Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Anonymous on April 20, 2004, 10:52:29 AM
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Hi – This is my first post. I’m thrilled to have found a group dealing with issues that are so familiar to me, but hard to discuss with anyone who hasn’t been there. The generosity, insight and humor in many of your posts are wonderful!
The discussion on the “Healing” thread among CG, Wildflower and Rosencrantz really got me thinking because I’m so interested in the whole issue of the Bad Mommy Taboo, and also the question of “forgiving” your parent(s).
I’ve just been reading “Banished Knowledge” by Alice Miller, and the following is a quote from the book:
"In the many group discussions I conducted…almost all the therapists clung to the idea that one must forgive one’s parents to get rid of one’s symptoms. While my counterarguments seemed convincing, the most they would say was that, while they would not directly demand forgiveness, they would put it to the patient that he “would feel better” if he could forgive. They failed to notice that they were thus carrying on a… manipulation… whose purpose was to serve only traditional morality but not the interest of the patient, who was once an injured child and must confront the origin of those injuries. He will not achieve consciousness of past events until he recognizes that the morality exerted by his parents was life-negating and life-destroying….
"When the capacity to feel has been achieved in therapy, the patient will become not less but more aware of events in his childhood that were never allowed to be consciously experienced. Through the increasing familiarity with his own feelings and his own history, it is possible for a new memory to emerge years later….If a person is not allowed to acknowledge the newly awakening anger—because, of course, he has already forgiven his parents during therapy—the person is in danger of transferring these feeling to others. Since, to me, therapy means a sensory, emotional, and mental discovery of the long-repressed truth, I regard the moral demand for reconciliation with parents as an inevitable blocking and paralyzing of the therapeutic process."
This speaks to so many issues I’m dealing with, because I was raised by an N mother and an emotionally damaged, passive father. I’ve known something was wrong with my family for a long time, but only discovered the concept of narcissism recently. It has been a huge revelation for me, because I’ve finally been able to make sense of what’s been going on my whole life. I’ve had to go back and rethink my mother’s version of a lot of earlier events to figure out the truth about my life.
In the course of doing that, I’ve gone to a number of therapists. Looking back on them, I can say that one caused me real damage, a couple were middling – supportive but didn’t really help me figure out the truth – and one – at last – understood what I was dealing with and supported me in cutting off contact with my mother and dealing with her reaction (I eventually started talking to her again). It’s probably not surprising that the “neutral” therapists didn’t help much, because our family looked perfect from the outside much of the time, and I had been brainwashed to think my mother was wonderful, brave and accomplished, and I was the one who was fearful, depressed and dependent. But I do feel that more than one of the therapists didn’t have a clue about the insidious, soul-destroying experience of being raised by an N, and so tried to convince me that I should “get over” the anger I was starting to feel.
The weird thing is that in looking back at my childhood, I realize how little of it I actually remember. I have virtually no memories of my early childhood, and only vague memories of my life until I was around 11. I can remember the houses we lived in and people I knew and some incidents, but very few details of my day-to-day life. I wonder if I have blocked out bad things, but am uncertain what to do about it. I feel that I haven’t reached the end yet in truly understanding what happened during my childhood, but at some level the prospect of learning the truth scares me s**tless! I would be very interested to hear how well other people remember their childhoods and whether anyone has suggestions about dealing with missing memories.
Meanwhile, my mother has aged, has had a couple of small strokes, and is starting to lose her mind – her short-term memory isn’t great, and I’ve noticed that she is behaving in ways that suggest the normal controls on her social behaviour are breaking down. I am faced with the prospect of my mother descending into senility (which could well exaggerate the worst aspects of her personality), while I’m in the process of digging up the truth about my childhood and dealing with my anger toward her. Fortunately she lives in another city, so this is not a day-to-day issue, but sometimes I can’t bear to be around her, and I hate her touching me. So at a time when her behaviour is likely to require the maximum in understanding and tolerance from me, I feel less and less that I have those feelings in me for her. This could well create conflict with the rest of my family, and I am feeling very confused about how to handle it.
Thanks for any comments.
Guest
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Welcome Guest!
Thank you for your insightful post. I am sorry I don't have any wisdom for you. I wish you the best in finding something helpful in dealing with your mother. It sounds like a difficult situation.
Your post brings up so many interesting issues for me.
First, I am just wondering if forgetting childhood memories is another "voiceless" issues. I am too young to have forgotten my childhood. But I can't remember much before the third grade. Bits and pieces, but not much... I remember more after that, but still not what I think I should be able to remember. I keep wondering if I have blocked the bad things too. As I have been contemplating it over the last few days I am slowly remembering more from later childhood and adolescence. I am getting the general idea of what it was like.
When my therapist asked me if I felt loved as I child my automatic response was "yes, of course I felt loved." I guess I said it without really thinking about it. Actually, I felt invisable. I do walk around with this notion that my parents are saints. My therapist has said she thinks they have N tendancies. Strange how we can get things intellectually, but can't control denile, or whatever. The other day I was reading about symptoms of emotional abuse. I thought. "I see myself in all of those... that's odd! I thought my childhood was pretty great!... Well there was that time when... but that was just... etc."
My husband is emotionally abusive in some subtle, and insidious ways. I have read that the only reason one would continue to make excuses for him is because one leaned to accept this kind of behavior in childhood.
Actually, my parents are better now than they were in my childhood (maybe it helps to live a 17 hr. drive from them). I don't know if I have ever allowed myself to feel anger toward them for participating in my voicelessness. I just automatically forgive them, I suppose because it's the "right" thing to do.
It is certainly the case with my husband, that I cannot really forgive him until I have felt angry at him and have validated my anger. I did not start really feeling and validating my anger toward him unil about a year and a half after his unacceptable behavior started and I realized my asking him nicely was not going to stop it. When I was not allowing myself to feel or validate my anger with him, I would be angry at a man I worked with who reminded me of of my husband. Talk about displacement! ... I digress!
Currently, I am not sure how I feel about my husband and the issue of forgiveness. I so appreciated that thread on forgiveness and how it is different from reconciliation. I will look for it, because it might add to this discussion.
Welcome again guest! Thanks for the thought provoking post!
Peace! sjkravill
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I hardly remember my childhood. And I don't care to. It was emotional abuse, not physical. What triggers my memories is seeing how my parents now treat their grandchildren. That's how they treated me.
As for forgiving them, I accept that they are limited people with big emotional problems. I don't think they intended to do any harm, but they did harm anyway. I forgive them in that I concede their limitations. But I don't really love them, and that's the price they're paying.
bunny
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Guest,
Your post is very thought-provoking.
First, in remembering one's childhood, we have to go back to a cliche - It depends on the person. For some people, it may be a nonproductive and useless exercise, and for others it may be very important and seem necessary.
In remembering, one thing can cause resistance sometimes: Wanting or wishing things to be different. There could be a conscious or unconscious mechanism that wants to "fix" a dysfunctional family or parent. This could stand in the way. Rather than forgiveness, I would think a degree of resignation is in order. That is simply because, no matter how much we "understand" the dysfunction of the other, we will bang our head into walls if we try to fix or change it. This may not apply to you at all.
Another way of trying to understand how the family functioned, and thus lead to memories, is to look at siblings. We learn how to react to others in our families, and especially when we choose a mate. My brother, for example, is unnecessarily terrified of his wife, and I overreact with a feeling of being controlled and become stubborn when a lady in my life makes reasonable demands. It therefore seems pretty obvious that each of us created a different response to an overcontrolling mother. In other words, by looking at the result (i.e., the present behaviors), we can infer the past. This can lead to memories. It lead to some for me.
