Author Topic: Do you feel lucky to be alive? (your experiences)  (Read 11938 times)

lighter

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Re: Do you feel lucky to be alive? (your experiences)
« Reply #30 on: July 24, 2007, 12:51:04 AM »
I think I would have kept going to their houses and availing myself to their families support......

even if I skipped the parties. 

You might have been labled a goodie two shoes by your friends (read that as beaten up after dinner) but....

The warm glow of their parent's approval would been worth it, IMO.

JanetLG

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Re: Do you feel lucky to be alive? (your experiences)
« Reply #31 on: July 24, 2007, 05:24:25 AM »
Finding Peace,

Your comment about your mother only reacting to your wanting to commit suicide at 7 (7!!!) being 'how shameful of you, to threaten to do that TO ME!!!' reminds me of a similar comment my NMum made when I was suicidal at 14 (because of the anorexia, and bullying at school). She said, 'if you kill yourself, people will think I was I terrible mother'. Hmmm. :?

Hope,

It's terrible that any birth problems that your mother had get 'blamed' on you. I was born at home (quite unusual, even by the early sixties). My Mum kept bleeding after the birth, as the placenta didn't completely separate, but the midwife didn't know/notice. Several hours after I was born, when the medics had left, my Mum pulled back the sheets and the bed was full of blood. My fault, apparently. Also, she says I was 'wicked even before I was born', because I used to 'scratch her from the inside' while I was a foetus. Can foetuses be 'wicked'? On purpose? Really? Perhaps I was just uncomfortable? Or sensed her rejection of me already? I don't know. But that one of being wicked before I was even born has been trotted out hundreds of times. It took till I was in my thirties, when I told my husband about what she'd said, for me to hear a sensible reaction : "That's bollocks!!!" :lol: :lol: :lol:

Izzy,
The 'fact' that these issues are 'intellectually' our mothers' doesn't alter the fact that we 'feel' on a subconscious and even conscious level that it is *us* who are responsible. Whether the mothers told us or not (some people say they did, others say they just felt it in other ways), it seeps into your psyche like a poison. Rationalising doesn't seem to help. It's similar to the way that children always think they're responsible for their parents getting divorced - they just seem to think, if I was better, this wouldn't happen. Being adults now doesn't seem to make much difference, either.

Finding others who feel the same, though, certainly does. :)

Pal,
Thanks for starting this thread - it's very helpful to me.

Janet

JanetLG

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Re: Do you feel lucky to be alive? (your experiences)
« Reply #32 on: July 24, 2007, 05:25:29 AM »
Hops,

I've just seen your supportive comment re. us who need it on this thread...thank you so much for that!

Janet

Overcomer

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Re: Do you feel lucky to be alive? (your experiences)
« Reply #33 on: July 24, 2007, 07:58:18 AM »
Classic N!  Do they care if we do anything as long as it does not reflect poorly on them?  Even if my "rebellion" was not going to her church but seeking my own identity.  I must work but I need to be a great mother and take my daughter swimming.  I have to be all things to all people or I am not accepted.  There is lack of approval every day of every week-but now I put a rude palm to her face and firmly say DONT!  oh if I was her clone-maybe THEN she would love and accept me.  Dont care anymore
Kelly

"The Best Way Out is Through........and try laughing at yourself"

Ami

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Re: Do you feel lucky to be alive? (your experiences)
« Reply #34 on: July 24, 2007, 08:01:24 AM »
Dear Kelly,
  I tried the clone and it does not work-either. In fact, she did not even realize or know that I had sacrificed my life to be her clone. She was and is always "whirling" . The whirling dervishes whirl round and round, oblivious to anything and everything around them                   Love  Ami
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.        Eleanor Roosevelt

Most of our problems come from losing contact with our instincts,with the age old wisdom stored within us.
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Certain Hope

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Re: Do you feel lucky to be alive? (your experiences)
« Reply #35 on: July 24, 2007, 08:22:31 AM »
Finding Peace,

Your comment about your mother only reacting to your wanting to commit suicide at 7 (7!!!) being 'how shameful of you, to threaten to do that TO ME!!!' reminds me of a similar comment my NMum made when I was suicidal at 14 (because of the anorexia, and bullying at school). She said, 'if you kill yourself, people will think I was I terrible mother'. Hmmm. :?

