Snap shot of an N mom

[Gabben]

Wow Lise-It makes me angry because I felt like I was you!  The emotions ran high in me while I was reading it-I could feel it!  Love to you and affirmation!

I had never wrote the story out before and shared it with more than my T. It amazes me to see the loving feedback here. It has helped me get in touch with that hurt and devastated young girl I was and to feel all that old pain.

The sharing of our pain helps each other to get in touch with our stuff? Thank you for your comments and support.

Love,
Lise

[Gabben]

I'm so sorry to hear that you had a mom like this ((((((hugs))))))

I hope you find peace from your past.

Thank you Tayana!

Peace to you too.

 Nothing in God's world happens by mistake, although God is not the author of evil, He will clean it up and turn it into something that helps others.

[Gabben]

Also, I smoked too and it seems that it served a similar function in my life as in your life and some other posters here. quitting was part of a whole larger pattern of change in my life and came - as I became more ready to begin to face the other aspects - it all connects.  I know so well the problem about personalizing shame and inward critical voices. I'm working on that too.


Take good care of yourself.

Just yesterday I felt a break through with smoking. It was as if my "little girl" was saying I don't need this anymore. I smoked my last cigarette around the afternoon. Normally I would have gone to the store to buy another pack but I just didn't feel like it. I have long since stopped being hard on myself about it and I just started accepting it as my comfort, like a pacifier.

My sister and I were talking on the phone yesterday morning about her three little ones who still all use a pacifier, the oldest being 4. Her oldest son is actually 11 (he no longer uses a pacifier) LOL...she weened him when he was about 4 1/2. She said she prided herself on being the kind of mother who would never let her kids have pacifiers. But then, after her first son was born, she realized that they need that comfort and just to acknowledge that comfort and let them have it. When people ask her when she is going to ween her other children she says "I don't know except I know that they won't be going to college with it!" LOL.

She told me that our mom weened us too early and made us feel ashamed of our need for oral comfort with certain comments she used to make to us. I have no idea if this plays a part in my smoking or not.

All I know is that for today the desire to smoke is gone and if it comes back then I won't beat myself up...there are far worse things and ways I could be harming myself or attached to at this point. I also ask God everyday for the grace, strength and healing to allow me to let go. I know that behind the habit is old stuff and attachments, which are slowing moving out of me as I heal.

Peace and thank you for your response and compassion.

Lise

[changing]

(((((Lise)))))-

I applaud your courage and determination. I know that the sharing was hard , that somehow you felt it was your secret, rather than the crime of your mother. I pray that her despicable treatment of an obviously sweet and vulnerable child will never define or confine YOU. Whatever was done to you, you remain innocent, good, lovable and deserving of love!

The toxins in food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and yes the N poison that we injest as children can all cause harm, from the cellular level up. You are wise Lise in pursuing N poison chelation treatment. Now you can be healthy and no longer carry that sickness around with you.

I wish you health, happiness, joy and peace as the reward for your bravery. You are precious.

Love,

Changing

[Gabben]

Lise, the memories - while they are as horrible to endure now, as then - will help you heal if you expose them to fresh air & sunlight - get them out and share them. But you can only do this when you feel able to - when you're ready.

For me, this was the toughest part of the healing process. I used a journal to write the same events - over & over - until I'd desensitized myself enough and had processed the emotions enough that I could talk about them with my T; later, I could post them here. And Twiggy still brings me little snippets of memory... tho' not as often now; nothing so intense as the first couple batches. It helped sharing them here because I don't feel the shame anymore of what happened. It WAS horrible. What happened to YOU was HORRIBLE. I know how it hurts, not being believed - when you're telling the absolute truth - when the Nparent has completely lied about you and tried to convince you that what you know happened, didn't happen that way at all.

((((((((((Lise)))))))))))

Hi Shunned,

I've been reading through the members stories...slowly. It helps me to know who is writing me and who is reading my posts.

In your story where you said:

I think that by letting Twiggy become more real within me, and letting go the "disguise" part of me... I'll lose the n-mom crap in my head and the smoking will also stop - as if by "magic

There has been a struggle since I was 16, on and off, with smoking. Once I was able to stop for 5 years. What you wrote above is so perfect...I'm sure you have long ago found out that you did not have the willpower, or brain/thought power to overcome the addicition. Me too! I figured that I was going to do a lot of emotional housecleaning and loving of my inner child/teenager before I would let go..."magically."

What is so refreshing for me is to read your story and to know that I am not alone. It will take awhile but I get caught up with your story and post and others.

Peace and thank you for your encouragement!

Lise

[Ami]

Dear Changing ,Lise and Amber,
   I want to thank you for all that you have written.It is an exercise in courage.Lise,I see in your sharing of your story the beautiful miracle of 'healing'.It is so precious that we all have each other. I, for one, was so lonely for one person who could understand my M let alone a whole "roomful."
  Lise,I am so happy to see your healing as it unfolds in this thread. As Changing said, we hold on to our memories with the glue of shame. When we let them out, healing flloods in --in a miraculous way.
  It is funny ,but I thought that my "detaching" was a symptom of "mental illness' when all the time it WAS a sign that I was growing. When I shared that(so gingerly),I had a HUGE healing. All this time, I thought that there was s/thing wrong with me that I could get in to that "detached 'space.
  THAT was a huge lesson for me to "force" myself to share.
  When Izzy said that she felt bad her whole life for "snooping" ,that is another example of us thinking that a 'natural" thing is abnormal.
  Lord, help me to just accept my feelings as they are.  Thank you for a wonderful thread ,Lise       Love to you    Ami

[Gabben]

Hi Amber,

What a blessing to find someone else who struggles with this too. I'd often hear of others who "just quit." And there is me...cigarettes are my friend - but slowly, I am letting go. I feel it.

