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Hilary
United Kingdom
191 Posts |
 Posted - 06/13/2005 : 05:12:41
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So I've been working Sarno for about 6 months now. I've recovered fully from back pain and am getting a real handle on the dizziness that's plagued me for 10 years.
This weekend, I stood up to my mum in a meaningful way (not just the stupid little arguments we usually have) for the first time. I refused to be her therapist, which is a dynamic we've had for years. And along with my brother, we both insisted that she take care of her hearing problem. (She has an issue with her hearing that makes her incredibly sensitive to loud noises. She doesn't complain about it outwardly, but suffice to say it passively dominates the entire family whenever we visit - which pretty sums up my mother).
The next day, mum has the worst backache of her life. She has always suffered back problems (TMS, of course), but this one is worse than anything she's ever had before. "Worse than giving birth", she tells me. She can't move. She looks like death. The doctor is called out, and by evening she's feeling better - doped to the nines with muscle relaxants and painkillers.
So it appears that as I get better, my mother gets worse. Relationships truly are fascinating, aren't they? I am aware of severing some strings between us, and it feels scary. I don't like it, but I also feel the absolute necessity of doing this work, of identifying things in my relationship with her that aren't right for me and fixing them. Of making myself safer, and healing.
I told her I'd mail a copy of Sarno to her and explained that I'd realized emotion played a role in my own symptoms. Will she buy into it? Who knows.
I've been thinking and working on my inner rage, both by myself and with a therapist, and the thing I come back to over and over again is my ****ed-up relationship with my mother. I've done therapy before but thanks to Sarno and my current therapist I now know where to focus most of my attention.
My relationship with both my parents - but perhaps more so with my mother - is a sort of knotted-up double-bind. "We love you, we made sacrifices for you, you've got so much potential, now use it to make us happy." Everything was done in the name of love, but the demands and expectations were almost unbearable. Musically, academically, intellectually, I was expected to excel and succeed - and always, always knew that this was the way of getting love and approval from my mum and dad. Confusingly, this was also combined with the message, "don't compete, don't boast about your accomplishments, be nice". Excel, be artistic, but don't compete and keep everyone else happy? Um, how?? My mother in particular always told me how much she'd been deprived of as a child and how she was sacrificing in order to give me those things she'd always wanted.
Unfortunately I never enjoyed any of it. Now, looking back, I realize why not. Having an ability, say, an affinity for music, matters not a whit if it's effectively taken from you in order to make a parent feel better about themselves. "The Drama of the Gifted Child" by Alice Miller sums this up much, much better than I ever could. Even today I find it hard to listen to music because I get so angry inside. And that's really upsetting.
Add to this the fact that my mum effectively turned me into her therapist, the "special child" who was the only person in the world she could talk to and you've got a real recipe for TMS. I was the center of her universe, I was told, I was the only person she could pour out her heart to. What crap! Again with the hindsight of age and therapy, I realize how utterly wrong it is to do this to a child. Children are NOT therapists. Children shouldn't be used as therapists for adults who are desperately seeking love for themselves. Making children do things that make adults feel better about themselves is exploitation. Telling children that they're the center of your universe puts them under horrendous pressure, and it's also a lie because hey guess what, I'm the only person who is at the center of my universe and that's the way it should be.
Doing all this in the name of "love" is simply wrong.
It has been enormously difficult to reach my rage, because when expectation is so tied up with love you don't really know which way to turn. For years and years I was convinced I'd had the happiest childhood in the world. I couldn't actually remember it, but I knew I'd been given a lot, and "loved", so the fact that I was depressed seemed to come out of nowhere. I concluded that I was simply suffering from an illness that must run somewhere in the family.
Thank god for my back problems, and discovering Sarno. I'm thinking about myself in a very different way these days - as someone who is deeply angry, rather than "ill" or "depressed".
The work continues. |
Edited by - Hilary on 06/13/2005 11:08:24 |
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robbokop
United Kingdom
75 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2005 : 07:47:12
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Hi Hilary,
This sounds like I wrote it about my own childhood!
Your post was very insightful and I feel like I know more about myself just from reading about it.
I am going to buy that book you mention, sounds very interesting.
Thank you for posting this - it sounds like you are making a lot of progress.
Rob |
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bhbauman
USA
16 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2005 : 09:15:17
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Dear Hilary,
Wow. I've copied your post into my journal. Thank you so much for sharing!
I relate to this entry. I'm an only child. My Dad died when I was eight months old. My mother nursed him to death of a brain tumor and then became a single Mom with a newborn!
Naturally, she has TMS all over the place. She is not willing, either to look into Dr. Sarno and accept his concepts.
However, this is not about HER, this is about me. The pressure that I put under myself to be a good son. So help her when she needs it. To be there for HER! She is unhealthy and I feel responsible in some way...BUT I'M NOT!