Hope,

It's terrible that any birth problems that your mother had get 'blamed' on you. I was born at home (quite unusual, even by the early sixties). My Mum kept bleeding after the birth, as the placenta didn't completely separate, but the midwife didn't know/notice. Several hours after I was born, when the medics had left, my Mum pulled back the sheets and the bed was full of blood. My fault, apparently. Also, she says I was 'wicked even before I was born', because I used to 'scratch her from the inside' while I was a foetus. Can foetuses be 'wicked'? On purpose? Really? Perhaps I was just uncomfortable? Or sensed her rejection of me already? I don't know. But that one of being wicked before I was even born has been trotted out hundreds of times. It took till I was in my thirties, when I told my husband about what she'd said, for me to hear a sensible reaction : "That's bollocks!!!" :lol: :lol: :lol:

Izzy,
The 'fact' that these issues are 'intellectually' our mothers' doesn't alter the fact that we 'feel' on a subconscious and even conscious level that it is *us* who are responsible. Whether the mothers told us or not (some people say they did, others say they just felt it in other ways), it seeps into your psyche like a poison. Rationalising doesn't seem to help. It's similar to the way that children always think they're responsible for their parents getting divorced - they just seem to think, if I was better, this wouldn't happen. Being adults now doesn't seem to make much difference, either.

Finding others who feel the same, though, certainly does. :)

Pal,
Thanks for starting this thread - it's very helpful to me.

Janet


Hi Janet,

It's so strange... not even so much that she blamed me for the birth problems, but that she was entitled to an "ownership" of me because of them.
I can't even pinpoint all of the feelings associated with this, but she made herself my only source (the umbilical cord) and then, when any difference from her manifested in me, she pinched off the cord and starved me of all nutrients. It's interesting to me that the source of all this bleeding prior to birth was the ripping away of the placenta from the uterine wall... and the manner in which that nearly killed both of us.

The other story of hers which I recall hearing repeatedly through the years is that, as an infant, I never cried. I don't believe that one, either.
Surely I knew from the womb that there would be no emotional support from my mother. I feel like I was too intimidated to cry.
Surely these things are sensed by the unborn child.
You scratched your mother? I can only imagine why. (((((((Janet)))))))  The trotting out of these stories is the wicked thing. And you know, I think it doesn't even matter so much what "they" say... the fact that becomes abundantly clear, long before we're able to verbalize it... is - it's all about THEM.

I agree with you that this poison seeps into the psyche. Perhaps you did sense her rejection of you... sure feels like I did - from forever ago.
And I think that if I'd scratched her pre-birth, there likely would have been no stories at all... because that particular scenario wouldn't fit into her schema of absolute control. The birth story was a bit of drama that made her feel special, so it got told. The real truth was always in the many things which never got told and what always came through loudest and most clearly of all was that she was #1 and anyone or anything not falling into line with that outlook would be annhilated.

Finding Peace and Janet.... your mothers' responses to you when you no longer wanted to live... are heartbreaking. Such a desperate plea for help, to the one person in the world who should want to protect you, but all she had in her was to protect herself. I am so sorry. I think that my own mother grew up in a home where she felt like nothing but an extension of her own parents' will and consequently set out to break that will in the others with whom she's lived ever since. To dominate and to control. I cannot picture her ever saying such a thing, but it's there. Always has been. It's the message behind the story of my birth... "how could you do this to ME?!!?"  

Bollocks, indeed!

With love,
Hope

Ami

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Re: Do you feel lucky to be alive? (your experiences)
« Reply #36 on: July 24, 2007, 08:35:41 AM »
Dear Hope,
  Two things that you said seem to embody the N mother. One is that they, first and foremost, care about them. This is the opposite of the natural instinct of the "normal" mother  which is to care about her child.
  The second  is that they deliberately try to break your will. This was the most horrible thing for me. She did break my will by taking away my trust in myself. She did it deliberately,(but it had to have been a part of her "sickness", I would think.)
  I really hate facing that she, as a mother , should have tried to bolster us,but she eroded us to the point of extinction(or close)        Thanks for sharing those poignant words        Love  Ami

P.S. There is a children's book--" I will love you forever"-- I think is the name. A pastor read it to the church. I was sobbing. while other people around me had a few tears. It touched me in such a deep place. See if you can find it and let me know.I would love to hear your reaction to it. It is about a mother's love.  .
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.        Eleanor Roosevelt

Most of our problems come from losing contact with our instincts,with the age old wisdom stored within us.
   Carl Jung

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Re: Do you feel lucky to be alive? (your experiences)
« Reply #37 on: July 24, 2007, 09:26:53 AM »
Dear Hope,
  Two things that you said seem to embody the N mother. One is that they, first and foremost, care about them. This is the opposite of the natural instinct of the "normal" mother  which is to care about her child.
  The second  is that they deliberately try to break your will. This was the most horrible thing for me. She did break my will by taking away my trust in myself. She did it deliberately,(but it had to have been a part of her "sickness", I would think.)
  I really hate facing that she, as a mother , should have tried to bolster us,but she eroded us to the point of extinction(or close)        Thanks for sharing those poignant words        Love  Ami

P.S. There is a children's book--" I will love you forever"-- I think is the name. A pastor read it to the church. I was sobbing. while other people around me had a few tears. It touched me in such a deep place. See if you can find it and let me know.I would love to hear your reaction to it. It is about a mother's love.  .

