that you are saying Janet is that you just want to feel a "neutral" feeling. You really don't want to be  effected one way or another.
  Today, I woke up and I think that I experienced a healing. For 3 weeks, I have been going through all the feelings and emotions that I have been sharing here. I got a yeast infection and feel that "all over sick feeling" that comes with it. My stomach feels really bad.However, today, something shifted.
   I saw myself as in a cylinder. You know the transportation devices that they use in science fiction movies. They are tubes. I saw myself in there, alone. No one can get in or out. I am alone in there,but it feels freeing ,not oppressive. My parents and husband are not in here. No friend or other person  can get in .. However,it feels empowering .
   Today,my H started trying to  pick at me. I really do not care.It is the neutral feeling that Janet talks about.. I can see the truth about him. He provides and takes care of household things. He does  not treat me well. He  will never treat me well. He will be "whirling" just like my mother is" whirling. " They are going round and round in their crazy dance.My H will find something to hate me about b/c he feels ENTITLED to be an ass. His mother taught him that if he did well in school, he could come home and have tantrums etc and it was O.K.. Anyway, he will always hate me if I don't "buckle"under and let him be and do whatever he wants My job is to love him -- no matter HOW he acts.That is the unspoken agreement. However, I just saw the truth in it. I am empowered b/c I see it..
 So. the upshot is that he will always hate me.. The point is what he wants is someone to  give to him and love him -- NO MATTER how he acts. So, he is going to be doing his dance-- on and on and on--- just like my mother.
   As far as forgiving, I think that Janet had the key. You want to get in to a space where it simply does not matter. I think that I got there with my H. It really does not matter. I will be "nice". I will not be an ass. However, I need to be packing my gun for when I need it. It is the truth. It is not pretty,but it is real.
  I think that these 3 weeks of   upheaval "birthed  many things. I think that realizing that I am alone will put many issues in their proper place.I will not have the expectations of other people. I will not have the expectations of my mother or my husband
   Thank you so, so much for letting me share my journey with you and for responding and caring   
                                                                                               Love   Ami

[Certain Hope]

Hi Beth,

This is just in time... a great help to review, re-shuffle, re-sort and evaluate. Thank you!
Thinking on this, I'm picturing a deck of cards. When you try to shuffle them the worn ones with bent edges will often get stuck sideways or drop out. Those are the ones that need some attention... to be mended... maybe even replaced.

Maintaining boundaries was the first I had to work on. For awhile, I'd kept them too tight, too closely guarded.
Noticing now that I'm actually able to practice relaxing those somewhat now... because self-respect has had time to become established and grow a bit.
Self-respect/valuing self has allowed respect for others to flow and ease some of the perceived need for such stringent boundaries. This is definitely not a process which can be hurried!

Inability to access emotions is the current issue, I think.
Maybe not to access, because that old "flat-lined" phase is past... but to recognize the emotions.
Past work with my husband uncovered alot... and recent connections with my oldest daughter have shown me that many emotions were still deeply buried, and yet survived. That brought an awakening. Then there've been other recent incidents where I felt prompted to examine a flash of anger and recognized that its root was in hurt feelings - that startled me.  It's hard to say what's next in this line of work, because it's still all so new... but acknowledging these emotions and exploring them down to their roots seems to be the task at hand.

Trust - I don't know. Not there yet   I trust God. Basically I'm thinking that's as good as it gets... too many expectations attached to other forms of trust? 
I do trust my husband and my children and my best friends... to a point. Not sure to what point.
Guess it's appropriate to take a look at what exactly that trust is composed of and define its limits?
I don't know whether this may be further along on my own to-do list or just needs to settle in more deeply. Time will tell.

About forgiveness, Beth... just my thoughts -  I think that's so closely tied with a newfound self-respect along with an intimate relationship with God - that the two go hand in hand. Defining and accepting self apart from any other human being... recognizing just how much God has forgiven me of... that all helped alot.

Thank you again for drawing out these thoughts!

Love,
Hope

[gratitude28]

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((Ami)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

You are growing very fast and making great realizations. You see to understand your husband perfectly. In a way he is a child having a constant tantrum to see how long he can get away with it. You repeated the relationship you had with your mother and now you are ready to let all that behind and start over. You should be so proud. The invisible chamber sounds like a great protective idea.
Ami, I want to say that I have made so much progress in just a year, just by clarifying what the problems were in my life and seeing where they were affecting me. Of the list I posted, I have changed so much in my life already... just from listening to people here and asking advice. Like you, I saw things so clearly when I knew what the other person was really doing. It's like the Emporer's New Clothes.