I hope that this can be of some help.
I guess a final question to consider is why you seem to feel so strongly about remembering. Do you feel that this will help heal you? Will it make you feel more "normal?" Do you feel different because of this inability to remember?
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I don't ever exuse or forget deliberate intentonal abuses.I don't care who it is.
I can feel the pain inflicted long ago and I can put blame on the perpretrator who harmed me instead of hurting myself with shame today, I never deserved simply because I was victimized in the past. Our culture loathes facing suffering ,weakness,fallibility and vunerability. That does not mean I need to play that same game about my own vunerabilities.I put the burden of blame where it belongs, right on the people who CHOSE to hurt me. Abusive people are just as responsible for thier own choices as I am. It took years to even aknowlege compassion to myself when whom I needed to forgive wasent the perpetrators ,it was myself..Having detached understanding and even empathy for some asshole who suffers like you do, who hurt you in the past is not any'moral highground' it does not even have to occur to heal. Having understanding of the bigger picture does not require you to go excusing and denying an abusive act was done to you as if that erases what happened.
Perpretrators of abuse would rather you do the standard simplistic forget and forgive routine because it gives them permission and ecuses by omission of your condemnation.They don't deserve forgiveness or excuses.If you feel guilty for what you did not choose you carry on thier hateful work by hating yourself and consuming yourself with fear anger sadness and shame that is not your own.Because while you blame yourself for an abuser's choice to abuse,you never point the finger at the source.And this is one reason abusers get away with abuse sometimes.
My father was an asshole. My mom was a bitch. I was a vunerable kid in a bad situation.
But I don't have to let that fact eat me up with anxiety,make me feel ashamed,and occupy my mind /heart when I live my life right now.This is not denial, it's deliberately taking control over ones own power to feel as one chooses at the moment. I have put boundaries around these memories.I can wait until I am in therapy or in a safe place.Boundaries are not walls that shut out the truth,they are limits on the power and hold the past has on me today ,Boundaries arethere so that these thoughts will not dominate my emotions like the perpretrators intended to do long ago.
Sometimes I think our entire society is in so much denial like has Stockholm syndrome.
But just because the whole world plays games and runs away,does not mean I have to nor does it mean thier running away has anything to do with healing or me..I get "new" memories sometimes and it's scary,it's looks like a monster until I see it fully. I have found with every abreaction I go through I become more aware of things my own mind(s),and I get stronger and more self-empowered and able to help others..I become more free to lbe present .In a weird way I look forward to this abreaction process because everytimeI remember and connect with my emotions about it I find I have healed something.
Take care Ok.
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Hi Guest and a very warm welcome.
Hi – This is my first post. I’m thrilled to have found a group dealing with issues that are so familiar to me, but hard to discuss with anyone who hasn’t been there.
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. :D
I’ve just been reading “Banished Knowledge” by Alice Miller, and the following is a quote from the book:
"In the many group discussions I conducted…almost all the therapists clung to the idea that one must forgive one’s parents to get rid of one’s symptoms. While my counterarguments seemed convincing, the most they would say was that, while they would not directly demand forgiveness, they would put it to the patient that he “would feel better” if he could forgive. They failed to notice that they were thus carrying on a… manipulation… whose purpose was to serve only traditional morality but not the interest of the patient, who was once an injured child and must confront the origin of those injuries. He will not achieve consciousness of past events until he recognizes that the morality exerted by his parents was life-negating and life-destroying….
"When the capacity to feel has been achieved in therapy, the patient will become not less but more aware of events in his childhood that were never allowed to be consciously experienced. Through the increasing familiarity with his own feelings and his own history, it is possible for a new memory to emerge years later….If a person is not allowed to acknowledge the newly awakening anger—because, of course, he has already forgiven his parents during therapy—the person is in danger of transferring these feeling to others. Since, to me, therapy means a sensory, emotional, and mental discovery of the long-repressed truth, I regard the moral demand for reconciliation with parents as an inevitable blocking and paralyzing of the therapeutic process."
Oh yeah, I gotta say, I reckon her angle on so much stuff is soooooo spot-on.
Forgiveness Road has been such a tricky one for me. I was a great forgiver. OUCH. I remember I was, and boy was that the most abused time of my life. OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH!!
Now I know my words can be challenged, changed and played with. Some people may say, "What you are really mean is" or, "What you are really trying to say is"
No, I'm talking about how my own personal forgiveness I've offered to others has opened me up for even greater abuse in the future.
I've had some fairly lengthy involvments in my life with religion, churches, swingin' from the chandeliers hallelujah fanatics, and also a lot to do with practical, good, level-headed decent christians. I've read the bible from cover to cover more than quite a few times, and in many different versions, even the Amplified. Oh My Gosh. And I have no regrets about that. I learned a lot of things doing it. I'll leave my other dabblings in eastern philosophies and religions out of it and stick with my own personal understanding of the christian model of forgiveness.
And I'll say, my personal belief is that the 'forgiveness' teaching, which forms the backbone of our western christian based culture, really can f**k us up. I personally don't buy it any more, and I'd like to share with you, Guest, why I came to this conclusion. I hope I'm not too longwinded, I'll try to keep it short.
One thing, amongst a whole lot of others I was taught about forgiveness, was that we must forgive if we want to be forgiven. And that forgiveness is a God-like quality, which makes us a channel for God's love to humanity. Another thing is that forgiveness helps us heal, and reduces bitterness and sickness in us. And reduces revengeful and wrong and evil-thinking in us also. Forgiveness makes the world a better place for everybody to live in.
And I do, absolutely accept all of this, only in certain very large contexts. But absolutely not as carte-blanche!! Not anymore.
After all, if that were true, and in any and all cases we must exercise forgiveness, then the Gd or God of the Christian bible is a cheat, trickster liar and hyprocrite, and expecting us to do what he won't!!!
My poor simple answer is, I don't believe He does expect this of us.
I don't think he's telling me to forgive everyone who hurts me, steals from me, offends me, starves me, beats me, kills my precious pet. Or to forgive these people who don't care about me, and haven't ever bothered to make reparation or even said a sincere "I'm so sorry and I want to make it up to you." or "I'm so sorry for the way that I have treated you, and I know that I can't make it up to you, but you have my oath that I will never hurt you agian. And If I do 100 times, please, I implore you tell me 100 times, and I'll try to fix it and say sorry 100 times."
No, this God, according to the Christian Bible that I am using as my reference, has made an absolutely horrific place of eternal damnation, called Hell for those who don't go to Him and repent and say sorry.
But, :idea: and this is the biggee for me, according to the Bible, if we offend anyone and don't make repair, we aren't forgiven! :!: Not even by GOD. So how can God expect me to do something that he doesn't even do.
What He does say, though, is that I must forgive when someone genuinely, and I repeat, genuinely asks me to. I'm fine with that. I haven't had any problems yet, at all.
I'm not gonna get into the whole sacrificial lamb thing. I don't even like goin' into all this religious stuff here, it makes me really super uncomfortable. But I know, for me, it's the reason why I kept forgiving over and over and over. Please!!! I was just talking about G,d the bible, and religion because I'm 'contexting' the why's of my own forgiveness issues and beliefs that have stuffed me around and up for so long.
But I've just got to say that, forgiving people who don't care, who don't want it, who never admitted anything, who'll do the same thing again tomorrow just doesn't work for me anymore. It doesn't make any sense to me.
