Today I'm just thankful this stupid holiday only happens once a year

Hope you're feeling better, yaku.

quote:

So, now I'm wondering whether my assesment that he is harmless and socially inept rather than a bit predatory like T has said (not consciously, but maybe not a safe guy for me to confront) is right. I got too triggered to talk to him, avoided him by socializing with others during welcome, even though I wanted nothing more than to be alone. I don't think I can do it myself, and I'm supposed to be able to set that boundary, but I can't.

I had a problem like this come up at a group function I go to weekly also. It was direct physical contact and like your T my T said it was predatory even though I felt like... well he's just a creepy old guy that's what they do and I'm overreacting. That said though, if you feel uncomfortable (which I would, too) if you can't talk to him then talk to someone who can talk to him, or if your pastor could just talk about being careful what you say, etc. At my group thing the person in charge (who I told) just reminded everyone to make sure they were keeping their physical distance, being careful not to touch people who don't want to be touched, and to be respectful when talking to people. They also took the man aside and talked to him. I believe my name was not mentioned.

I feel badly about it, guilty that I've made this poor guy feel self conscious or bad about who he is but the thing is... I have boundaries and what he was doing/saying was inappropriate to ME. I felt like I couldn't deal with it alone so got help. You could get help, too. When you're in a group setting like that sometimes it is better to get help of people in charge to mediate that stuff especially if it's happening to other people and they may be too scared to speak up. I know specifically the person that crossed the line with me made other people uncomfortable and when the message to the group got out both of them said 'I'm glad they mentioned that because of creepy guy, etc, etc". So, if you need to frame it that way you could try thinking of it as protecting others.

I think it's asking a little too much of yourself to do it all alone. I know my T said that if the situation I had happened to her she would have shamed the guy in front of everyone saying 'KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF'. But that's my T... she's that kind of person, I'm (and I think you are too) a more subtle breed.

Hope you can work it out, church should be a safe place where you feel comfortable.

(((CtL))) (((BLT))) (((Cat))) You guys are the best. I'm doing better now that I'm home. We had lunch with our good friends after church (safe socializing, because they know pretty much everything about me and I don't feel like I have to be anybody other than who I am around them). Then we went home and Boo took a rest time and H and I used it just playing a game and relaxing together. I feel so much better just being safe at home. As much as I feel guilty, I'm glad I didn't push myself to see my mom today. I'm just not in a good place to do it and it's OK, I guess, that I take care of myself by having that space.

Thanks, Cat. I remember that. I talked to my pastor and even though he was encouraged that I wanted to do it by myself when I tried the last two weeks, he was very much, "If you can't, that's totally OK, and I can help you." So, I told him today, "Strike Three, I'm out. I just can't!" And he said, especially since I'm not the only one this has happened to that he is going to say something, not mentioning my name or anything. I just feel like I should be able to do it. I think my new idea is that it has gotten too long now to say anything about it, so I am just going to dress how I want to dress and my goal is, if the guy ever says anything to me again, to address it right in the moment. I tried last time, but all that came out was, "Tell my husband," (as in, don't tell me!). This time, I am just rehearsing in my head for if it happens again, "It makes me really uncomfortable when you say things like that and I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't anymore." I don't want to hurt the guy's feelings and it's very much "just how he is," but my T, my pastor, my close friend to whom I've entrusted the story...they all say it was way out of line, especially him saying while initiating physical contact. My grandpa is that sort of creepy, old flirty guy who likes to shock with inappropriate comments, even with his own grandkids, so I guess when I think of confronting this guy, that's what I think of. Like hurting my grandpa's feelings. Thanks so much again, all of you.

Oh, to make things better, H might make me some fudge tonight!!! This day is turning out pretty good after all!!!

Glad the day turned out better for you Yaku!

Just wanted to say something about the Mothers day though....not directed at you or anyone specifically, just a comment to reflect on perhaps for our own good?

I know there are people who have had parents (both mothers and fathers) who have not necessarily done the best jobs out there at being a parent, but in some cases (probably the majority, but granted not in all), I think we need to cut them some slack. There is no book on parenting, they too may have had issues growing up or perhaps had to struggle through things like depression with little to no acknowledgement or help for their situation. If I look at myself, I am doing the best job I know how to do. I know I am making mistakes here and there along the way, and I am sure I am making mistakes that I am not even aware of, but I'd hate for my children to not want to acknowledge me one day, because I may not have been the perfect mother. We all have a life path to follow, some people just have a more challenging life path.

Be kind to your parents (within reason - and depending on your situation), because one day I'm sure we would all like our children to be kind to us. I don't live close to my family and there is nothing that I would want more than to be able to have spent Mothers day with my mother. She made mistakes, but she tried her best and for that I am grateful.

