Hi Russ,

I think I carry a lot of this precise kind of anger for my mother. Some of my earliest memories are of going to her for comfort after nightmares, but I would always lie about what the nightmares were about because I *knew* they would upset her.

Your words here apply -

quote:

What I mean by this is I could somehow sense that he was not a source of strength, warmth, confidence and/or love for himself and, by extension, for me.

It's taken me a long time to uncover my anger at her, because I always felt that protectiveness - that she did her best. Then through therapy I got really angry that she'd somehow managed to protect herself with that weakness, without protecting her kids.

From her being this way I learned how to be extremely alert to the emotional states of others, to be always watchful, to take care of others no matter whether it was good for me or not. And that's got me into some deeply shitty situations in life.

I relate to that feeling of hate you describe, as a reaction both to the weakness (get away, you'll drag me under) and as a result of what her weakness has led to in me.

I told her a lot of how I felt one night in a big blurt and in the aftermath things settled a bit inside me. It was extremely upsetting for her but I felt like I'd given back something that I was carrying for her. So my anger has dissipated a bit and now I'm not sure how I feel. My T left in the middle of all that process and I haven't been able to pick up the threads with the new one so who knows. But I am more settled.

Jones

Hi Jones,

As usual, you hit the nail on the head.

quote:

Originally posted by Jones:
I relate to that feeling of hate you describe, as a reaction both to the weakness (get away, you'll drag me under) and as a result of what her weakness has led to in me.

Me too, except for me, it's more like, "get away, I don't want to be like you." And yes, I'm furious that his weakness, his missing the entire point of being a father, along with his other "traits" has led me having to go through this awful experience. Hopefully, I can get to a place where I have only sympathy for my father's own shitty father, but that's gonna take a while.

quote:

Originally posted by Jones:
I told her a lot of how I felt one night in a big blurt and in the aftermath things settled a bit inside me. It was extremely upsetting for her but I felt like I'd given back something that I was carrying for her. So my anger has dissipated a bit and now I'm not sure how I feel. My T left in the middle of all that process and I haven't been able to pick up the threads with the new one so who knows. But I am more settled.

I know I need to do this, but it's so hard, and the idea itself is so repugnant, but I need to do it sometime.

Thanks so much, Jones.

Russ

You're welcome, Russ. I don't know if the big blurt is the prescribed method or not - it just happened to me. My mother was chasing me to tell her how I was feeling, and eventually I just snapped. Needless to say it wasn't what she wanted to hear. But until that point the idea was repugnant to me, too - precisely what I *didn't* want (to give her some kind of access to my emotional state). I don't know how long it would have taken me if she hadn't chased me.

J

Oh Russ this resonates so deeply with me. Not only did I sense the weakness but it was in BOTH of my parents. My mother was alternately scared of me and acting very scary TO ME. This caused my disorganized attachment. And because I somehow knew she was not the parent I needed her to be I ended up taking care of HER and HER needs became the focus not mine as a child. I then made this all my fault because if it was HER fault and she was my caretaker then I was in deep trouble... so it HAD to be that I was too difficult, too much trouble to deal with. The legacy this left me with is that I now try to take care of anyone and everyone in my life. And this somehow got mixed up in my therapy with oldT and I ended up trying to take care of him and reenacting my childhood... and we know what happened with oldT. Not a good ending. NewT is trying to help me understand and identify this dynamic and help me learn how not to hand over my own power to others who do not deserve it. But to empower myself to avoid falling back into these kinds of situations.

In addition, my father was so weak and intimidated by my mother that he never protected me from her or defended me to her. He contributed to screwing up my head by telling me constantly "don't upset your mother"... which always made it about her and not the needs of his child. And when my mother would get angry and abusive towards me my father's response would be "SEE, you got your mother upset. See what happens when you upset her?" This was not the proper message to reinforce over and over in a small child. How frightening for a child to believe they had this kind of power over an adult who was also their caregiver. Children need to know that their caregiver is capable, wiser and in charge, and will protect them and care for them, not that the child can scare them and "Make" them upset or behave in an abusive way.

And yes, my mother had a hellish childhood too, but in my case I REFUSE to perpetuate this to the next generation. I will not do this to my son, hence me being in therapy, even after the reenactment of my chilhood with oldT.

So, yeah, Russ I totally understand where you are coming from. There is a very good quote out there from Freud "I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." I gave this quote to oldT in a Father's Day card this past June. He didn't protect me either, a few weeks later he abandoned me.