Like when my child was bullied. I never talked about forgiveness with my child. Like hell!! :evil: I talked about developing my child's life-protection skills, and the security issues, and safety and disance and systems in place for my child's peace of mind. If my mother wrote to me and said sorry, and made some admissions in writing!!! Took back all the discrediting she'd one, made serious admissions about her cruel behaviour, I maybe would talk to her. But I'm not going to flag that to her and it ain't gonna happen anyway.
I have an image of my forgiveness. I can see how it is such precious aspect of the human condition. It is so beautiful and healing, like a precious magic glowing jewel-like healing gift I have to share. I could almost add, "Are you worthy of it???" but it that would need to much explaining because initially it sounds so conceited.
The analogies immediately flow, like with Jesus saying, "Don't cast your pearl before swine!"
I say, " I most certainly won't, not anymore, don't you worry about that."
Not bad for someone who doesn't like talkin' religion here, Huh :wink: !! :oops: :oops:
CG
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Hi Guest, Welcome to the board. I can relate to your questions and thought process.
When my therapist asked me if I felt loved as I child my automatic response was "yes, of course I felt loved." I guess I said it without really thinking about it. Actually, I felt invisable. I do walk around with this notion that my parents are saints.
If one were to ask me if my parents loved me, I would respond with an automatic yes. I also think back to my parents as good parents. Yet, I have very few memories of my childhood. I think of my past almost as photos in an album. It's as if the memory comes from seeing a picture, not from actually experiencing the event. I remember nothing until age 11 or 12. My real memories don't start until much later, perhaps my late teens or early twenties. I know for certain that I have real memories from the time my first child was born when I was 25.
I don't believe that something horrible happenend in my childhood. My parents were quite average and normal compared to what many of you have been through. They believed in me and loved me. You'd probably describe it as a repressed household. Not much emotion. Very even keeled. Very careful. My parents don't love each other. Yet they have remained married. As an adult, I have a developed a reasonalby good relationship with my mother. But feel almost nothing for my father. When I left home to go to college, I realized that my emotional range was very limited. I could feel "okay" but I couldn't feel joy or passion or sadness or grief. One of my primary goals at that time in my life was to push out the edges of my life. To feel more. Perhaps that is why I married an N. Much more drama... An interesting note, however, is that after college, I was so ready to GET AWAY from my family. I move out of state and had little communication for a decade.
My husband is emotionally abusive in some subtle, and insidious ways. I have read that the only reason one would continue to make excuses for him is because one leaned to accept this kind of behavior in childhood.
Same here too. My recently-separated-H is emotionally abusive in subtle and insidious ways. Very destructive. Sadly, after all of these years of being married to an N, I still have trouble with my emotional-bandwidth. It is difficult for me to feel (or at least to acknowledge that I feel) many emotions. (I wonder sometimes if this is a genetic part of my personality or a learned behavior)
In conclusion, and trying to get back to your question... I had a fairly normal childhood, I married an N out of college and stayed married for 23 years. I have few memories of my childhood until late teens or early twenties.
Livin' in the present,
lynn
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Thank you for all your supportive and helpful responses. You’ve really got me thinking, so here goes:
Sjkravill, I think you’re right that forgetting one’s childhood memories is part of being voiceless. Your childhood is part of who you are – in a way, if you can’t remember it, you’ve lost part of yourself – and what is more voiceless than not being able to express who you are? I know what you mean about thinking your parents are saints (although in my case it was my mother that I thought was perfect – I adopted a lot of her negative feelings about my father). I have had to consciously put together specific memories and look at them objectively to challenge my assumptions about my mother.
One example – I was reading some of the posts on the thread “Energy Vampires and confidence zappers” and one of Rosencrantz’s comments caught my attention:
Most of the stuff my mother did to ‘give me confidence’ was confidence-shattering. I have this huge ‘confidence’ that masks sheer terror and total humiliation – cos that’s what she demanded of me, putting me into situations that were far beyond my ability to handle.
This really connected with me. My mother’s line has always been: “I overprotected you when you were growing up because I had a hard life and I didn’t want you to have such a tough time.” And of course, we always did have things like food and clean clothes and shoes, and good schools. But then I think about just a few of the things she did when I was young:
She put me into a private kindergarten at age 4 so she could talk the local grade school into accepting me in first grade at age 5. Then she had me skip a grade so I went into sixth grade at age 9 and started college at age 16. I ended up feeling immature and out of step with my classmates throughout my years in school and beyond. I’m convinced that her true reason for doing this was to get me into school and out of her hair ASAP (plus she could brag to everyone how smart her kid was).
When I was 10 or 11 I was horse crazy. She refused to pay for me to ride (“too dangerous”), but I really wanted to and I earned the money helping a neighbour with her baby, so she grudgingly found this rather ratty, rundown place for me to ride. She didn’t want to drive me, so she put me on a bus that was supposed to go by the place, but didn’t bother telling the bus driver where to let me off, and I was too scared to ask. I just sat there on the bus and ended up alone in another city two hours away.
I was tall for my age and she was always looking for ways to save money, so she started giving me her old clothes to wear. The fall that I was 13, she dressed me in a tight, knit suit of hers and put me on an overnight train to boarding school. Of course I looked much older than my age dressed like that, so I spent the evening fending off the attentions of a drunken older man and ended up hiding in my berth crying. Apparently it never occurred to her to ask the conductor to keep an eye on me.
Around the time she separated from my father, she consulted a psychiatrist – she admitted to me that she wanted to be told it was okay to leave her marriage. She told us the psychiatrist was wonderful, and when she divorced my father, she encouraged us children to go to see him to make sure we were okay. I decided to go, since I was feeling very depressed at the time (I was 18). When I look back on it now, I’m certain that he was a N himself. (Maybe that’s why they got along so well!) In the course of my “therapy” he told me that if he wanted to, he could sleep with me. (BTW he looked like a toad and was about 40 years older than me.) I had enough of a sense of self to know that I would never let him touch me, although I didn’t have enough “voice” to confront him about it. Later I learned that he had had sex with many of his female patients. They eventually got together and reported him, and he lost his licence to practice medicine. This is the therapist my mother thought was “wonderful”!
When I look at these events, it’s obvious that my mother not only didn’t “protect” me, she ignored my needs and/or put me in harm’s way – as Rosencrantz said, “putting me into situations that were far beyond my ability to handle.” So her version of things was exactly the opposite of reality! Yet for years I carried around this idea that she was “overprotective.” Is it any wonder I ended up so f**ked up?!!
I understand so well the problem you describe of feeling anger. In my family it was unacceptable to express anger overtly, and so I never learned how to do it. Even today it’s hard for me to express anger – although I’m working on it! One of the reasons I have this desire to remember my childhood is that I can’t remember how this happened. How did my parents teach me not to express anger? What did they do?
I’m glad that you have been able to feel and validate your anger toward your emotionally abusive husband. It’s very interesting that it took you a year and a half to do this – that kind of delayed reaction is very familiar to me – it takes me time just to figure out what I’m actually feeling.
I also have to find the thread you mention on the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation – a crucial distinction and one that I need to think about more.
I’m going on way too long here, and haven’t responded to the rest of the posts, so I’ll stop and come back later.
Thank you to all of you.
Guest
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Me again – I don’t know how the number eight in the post above turned into an emoticon – it should say that I was eighteen when I went to the therapist.
I wanted to respond to the rest of the posts.
Bunny, I can see that watching your parents with their grandchildren would help get you in touch with the way you were treated as a child. I don’t have children, so feel that I have to make those connections through my own memories.