Happy Mothers Day to all the imperfect mothers out there who try their best anyway!

B2W - Thanks for wishing me well.

Sorry to anybody who read the other stuff.

((((Yaku))))



So sorry you are struggling today. Holidays sure can do that, especially this one! Thinking of you.

Yaku, there is nothing wrong with not spending today with your mom. You sent her wishes and that is good enough for now. You are also a mother and you have the right to spend the day how you want with your own little family. What if you mom lived on the other side of the country? You couldn't just hop on a jet to visit for one day right? It's okay. You need to take care of you for now and maybe one day you will feel stable enough and strong enough to spend more time with your mom.

I am very glad to hear that you are feeling better and that once you escaped from the church bathroom you enjoyed your day safe at home with your family.

b2w... I do understand what you are saying. I know I'm a very imperfect mom who tries hard to do the right thing with my child but I do fail at times. Most of those failure come from my lack of emotion regulation and I do worry about my child one day thinking he does not want to spend time with me. Or even telling his T... "oh my mom was just awful".

I was able to spend a lot of time with my mom when she was alive because even though there was a lot of abuse from her (emotional, physical) I was not triggered because I was often dissociated. It is only now after she died that I have dug into what was really going on and the impact it has had on me. I'm not sure I could spend as much time with her now if she was alive because of the work I'm doing in therapy. It's a tough call.

I hope everyone managed to get through this day with as little pain as possible and maybe even some good feelings and thoughts.

Hugs
TN

Hi Born2Write,

I just wanted to chip in as someone with a similar experience of mother's day as far as my own mum goes. I've got to a place now where once again I can call her and be happy to talk to her and enjoy the contact.

I do think, though, that this is something I can do because I'm lucky, not because it's what I *should* do. The truth is that there have been years when I've been much closer to the grief and anger I feel from my childhood, and it has been much more painful to have that kind of contact on these occasions.

I think when one is grappling with the legacy of abuse and/or neglect, the first priority has to be self-care and recovery. To push yourself to feel and express gratitude, forgiveness, love, etc at a time when you really are having to encounter (perhaps for the first time) the scale of what happened to you - well, it can be like picking up a shovel to keep digging when your hands are covered in open wounds. It hurts, and it's very possible to make your injuries worse.

I appreciate your appeal for kindness - I agree that being kind is a good way to live - but I also think kindness arises naturally when we have it to give. If we are kind to ourselves and care for our own hurts and tend our own growth, we will get to kindness to others as soon as we can. But I think there's a season for everything, you know? And sometimes the best we can do is give ourselves the care that our parents may not have been able to.

In some situations, to try to give that care to them as well (or first!) is just too much - it really would be a perpetuation of the abuse of the past. If a child grows up being taught her needs are unimportant while her parents' are all-important, she needs to spend some time undoing that hurtful thinking before she can even consider tending to their needs again.

Hugs to all.

Jones

I'm gonna try again.

I know this wasn't about me, but I made it about me and knew it wasn't the intention, which is why I deleted and am re-writing more to address the topic than my feelings about having not really even said anything too negative about my mom.

My T has been working really hard to get me to do the opposite. From his perspective, I constantly defend my mom, excuse her, justify her actions, minimize the pain. It's not the same as getting angry and forgiving, but although I can't really get angry (those other coping techniques pop in first), I do forgive a lot of what has happened from the perspective of I don't expect her to feel bad or make up for it in any way and I keep giving her chances to be a part of my life, despite not really FEELING inclined to connect.

I am by no means a perfect mom and I have often told my T that my mom wasn't much different than me (internally), but found a different way of feeling safe (manipulating others, mostly) than I did (manipulating myself). I can't imagine ever doing things that way, but at the same time, she was trying to feel safe, to get HER needs met when others let her down. We had this conversation Friday, actually. We've talked about it a lot lately, him identifying my need to protect her (and my dad, and...well, everyone but me) by excusing her bad behavior and assuming her good intentions when I have no evidence that any such thing existed. Sometimes things were good intentions and were used in desperation later, sometimes it seemed like calculated manipulation.

T thinks it is sweet and generous, but from his vantage point, pathological, and I know it is related to the unsafety of my ever having feelings that were in conflict with the image of herself she was trying to project. I struggled this way with both my parents, actually, fighting to preserve their sense of self for them, even if it meant warping myself inside to conform to what they needed to see in themselves.

