Hi Yaku... I just wanted to comment that I have often felt the same way. I would be sitting with family and start to feel unreal or like I was the only one who was a mess and everyone seemed to be just fine and it must be that something is badly wrong with me. A lot of your rationale makes sense... and of course, we cannot really know what is going on inside someone else and perhaps they are wrestling with their own devils.

Aside from that... each of our growing up experiences is different and unique to us... even those of us in the same family. My only sister is 3 years younger than I am and she had a VERY different experience than I did in childhood and although she has some anxiety... she does not have many of the same issues that I do. My mother was not so hard on her because she was the "baby" of the family. My mom is deceased now for a number of years and we had to go clean out her house. A lot of personal stuff I just threw into boxes and put in my basement because there was no time to really LOOK at everything closely, we had no time. So recently my dh was organizing the basement and brought up a photo album of my mom's. It was some pictures of her 80th birthday party and then... just lots of pictures of my sister as a child and through the years. And NO pictures of ME. None. There were a few pics of my son as a baby and toddler. But none with me. I have to say that it hurt to see that but it also made me think that I was not so crazy in imagining that she favored my sister over me and that I had a more difficult time with her. My Ts have told me that I took the burnt of her anger through the years and that protected my sister but it was hard for me to take that in.

On a side note, regarding your mom's behavior... I don't know what kind of childhood SHE had but I am wondering if your mother has issues with dissociation too. Maybe when she does not seem to hear or pay attention or acts "off" she is dissociating from the anxiety of family gatherings. Just a thought to put out there to explain some of her behavior. Please disregard if you think this is off base. It does not excuse her from not treating you well in any case.

I'm sorry you are struggling Yaku. Sending you comfoting hugs and support.

TN

Thanks, TN. My mom displays some narcissistic tendencies (well, according to my T). I don't know about dissociation, but I know she had a major breakdown in my childhood as the result of my sisters being taken away to their dad's. So, I guess I was the one still there with her during that time, but either I was completely isolated from it, I had no relationship with her so I didn't notice it or I completely dissociated some (possibly disturbing) experiences then.

As far as her childhood goes, I have heard she had some CSA by a neighbor. I know her mom was a major hoarder in her old age and my mom is a bit of one as well (not nearly as bad, though...mostly buying new stuff all the time, not keeping tons of old stuff). I know her dad cheated on her mom and left her for my ex-step-grandma. I know she had some conflict with her mom, but was her dad's golden child...but also that he uses money to control her (she does the same with her kids). Both my mom and my grandpa are, by nature, "performers," both professionally and in personal relationships. She is a pianist/singer, he did theater for a while, was a salesman and a dance instructor. I don't really know much about her childhood, but I do know she had periods of being very "off" as an adult (like, she has told me she made love to some sort of angel-like being who healed some sort of lump she had in her arm...um, WTF?). Anyway, I don't know why I am saying any of this. I "know" intellectually that things are not alright in this family.

It's just so confusing when she seems like she could have been a good mom, or at least a better one than she was in reality...so she must have just chosen not to for some reason. That reason = my inherent badness. When I told T that I can't figure out anything that was justifiably "bad enough" to make me how I am right now, he said part of it is just a natural tendency to dissociate (like, I was "gifted" with that ability and so it became my favorite coping mechanism really easily), but that he also thinks I will have a lot of stuff come up that I was not even aware of...that these different parts all have things to tell me, either long-forgotten memories or disconnected feelings or both. I just feel like it doesn't matter, because I can't manage to make those things "true" without external validation...and I will never get it.

I even thought of writing to my dad, who although he abandoned me, is very moral and honest and intellectual (unlikely to be biased) and just asking him to tell me what the hell happened to me between birth and nine-years-old when when he moved out (well, the last time, because he was in and out constantly). Or if he noticed me being really spacey. Or if he suspected anything bad with my mom's boyfriend who I have so many nightmares about. Ugh, but what's the point? If he knew anything was wrong, surely he would have DONE something to protect his kid, right? Or gotten me help?

Ugh, I am just making myself more crazy here, aren't I.

((((hugs back)))) Thanks again!

