Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Overcomer on January 27, 2008, 08:06:31 AM
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A couple of days ago I hit a very low point. All the stress caught up to me. I blew up at both my h and my m. I got some great advice but at that particular moment it shook me and had me over reacting. Do not know how we can avoid it but it is hard to tell if someone is in the right place to accept it. Then after all that everyone left me hanging while I was trying to pick up the pieces of an extremely intense couple of days.
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A couple of days ago I hit a very low point. All the stress caught up to me. I blew up at both my h and my m. I got some great advice but at that particular moment it shook me and had me over reacting. Do not know how we can avoid it but it is hard to tell if someone is in the right place to accept it. Then after all that everyone left me hanging while I was trying to pick up the pieces of an extremely intense couple of days.
Not everyone, Kelly
What would you have appreciated, after those of whom, explained, how they gave advice?
Maybe, they did not know what to do, given the interaction.
Love, Leah
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Hello Overcomer:
I echo what Leah has said. And, could I perhaps ask what YOU have decided, based on the various opinions and supportive words offered on the particular thread.
All the best
Hermes
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Dear Kelly,
I also would like to understand... and to know how it is that you could have received more help and support.
If you can put that into words, I will certainly try to absorb it.
At the time, I kept thinking about all you've said about your own pms and how it gets when you're in the throes of that, and so this appeared to be another of those cycles. In fact, I nearly asked you if that was at the core of it...
Are you feeling better now?
With love,
Carolyn
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Then after all that everyone left me hanging while I was trying to pick up the pieces of an extremely intense couple of days.
Hi Kell,
Can you explain what happened that made you feel that way? I saw so much support for you in that thread--but I believe you when you say felt as though you were left hanging.
Did you hope to get more solutions to your situation than you got?
CB
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Dear Kelly,
I would like to understand,more, what you experienced from beginning to the end in that thread( and situation).I think that you were very,very vulnerable, at that moment so "advice"(you didn't like or think was right) which you could have blown off at another time, you took very much to heart, this time. Am I right?
Kelly, you are really doing the right thing by expressing your thoughts about the board. Love Ami
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Funny thing is it was just after my usual PMS time. Maybe since I am entering the menopause stage my cycle is off? All I felt is that the board as a whole flooded me with admonishments which I tried to hear and do. What it made me want to do was file for divorce, put a For Sale sign out in front of my house and quit my job without any exit strategy. Then as fast as everybody came in with advice, very few checked back in to see if I was alright. A simple "Are you feeling better today" would
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have helped me a lot.
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On reading this thread I am left thinking of the title of a book about borderline personality disorder, "I Hate You, Don't Leave Me"
Sort of feel, damned if you do damned if you don't and that's an awfully familiar feeling.
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Dear Kelly,
My understanding is, that, initially, you were referring to your mother, and the reception, and how you react to your mother.
Which was, certainly, how I posted, as explained, in my subsequent posting, about reacting or not, etc., with your mother.#
Love, Leah
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Kelly, if you care to, have a read of my "How would you feel" thread. Complete with a questionairre!
My healthy choice was, to take it, with a wysiwyg attitude, at the time, and simply, leave it as that, let it go.
Love, Leah
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Dear Kelly,
Sometimes people give "solutions" when all we want is to be heard. Also, s/one else's solutions may not be right for you. I think that you may have been the most vulnerable you have ever been on the board, at least as *I* have seen,anyway.
You were very raw and sensitive and were not able to ignore the posts that were not right for you.
Also, you needed TLC and did not feel it coming to you, after you had reached out when you were hurting.
Is that what happened?
For me, when I post, I try to tell myself that the expressing of the emotion is enough.. When I get loving responses, I am thrilled. When I don't, I just try to know that, at least ,I brought the pain to light and that was a healing step in itself.
My posts have triggered other people's pain and I have brought condemnation down on my head. I know that this can happen when I put myself out there. I think that this has happpened, at times , to you, particularly around your M's money.