((((Amber))))

[Gabben]

  When Izzy said that she felt bad her whole life for "snooping" ,that is another example of us thinking that a 'natural" thing is abnormal.
  Lord, help me to just accept my feelings as they are.  Thank you for a wonderful thread ,Lise       Love to you    Ami

Thank you Ami (you wonderful person you!)-

It is amazing to me that I have spent a life-time second guessing myself because my mom told me this and that about me and how I should feel, think and act. She wanted to be nice to everyone, to make friends, to be liked by all.. "don't make waves." (Of course she couldn't take her own advice).

Lise

[Ami]

SO many N lies--------------                                                             Ami

[Hopalong]

Smoker friends...

Hope you won't forget the real and powerful physical side to nicotine addiction.
There are many aids.

For me, the combo of hypnosis (2 sessions) + a nicotine replacement

set me FREE.

((((((((()))))))))

Hops (still chewing the gum 18 years later, but made that choice as a tradeoff I'm grateful for!)

[Hopalong]

I do understand, Amber...It's a lot of concentrating. I know you'll rebalance.

Should mention that I used hypnosis twice.
The first time, totally effective -- I did not commence NRT. And it worked great. It was six months later than I relapsed (self-sabotage was all it was). Six months of comfortable life w/o cigs.

So hypnosis can work even w/o NRT, is my only point. Worth a shot if one is stuck, maybe?

xo
HOps

[Gabben]

Hops, I can't do any NRT because of my high bp. So for me, it's cold turkey, cutting down, re-programming my brain - and CBT techniques work.

Replacing a cigarette with a self-soothing activity: closing my eyes for 2 minutes, short stroll outside. Realizing I smoke when I'm really hungry: replace that cigarette with a snack.
Realizing I can drive to work without smoking - and it doesn't bother me in the least.

Realizing that my intention is to stop WANTING the cigarette makes it do-able. And being able to feel myself as a non-smoker... it reaffirms my intention.

Rewarding myself for meeting my goal/intention.
Sharing the struggle with my H helps too.

Amber,

This above is all really good stuff for me to hear, thanks for sharing it.

Knitting has helped me. It is something I have to do with my hands (I can't smoke and knit at the same time) I'm not good enough to watch TV and knit at the same time because I have to focus on what I am doing. Knitting it is perfect for me when I need to just sit with some old pain.

Now wonder the mental health hospitals use crafts such as knitting to help patients

Lise

[wiltay]

I feel such heartache for you Lise.  I coming here late, I know, but I just have to put in a few cents. How did you come out so gentle and loving? You won, over a truly crappy parent who didn't  seem to want you to win.  How? I hear people's stories and I wonder why I'm here because I don't have much if any of this kind of deliberate cruelty from my parents.  Of course there was some, but that's just human.  My parents were very emotionally confused people who were not fit to raise children at the time they did but most of the stupid things they did they just didn't know any better, they were just following the lousy role models of their own parents.   My father was a quietly raging N who stifled me always, but his own father was a horror by all accounts.  But both of my parents loved me, without a doubt.  I've never doubted that.  They did not deliberately do cruel things to me,  not to my recollection.  I want to cry when I hear about these things.  And yet you made it, hardly unscarred, but you made it.  So many people don't. There are so many people in jail, on the streets, in mental hospitals, in half-way houses who will never be very whole.  My theory is that despite everything you got enough real love.  The people that fail just didn't get enough.
 
Bill

[Gabben]

wow Bill - thank you for your post.

Your pain should not be minimized because others have it worse or had harsher experiences. We are all so different. Unfortunately I don't think I am always very gentle and loving; my repressed anger has made me overly critical, judgmental and harsh, at times. It has only been recently that I have been able to soften a bit because I have been working through the anger and hurt.

There are spiritual advantages to a painful childhood (that is actually the title of a book). I can see my own varied N trait's have worked to assert my growth and healing...I can seek praise from therapists...deep inside I still harbor a secret wish to undo the wrong done to me by overcoming in a grandiose way I'll get over that one soon I hope!

 I was told once that if I wanted to undo the hardwiring of a self-centered mind to spend time doing things for others and with others without any gratification or reward for self -- to really make sacrafices of my time.  Of course there is a reward, that I would be able to reprogram my mind to start thinking about others more than myself..it works (it is the 12 step principle in AA)  Self-less service grows our hearts and unhardwires our brains from self-centered thinking. And lord knows I need lots of it. The funny thing is that I need people to help me get out of myself and I need people to be of service to - charity is fertilizer for the soul that wants to grow in love.

One of the gifts you bring to the board is insight and a quiet strength. You said:

"I want to cry when I hear about these things."  That is your compassion. I would reckon to say that all that you see in me that is good is just a reflection of yourself

((((((BILL)))))))

Lise

[wiltay]

Wow, back to you, Lise.  I disagree with your last statement--you have a lot of good that is completely your own, I know.   I also think I experience the same kind of anger you have-- ''impure'' visions of revenge is how I think of these thoughts.  I don't act on them though and I'm sure you don't either. I very much agree with what I think you're saying--we are ALL Ns to one degree or another, because we all WERE Ns once as very small children.  We had to be socialized out of being so extraordinarily self-centered and some of us have had more success in that than others.  Some completely flunked.  That's why we're here.

Bill