It is SO DIFFICULT to break these ties that you're talking about Hilary, I'm very happy for you that you are doing it. I am trying, though I can't afford therapy right now, I'm doing the best with the resources that I have.
I often try to be thankful, as you do, for the back pain, because I believe when I come out on the other side, pain free, that I will be a better man.
Thanks again, Ben |
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Hilary
United Kingdom
191 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2005 : 10:20:00
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Rob and Ben,
Thanks for your feedback and support. I appreciate your words and your openness in confirming that I am not alone with this. I suspect that my background is not unusual in TMS-ers. It's a hard struggle but one which I'm convinced can be won as we educate ourselves and face up to some uncomfortable truths.
Rob, "The Drama of the Gifted Child" really is an excellent book if you've had this kind of upbringing (or, for that matter, any kind of upbringing!). I highly recommend it. Miller talks in some detail about the insidious forms of emotional abuse parents (knowingly and unknowingly) inflict on their children in the name of love and "for your own good". It certainly helped to open my eyes to the truth of the "perfect childhood" I'd convinced myself that I'd had, and why for many years maintaining that myth was so important to me.
Ben, it is very difficult to break that enraging sense of responsibility to ones parents. I have been trying to figure this one out for many years. I remember a therapist once saying to me that in some ways it's easier if your parents were 100% hateful to you, because then you could just hate them and rage at them unreservedly. (I don't of course wish to make light of others' suffering here. It's just that this really struck a chord with me). Being caught in the trap of "we do this to you because we love you so much, and it's all for your own good" is so baffling for a child, so utterly enraging and so impossible to contradict. How can I hate doing this, how can I be angry at you for it, when it's for my own good, when it's an indication of how much you love me?
Nowadays I say to myself and my mother in words she'll understand, **** that. **** you. It was all for YOUR own good, not for mine, and don't you dare to confuse me or manipulate me by telling me otherwise. And when she starts to make me her therapist, I have committed to ending the conversation and walking away as I did on Saturday. It's not my job to mother her, it's not fair and I won't do it any more.
Keep reading, writing and thinking about your rage, directing it towards your mother and if necessary shutting your bedroom door, swearing like a trooper and bashing pillows to get it out of your body. I am constantly trying to do this and I find that it also helps tremendously with anxiety and depression - both of which Sarno suggests are TMS equivalents. You will get there, it just takes time and perseverence and faith.
As for feeling grateful, believe me I didn't feel grateful when I was in pain. I felt absolutely awful! Save the gratitude for when you feel better and can fully appreciate Sarno's work - for now, just get angry at your brain and tell it to stop it! After all feeling that you should be grateful is just going to create more rage.
For what it's worth, though, I DO feel as if TMS - or, rather, Sarno - has forced me to become a more honest person.
Anyway, my work and reading over the years has also given me an awareness of how very difficult GOOD parenting is. I believe it was Jung who said that nothing impacts the psyche of a child so much as the unlived lives of its parents. I hope that if I have a child one day I can figure this out.
Here is a quote from Alice Miller which I carry in my daybook. It's a beautiful quote, but it always gives me chills. I haven't looked at it for years, and I just realized its relevance in dealing with TMS.
The truth about childhood is stored up in our bodies and lives in the depths of our souls. Our intellect can be deceived, our feelings can be numbed and manipulated, our peceptions shamed and confused, our bodies tricked with medication, but our soul never forgets. And because we are one, one whole soul in one body, someday our body will present its bill. The wounded and lost child is only in hiding; the soul is still whole in spirit. Ultimately, our deepest self will accept no compromises or excuses, and it will not stop tormenting or contaminating us until we stop evading the truth.
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Edited by - Hilary on 06/13/2005 10:50:05 |
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bhbauman
USA
16 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2005 : 12:17:24
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Hilary,
You definitely raise some difficult issues. I DO feel like I had a fantastic childhood. And now, I just don't know where the rage is and why it is there. I know that my mother is VERY unhealthy from overeating and I know that i fear a. that she will be unable to take care of herself soon, b. that I will have to be there for her or, c. that she will just die too young!
Well, I'm at the beginning here of figuring this stuff out. There are MANY things in my life that stress me out and I want to acknowledge them and get rid of this F***ING PAIN!
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Hilary
United Kingdom
191 Posts |
Posted - 06/13/2005 : 14:27:35
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Ben, yeah it's difficult and complicated stuff. Believe me it took me a long time to figure this stuff out. Ultimately it just didn't add up to me that I'd had a perfect, happy childhood and yet had such depression, anxiety and physical symptoms. Something had gone wrong, but it took me years to face that. Alice Miller talks about how children idealize their parents because this ensures their surival - and how it's very frightening to come to terms with the fact that our parents were far from perfect and in fact did us a lot of damage. I think I remember this right (I've read so much, I get confused!) but believe she goes so far as to say the more "fantastic" you think your childhood was, the more likely it is that you're idealizing it, and the higher the cost you're paying.