Your inheritance issues can bring up deep feelings in other people . Their feelings have NOTHING to do with you or your M. They are their issues,but they are being played out on you.
I remember that this happened with GS, when I first got on the board. She brought anger down on herself b/c of other people's views on her family's wealth.
I have triggered many people's emotions and have even come to expect criticism of me that may have little to do with me.
I think that this just 'happens", in real life or the board.
I,usually ,get a few responses which "get it". I am happy for these and usually am able to let the other responses "go".
I am sorry you are hurting and feeling frustrated and not understood, Kelly. Love Ami
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Hey GS-I hope I did not come across on that thread like I did not hear you at all. I dieg hear you and I can relate to your response. Leah-I know I went from my mom to my H because we had a fight in the midst of my angst which just furthered my downward spiral. I fell apart harder than I have in forever. I guess I just needed an atta girl even if you all felt I needed a swift kick in the behind. Which I do but not the other day and that was my point. How can we know the mental state?
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We can't know, Kelly... we can only ask.
Which is why I asked you originally, the other day, what it is you wanted (and the newlyweds)...
and also why I asked you this morning, Are you feeling better now?
Love,
Carolyn
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Hey Kelly, good woman...
I'll tell you hon, what I honestly believe...hope it helps, but even if it doesn't it's the best I have to give:
I believe you are hooked in a habit of blaming other people for your own emotions, and that it's hobbling you.
I do sincerely understand feeling alone and forsaken and frustrated and wishing so deeply that it feels like "needing" a response. That level of loneliness and frustration, which you surely experience in your painful situations with your mother and husband, makes one so susceptible to the blame cycle.
But I believe blaming (others OR yourself) leads to a dead-end cycle of "I feel really bad and it's your fault."
There's no exit. No exit at all. Not money not surgery not life changes.
But "I feel really bad and this is a place I've been so many times before and I'm going to choose to learn different ways to THINK, which will change my feelings" -- that, I believe, will change how you feel, and will empower you.
You really gotta dig. You are so smart. I know you can do it. I'd go for intensive rational emotive therapy, for you.
with love,
Hops
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Thank you Am-you were one of the only ones who have my a squeeze mentally and if I remember correctly someone told you not to do it. It was the lowest point I have had in a long while and I was VERY raw. I have been through a good bit over the last couple months. Death. Move. Surgery. Sudden engagement and marriage of D. Retail in Dec. Alcoholic H. A staff party today at MY HOUSE and the reception. It tidal waved me and I lost it! Borderline Personality? Ok. If the shoe fits.
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Kelly,
I agree with Hops about what's happening here with you... and I agree with her because I feel and sense and know it happens within me, myself. This is not about the board at all... it is about you.
What Hops is suggesting is what I am having to practice within myself, because I can wake up one day and feel really, truly miserable. I can feel so poorly about everything that I don't even want to pray or seek God or do anything else which I KNOW would help. Why?
That is the question. Why. I think it's because getting stuck in that old loop becomes an habitual practice and despite the learning of new techniques and styles of thinking, THOSE take practice, too - - to get them firmly in place so they become habitual, in place of the old ways.
Blaming stinks, Kelly... I know it does because I am often tempted to do it and unless somebody shakes me out of it, I may sink farther withinto that muck... and that is no help at all.
Love to you,
Carolyn
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Hops-wow! I had heard that before but when you said it it clicked! I blame my mom for everything! I need to take responsiblity for me. Not blame her. My mom suggest I read I HATE YOU DONT LEAVE ME. Does anyone here think I display borderline personality disorder? I wanted to blame my mom not take on some new label-but maybe. I really do not know what that means. I guess I should google it and find out more.
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Kelly,
No, I don't think you are BPD... and I know what trying to someone with BPD feels like.
Carolyn
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NOOOO,Kelly. Don't put on THAT shoe! You are overwhelmed.You have had too many life situations hit you at the same time. I have marveled at you,in the past ,with your autistic D, new house, selling old house, surgery, NM, other children, D's marriage, alcoholic H.