Re forgiving your parents – I am starting to wonder if it’s not a case of either totally forgiving or totally not forgiving, but rather that there are many gradations of feeling when you’re talking about parents who were abusive in some form. Simply saying, “I don’t think they intended to do any harm,” is a big accomplishment in itself because you’ve been able to step away from them and see them more objectively. Love is a whole other ball of wax.
Tokyojim – You’re quite right about wanting to “fix” a dysfunctional family or parent. I know I hoped for a long time I could do that. After many tries, I finally realized that nothing I said was going to get through to my mother. For one thing, she can never, ever, ever, admit that she is wrong. Even now, if I confront her about her behaviour, she may “apologize,” but within a few minutes she will have come up with a justification, so every “apology” becomes: “I’m sorry (but I was right).”
Knowing that she is deteriorating mentally has really brought home to me that she will never change. If anything, she is going to get worse from here on in. There’s another thread about N people dying where I may try to address this.
Siblings! No question here that sibling behaviour gives me big clues about our family. I’m fairly sure that my mother projected a lot of her negative feelings and fears onto me, and a lot of her positive feelings and need to be perfect onto my sister. To me, my sister, was always small, pretty, beautifully dressed, and seemed to be accomplished in many different areas, while I felt big, unattractive, badly dressed, and rather boring. Then when my sister was in her late teens she slashed her wrists (I remember so clearly the horror of walking into the hospital and seeing my beautiful sister drugged up, with vacant eyes and bandages on both wrists….it makes me cry just to think about it!) She ended up in a mental hospital for a couple of years. After she got out she made a point of staying very, very separate from the rest of the family. As a result, although we are close in many ways, we have never talked much about the past, and she has expressed what I interprete as impatience with the time it is taking me to resolve my feelings about my mother. Hmmm…an interesting thought – is that why I’m thinking about forgiveness – i.e., my sister did it so I should too?? I’ll have to think more about this.
Why do I want to remember? Because I feel as though I’m missing 10 years of my life. I think I constructed a “false self” to satisfy my mother, so in some ways I don’t feel as though I actually lived my early life – it’s as though someone else lived it. I saw the past for so long through my mother’s distorting lens, and I want to see it clearly for myself. I don’t feel “different” because I can’t remember, but I do feel remembering will help heal me.
Feline, I’m sorry you suffered so much, and I really understand what you’re saying about having to forgive yourself first, and that abusers want you to forgive them but that doesn’t mean you should. The fact that you say that remembering “new” memories makes you more self-aware and stronger and helps you heal really gives me hope.
CG, I have to say I LOVE your posts – you can be so funny and right on the mark, I just lol! :lol:
Seriously, I can see how a deep involvement with religion could saddle you with a whole other layer of issues about forgiveness, and I agree with your take on the Bible. I guess I feel fortunate that I didn’t have a very religious upbringing. That may be one reason why I’m actually not a very forgiving person – I don’t think we ever talked about the concept in our house. Or maybe the problem was that forgiveness involves believing that someone has done you harm. I remember one time I clearly registered the fact that my mother had treated me unfairly. It took me quite a while to screw up my courage and actually tell her this, and I was hoping, hoping, hoping that she would understand and accept what I was telling her. I would have been thrilled to forgive her if only she would acknowledge what I was feeling. So what was her response? “I don’t remember that!” said in an angry voice!!! And that was it. No attempt to deal with my feelings in any way whatsoever – just straight denial that it ever happened. So how could I forgive something that, according to her, never happened? It’s like casting your pearls before swine and the swine crushing them into the mud.
I do love your image of the beauty and healing qualities of forgiveness.
Lynn, it interests me very much that you have so few memories of your childhood and also have trouble feeling many emotions. Could there be a connection? Does not being able to feel make events harder to remember? Are the things you remember things that evoked strong emotions in you?
I would also say my family was repressed, but I did feel that there was all this scary stuff like anger bubbling under the surface. And the things I do remember tend to be connected with strong emotions like fear and anger.
Thanks again to you all. I have a lot to think about.
Guest
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This thread just keeps deepening in interest for me. I can only be brief because I am in the middle of a term paper (due tomorrow!) But I am in need of a short diversion, and I have been pondering this topic.
Why remember your childhood?
I think it is a question of identity and voice for me. Right now I have these voiceless symptoms, and this dysfunctional relationship with my husband. I think if I could tie my feelings to memories, they would be easier to validate. "Yes, I am angry, and rightfully so..." and then I could move on to do the work of somehow resolving those feelings.
I think, perhaps if I had the memories of the experiences that made me voiceless, I could face people in my life currently and say ("these people/this situation are not those mean third-graders, or that teacher, or that parent, who frightened me. I am not that child anymore. I don't have to be afraid this time, even if they are mean...." Or, if I remember when this significant person said my voice was rediculous. Well, they are not God... That was about THEM, and not about my voice.... I have something worth saying!)
If I understand how my family of origin worked, maybe I can recognize patterns in my marriage, remember that I am not the helpless child I once was, and maybe I can do something different than the scared little girl keeps doing or thinking....
Just some thoughts, I am no expert, and only a short way down this path!
When I get this turned in (tomorrow) I will look for that post on forgiveness and bring it to the top.
More later, to be certain! Peace! sjkravill
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Sjkravill – Good luck with your term paper! Hope you’re not up too late tonight.
I gather from your posts that you are in your early 20s. I’m older, but I remember my early 20s; I was still idolizing my mother, but at the same time I was unhappy and in therapy. I spent a lot of time talking with my therapist about why I was unhappy. I don’t ever remember her suggesting that my mother had N tendencies, nor do I remember having any doubts about my parents’ love for me, so if you’re thinking along these lines, it sounds like you’re way ahead of where I was at that age in terms of getting at the truth.
What eventually started me on the path to understanding myself was my parents’ behavior in the present (when I was an adult) – things like their invasion of my boundaries. That got me onto the concept of narcissism, and that started me looking back and reassessing my childhood – which is when I realized how little of it I remembered. If your parents have N tendencies, are there ways they behave now that trigger feelings of voicelessness in you? If you can identify those behaviors and understand what’s going on, perhaps it will give you some clues as to what might have happened in your childhood, and help you validate your feelings and then deal with them.
I hope you can work through this at an earlier age than I did, because unless you can nail down what’s really going on, you can spend years struggling with these issues. How much better to spend those years living a full life with a full voice!
Best wishes,
Guest
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Hi everyone,
This is a great thread! I feel like I need to spend more time reading all the posts here, but I just wanted to throw this out there - because I'm not 100% sure what to do with it.
I was telling my therapist that I was upset that I had lost so many of my memories about things I cared about because it made me feel how much I'd lost myself. My therapist said I'd never lost them, I just needed validation. I've been pondering this for a couple of days, and I think what she was saying was that when our feelings are validated we are better able to remember things - kind of an inertia thing. I dunno, though. Since this was a thread about recovering memories, I thought maybe someone else could use this - or even make sense of it (I intend to follow up with my therapist the next time I see her, though).
Wildflower
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Wildflower, you've got my curiosity going with:
I had lost so many of my memories about things I cared about
I don't understand. You mean, you used to remember and now you don't? Or - your memory has changed because of new knowledge? Or - you want to remember things you have been told about?
I want to remember lots but don't know how to get to the memories. I can't get the filing cabinet inside my head open - it's stuck! Or maybe it's empty? I don't know! Anyone out there want a willing subject for hypnotism? (Any experiences, anyone?) P
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Just a quick note.
I am enjoying everyone's wisdom on this thread.
Thanks for the encouragement, Guest! I am in my early 20's... I sure hope I can resolve some of this stuff and start living a full life.