So, I guess what I'm saying is, it seems like (to T, and I am beginning to see it too) all I do in my interactions with my parents is cut them slack. Expressing the littlest bit of hurt to T behind closed doors with no intention of ever even telling my parents they might have messed up (see, I HAVE to say "might," I can't even say "did," because that is a judgement) sends me into a denial spiral, stating it "can't be as bad as I'm making it sound" when T responds empathetically.

I know that's not real forgiveness, but at the same time, I can't remember a time since 17 that I have behaved inappropriately or hurtfully toward either parent. Most of the time, it feels like I am modeling good communication, empathy, and boundaries to my mom. I try really hard to make them feel good about the connection (yes, because mom feeling bad is a threat and might get me attacked) and allow them access to my life, which is triggering, painful (and sometimes unsafe for me, because of the dissociated affect and impulses that are arising in therapy).

My T describes me, more than anything, as exceedingly generous toward those who have hurt me. But, that generosity has come at the price of justice toward myself, because to provide it, I've had to rewrite the rules of my existence such that I am always bad, wrong, too sensitive, etc. whenever any conflict exists. So, in my case, to try to be more understanding and generous is actually the opposite of what my T is recommending right now.

I dissociate by twisting the reality of things inside. Yes, my parents are wounded people who made do with what they had and made bad choices. But, my T has pointed out that I am a wounded person, making do with what I have, and I am doing things differently. It doesn't mean I have to judge them (not my job) or that I don't understand that what happened to me came from ways they too had suffered. It just means when the opportunity arises to cut some slack, I have been instructed over and over again that the one I need to remember to do it for is ME, because no one taught me how to do that until now.

I don't know exactly what I'm trying to say other than it is SO hard for me to have bad feelings about what happened to me and be OK with it, without feeling as if I am an abuser myself. So, it's hard when I hear "cut them some slack," because I start realizing that I've moved more toward acknowledging the hurt and that makes me "bad." I go back to the place where obviously something was wrong with me and I deserved it, or else I am lying about how bad it felt/feels. I want to be able to stay in the place of grieving and validate the pain of these stuck parts. It doesn't mean I would ever do anything to make my parents hurt because of what they did to me. It just means, I have to try to stop protecting them and start tending to the mess they left inside me. That, knowing they wouldn't ever intend to hurt a child, none-the-less they did, very badly. I have enough sympathy for how bad it might make them feel that I really get distressed when I think of them finding out and being in pain over it, but also, if they were the safe sort of people who could have acknowledged and done something about these wounds, I wouldn't be where I am now.

I guess, I have to reconcile that their best wasn't good enough for me to feel even a little bit safe without extreme measures. That's a tragedy on all sides. I can't imagine how awful it would feel if my best weren't good enough for Boo to know that she will always be loved, taken care of, safe, accepted. I worry about that. She told me to make a wish tonight, a secret one, while I was getting her ready for bed, and I wished just that...to be a good enough mom that she always knows those things instinctively, that they are so basic, it never occurs to her to question that security. Maybe I am projecting my own feelings about parenting onto them, but I hope the reason that both of my parents are so defensive about how good and right they are is because it is important to them to feel like they did a good job with us. That even if it was mostly about them, their feelings, their needs, they really wanted to be good parents. That's what I like to think, even when I have no evidence that it's true. All I know is what's in my heart and I can't imagine any parent ever feeling another way about their child.

(((LG))) Thanks for the hugs. Yeah, holidays sure are a b---!


(((TN))) I know that one day I will be able to spend more time with my mom. I just hope that someday, it doesn't come as some sort of taking care of her drive and actually comes from a drive to connect with her, either as my mom or just as a human being. Right now, I really have neither (or at least, they are WAY dissociated) and I constantly feel sub-human for not being able to want a relationship with her, rather than just feeling I owe her one, biologically.


(((Jones))) Thank you. Your analogy about the shovel is just how it feels. Not exactly in pushing for gratitude and forgiveness, because those are fairly easy for me...I think from a spiritual perspective I can relate to them strongly. But, pushing myself to feel more for her than I can seem to do is extremely painful. I can love her from the perspective of her being another human being and the one who gave me life and certain aspects of who I am (like a love for and talent in music)...but, I don't feel a deep sense of love for her. More, I choose to behave lovingly toward her, regardless of how I feel. It's something that is not about her or the type of mom she was, but who I am as a person. So, that's why it hurts when I can't be that person as much as I'd like. Literally, the wounds are incapacitating and I just don't have the ability to extend myself how I have in the past.

quote:

If a child grows up being taught her needs are unimportant while her parents' are all-important, she needs to spend some time undoing that hurtful thinking before she can even consider tending to their needs again.