Kelly, the strongest person ,in the world, would stagger and lose it under these conditions.
It is hard for us(with NM's) to value our pain and honor our emotions.
I am going through the VERY same thing,now. I am not honoring my body OR my emotions.I have to ask people if it is OK to feel "whatever".
I see how disconnected I have become from my own core. It is scary, but it is the truth and the truth is always better than a
"pretty" lie.
I think that you are not honoring your own feelings and life stresses,Kelly. Even when you said that you should not "complain" b/c of what *I* was going through, that was an abdication of YOUR own pain, b/c mine was worse. I do this ,all the time, too. It is not good at all. It is part of throwing ourselves away.
I did this with my issues with my parents. I was minimizing my own pain with my F b/c he was not as bad as some other F's on the board.
That might be true, BUT they were bad enough to almost destroy me. I do that with my H. I have many things to be grateful for ,but that does not mean that I could lose my desire to live,by being in a relationship with my H.
We learned not to value ourselves, Kelly. I see that as your main problem. Compost what does not fit, Friend. Love Ami
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OC - Just like Nism, you can exhibit borderline traits without being borderline. With regards to your mother I do think you have a tendancy to exhibit borderline traits. I do with both of my parents. I want to go NC but I also want them to act like other non-n parents.
The borderline trait that you seem to exhibit is that one day you have resolved to let go of your mother and then next day you are enmeshed with her and that pattern repeats frequently. One day it is "I hate her." and the next day "I am trying to work things out."
Do you recognize that pattern?
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OC - Just like Nism, you can exhibit borderline traits without being borderline. With regards to your mother I do think you have a tendancy to exhibit borderline traits. I do with both of my parents. I want to go NC but I also want them to act like other non-n parents.
The borderline trait that you seem to exhibit is that one day you have resolved to let go of your mother and then next day you are enmeshed with her and that pattern repeats frequently. One day it is "I hate her." and the next day "I am trying to work things out."
Do you recognize that pattern?
This is what I see, as well, Kelly.
I feel that you are still so drawn to what you see as the benefits of association with your mother that it's tearing you in two.
Love,
Carolyn
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Dear Kelly,
Hops, GS and Carolyn, absolutely agree with, and the "I hate you" today, and "I'm going to work at it" tomorrow.
Exhibiting certain Traits, at any one time, is totally different, and not to be confused with, having a PD
for example;
I posted on N arcissitic traits
and
the NPD full blown diagnosed disorder.
Huge real difference.
Love, Leah
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Thank you Carolyn and GS and as always, Ami:
GS-I know you know how I feel. We both have wealthy parents and we stand to lose a lot if we go NC. Some people have said the mental angst is not worth it and it is VERY frustrating. But I figure I have given enough of my life away that I earned a little bit of the rewards in the future. I can continue to be a part of her life (I think) but try to distance myself. The problem I see is that my PMS times cloud my judgment and reason. Every single time I have an episode like last week, I can tie it to hormones. It IS a roller coaster ride that I cannot seem to get off of.
I do hate her a lot. The problem is I cannot control her and that is frustrating to me. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? It is not that I want to control HER....it is that I want to control her when it comes to me. But that will not happen so I continue to hit my head against a brick wall. I think I am doing ok and then she says something as simple as "no, she is your daughter not mine....." After telling me not to rain on their parade and I didn't have a budget on my wedding.....................that simple interchange through me off the deep end. Hormonal? I guess. Irrational, yes!!!
But then just when I want to drop kick her, she says something nice. Almost like luring me back in for the next kill.
I googled malignant optimism and I KNOW I have that. I always forgive. My drunken husband? I am on my way to divorce court and he comes up and says he is sorry and gives me a hug and I overlook the months and years of drunkenness.
The dance my mom and I do? It IS a dance. She pushes my button, I push hers.