(((((((((Yaku))))))))) I wonder if one of the dynamics of a sick family is to ostracize the one who is speaking out, you know? I remember trying to speak out when I was still living at home, but all my siblings, who felt the same way I did, were afraid to say anything to anyone, and my dad was really good at psychobabble, so there I was, feeling like I was the "crazy" one. And I'm the only one of us four who is in therapy, so I've also wondered the same as you, why me and not them...oh, and my mom is still in my life, and treats my daughters like princesses...and she is their favorite person in the whole world...so I've also wondered, why can she treat them so nicely, when she was alway so mean to me...and even now, I'm pretty sure the only reason she's nice to me is so she can have a relationship with them...anyway this is all just my long-winded way of saying, I've experienced some of what you're feeling, and I'm sorry you're experiencing it.

There are certain people I've had to go to for validation. I'm really glad you came here to get some. Fortunately I still have someone in my life today who was "there" when I was a kid, and she has validated for me repeatedly that my mom really WAS mean to me.

I've also wondered if there is something "intrinsically wrong" with me...I'm an introvert, and so the way I responded to the craziness in my family was to go in my room and shut the door...even that made my mom mad...but it was my only way of coping...sheesh.

I'm glad you were able to be there for your little brother (especially knowing that it was probably going to take a toll on you emotionally with the other stuff going on). I'm sorry you don't have the consistent support of your sister, sounds like she is struggling to define reality herself. And I'm VERY sorry your mom ignored you and your daughter at the party, especially when you said you loved her, that was a very mean thing to do to you, to ignore you but to respond to your sister and nephews.

The fearful look she got? Sweetie, that more than anything confirms that there really is something wrong going on. What kind of parent gets a fearful look on their face? One who knows they screwed up, but who doesn't want to face it. I'm guessing she's afraid of you because you've spoken out, you are exposing the sickness in the family, so she's ostracizing you in the hopes that you'll think you imagined all of it and stop talking about it.

I hope you are able to get some answers from your dad one day. Would he have helped if he knew something was wrong? Well...sometimes people, even parents, turn the other way or tell themselves nothing's "really" wrong, especially if they need to justify something, like leaving. After she quit drinking, my mom left us, even though she knew our dad was still drinking and didn't really want us and we all wanted to be with her (more than him, anyway) because she wanted to be with her new boyfriend. Not saying that's what your dad did, but...it's definitely worth looking into, someday, when you're ready...the answers might be really hard to hear, though.

I'm glad you came here to talk about it. It is most definitely a kind of soul poison, I have felt that way many times when exposed to this kind of thing, and it's awful. You are not a giant f--- up, on the contrary...you are brave to face the truth at all, and especially in the face of such resistance. ((((((Yaku))))))

TN - how horrible to discover that your mother kept pictures of your sister, but not you. That makes me really angry on little TN's behalf. It's like another form of ostracization...your mom must have been very sick and twisted indeed to have done such a thing to a child. I'm so sorry for the pain she caused you. ((((((TN)))))))

Monte - I really appreciate the point you made, that what happened IS important, but what is more important is how what happened affects us, and honoring that and working from there. Sometimes I think some of my pain is there because I'm "too sensitive" and take things too hard...like if I had been tougher then I could have just "risen above"...but that's not helpful at all because I was the way that I was...sounds like we all have some of that. Thank you ((((((Monte)))))

SG

What has helped me enormously it what the others have mentioned: that each child has a different experience of the family. for example with my own kids, my youngest has only known THIS place where we live but my oldest was moved when she was six and half years old, so still misses the old city she was born and grew up for those years in. Just that alone makes them different. My daughter had four years of us on her own before the next one arrived. So many nuances make so many different feelings and experiences. When I spend time with other kids I see that one child is really playing up and experiencing their parents in one way whilst another child in the same family is having a great time. Both are true.

What happened to me, and possibly to you, is that for some reason we got a lot of negative vibes and we were sensitive to that. I knew that my mother preferred my sister, but I felt that my father preferred me and that kept me more or less feeling okay. but neither parent was willing to give to me emotionally at a very deep level. so I had a sort of break down aged 21 where as my sister kept up the story of the happy family. (violence? drinking? Happy? Duh)

I now no longer see my sister at all, because of the feelings you describe, of wondering if I am weird and they are all normal, when in reality I am being clear about the 'stuff' going on and how it hurt me and they were and she is denying it.