Dear Ami,

Thank you.
There's a little book like that which I always read to my son - Owly. "How much do you love me, mama?"... 
The "correct" answer, of course = More than myself, son. The expression of this answer in this little book always made my son's face glow :)  and mine!

There's a question which I still ask myself...
How is it that I know this... and she doesn't?
Surely it is not upbringing alone.
How can a mother raise a child and never once say, "I love you" ?
I didn't say it to my children because I learned it from experience. I said it because I couldn't NOT say it. It poured out from me.
What poured out from her was... intense in its lack of expression. I think she had the sort of "love" for me which she has for her little ceramic rabbit on her deck. She can admire it and cherish it and talk about how very sweet it is and how wonderful it makes her feel just to gaze at it through her window...
just as long as it doesn't come to life and start hopping into her flowers, nibbling at the leaves and leaving raisinettes all over the deck.

She didn't have a horrible childhood, to the best of my knowledge.
There was some deprivation of material stuff... it was the Great Depression, after all... but I know that sort of experience doesn't have this effect on all who endure it. We don't have much... and I know many folks who don't... but they don't resent it. They don't allow it to turn them into anal, miserable, insufferably self-centered bores. They don't spend their lives hoarding everything unto themselves lest they be somehow "cheated" of their just desserts.
I wonder what murdered her natural instinct that she could objectify me so.

And still, my mother is not the pathological liar which is the NPD trademark.
Grandiosity, yes... and all the rest. Lying - no.
Perhaps 10 on the scale makes NPD and she is a 9.
I dunno.

About the will-breaking... I don't think she even had a clue that it was normal and natural and positive that HER child should have a will independent of hers.
After all, (maybe she thought...) she'd never differentiated herself from her parents' will... she was a good little girl. Surely that was how it was supposed to be.
Good little girls (and surely she'd never have anything BUT a good little girl) always reflected their parents' glory.

Others received her disdain and contempt... including my father.
But I --- was merely an extension of herself. Her disdain and contempt for me had to be stuffed... as though it then became invisible.
As if!!
It was the elephant in the midst of the room... and I swallowed it whole.

I don't want to love myself like she does.
Only God is worthy of all that.

I've made a note about that book, Ami - thank you.
Also going to re-read one from some time ago - The Sacred Romance - by Brent Curtis and John Eldridge
It's subtitle is - "Drawing Closer to the Heart of God".

I hope that you have a peaceful day, Ami.

With love,
Hope
















« Last Edit: July 24, 2007, 09:28:34 AM by Certain Hope »

Certain Hope

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Re: Do you feel lucky to be alive? (your experiences)
« Reply #38 on: July 24, 2007, 10:26:02 AM »
Classic N!  Do they care if we do anything as long as it does not reflect poorly on them?  Even if my "rebellion" was not going to her church but seeking my own identity.  I must work but I need to be a great mother and take my daughter swimming.  I have to be all things to all people or I am not accepted.  There is lack of approval every day of every week-but now I put a rude palm to her face and firmly say DONT!  oh if I was her clone-maybe THEN she would love and accept me.  Dont care anymore

Dear Kelly,

I just saw what you'd posted here and wanted to thank you!

That is it exactly - my mother didn't care what I did, as long as nobody thought poorly of her. I was irrelevant.
And for you... instead of encouraging you to be the person God created you to be, it sounds as though your mother only wanted a replication of herself... the model of perfection which she THINKS she's achieved by aiming so high, by setting such unattainable standards for those around her.
Our mission in life, I think, was to help our mothers maintain the illusion that they had everything under control.

As a very young girl, I think that I was rebelling against all the denial in our household by refusing to be placated by something like... like my dad's offer of a bowl of ice cream. He found solace in alcohol and food. He wanted to teach me to do the same. I refused. My very presence in the home aggravated him because of that... that "suggestion" that just maybe there was something going on which shouldn't, couldn't be smothered by gluttony.
Joyful and exuberant didn't suit her (too much like dad). Somber and thoughtful didn't suit him (too real). The lesson learned - don't have any feelings at all - such troublesome things they are. Simply be invisible.
Allow them both to just reflect themselves off you and don't allow any of YOU to be glimpsed through the cracked mirror. Reflect me, said one - - No! Reflect ME, said the other.  ugh.
You know, I don't think that I could have felt like any more of a wishbone in their hands if they'd just divorced and used me in their tug-a-war in a more outright way.

Thanks, Kelly... your "I have to be all things to all people" - I just realized, that's what hit a nerve. I never saw it so clearly before.
God bless you.