That is why over the years I have tried so many times to get another job. That is why I am so psyched about my new business. Every time I see a way out from the financial strings my mom has over me. I keep thinking......."If I can earn enough money, I can sever those ties with her....." People tell me to sever them now. And I am trying. But then, let's plan a reception with NO budget...afterall we cannot rain on the kids' parade.................so I say to her.........then show me the money!!!!
I think when she became wealthy she managed to control the whole families lives. Everyone goes to her for money. But with that comes obligation, therefore, CONTROL. She gets to call the shots even if she is past the shot calling age......
That is another frustration to me. I can see her losing her edge with age and probably dementia. But she won't give it up. So time tics and I know I could run the business better than she.....but she won't give it up. So as I age I realize that she is stealing my opportunity to run a successful business. That stinks. There was an article in a trade magazine that spotlighted 40 people in our industry who are 40 years old and below. I said to her.........see, even in our industry standards I am not even considered young anymore and you still will not let me have a chance to have my day in the sun. That is because she cannot stand to lose her edge and wants her day in the sun to continue.....so in essense she is robbing me....at least that is how I feel.
So if you call that blaming, I guess it is. I could go get another job but this is what I know. I also know I know it better than she does but she has so much invested in the business that she does not trust anyone so she stays and further drives it into the ground.
Oh, well, I hear you ALL! I will try to realize that I need to get up from that table and not play the game. I loved that thread about the zen master, etc. If I choose to get up and not play the game, then I guess I will win by not playing...
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Kelly,
I just feel that you place a curse on yourself by continually comparing yourself to her. Your day in the sun is here now... as you continue doing what you know is right, in your own way and style. You are not a reflection of her and she does not reflect you... unless you allow that.
I wish you could see clearly what she's doing when she speaks of not raining on the "kids' parade"...
the guilt trip she's trying to lay onto you... and succeeding!
The standard to which she's trying to hold you - - is it hers or is it your own standard? That's what you need to discern.
If it is indeed "the kids' parade", then I wonder whether anyone has asked the kids what it is that they want?
Love,
Carolyn
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I totally believe in curses. I do not want to compare myself to her because I think she is a toxic self absorbed N who lucked into wealth. I do not think she is even that smart. The Bible even says not to be jealous of the wicked. She just spent all my life trying to push me down while she was on a quest for self actualization.
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Kelly,
I believe that as you take a close look into how you, yourself, define the terms of "success" - for you, yourself -
you will be able to break free from her hold over you, once and for all.
Love,
Carolyn
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Success is a mental state and you would not believe how I used to be! You think I fall into the dance now? you should have seen me six years ago. My angst was tenfold!
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Success is definitely a mental state. I am so glad that you are much further down the road than you were six years ago. That always gives me hope when I look back and see how far I have already come. I know you will grow much farther OC. Perhaps you need to rest where you are for a while. Perhaps the struggle you are dealing with right now needs more strugglling.
I always wish you the best. - GS
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I fully echo Hops' post. Makes so much sense.
Hope you are feeling a bit better Overcomer. I have nothing to add to the many supportive posts you have received on this, and on the earlier thread.
Hermes
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((((((Kelly))))))
Sometimes it's a daily thing for me, reminding myself - "Success is not what my mother says it is."
She doesn't define me, my children, my marriage, my present, my future, or any other aspect of my life.
Carolyn
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When I was in my early 20s I was making strides. But my boyfriend and I were living in sin so she kinda made me get married. I knew walking down the aisle that it was wrong but how could I mess up the spectacle? We were somewhat independent until she paid for our college-that is when my life was taken over!
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My H was a loser and could not find a job. I made all the $. He liked books a lot so I saw an be in the paper for a bookstore for sale. We jumped through all the hoops and my mom joined up so we could be over 50% Women owned. My H true colors started showing and I ended up divorcing. I got pregnant by accident during that time so stayed home awhile while she was a baby. The business lost money so my mom put money in and somehow made it stock which made her principal owner. She took over.