I did finish my term paper. No sooner than I turned it in and my computer died. So, I don't have as much access for a while! Probably better for me to focus on finals anyway!
Peace! sjkravill
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Hello Guest and everyone
Welcome to the board, new guest. Boy, your post touched on a lot of similar issues I am facing. Especially this part:
I’ve noticed that she is behaving in ways that suggest the normal controls on her social behaviour are breaking down. I am faced with the prospect of my mother descending into senility (which could well exaggerate the worst aspects of her personality), while I’m in the process of digging up the truth about my childhood and dealing with my anger toward her. ...So at a time when her behaviour is likely to require the maximum in understanding and tolerance from me, I feel less and less that I have those feelings in me for her. This could well create conflict with the rest of my family, and I am feeling very confused about how to handle it.
I am wrestling with exactly the same thing. And like a few of the other posters here, there was little regard for my interests and I suffered a major lack of protection in the outside world (was dressed like a dork, ridiculed by my brother, and otherwise ignored.) As for childhood memories, I remember some, but it was basically pretty monotonous because we never did "family" things, and friendships weren't exactly encouraged.
So if anyone has advice on how to attend to eldercare while working through the unfinished business, I would love to hear it! S.
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Why do I want to remember? Because I feel as though I’m missing 10 years of my life. I think I constructed a “false self” to satisfy my mother, so in some ways I don’t feel as though I actually lived my early life – it’s as though someone else lived it. I saw the past for so long through my mother’s distorting lens, and I want to see it clearly for myself. I don’t feel “different” because I can’t remember, but I do feel remembering will help heal me.
My view is that it isn't critical to recall events from childhood. What's important (imo) is to access the child within me and give her a chance to be a child now. I do it by letting myself feel the sense of curiosity, wonder, imagination, creativity. Getting to know my likes, dislikes, passions. This is the stuff my parents tried to suppress and replace with their own likes and dislikes. But they didn't get succeed. And they can't stop me anymore.
bunny
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Hi Portia,
I had lost so many of my memories about things I cared about
I don't understand. You mean, you used to remember and now you don't? Or - your memory has changed because of new knowledge? Or - you want to remember things you have been told about?
I'm upset that I lost them when I was younger. My memories of my good dad had been squashed down into vague longings. So vague I didn't even know they were about him. I've been able to recover so many memories, so that's great. Just a bit steamed/sad about the losing them in the first place, because they're important to me - important to who I am.
Hi Bunny,
My view is that it isn't critical to recall events from childhood. What's important (imo) is to access the child within me and give her a chance to be a child now. I do it by letting myself feel the sense of curiosity, wonder, imagination, creativity. Getting to know my likes, dislikes, passions. This is the stuff my parents tried to suppress and replace with their own likes and dislikes. But they didn't get succeed. And they can't stop me anymore.
You've managed to say in seven sentences what has taken me over a hundred posts to begin to nail down. I think you're so amazingly cool. :D
Wildflower
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Hi Guest - glad my posts sparked something for you. :)
I think the issue is about 'remembering' what made us who we are. Not necessarily 'events' but the whole way we were treated. Events do point the way but our patterns of reacting and dealing with life in the here and now is the real key to the past AND the future.
Gosh. My brain hurts. I think I've got battle fatigue from another thread. I'm gonna have to go and lie down now. (This may be my shortest post ever!! :wink: )
R
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I loved this connection that Portia made, so I wanted to bring this over to this thread.
Sorry! Hadn’t worked this one out before (about the breaking that rule) and look what happens! {EDIT IN: maybe this relates to memory: validation of ('What happens when you can't remember..? thread): Nic you sparked my memory here and 10 minutes later - wham - a load of similar stuff floods - memories of similar 'being late/waited for' instances where I was the 'bad girl'. Validation turns the memories around: not a bad girl! Bad parents! Nasty parents!}
I goofed when copying this over and ended up losing my mental wanderings - and, um, I think my brain has gone to bed without me. :lol: :roll: Ah, well. :wink:
Wildflower
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Welcome :) . What helped me reconcile conflicting memories (OR lack of them possibly due to years of repression) AND heal my inner child was to go back to the places I grew up. Last year, with the aid of MapQuest and a rental car, I found the old houses/apartments where I grew up (only one was not there anymore) and I laid flowers at places that I remembered I remembered and then - wow- did I ever connect with my inner child. I found her waiting there for me at each place I went, including schools. I found myself in coffee shops in each city, remembering more and more and writing in my journal almost automatically. It was very empowering. I didn't tell anyone (except a confidant here) what I was planning. The trip back entailed a 16 hour plane ride. Once there, I made sure to have music with me that I remembered listening to in those days for the drive around. It was one of the best things I ever did for myself, for my life. In fact, there is one place - the first place I lived in the city I live now - that holds a lot of pain and confusion from when I was in my early twenties and acting out my anger and pain from childhood that was steadily bubbling to the surface. I still haven't visited that place yet but I am quite sure that when I am ready to visit, it will be as cathartic an experience as the other *sacred journeys* (I gave it a name) and the memories will surface. Now I can embrace the memories and embrace the person I was then. :D
If your parents have N tendencies, are there ways they behave now that trigger feelings of voicelessness in you? If you can identify those behaviors and understand what’s going on, perhaps it will give you some clues as to what might have happened in your childhood, and help you validate your feelings and then deal with them.
Yes. So true. I always wondered where my life long stage fright came from. I tried to work it out in therapy for a long time and to no avail but this word, "voiceless" is spot on. This is the key.
I don’t have children, so feel that I have to make those connections through my own memories.
Same here - my solution was to go back to my childhood homes. I think there are probably other ways to do it as well. Having children is probably a real eye-opener. *And* is probably the real reason my mother is so adamant about me not getting pregnant. :twisted:
I have put boundaries around these memories.I can wait until I am in therapy or in a safe place.
Makes a lot of sense. I have tended almost all my life to go away somewhere "safe" and *stew* over things. Putting boundaries around memories sounds like a good idea now to aid in not staying in the past so much to the point of obsession. Thanks, Feline.
For one thing, she can never, ever, ever, admit that she is wrong. Even now, if I confront her about her behaviour, she may “apologize,” but within a few minutes she will have come up with a justification, so every “apology” becomes: “I’m sorry (but I was right).”
And a true apology doesn't have a justification at the end. :x :x Most of my blood relatives communicate like this. When this happens, depending on who I am dealing with I might or might not say something. In the case of physical abuse being justified, my response is always the same - said directly to the perpetrator - "no child deserves to be slapped and hit" and I kept repeating this line as the apology with the "but" at the end was said over and over again. Finally, she said, "I will not talk to you again if you ever bring this up in the future." Bitch. But I stood up to her once. In that case, once is enough. And you know - talking about forgiveness - I forgave her and told her that but she doesn't feel that she has ever done anything wrong. She has probably never forgiven herself for a thing so I have to wonder if my words, "I forgive you" were even heard :?: More and more, I am thinking that forgiveness doesn't mean much unless one asks for it by words or actions. Asking for forgiveness and humbling oneself takes courage and integrity.
Thanks for reading and I hope I have helped a bit.
I have something worth saying!)
So true, sjkravill. As one of the other thread is titled, VOICELESS NO MORE.
~Dawning.
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Dawning, your idea of taking “sacred journeys” to the places you grew up really struck a chord with me. I think being in those physical places, which I do remember pretty clearly, could well be key in helping me rediscover memories. Thanks!
