Hi, Flower, Seeker and Mighty Mouse
Thank you SOOO much for your responses. I was feeling a little hung out there after confessing my actions this weekend. I was thinking, God, they’re all going to think I’m totally crazy and need to be locked up away from my doggie.
When my dog ran away, I felt a monumental feeling of impending loss. I thought, he’s going to run off and I’ll never find him again – I was terrified that he’d get all the way to the road and get run over. Fear of getting my heart broken and never again seeing something I love so dearly is where I was at before I snapped when I found him sitting at our doorstep, cool as a cucumber. I’m still trying to figure out why I smacked my dog when I just hate that sort of thing. As I said before, my mother was an extremely violent person and beat the absolute s**t out of us so I know this is connected – exactly how is the question. I didn’t beat my dog but the fact that I swatted him is way too close to the way she was for my comfort. Very scary to me.
I do beat up on myself, you are so right about that, Seeker. My hubby tells me that all the time. He always says, "There's nobody harder on you than you." I've been working really hard on my self-talk...gotta be a better friend to myself. I think my difficulties in maintaining friendships are a good reflection of my friendship with myself. I'm easy to get along with and have a lot of love to give but I have to detach for fairly long stretches because I get panicked so easily after I reach out. It takes a very long time for me to build up trust enough to be available to giving and receiving on a regular basis. It took a good 8 years to get the hang of this with hubby so I guess I’m real slow to trust.
Speaking of the panic, Flower, I completely understand your description of the seizure like episodes. I used to get those fairly regularly. One time I was driving across a bridge on a very fast highway and one hit me out of the blue...I broke out in a sweat all over, I could not get any air and felt an overwhelming compulsion to ramp my car over the edge of the bridge, with me in it. I very nearly did and it was a major struggle for my life in those few moments. I never understood suicide until that point…I always thought people who killed themselves were simply selfish and weak. Boy was I wrong. Sometimes things just hurt so bad that the body takes over from the mind it seems. Scared the holy heck out of me and I once I got a hold of myself, I drove to see my therapist immediately. She said that episode was a severe panic attack, which stems from an overwhelming feeling of not being in control of one’s own life. That fits when we’re talking about how N’s operate.
About my siblings – only one of them has a basic grasp of my feelings and beliefs about our mother. He’s the one who told me what happened. Maybe I’m wrong in this but I’m glad he told me about her character attack because it keeps things real for me. In the passed, I’ve deluded myself into thinking that things have changed, she’s changed, maybe I was too harsh a critic, etc. But, if I keep open to hearing about the attacks, I then need to do a better job of handling them.
Bro called to check on me this weekend – he’s very intuitive and somehow knew I was in bad shape. I said to him that if he disagrees with something she says about me, especially when it’s done in front of other people I care about, to please come to my defense just a little - not to the point of putting himself in the firing line, though. I got that idea from folks here and Elan Golomb's book. I really need a little back up so she'll maybe back off. She needs to be shut down and it seems the only way to effectively do that is to make her story look ridiculous in front of the very people she’s trying to impress.
About that safety class, I don't have to attend any more classes...whew! That is such a relief because my being in that enormous group was too much for me right now. NMom's antics definitely have an effect on my ability to feel normal in groups and thinking back on it, I really could have done a better job of articulating my reasons for wanting to be by myself. Those two trainers respected my decision to sit alone but probably walked away going, "Boy, wonder what that's all about?" By not saying anything tangible, I put myself into the situation of probably being viewed as a little weird. Agghhhh...not only am I hard on myself, I’m oftentimes my own worst enemy! lol
What a road we’re on, eh?
Thanks again, folks, really. God bless
Rojo
PS - I really like the idea of charting one's reactions to the N. An excellent idea indeed. Thank you