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Kelly,
I know what it's like to be convinced that I cannot think for myself or choose for myself... or even try anything for myself... to feel completely dependent on the person I've viewed as the powerful one.
Maybe the spectacle is the hook... the trappings of success... the lie that enough money and a fancy enough "show" will bring peace and happiness...
It was only natural for you to buy into it back then... to get a college education... to live the "American Dream"...
but now is now, right? What are your own, real dreams for the now?
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Just read your last post, Kelly.
Ouch.
Deep down, do you feel like you owe your mom?
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But she never learned the business. She phoned anybody and everybody to tell her of her former career. She succeeded in impressing enough of them that they started asking her to be on boards and committees etc. We won an award 3 Years into it and when we got the award she was called out as THE owner and she went on stage alone. That was the first time I got angry. I had always been able to handle most anything-then I realized that I knew more than she did but she took the credit. Rage!!
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deleted
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Dear Leah:
I read your post, (re the will and stuff), and I am just overcome with the utter nerve of this man. Leah, this is something out of a movie, not real life.
I think of some of us, all of us, got to writing a script, we would make a fortune (of course, no one would believe it, they would think it is fiction).
All the best
Hermes
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Dear Leah:
I read your post, (re the will and stuff), and I am just overcome with the utter nerve of this man. Leah, this is something out of a movie, not real life.
I think of some of us, all of us, got to writing a script, we would make a fortune (of course, no one would believe it, they would think it is fiction).
All the best
Hermes
Dear Hermes,
Again, I was just about to delete it. I posted it in the New Year, and then deleted it. As it begs belief, for anyone, in this day and age.
However, it is perfectly true. With all honesty, I don't have angry feelings, however, I confess, that I was incensed when he told me.
It has a double bind --- as it is the only way he can WORK on getting me back into his RCism. Or so he mistakenly thought. No-one will.
Thank you for believing me, and validating me.
Leah
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Dear Leah:
I believe you totally. Because I know of cases where this sort of thing goes on.
No doubt about it. Truth is stranger than fiction.
There are some very strange people in the world, Leah. LOL.
But you know what is even odder? "They" think that we are the ones out of step, and that we should consider their outlandish behaviour as perfectly normal. In some aspects, it is quite fascinating.
All the best
Hermes
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But you know what is even odder? "They" think that we are the ones out of step, and that we should consider their outlandish behaviour as perfectly normal. In some aspects, it is quite fascinating.
Dear Hermes,
That is how I choose to view the situation. Mark it down as yet another fascinating aspect of their thought patterns and behaviour.
Love,
Leah
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I just wanted to add that there is very little that can surprise me, and I do BELIEVE that these utterly outlandish situations actually take place. Before meeting and marrying exNH I might not have believeed a lot of things. Now I DO!
A quick story (I don't think this woman will ever be on this board so I can tell this story).
She lives a bit away from me, is a friend or rather an acquaintance.
Married young, six children, husband left her for A MAN. (yes you are all reading correctly!) . Left her high and dry, literally. Judge could not get any maintenance out of him as he was a man of straw, unemployed (supposedly). So, talk of the frying pan and the fire, she gets involved with her brother in law (yes, her husband's brother), they live together. He is equally abusive. An example: he tears out all the clothes, children's clothes etc. from the airing cupboard, throws them on the landing and on the stairs, and then tramples on them, telling her she is "untidy_". This is just one of many many incidents.
I had not seen her for a while, till recently, and she calls to tell me she is pregnant (sheis in her forties), by her brother in law. Yes!
Why has she done this? I know, even if she does not tell me. It is to secure the house in which she lives with b-in-l. Because he was going to put her out, even though she contributed to mortgage payments, furniture etc. So having a child with him, means he cannot put her out, and the house will be eventually for the child. Extraordinary. Could I also mention she has lymphoma. Serious. Yes!! Very.