With love,
Hope

JanetLG

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Re: Do you feel lucky to be alive? (your experiences)
« Reply #39 on: July 24, 2007, 10:36:20 AM »
Hope,

The ironic thing about my birth, I've been told (by both parents) is that I was the only one who was 'planned'. I think this gave my NMUm more of an idea that I would be 'hers' - she even said to me once, in my late twenties, when I was at the end of my teher with trying to placate her ' But I had you so that you'd stay with me forever'.

 Aaarrgghhh!!! How scary!!

Do normal parents EVER feel that they have children for their own, consciously selfish, reasons?

Pal,

Would you mind telling me where in sibling order you come in your family? Were you the first one? The only one? I am the middle one, so I always felt that was a disadvantage, too, because my elder brother was my Dad's favourite, and my younger sister was my NMum's favourite (Golden Child). Do you think that makes a difference? I wasn't even 'special enough' that way, either.

CB,

Yes, I think my Mum's opinion of herself was *really* rock-bottom, even though she'd never admit it. So she hated to see me exceed her in any way, as that was so threatening to her. Trouble was, I seemed to set her off simply by existing.

Janet

JanetLG

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Re: Do you feel lucky to be alive? (your experiences)
« Reply #40 on: July 24, 2007, 11:02:15 AM »
Hope,

I've just thought of something else relevant to what you were saying about sensing the rejection at such a young age.

Apparently, I had a 'milk intolerance' when I was tiny, almost from birth. I realise it must have made my Mum worried, and panicky (well, a normal mother would've, I suppose), but that was another thing that I got told over and over again was due to my being 'difficult'. God, how I hate that word!

Anyway, what I've just realised, is that possibly, it wasn't 'intolerance' of a dietary kind, but the most basic rejection of a person that you can possibly have - to reject the food they offer you. I do feel, even now, that if I make food for someone and they don't want it (as when my stepson and his girlfriend visited recently, for anyone who remembers that 'argument'), I know *I* feel it as an enormous rejection of *ME* personally, not just a rejection of the food.

By the way, I always loved it when my Dad cooked for me (still do)  :)

Janet

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Re: Do you feel lucky to be alive? (your experiences)
« Reply #41 on: July 24, 2007, 11:43:09 AM »
Hi Janet & friends,
Janet-
Wow, good question. Lets see: I'm my mom's first kid. After she & my dad boke up (I was 9months old), she married again, (no kids) Married a third time & had 2 boys. I'm 6 yrs older than one & 8 yrs older than the other. I am the oldest, & did take care of my brothers, but I was SEPERATE.
My mom always told me "You are NOT ---- Kids". So..I always wondered where I fit. Don't get me wrong-my stepdad was nicer to me than my real mom was, but she hated that & always made me feel alone. Plus, stepdad did not stand up to her when she said that, so that hurt.
When I moved out (kicked out) at 18, life went on without me. My mom divorced my stepdad after 30 yrs of marriage, & he died a broken man a few yrs later. She's been with my now stepdad for almost 15 yrs. No kids, but she HAS turned HIM against HIS kids, so I guess she felt her work wasn't done.
Love,
Bigalspal
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lighter

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Re: Do you feel lucky to be alive? (your experiences)
« Reply #42 on: July 24, 2007, 01:25:35 PM »
Dear Kelly,
  I tried the clone and it does not work-either. In fact, she did not even realize or know that I had sacrificed my life to be her clone. She was and is always "whirling" . The whirling dervishes whirl round and round, oblivious to anything and everything around them                   Love  Ami


Dear Ami:

Did you educate yourself to become a therapist, to become your mother's clone?

Why didn't you do anything with that education...... did her continued poor treatment just turn you off completely to the T field, in general? 


Ami

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Re: Do you feel lucky to be alive? (your experiences)
« Reply #43 on: July 24, 2007, 01:35:24 PM »
Dear Lighter,
   After I got out of graduate school, I applied for a job with a psychologist. I walked in and he said,"I have been waiting for an Assistant and you are it." He had a natural medicine practice-- accupuncture, homeopathy, energetic medicine.. So, I never practiced therapy.
  I am turned off therapy for so, many many reasons that I will write about it on a new thread,if you are interested  . Hope that you are doing better, Friend    .                       Love  Ami
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.        Eleanor Roosevelt

Most of our problems come from losing contact with our instincts,with the age old wisdom stored within us.
   Carl Jung

JanetLG

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Re: Do you feel lucky to be alive? (your experiences)
« Reply #44 on: July 24, 2007, 01:38:50 PM »
Pal,

That's interesting about where you come in the 'families' of your NMum, and that she felt it necessary to even turn stepchildren away from their father. Could that have been because she felt threatened by 'normal' realtionships, or that she didn't want competition with his children for his time & attention?

Janet