Bunny said:
My view is that it isn't critical to recall events from childhood. What's important (imo) is to access the child within me and give her a chance to be a child now. I do it by letting myself feel the sense of curiosity, wonder, imagination, creativity. Getting to know my likes, dislikes, passions. This is the stuff my parents tried to suppress and replace with their own likes and dislikes. But they didn't get succeed. And they can't stop me anymore.
Rosencrantz said:
I think the issue is about 'remembering' what made us who we are. Not necessarily 'events' but the whole way we were treated. Events do point the way but our patterns of reacting and dealing with life in the here and now is the real key to the past AND the future.
I’ve been thinking about these comments, Bunny and Rosencrantz, and I can see that in terms of living your life from here on in, what’s important is to figure out who you are and retrieve the feelings that your parents tried to suppress so you can connect with them now.
But I can’t stop wondering why I can’t remember, and I’ve been trying to figure it out.
I know (because she told me) that practically from the day I was born my mother was unhappy in her marriage. She hated her life and wanted to be free, and probably saw her children as the main barriers to her freedom. She pushed me into grade school and then boarding school as early as possible, and started an affair around the time I went to boarding school. When I was 16 she separated from my father, and within a year or so she married her lover and moved to another city, and I never lived with her or had a family home again. She had a new husband, and she was free.
So for the first 12 years of my life I lived with this frustrated, angry, critical person who (I believe) projected her nsecurities and negative feelings about herself onto me, but also (I suspect) demanded that I supply her with the love and comfort she wasn’t getting from my father. Then she sends me away to school, takes up with her lover, and basically abdicates from the role of parent. And except for the actual announcement that my parents were separating, I don’t remember feeling grief, or really any emotion about any of this, but to this day the anticipation of leaving home on a trip causes me huge anxiety, to the point that I haven’t travelled much.
Where did that leave me? I was lost. The person who (I think) for years had told me what I thought and who I was got rid of me. She didn’t need me any more, and I was supposed to stay quietly away, but come to visit now and then and impress everyone so she could show off what a great mother she was. And I did it! I played that role from my teens to my mid-20s, and couldn’t figure out why I felt so alone and why I would get bouts of depression.
Is it possible that I suppressed my early memories so I could believe the image of her as a wonderful mother who loved me? Maybe it was only by supporting her in that role that I could get whatever crumbs of attention and approval she was willing to throw my way? Because if I dared to challenge her, I was afraid she’d shut me out of her life completely? It’s like she was blackmailing me: “Moving away is just a taste of what I could do to you if you don’t agree that I’m the best mother that ever was.”
Aaaarrrggh!!! You know, I was feeling that maybe she wasn’t so bad, so narcissistic, because the things I could remember didn’t seem all that bad, but the more I think about it the worse it seems. I really hadn’t seen just how much she may have manipulated me to serve her own needs. Am I reading this right? Am I overdramatizing what happened? Am I crazy????
Guest
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Hi Guest,
Then she sends me away to school, takes up with her lover, and basically abdicates from the role of parent. And except for the actual announcement that my parents were separating, I don’t remember feeling grief, or really any emotion about any of this, but to this day the anticipation of leaving home on a trip causes me huge anxiety, to the point that I haven’t travelled much.
Are there any other examples in your current life where you stay where you are because you’re afraid that, if you leave for a minute, things will change dramatically? Or people will leave? Or you’ll lose something?
Aaaarrrggh!!! You know, I was feeling that maybe she wasn’t so bad, so narcissistic, because the things I could remember didn’t seem all that bad, but the more I think about it the worse it seems. I really hadn’t seen just how much she may have manipulated me to serve her own needs. Am I reading this right? Am I overdramatizing what happened? Am I crazy????
From here, it certainly doesn’t look like you’re crazy or overdramatizing. It looks like you’re listening to yourself. Your feelings may be all over the place for a while, but keep listening. You may come back out feeling like she's not so bad, or maybe you'll realize she was, but keep listening to yourself - and allow yourself the freedom to think/feel whatever comes into your heart and mind.
Hang in there,
Wildflower
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Hi Guest - I'm sure you're not overdramatising and I'm sure you're not crazy. :D And I'm also sure it can get quite scary when we start going into these feelings cos they are a child's feelings ie feelings felt without the help of the adult brain and the thinking and the experience that an adult can add to the mix.
But I also think that we truly did believe our mothers were 'perfect' (or pretty much anyway). So, uncertainties created by our parents are 'felt' as negatives/lacks within ourselves. We work it out so that it's not the 'out there' that's wrong; it's the 'in here' that must be wrong. And then we work out the world on the basis of those assumption. (Except for true Ns in which case what's 'in here' is even worse than what's 'out there', so that they create a new and distorted 'out there' which is the worst yet!!)
Hey, I've been listening to my mother tell me she's the perfect mother for 50 years and only just worked out that the mother from hell coexisted alongside!!! She kept telling me that I 'thought' she was a terrible mother and blamed her for 'everything'. 'Of course not mother, I don't blame you for anything' Valiant, loyal!! Der! She and I between us made sure I didn't stop long enough to THINK otherwise I might have worked it out. :shock: (But then the reality was too much to bear!)
Yes, we sure do want to believe that they notice us, see us, hear us and love us and we'll twist reality round as much as is necessary to make it that way! :o When we start to untwist it, what we see is pretty unbearable to the child that's still in us.
I'm not sure whether your mother manipulated you but she didn't seem to see you as a person with needs and feelings to be prioritised over her own interests, except to a limited extent.
You know, it seems to me that what all these mothers have in common is an irresponsible streak. Mine included. (Took me a while to get to that one!!!) Most of them have just opted out for one reason or another. But I suspect the Four Agreements apply 'Don't take it personally''! :shock: How could we not!!!
Mine is still bludgeoning me to accept that she was the perfect mother. It's too much for her to take responsibility for 'just doing the best she could' and admit to/accept the 'emotional' problems she had. I wouldn't have had half the heartache if she could have just done that. ( :idea: I almost did my usual 'getting confused as to who's who' - ie "Am I projecting? Oh dear, I'd better go and hide in the naughty corner out of everyone's way." - but it seems I've just taken another step forward towards the 'real' reality!!!)
R
PS Yes, CG. I just saw the need in her to be perfect.
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Thanks, Wildflower and Rosencrantz. A little validation goes a long way!
But I also think that we truly did believe our mothers were 'perfect' (or pretty much anyway). So, uncertainties created by our parents are 'felt' as negatives/lacks within ourselves. We work it out so that it's not the 'out there' that's wrong; it's the 'in here' that must be wrong. And then we work out the world on the basis of those assumption.
This makes sense to me intellectually, but I can’t quite get it emotionally. I’ll have to think (or rather feel) on it some more.
You know, it seems to me that what all these mothers have in common is an irresponsible streak.
Was my mother irresponsible? Lots of kids get sent to boarding school. I don’t believe that she should have stayed in an unhappy marriage “for the sake of the kids.” And I’m glad she found a partner the second time around who seems to have suited her a lot better. So when I look at it, the events themselves are no worse than what millions of other kids have gone through.
The part that drives me nuts is that I feel as though I didn’t get to have an opinion about any of it. I feel as though I was the target of an advertising campaign – “Of course you want to go to this boarding school, don’t you,” “Marriage wasn’t meant to last,” “Your father and I aren’t angry with each other,” “You’re so mature for your age, you’ll be just fine.” All lies. But I couldn’t argue. All the rewards I got were for being good, quiet, compliant, “responsible,” “mature”. Any sign of disagreement, irresponsibility, disobedience, carelessness, wildness, and WHAM – coldness, rejection, disapproval, criticism – and that’s only what I remember. I’m pretty sure that when I was younger it was fury and violence. And the cold disapproval could be about the most innocuous things – like what movie I wanted to see.