(((Yaku)))

Interesting perspectives... I definitely agree that coming from a place of grace, love and patience can greatly improve some relationships.

I feel so guilty on days like this, and birthdays (both hers and mine) where I cannot love her the way I want to. She and my father are wounded people... and the best and most compassionate thing I can do for all parties is keep distance. I would give undying support to either of their recovery but at this point that is all that is safe to extend. I have this... idea of the relationship I want with them - there is nothing more I would rather have done today than be at home and celebrate my Mom; to make her cry with a poem or a piece of art, to take care of her and to make her feel special. Unfortunately, she cannot give me that opportunity. I've lived my whole life waiting for the chance... I have the pot, the soil, the seed, the sun.... and I've held it out waiting for the water. What I've learned in therapy is to leave the plant where it is... check in on it from a distance. Change can definitely happen and I can forgive... as I've understood more about what trauma can do to a person there is no way I couldn't forgive. But, to be safe for everyone I can't forget and we can't move on. My family does fall under the "depending on your situation" category and I can't indulge in the fantasy anymore because it's hurting me. I'm moving where I can and I can't move them to where they need to be - I just have to see if they'll do it on their own... I can't make them no matter how much I give. Sometimes I internalize this as I'm not worth it to them to change but it's more that they aren't worth it to themselves and it's depressing.

Last week... in discussing the possibility of seeing my mother in short order they both said... "it's not the right time" and reframed it as me actually taking care of both of us this way. It took about a week until I was able to say... "it's never going to be the right time, is it?" neither had anything to say. I guess what I'm saying is... we do need to cut slack, be nonjudgmental, understand... but also protect ourselves where necessary knowing that sometimes we cannot change others. Realizing that can help us to move closer, or further away as we need to because ultimately it's about us and our own shit.

Anyway, just wanted to add my thoughts to the fray. I really support kindness but... not at my expense - I'll take risks but not expense. Anyway as someone with a fantastic case of stockholm with my parents this has been the biggest focus of my therapy - untangling and accepting a self in the relationship instead of a amorphous mass of codependency.

BG - Thanks for sharing. On my T's advice, I did tell my pastor as it is his job to shepherd the flock, or so my T says. My pastor did encourage me in my desire to do it myself, but said if I couldn't, that was fine and he would do so in a general fashion as he comments this way to women on a regular basis. My read on him is that he is very inappropriate, bad boundaries, but not intentionally distressing or harassing anyone. It is always very public, even right in front of the pastor or his own wife. I'm pretty sure if I confronted him, he'd be sorry, feel bad...at the same time, I'm not ready to deal with another comment and I'm not sure we could make it 30 seconds into the conversation without one...or else that's what my fear was from how he came in yesterday and immediately said something inappropriate to a group of five ladies. This topic was one I'm thankful my T is so over-disclosing on for once. He told me his own wife faced something similar, though maybe not as blatant, and she just could not feel safe confronting it. He said lots of people wouldn't be able to do it directly, even without my triggers, and it was ok to rely on my pastor as it is his job to look after the congregation. I'm trying to be ok with that...not feel like a total FAIL.

(((((YAKU))))

Sorry I am so late to this thread. I didn't see it until today. I hope by now you are doing a little better.

Yesterday was the first mother's day ever that I didn't do anything demonstrative for my Mom. On the one hand, it's hard not to feel like a heel but on the other, I was so angry with her that I just didn't care.

The story is long and convoluted but it has to do with the bbq we were having yesterday and me and the kids wanting to invite my niece - who will not be in the same room as my brother. I told my mother very clearly on Saturday night that we wanted my niece to come. Since my FOO fell apart, we've never excluded my brother even though he's done some terrible things. He's never taken ownership for anything nor has he ever apologized to anyone for anything.

But by including him, we've excluded my niece.

I got mad at my mother because she told me yesterday morning that my brother was coming and it was time for everyone to get over it. She trampled all over my wishes and the kids wishes to see my niece and continues to protect my brother's feelings at the expense of our feelings. The effect of what she does is that she's insisting that me and the kids basically give up our relationship with my niece.

Yaku, I didn't mean to make this about me. I am sharing this because even though I feel like a heel, my anger at my mother is so strong that I couldn't ignore it. I felt and still do feel entitled to that anger. And that feels good.

I could have wavered on that point and gone into therapy today and have my T tell me intellectually why I wasn't a heel. But it wouldn't have had the same effect as experiencing the anger and feeling entitled to it.

I totally get why you feel bad about not appreciating your mother more but just wanted to give you hope that one day, you will get to that place of feeling entitled to feel your feelings. It might take more time and, unfortunately, some more mothers' days to get there. But you will get there.



Liese

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