I'm so sorry you are feeling so awful and hope that talking about it helps you in some way. This is a very important and serious topic and I'm glad you brought it up. Definitely something to talk to your T about.

Best,
TN

Hi there, Russ...as usual your post is ringing all kinds of familiar bells for about stuff I did put away. Yeah, years ago I went through what you describe here, like Jones, and TN- with my mom. It was when I was a really young teenager though, as I remember it. It was like I had this epiphany- "oh, I'm the one in this relationship who is the strong one!" I grew up taking care of my mom's feelings and actually fighting to be a de facto therapist for her, because some part of me knew how badly she needed that. I figured if I could just give her *that* whatever it was, she would come around ok, and be able to see things and then take care of *me!* (Because I wasn't getting anything, even basic stuff I needed) It never worked out that way though, and my mom always just resented my "bossyness" and "know it all-ness." In time I learned to quietly put those skills away, too. One day when I grew up (if you want to call it that) I did tell her a few things, quietly once, when she was in the midst of trying to sabotage a relationship that was really important to me. I learned not to do that too, because then I learned from the rest of the family that I had "viciously attacked her, unprovoked." The interesting thing is, that she really believed in herself, while I learned to doubt myself on every score, I suppose. I still doubt who was right and who was wrong, there...Now we have this kind of weird relationship where "everything is ok, we love eachother, blah, blah." But we talk rarely. There is this weird, exterior facade that is hugely convincing to me, that everything is "just fine." I'm the one who has a problem for having a problem, deep inside, I suppose.

I guess I tell you all of this because I want you to know how completely normal it is to feel like crap all the time in light of the way we were brought up. My mom was brought up in the pits of hell, but I guess my big problem with her is that she wouldn't get help.

quote:

From her being this way I learned how to be extremely alert to the emotional states of others, to be always watchful, to take care of others no matter whether it was good for me or not. And that's got me into some deeply shitty situations in life.

Well said, Jones. I'm discovering more and more on this score as well, Russ- that with the weak parent dynamic in the background primary relationships will suffer. I just don't know the way out of it. I'll be watching your thread to see what kind of solutions and insights you come up with.

Best,

Blackbird

quote:

There is a very good quote out there from Freud "I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection."

wow...that is an awesome quote, TN.

quote:

Originally posted by True North:
In addition, my father was so weak and intimidated by my mother that he never protected me from her or defended me to her.

Hi TN,

This is where it gets really screwy. My father was indeed weak in so many ways (and now that I think about it, he was also lacking any kind of real desire or passion for anything other than his work, which kind of makes for an empty shirt of a person).

But in spite of his - I guess - emotional weakness and lack of "person-ness", he was also very intimidating with his anger, hostility, and sneering dismissiveness. So my mother, instead of standing up to him and defending ANY of us, including herself, she let him behave like the raging prick that he was much of the time because SHE was afraid of him, too, and she was afraid of him leaving again.

So, my father was weak in his ways, but he was also a bully. And like you, my other parent was also very weak, so there was really no actual strong, confident, loving, supportive, fully-developed person with desires and passions for me to internalize, identify with and have defend me.

In order to become a fully-realized and functional person, a child needs at least one person from which to internalize love, confidence, support, desire, passion and all the other things that make up a person. When we don't have this, we have to tack together a person as best we can. But, as all of us here know, that flimsy shell of a person only gets up so far before it all crumbles.

Thanks, TN.

Russ

quote:

But in spite of his - I guess - emotional weakness and lack of "person-ness", he was also very intimidating with his anger, hostility, and sneering dismissiveness.

So, my father was weak in his ways, but he was also a bully.

Russ, bullies are actually weak people and the anger, hostility, and dismissiveness are all cover ups for their lack of self, lack of character, courage and compassion for others. It seems like your father used his work to hide from his family and from life in general. You are SO much stronger than your father could ever hope to be. It takes a strong man to be gentle and caring.

I know we didn't have good parents for role models where we could learn about self-esteem, confidence, strength, etc. but we can approximate this in therapy. We can use our Ts (providing they are good Ts) to help us find some of this within ourselves and to develop self-esteem from all the positives that they reflect back to us in therapy. We can grieve what we didn't get or have and try to let it go and take what we can have in therapy to replace it (approximate it... since it can never be exactly the same).

And yeah I know the grieving part is really sucky. I feel your pain.

TN

Thanks everyone for all the wonderful feedback!!!

quote:

Originally posted by blackbird:
Now we have this kind of weird relationship where "everything is ok, we love eachother, blah, blah." But we talk rarely. There is this weird, exterior facade that is hugely convincing to me, that everything is "just fine." I'm the one who has a problem for having a problem, deep inside, I suppose.