Janet,
You and I have so much of the same experinces. It is hard for me to accept that she could be a mother and just not sacrifice anything because she didn't want to and she felt she came first in everything. Having had my own children, I just can't believe she is that self-centered. And I just can't stand that the people around her insulate her. I think that is what bothers me the most - so maybe that means I am feeling some need to feel "right." I need to change THAT in me. I also am bothered that my sister and dad are so ingrained in this nasty behavior system. They are corrupted and it is their fault, but at the same time I wonder how people who lived around me for so long can be so mean and never want to grow as people.

((((((((((((((((((((nursie)))))))))))))))))
I am glad to see yo here and posting again.

CH,
Boundaries were way hard for me. I tried to please everyone for the longest time and people just rush in to take advantage of that... Your post in general showed me that these are all so closely linked... working on one leads to progress in the other areas. Also, both you and Ami talked about the emotions. I know for me it was like I had two people inside. The "Hollow Person" was the one I used around my family. I was like a zombie in my house. The other person was an immature brat who was trying to figure out how other people acted and why and tried to copy them and find some peace and happiness. Great way to learn, eh?????

Thanks y'all (using my Texas language). Tomorrow we'll be on the road for 26 hours heading to the East Coast. Arrgghhhh.
Love, Beth

[axa]

Beth,

Valuing myself has to be the one I stuggle with most.  I have been hardwired to think others needs are more important than mine and no matter how often i learn hard lesson I go back into the pit again.

Forgiving my Nparents, yes I have but forgiving XN........NO but I have forgiven myself for staying with El Creepo.

Waiting for change, this bit I never get.  I understood after many years that Nparents were not going to change but got caught in the hope trap again with XN.  I think it is quite childlike the inability to know that everyone cannot change.  Of course intellectually I understand this but emotionally I think I am still stuck though I do accept that XN will not/cannot change.

axa

[Portia]

Hi Beth

Valuing myself.

Accepting my limitations? How about accepting my strengths too, linked to (1).

Not sure I understand  4) Inability to trust your parents or others .... I trust others. Trust my parents to do what? I trust them to be who they are. and that's about it!

[Iphi]

Absolutely it is valuing myself.   Until very, very recently, I did not see how huge a problem it is that I have not been able to do this.  Ami, your imagery or rolling downhill was great. Very vivid and applicable!

Being my usual self comparing things to stories, I think of the valuing myself problem in terms of the story The Goose Girl.  In this story, through ignorance, a princess is taken off guard by an enemy who steals her identity and casts her down into the role of servant - tending the geese.  Many injustices and outrages ensue, because the identity thief is an imposter - she is falsely valuing herself and does not value the responsibilities of her role.  The Goose Girl passively stays in this position watching one wrong after another, until she learns to value herself.  Then she starts to make change.

I'm really not troubled by being unable to forgive my parents.  For many years I felt it was compulsory to forgive them, or else I was a bad person.  I'm so happy to be relieved of that burden and to lose that false compulsion.  I personally have beliefs that include continuity of life beyond this life, and feel that Time is necessary for forgiveness to ripen, and that, in truth, it cannot be rushed or forced.  After all, I have much experience with forced forgiveness: it doesn't heal.

Recently someone castigated me for not forgiving my father, and I was happy to find it angered me to be lectured to and otherwise bounced right off.  That boundary is strongly in place.  Yes!

One thing is for sure, I'm not going to get any remorse, contrition or apologies in this lifetime. So perhaps my belief that I will get them in some lifetime is just being optimistic and the way I rationalize it to myself. 

It seems to me that accepting my limitations will be a big issue for me in future.  I've certainly accepted my limitation on ability to forgive, but since seeing reality (and myself within that reality) is an ongoing project - like trying to construct glasses to cure very blurry perception - becoming aware of more limitations all the time.

[tayana]

) Valuing yourself 2) Accepting your limitations 3) Maintaining boundaries 4) Inability to trust your parents or others 5) Inability to access emotions 6) Inability to forgive your parents 7) wanting your parents to be different

Valuing myself, accepting my limitations and maintaining boundaries are probably my big three.  I do have problems with all the others though too, especially the last one.  I have a hard time really trusting people, not just my parents.  It gives me a "I have to do this myself" type attitude, and therefore I don't look for help.  I don't know about forgiveness yet, I'm still too angry to forgive.  I don't really have a hard time accessing my emotions, just acting on them or expressing them.  I do still want my parents to be different.  So perhaps I have a hard time with four.  Definitely the first three, and probably the first one most of all.  I have a hard time just taking time for me and not getting overwhelmed with all sorts of other stuff.  I have a tendency to take on too much, too quick, and get overwhelmed.

Ami,  ((((((hugs, sweetheart))))), you're getting better.  You really are.  It just takes time.