All the best
Hermes
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I forgot to mention. The local priest (RC) came up to see her, to tell her it was not a good example her living with her b-in-l.
The priest has not been back since, given that she asked him would he like to help her with the maintenance of her six children LOL.
Hermes
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Fascinating is a polite word for what it is. The two words I had in mind were a bit shorter, I must admit...but one did start with an F.
Leah, I completely believe you, and completely understand how incensed you were. To have someone try to contol you from the grave is infuriating. I also have to say that I was not really that shocked. That lack of surprise has nothing to do with your situation, but with the overall weirdness and chaos and drama created by the PD'd people in my life that I had assumed was normal until I started to heal.
As we were talking about in a thread a few weeks back, it's hard to talk about these things with people who haven't experienced it. But I think other adult children do understand.
(((Leah)))
Thank you (((( Lollie ))))
There is no-one of whom I can share this account of my NFather. How would understand? It is so degrading and embarrassing, also.
My NFather has been a clever business man. He is a very cunning man, also, a real life wolf in sheep's clothing, honestly.
That's how I saw it, as the ultimate control and manipulation, from the grave. In truth, I was stunned at first, and speechless.
Him sending xmas cards and bday cards to a dog, and not to my son, his first grandchild, speaks volumes. Again, I am ashamed to call him father.
Love to you, Lollie
Leah
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Leah: It is the kind of thing an alien might do, someone who has no idea of how normal things on earth are done. Of course, they are aliens....
Hermes
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Well my H loves the dogs far more than anyone else in the house. He even told me once he will be more sad when he dies than I. I have always thought that when my mom passes she will pull some odd thing like giving it all to my children or allowing me $10000 a year or something like that or stipulate that I tithe a certain amount-or, like Joan Crawford-leave me nothing. I guess I could write a scathing book exposing her. Although most people already have her figured out. Not fooling anyone.
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Kelly,
Can you frame in words what it is you want for yourself... apart from your mom and all that's connected to her and the business....
what is it that Kelly wants?
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Well my H loves the dogs far more than anyone else in the house. He even told me once he will be more sad when he dies than I.
That is freaking pitiful, Kelly!!!! Ami
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It is. I know he loves me but the dog does not give him crap! Wealth is not what I want. I just want enough that I can never have to ask for help. An extra $1000 Per month would be ok. i also do not want to have so beat to my moms drum. When she stole the business from me I felt totally ripped off-although I come and go as I please and it was not always that way.
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Kelly,
It's always been important to me to have that sense of security, too... to have enough, to not be dependent on help from others, financially. Then again, I know how easy it is to lose everything in a disaster... so it's equally important to me to not be too attached to that stuff.
$1,000.00 more per month... what would you do with that money?
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save it or buy clothes.
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I want to be able to go over to my parents' house and even if it is phoney Just be able to sit and have a conversation. These 14 years with her I have had to not only try to protect myself from her but others as well. She uses demeaning language to describe our employees to others and she says it so the employee can hear it. She refers to the bookkeeper who we made assistant manager in 05 The abounts payable clerk.
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""It's always been important to me to have that sense of security, too... to have enough, to not be dependent on help from others, financially. Then again, I know how easy it is to lose everything in a disaster... so it's equally important to me to not be too attached to that stuff.""" Certain Hope.
Well said, C.H.!! As adults we are supposed to think like adults.....
Being attached to the "idea" of security is a disaster in itself!
All the best
Hermes
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Good Morning, Kelly,
Do you have a saving plan in place for any extra income you are able to make?
If I'm getting too nosy, please ignore... just trying to encourage you to think ahead, which is something I've battled against for ages.
Long range goals, you know... a way of viewing life which draws us outside of the immediate webs of conflict.
Your mother will not be around forever, you know...
What can you begin doing right now, today, that would change the future where saving is concerned?
Again, just some potential thoughts for a different perspective. Please ignore if annoying... lol.
Carolyn