BB, thanks for the feedback. Yeah, we have the "everything is OK" thing going to a certain extent, too, but it's becoming less and less - at least for my mother - who is finally acknowledging that our family has major issues. In addition to me, I have a sister who's had "mysterious" illnesses all her life. She's been to about every specialist in her city (and there's a lot of them) and the best they can come up with is some Blah Blah Syndrome that you can pretty much inter-change with a million other syndromes. She's had GI problems, eye problems, sinus problems, and now respiratory problems...all physical ailments without any kind of organic cause. So between her and me, my mother at least is starting to appreciate our family issues a bit.

quote:

Originally posted by TN:
Russ, bullies are actually weak people and the anger, hostility, and dismissiveness are all cover ups for their lack of self, lack of character, courage and compassion for others. It seems like your father used his work to hide from his family and from life in general.

TN, I think that's the best definition of a bully that I've ever heard. And this: "lack of self, lack of character, courage and compassion for others." That is the perfect description of my father as a parent. Hammer, meet nail.

And both of my parents suffer from this lack of self, this lack of substance. Wasn't it Gertrude Stein who said, "there's no there there?" When there's no there there, there's nothing to build a self from.

quote:

Originally posted by permafrost
She never stands up for herself, never has and I had a hard time understanding her when I was a child.

permafrost, this is great. It's confusing when you see someone be one way some of the time and another way at other times. You only need to see that once to get the sense that there's something lacking there. My mother was very direct and clear with me, but then with my father, she cowered and hid. It was a messed up message. And today this is best illustrated by the fact that whenever my Mom hugs me goodbye, she will never say "I love you" in the presence of my father, and sometimes just in front other people in general. It's like she's afraid or ashamed or something.

quote:

Originally posted by permafrost
Sometimes, I took something for strength that was something else, not sure to this day what it was. For instance, when I had a nightmare and I woke up screaming, my parents never came to see if I was alright. My father just said "when I'm sleeping, then I'm sleeping." that was it. I thought "wow, what a tough man, nothing can trouble him."

Sounds like something my dad would've said. If you don't mind my bluntness, that's not being strong. That's being an uncaring asshole and a shitty parent.

Thanks again everyone.

Russ

quote:

Originally posted by permafrost:
Ouch. But yes, you are right.

Sorry, I tend to be a bit profane.

And I was really directing that comment to my dad, not yours. It reminded me of when I was working for my dad once and was totally heartbroken over a breakup with a girlfriend. I went into his office and said, "dad, I'm miserable." He said, in the most sneering, dismissive tone you can imagine, "miserable about what? You got work to do. Go do it."

quote:

Originally posted by permafrost:
Change 'uncaring' to 'indifferent' and that's how I see my dad. Our dads do seem to be the same way. Mine says a lot of similar things. As if we should feel bad for having emotions. I'm sorry you have similar experiences with your father

Indifferent is a good word, too. Sometimes I think they're almost interchangeable. When my dad moved the family back in the late 70s - from the town that all of us were born and grew up in - he didn't even ask my mother about it. He just said, "ok, we're moving."

I guess that could be both uncaring and indifferent.

deepfried,

That story of you being beaten is just horrifying, and the situation with your parents today is just as awful. How you managed to become who you are is amazing to me.

Thanks for sharing.

Russ

Deepfried,

Oh I am so so sorry...can I send you and that little child in you a safe, gentle and comforting hug? ((((deepfried))))

starfish

DF, I'm so sorry you had to endure such abuse and horror. I had a similar situation happen to me as a child so what you wrote really resonated with me. No child should have to live like that. I am breaking the chain. No more abuse in this family. My son will never have to worry about getting hit for any reason. I may not be the strongest mother around or the most together but he will not ever have to take care of me.

Thank you DF and everyone else on this thread who shared.

Hugs
TN

On a slightly different note, tonight my T said something that I personally think is awesome.

I was complaining about my situation, and about how I'm sick of feeling like I'm not getting anywhere in therapy, etc. In the course of making a point about a dream I had recently, and responding to my complaint, he kind of stunned me by saying, "You know, I know psychotherapy sucks. I know that. But, what it does do is help you see and feel the little clues and bits of information that will help you get out the other side of this thing."

I don't know. For some reason, I just found that totally awesome. I was like, "YES! YES! Psychotherapy DOES suck. It totally sucks!!!"

Russ