[isittoolate]

For  me it is  5) Inability to access emotions

My therapist said I was disconnected and had been from very young. We are working on that.

love
Izzy

[motheroffour]

Man, I struggle with most of those too.  I think boundaries is hardest.  I feel like I don't have any boundaries.  Like people can come and go and do what they please and that I wasn't to have any feelings about that.  I have recently been in a year long cold war/battle thing with my N family and have felt that I need to hide in order to protect myself cause my non-exsitent boundaries were not there to protect me.  Feels good though to be finally able to set some.  Hard to explain the details but I am starting to see that I don't have to take it and I don't have to fight for my safety openly either.  I can just do what is best for me and hope that it will work out.  I still feel guilty for doing this....why my intellectual brain can't figure out.....but I fight the guilt too and try to whisper truth to myself. Feel little parts of myself able to get back in the game.  Like today.  A new neighbor moved in next door.  I actually introduced myself and welcomed the family to the block.  I felt comfortable and she seems so nice. The whole time I had to tell myself not to "try" too hard.  Not to pretend to be a good person -- with all of my jumping thru hoops.  I wasn't quite my most comfortable self, but dang! I think I did pretty well.  Baby steps...bill murray, move over!

--mof4

[dandylife]

 7) wanting your parents to be different


As a child growing up it was certainly this. My dad was a twin. fraternal twin. So he and his twin brother didn't look exactly alike. They were opposites. He was nice, my dad was mean (an n.) I always wanted Dean for a dad. Prayed that one day i'd wake up and my dad would be Dean, not Dale.

Well, my dad died.

Now my life revolves around my husband who I believe I married to complete the cycle (also an N). I actually have come along way in the cycle. From helpless and hoping and wishing to actually taking control of my life and how I want it to be. I do still find myself wishing he was....someone else? Different? Wish different qualities on him? I don't know. I still feel that. I'm not completely whole yet. There is something there that maybe says I don't think I'm quite worth it yet??? I don't know what it is.

I also would say a weakness is "Not knowing what I want" and "Not going after what I want"

I tend to take the easy way out or around things. Don't bend the rules, don't make waves, don't step on toes, don't make others struggle just for me. All those things are ingrained I think.

Dandylife

[pennyplant]

1) Valuing yourself--I think I have improved in this area by using the new tapes (in my head)

2) Accepting your limitations--Hmmmm,  I think I have come up against my limitations in some pretty traumatic ways the last few years and sort of accepted them due to exhaustion!

3) Maintaining boundaries--I just learned what those were in the past couple of years and it is hard to establish them, but I am learning how.  I had to first identify what was important enough to me to stand firm on.  Had to also learn the various ways in which boundaries can be violated.

4) Inability to trust your parents or others--My parents were/are very predictable so trust really doesn't come into play there.  I do not trust my peers, people my age, or myself.  That is going to be a hard won ability.

5) Inability to access emotions--First I had to learn what they were and what they felt like.  Then had to learn to allow them to exist.  Then had to learn how to do that while still functioning normally in public.  Now my challenge is to foster peace, happiness and contentment.

6) Inability to forgive your parents--Right now, this one is a non-issue for me.  Maybe I've thought so much about the past I just want to be done with it.  Maybe I know they were crippled and how do you forgive someone for just being themselves?  I have more trouble with forgiving myself.  That's more important to me to accomplish. 

7) Wanting your parents to be different--Well, that would involve going back in time or being born to someone else.  I guess I just haven't spent a lot of energy on those kinds of hopes or fantasies.  I wanted my current circumstances to be different, I wanted to be rescued, things like that.  Sure, I think if I had been born to different people, but was still the same person I am, my life would have been better.  I often compare myself to some of my son's friends, the girls with similar interests to me, and it takes my breath away to see a happier, self-confident version of myself.  It makes me very wistful.  But much of the damage done to me was done by my peers. Maybe if the adults had been more attentive, or the other kids' parents kinder, better teachers, then my life would have been better.  That's the one that breaks my heart.  That is what seems to have been such a waste.  The kids who were so very, very cruel to me just weren't raised right.  They were raised to be greedy and aggressive.  The girl who almost destroyed me was a victim of incest.  I wish her parents had been different.  Mine weren't great but they certainly didn't set out to destroy me as her parents pretty much did.  If her parents had been different, we would have been friends instead of predator and prey.

Pennyplant

[isittoolate]

5) Inability to access emotions--First I had to learn what they were and what they felt like.  Then had to learn to allow them to exist.  Then had to learn how to do that while still functioning normally in public.  Now my challenge is to foster peace, happiness and contentment.

Wow PP and Shunned

Am I learning somethiung this morning.

exercise my emotions.

I haven't been doing that for too long, so am trying to find them and have been all over the Board with posts today on this topic.

Thanks Loads

xx
Uzzy