But very hard to hold that kind of view steady when surrounded by a group of them.

so I feel for you.

[I am sorry I am not posting much. I am tangled up in really strong attachment feelings for sweetP, missing him in between sessions, needing him, wanting cuddles, hurting. Urgh. Therapy! But I am so glad I have him.]

(((TN))) (((Monte))) (((SG))) (((Sadly)))

Thanks for all your support. Lots of "chatter" today and I am just tired of it all and want to go hide somewhere quiet, but your kind words do help. I wish I could just talk to my T, hear his steady, caring voice right now and not feel so alone or impossible to connect with. I want to disappear.

OK, my new theories about why my mom wasn't really interacting with my daughter, but mostly with my nephews:

1. She just has trouble connecting with anyone older than an infant (was true for my younger siblings).

...because,

2. She feels REJECTED by my daughter.

When she came to the graduation, my daughter shouted, "Hi, Grandma!" happily. So, my mom came and tried to pick her up, but my daughter ran to me and said, "No Grandma! Up on Mommy!" It's not just my mom, she does this with anyone she just doesn't see very often or also just prefers not to have other people handle her too much if I'm around. Even people she knows well, she'll tolerate, but she'd rather have mom, given the option. She's not always like that, but it's the phase she's in right now. Anyway, after that, any time I tried to get my mom to interact with her, my mom kept acting like, "Well, no, she doesn't want me." My mom felt rejected by my daughter and took it personally.

So, now I'm wondering if that's what happened when I was little. My older sisters' dad serial cheated on her and then she immediately met, dated and married my dad. She had a serious depression (according to my oldest sister, 6 years older than me) after I was born, and her and my dad technically divorced when I was one, but they were off and on after that. When my paternal grandmother saw that she was leaving me in cribs and playpens and wandering around the house unattended, she "took over" mom-ing me as much as she could. It was to the point where I called her "Mama" at a young age and they had to negotiate with me to call her "Grandma Mama," or so my dad told me a long time ago. I spent nearly every weekend with her and couldn't wait to get to her place (probably, because she was the closest thing I had to a good AF, although a lot of my shaming tendencies and anxiety comes from her) Right after my grandma died, my mom attacked her to me about how she had "stolen" me.

Anyway, something just kind of clicked in my head that maybe my mom DID treat me very differently, although perhaps in subtle ways that no one consciously picked up on. Her "rejecting" my daughter, because my daughter didn't want her kind of showed me that. Somehow, I rejected her. I chose my grandma over her (for good reasons as all a baby is trying to do is get their needs met and obviously she wasn't doing it). She just came out of two divorces, one in which her husband cheated on her dozens of times while she gave him two beautiful daughters. I was just another person who was rejecting and abandoning her and it didn't matter that I was a f---ing infant/toddler/preschooler/gradeschooler. I was hurting her and it made her angry and she didn't know what to do with feelings of being so angry toward her child, probably. So, when the child was too little to threaten, she just disconnected completely (explains why I barely remember interacting with her at all). And when the kid was older and still wouldn't approach, avoided her at all costs, she had to try to manipulate her into "needing" her for food, home, etc. And when manipulation didn't work, she had to berate and threaten and convince the child that there was something wrong with her to justify the lack of connection.

And, I actually sympathize with her if that's what happened, because I can't imagine she did it consciously. And it probably haunts her if she can't figure out why the hell she can't connect with one of her kids moreso than all of the others, why the hell this one kid is so threatening and the only way she can approach is if she invades (needs something), because this particular child has chosen to avoid ever needing her (which is the tool she uses on ALL of my other siblings).

Ugh, I feel kind of gross right now. Maybe I'm wrong. Who knows?

quote:

She just has trouble connecting with anyone older than an infant (was true for my younger siblings).

Yaku... this really jumped out at me due to a conversation I had with my T a couple of months ago when talking to him about my mom. I said to him that I didn't have much knowledge of how things were when I was a baby but I've seen my mom with babies and she loved them. Always goes over to someone with a baby. He nodded and immediately said, "that's because she was a narcissist. They love babies because babies give them attention and smile and coo at them. And they have control over the babies. Babies make them feel good. It's when the babies become toddlers and preschoolers and grow up the problems begin". I thought about this in terms of my mother and it made a lot of sense to me. I wonder if this also applies in your situation.