She told me once that someone who was a psychologist saw her interacting with us kids when we were young and said to her, “I don’t know what you do to make your kids so obedient, but you must be doing something.” I think she took it as a compliment.
Mine is still bludgeoning me to accept that she was the perfect mother. It's too much for her to take responsibility for 'just doing the best she could' and admit to/accept the 'emotional' problems she had. I wouldn't have had half the heartache if she could have just done that.
I've been reading other threads and understand the terrible pain you've felt over this. :cry:
Mine has this way of cheerily “admitting” she’s “not perfect,” or as she puts it, “Nobody ever said life was going to be perfect.” But any real questioning of her abilities as a mother she meets with incomprehension. I once had a conversation with her when I was still hoping I might get through to her. I was trying to be really honest with her, and told her that I experienced a lot of fear in my life – that I felt fearful or anxious a lot of the time. I thought I might get a response like, “That’s too bad,” or “What are you afraid of?” or “Have you always been that way?” and we might talk about it. Here’s what she said: “I never feel fear. I can go anywhere and do anything, and I always feel completely safe and never worry.” I wish I had had the presence of mind to question her more about that, but I felt so completely rejected that I shut up.
Feeling rather shaky – got to go.
Guest
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Hi Guest,
As R so smartly put it, these can be scary feelings and thoughts. The good news is that, while these are childhood moments, we're adults now, and we can be the adults that our parents may not have been for us.
And I’m glad she found a partner the second time around who seems to have suited her a lot better. So when I look at it, the events themselves are no worse than what millions of other kids have gone through.
The part that drives me nuts is that I feel as though I didn’t get to have an opinion about any of it.
If you could go back and find the voice of that kid watching the divorce, what would you have asked for or wanted? What I'm hearing (though I may have a bunch of my-own-issue wax in my ears :wink: ) is that your mom found a way to meet her own needs without really taking yours into consideration - understanding how the divorce (and boarding school) affected you, for instance.
Mine has this way of cheerily “admitting” she’s “not perfect,” or as she puts it, “Nobody ever said life was going to be perfect.” But any real questioning of her abilities as a mother she meets with incomprehension.
Whenever my mom burned the popcorn (or anything else for that matter - cooking not being her forte :roll: :wink: ), she'd say, "I like it that way." Pretty cool response, huh? Well, actually, maybe...but for her, it was a way of shrugging off responsibility (instead of saying maybe I'll try to make better popcorn instead of always eating this burnt stuff :lol: - sorry, just realized how sadly funny that is). It may be that your mom was being honest with you and herself, but the "cheerily" and "incomprehension" bits gave me the impression that this was a defensive stance, as opposed to an acknowledging and accepting one. I could be way off, though.
I once had a conversation with her when I was still hoping I might get through to her. I was trying to be really honest with her, and told her that I experienced a lot of fear in my life – that I felt fearful or anxious a lot of the time. I thought I might get a response like, “That’s too bad,” or “What are you afraid of?” or “Have you always been that way?” and we might talk about it. Here’s what she said: “I never feel fear. I can go anywhere and do anything, and I always feel completely safe and never worry.” I wish I had had the presence of mind to question her more about that, but I felt so completely rejected that I shut up.
Here you are turning to your mom (the right person) for help on how to deal with something you're struggling with, and instead of supporting you, she returns a kind of one-two punch in which she not only rejects your feelings, but she talks about herself instead of listening to you. What are you supposed to do with that other than feel inadequate or wrong or whatever for how you feel? Mom doesn't feel that way and doesn't even want to talk about it, so what's wrong with me that I feel this way?
I hope you're feeling okay. No need to respond, but that last paragraph really got me.
Wildflower
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Guest,
Your mom sounds majorly narcissistic. You aren't overreacting at all.
bunny
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Hi Guest,
Just another thought. You say you can't remember anything before age 11, and you feel you've been robbed of 10 years of your life, and you were sent to boarding school at 12.
If you focus on these years and what it must have felt like to be there during that transition, maybe you could expand backwards (and forwards) from that time in your life.
Do you have a strategy for bringing up your childhood memories that reduces some of the anxiety caused by those scary feelings? I have a method that helps me feel less panicked, but I wondered if you had one, too.
Take care,
Wildflower
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Just a thought from the other side of the fence!
When I don't 'listen' to my son, it's because I'm worried about what's going to come up in the context of my own 'perceived' inadequacies. If he's frightened of the dark, I can't admit that I'm frightened, too - I'm an adult and I have to instil confidence in him, otherwise I've failed. (!) :shock:
Ostrich, head, sand???
What's really puzzled me about how I've reacted to my child is 'why' when, by contrast, I spend my life 'dragging the truth' out of adults (myself included)!!!!!
But then a child is not an adult.
'Of course, you're not frightened' = "I don't want you to be frightened and if you insist you're frightened I'm going to get angry because I haven't had more than two consecutive hours' sleep for the past six years and I am desperate. It's 1am and being frightened of the dark is too big an issue to deal with right now. My needs are (finally) more important than yours but I think you're old enough to hack it - and if you're not, well, I'm going to collapse under the strain anyway and then I won't be able to look after you at all! So it's time to bite the bullet. Go back to bed."
I look back and see that from my son's point of view and I'm wracked with guilt; I'm an N! I see it from my own point of view and I begin to see that I'm a human being with my own 'needs' dealing with a son whose own needs, ironically, have always been diametrically opposed to my own.
But sometimes I don't listen to my son 'just' cos I've got a deadline of some kind or I'm preoccupied with some adult issue like making sure the meal is on the table in time for him to go and play with his friend. Or being at the bus stop in time for library storytelling hour.
It's almost impossible to 'live a life' and be constantly tuned in to a child - and once you stop tuning in, you lose the knack. Children are often 'objects' to be moved around because ultimately they aren't in a position to make their own life choices, they have to live their life in the context of their parents' lives.
It's also difficult as a parent to know WHEN the crucial times are to listen to a child. We don't read minds. But particular moments will be etched in our children's minds and we will forever be oblivious to the fact that it was an life-altering moment for that child. Most of the time, parents are just getting on with 'organising' lives rather than 'being' what our children hope we will be.
And so, when the (adult) child is feeling vulnerable - and it still feels like the parent is the one who holds all the cards for our emotional well-being and could cut us off at the knees so easily - then we don't make our parents sit down and KNOW that this is the time to think and feel and acknowledge and care. But perhaps the parent is then too horrified at what they might have to reveal (to themselves as well as to the child).
Supposing the hoped for 'of course I love you' turned out to be 'you were an inconvenience'. Then what? Do our mothers want to burn the effigy of 'good mother' (unlikely - they're hoping we still haven't found them out!!!) (Un/fortunately, my son found me out a long time ago! :wink: )
If you want answers, I think you have to be very brave and very strong and consistently ask for times to talk about the past, set our your wares - explain how much you want to understand and then not feel devastated at sighs and rolling eyes and blame.
As I once said here (in my ACON role) 'my pain gets heard, too'!!! But you've got to be very, very determined in your own mind before you can begin to make yourself heard. And are you prepared for the pain the answers might bring?
And can you ask the questions behind the questions? (ie the question(s) that you really want to ask???) Not about her mothering abilities, not about your fear - but about what love means to you and what love means to her and how it gets expressed.
Hmmm - that was one of those 'channelling' moments - it might be useful, but if not, please ignore!!!