SG... thanks for the kind words. I just wanted to clarify that my mom had pictures of me in her "shoebox" collection of pictures. She had 4 shoeboxes of family and friends photos all thrown in together. I have them now. But these pictures of my sister were hand picked out of all the 4 shoeboxes and carefully put into a special album. I had wondered why, when I went through all the pictures after mom died that I could not find any baby/todder pictures of my sister, just of me. Now I know why.

TN

TN - Sirens, alarm bells, flashing lights. Yeah, my mom is *GREAT* with babies, adores them, kept wanting to have more and more. Before my little brother (her sixth, who she had at 42) was even one, she was telling me she regretted having her tubes tied, because she now wanted to have at least one more. The reason she left my dad (who came back to care for her during her breakdown and is super-faithful to his partners) was because he refused to have more kids with her, as they already had "three beautiful children" (he included his step-daughters there). My mom literally threw herself at him and refused (my oldest sister was hiding in the kitchen on a visit from her dad's and overheard the whole thing). She said the next visit my mom was already talking about marrying my step-dad and the visit after, they were pregnant (these are monthly visits!).

So, I guess she had this problem with all of us, probably...but why moreso with me, I wonder? The rejection stuff I'm talking about here? The fact that I responded to her invasions with distance and indifferent compliance rather than increased dependency or fighting (attention of a sort)? Now that I think about it, she was pretty good about visiting my daughter in the first year, maybe a couple times a month, however briefly, for no reason at all. After that, she would keep saying how she wanted to come, but was so tied up with work or loan modifications or some other thing and as soon as she got that finished, she would visit more. Maybe, it's just that she lost interest. The only sibling she actively makes time for is the sister who lived at her dad's for most her childhood and who constantly pursues my mom. And, her attention to my little brother (for the first time since he stopped nursing at three-and-a-half) by attending his graduation was following my oldest sister saying how much he "needs" and "wants" a relationship with her. Telling her she is needed...well, it makes me think of the plant from The Little Shop of Horror ("Feed me, Seymour!").

Anyway, all of this may be nothing, but it does strike a chord with me that the ways in which our mothers are similar and both of our Ts venturing a guess that they are narcissists.

(((YAKU))))

I know about that war you are talking about. I've had that war too. But I do think at some point, it won't be so wishy washy anymore in your head. You will really come to know what went wrong and believe it in your heart. IMO, it will come to you from your relationship with your T, how he treats you, how that makes you feel, etc. It may take a long time to let that all in. It did for me.

I am actually really starting to believe that what happened to me was real. And so much of it has come from my relationship with T and how he makes me feel important to him. (no comments from the peanut gallery. LOL!!) As I have worked through the transference and I had TONS of it to work through and I'm sure I'm not done yet, as I have done that and have come to see T as who he is, it has helped me to see who my parents really were and their limitations. I know now what's important for children to receive and know that what I got was so far off the mark.

I know you will get there. It will come. Just takes time.

Liese

(((Liese)))

Thanks for your encouragement. Still feeling a bit confused, but definitely better than Friday. It's not like I can avoid my family with us all living so close and everyone being so enmeshed, so-to-speak. So, I just have to get used to being triggered like this without falling apart.

Yaku,

Getting triggered is so tough. To me, it's like having two realities in your head at a time but the one becomes so overwhelming and I lose the ability to sort things out.

I was in a little car accident yesterday and as I was looking through my car for my insurance info, I got triggered. All I could hear was this voice, saying "you idiot, you're so f**king incompetent, who did you think you were to bring these four children into the world when you can't even keep your insurance info in one organized place. And, what if the car insurance got cancelled because you are such an idiot and you forgot to pay the bill." All this "stuff" just flashed through my mind in a millisecond. It was brutal. And it was just me standing there by myself. The guy I hit didn't say anything mean. The police officer was nice. I just did it to myself.

I actually read an article that talked about how real progress can be made when we are able to stand back from all that stuff and be able to "mentalize" about it. And, so the more you develop a rational self, the more you will be able to stand back from it all and hopefully eventually contain it and overcome it. In the meantime, you are in good company here.

HUGS,

Liese