Hugs
R
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Wow, R, how did you know?? After my last post I was shaking – tried to calm down and moved right into a major attack of doubt and guilt – that I’m twisting everything to make her sound worse than she is, that I was just a timid child and I’m blaming her for that, and why am I gnawing at all this stuff years later when I can’t change the past and really the only point here is to live a full and satisfying life and I’m free to do that anyway? Guilt, guilt, guilt!
Then you come along like a fresh breeze and speak the truth, as a mother, which is somewhere in the middle – yes, she probably ignored my needs, but no, she didn’t do it intentionally or maliciously, because she was just getting through her own life, which wasn’t all that great. It really helped me get centered again, so thanks. I’ll probably have to go back to that shaky place again, but I think it will help me if I can try to hang on to the middle ground at the same time.
If you want answers, I think you have to be very brave and very strong and consistently ask for times to talk about the past, set our your wares - explain how much you want to understand and then not feel devastated at sighs and rolling eyes and blame.
As I once said here (in my ACON role) 'my pain gets heard, too'!!! But you've got to be very, very determined in your own mind before you can begin to make yourself heard.
Yes, you’re quite right that if I want answers, I have to ask very clearly and strongly for time to talk about this stuff, and be prepared for rejection. In fact, I’m very aware that NOT asking clearly is a family tradition – everyone was supposed to know everyone else’s needs and feelings without asking or being told.
And are you prepared for the pain the answers might bring?
I have to think about that one, but what I expect is denial, so honesty might be a relief.
And can you ask the questions behind the questions? (ie the question(s) that you really want to ask???) Not about her mothering abilities, not about your fear - but about what love means to you and what love means to her and how it gets expressed.
I think I do know something about what love means to her – it means an absence of boundaries, especially within the family. Intellectually she seems able to grasp the idea that, for example, you can’t read people’s minds, but emotionally she doesn’t get it. A couple of years ago she was complaining to me that she had phoned up her sister and said she’d like to come over to visit the next afternoon, and her sister had said that wasn’t a good time because she was having guests over for tea. My mother said she felt really hurt. So I said, “Why do you feel hurt? All she said was, it wasn’t a good time for you to come because she’s having other guests.” And she said, “But I’m not a guest, I’m family. I should be able to go and help her serve the tea.” I tried to get her to see that just because you were family, it didn’t mean you should automatically be welcome 24 hours a day, but she didn’t get it. Maybe I need to try tackling the boundary issue again.
Your mom sounds majorly narcissistic. You aren't overreacting at all.
Bunny, thanks for the support. Yeah, I think she is. Just have to remember she didn’t do these things to hurt me, but because she was in pain herself.
Whenever my mom burned the popcorn (or anything else for that matter - cooking not being her forte ), she'd say, "I like it that way." Pretty cool response, huh? Well, actually, maybe...but for her, it was a way of shrugging off responsibility (instead of saying maybe I'll try to make better popcorn instead of always eating this burnt stuff - sorry, just realized how sadly funny that is). It may be that your mom was being honest with you and herself, but the "cheerily" and "incomprehension" bits gave me the impression that this was a defensive stance, as opposed to an acknowledging and accepting one.
I hope you're feeling okay.
Thanks, Wildflower. The kind of denial tactic your mom used sounds very familiar to me (and sadly funny is a perfect description of it). I do feel that the “admitting she’s not perfect” is defensive, not really accepting. It’s like, “I know I’m not perfect, so you don’t have to say it, in fact, kindly DON’T say it, in fact, it would be really MEAN of you to say it because I’ve already SAID I’m not perfect!”
Are there any other examples in your current life where you stay where you are because you’re afraid that, if you leave for a minute, things will change dramatically? Or people will leave? Or you’ll lose something?
If you could go back and find the voice of that kid watching the divorce, what would you have asked for or wanted?
Do you have a strategy for bringing up your childhood memories that reduces some of the anxiety caused by those scary feelings? I have a method that helps me feel less panicked, but I wondered if you had one, too.
I’m still thinking about your good questions and suggestions in your last couple of posts. Please tell me about your method for bringing up memories with less anxiety -- I don't have a strategy, and it would be really helpful.
Got a big work project coming up so I may not be back here so often for a while. I'll try to drop in to other threads. Thanks again, everyone.
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Hi Guest,
Before confronting your parents with questions, I’d just like to suggest that you get yourself as firmly planted as possible – because if your mom’s anything like my parents, one answer from her may have you spinning back into self-doubt. Put differently, I’d be less worried about finally getting an honest (though painful) answer from her than I would about getting a response that brings my newly found understanding of the world to its knees. You know what I mean?
So…coping with raw, unresolved childhood memories – as safely as possible. Gonna have to take you down straight-jacket lane to explain my split-personality strategy, so buckle up. :wink: :lol: :D
What if you could go back in time and be a fly on the wall and watch what was going on during your childhood? That’d be great, wouldn’t it? You’d know exactly what happened, who was right, who was wrong. Too bad it’s impossible.
But what if you could go back in time and be the adult you are now and ask the child you were then what was going on? Well, you can’t go back in time, but I believe that anything we don’t resolve as children stays with us into adulthood – to be dealt with when we are ready. So bring that child into the present and give her someone to talk to (you) who is finally capable of giving her unconditional love (and whatever else she needs).
By giving that child unconditional love, and by giving her the time to express herself, and by asking the questions no one cared to ask, you’re setting up a safe place to explore her feelings. In the end, your feelings.
Let her be immature – because she is. Ask her what happened. Allow her to respond in childish ways. Give her a chance to tell her story without being shot down or rejected or ignored. Listen until her tears are dry and her story is finished. Allow her to feel the way she feels. No matter what.
For example, it’s okay (albeit horrible and scary and disorienting) for that little girl to say your mom’s a monster. You may have to allow her to think your mom's a monster in order to get at WHY she thinks she's a monster. And you don’t have to interrupt that child’s story by reminding her what you know as an adult – that parenting is difficult and that parent’s have needs too. Not unless it’s part of helping her heal and see that it wasn’t personal or intentional. {EDIT: Not suggesting your mom's a monster. It's just one of the harder things to imagine sometimes, so I thought I'd used it as an example.}
And be assured that you, the adult, will be mature again once it’s time to go back out into the world.
In addition to thinking in terms of unconditional love, I find it helpful to pull in one of the Four Agreements here and assume nothing (at first) about this child brought up into the present. It helps me forget what I’ve been told about myself and really listen to her. Of course, if you decide this strategy isn’t too looney and you actually want to use it, you’ll probably want to make sure you have a couple of hours to yourself in a safe place before trying this. She might have a lot to say. :wink: :D
Well, that’s my strategy – and it has allowed me to put some memories to rest while recovering others. Don’t know if it’ll be helpful to you – or whether you’ll turn me over to the state mental hospital :wink: – but there it is. Actually, there's probably some explanation of this process in some textbook somewhere - or maybe it's one of those things that's so obvious that everyone knows about it and just doesn't talk about it. So if that's the case, sorry to be so thick. :wink:
Take care and good luck,
Wildflower
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I’d be less worried about finally getting an honest (though painful) answer from her than I would about getting a response that brings my newly found understanding of the world to its knees. You know what I mean?
I know exactly what you mean, Wildflower -- it's happened to me many times before. I'm definitely not planning to launch into any discussions with her without doing a lot more thinking and preparing myself. I'm also going to have to think about what her mental deterioration means -- like whether I can hope to have any useful interaction at all with her on these issues.
Your method of coping with unresolved memories sounds good, and I'm going to try it when I can set aside a chunk of time. Many thanks. :) :)
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