It's that old thing of abused children screaming to stay with the parent who abused them rather than be taken away to a safe foster home.
At the very least, if you feel extremely responsible for your mother's well-being, I'd imagine that you probably weren't brought up to have a great sense of boundaries i.e. where you end and your mother begins. I found it really helpful to sort of provoke the rage, i.e. think about how if I'd had better parenting, I wouldn't feel like this and wouldn't be in such pain now. This meant I had to chuck out of my head a lot of new-age stuff about love and forgiveness being the key to healing. I think you can only love and forgive if you've first FELT the stuff you need to love and forgive. I'm a helluva long way from that and in no rush to get there.
If you want to look more deeply into the source of rage, "Facing the Fire" is another AWESOME book about anger which a lot of people on this board have read and recommended.
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Edited by - Hilary on 06/13/2005 14:29:10 |
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Logan
USA
203 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2005 : 09:22:27
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Hillary,
Reading your post, most of what you said seeemed so familiar to me. Having a mother much like yours, I understand how brave you were to make a stand and set boundaries. Good for you!
I also was a "gifted" child whom my parents encouraged yet paradoxically hamstrung with conflicting messages about being the best but being nice (they thought they were doing right and in a way they were, teaching me the tightrope act one must perform as a successful woman in Western society).
The most damaging thing that happened to me as a child though was being treated like I was a little adult. I was expected to take care of myself and my younger siblings. I was also used as a "friend" and therapist of sorts by my mom because my dad was so closed down to her. (My dad had his reasons for that too, it's all so complicated isn't it?) Because my mom leaned so heavily on me, I never had that childhood illusion of being safe; I always knew all the potential dangers that were lurking close: money problems, my parent's health problems, their relationship troubles etc. From your post, I gather that you were also given these burdens.
Anyways, I thought you might be interested in a book that I found very helpful in identifying my anger towards my mother (my main source of TMS), it's called The Emotional Incest Syndrome by Dr. Patricia Love.
Take care... |
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Bonnie
Canada
33 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2005 : 10:30:55
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Hilary, your message was the first thing I read this morning and it was a comfort, I had a run in with my mother last night. She's one of those passive/aggressive women who everyone outside the family thinks is just so sweet and such a wonderfully religious person, but everyone who has to live with her knows that her public and private lives are very different things.
She professes to believe wholeheartedly in her religon but at the same time she makes everyone around her responsible for her, physically and emotionally. If something good happens it's God taking care of her, if something goes wrong it's everyone's fault but hers and someone had better fix it because she refuses to do it herself. She'll simply lie on the couch and moan and sigh.
She's been like this since I was a child, someone was always held responsible for her feelings and well being, and as the oldest child that was usually me, I think my father's heart trouble and diabetes was a backlash to what he was living with.
I'd been taking care of her when she had to have an operation and she managed to parlay that into several years worth of physical and mental caretaking.
I was packed and ready to move out the end of the year when she had a stroke, a mild one, and now she refuses to take responsiblity for getting better and I simply won't take it anymore, I don't care how bad it looks, I've found a snior's care home, she's in her late seventies, and I'm still moving out. Every time she sees me searching the rentals or packing the rest of my things she has a major attack of vertigo that shoots her blood pressure through the roof and entails a trip to the hospital to take it down to safe levels. My sisters have refused to take care of her, one brother has moved back to home to "help out" but he has as many health problems as she does.
I've been working the Sarno path for the last four weeks and I'm absolutely amazed at how well it works, I'm able to write again for long periods, {in spite of the fear} and my palpitations only show up once in a while now, but the minute she starts in I can feel my whole body tighten up, buzzers and spasms going off all over the place. I try to stay focused and read the book over and over and just stay calm, it's working and I'm so damn grateful I could cry. I have my health back. A couple of years ago, not long after I had a mild heart attack, I was talking about it with the man who came to do some physical therepy for my mother {which she discounted immediately and got no benefit from}. He just looked at me and said "what broke your heart?" he meant it not in the romantic sense but in the wholistic sense and he was right.
I've read 'Drama of the Gifted Child' and you're right, it's a wonderful book and so on the mark it's chilling. I wasn't in the right place to put what I learned into practice then, with the help of Dr. Sarno and other books that I've read of here and picked up on my own things are finally coming together.
Thank you for writing what you did, there are so many people who can empathize and are in the same situation.
Bonnie |
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Bonnie
Canada
33 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2005 : 10:44:29
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Hi, just a quick post script, after writing my message I found that my left shoulder and arm had tightened up and gone into spasm. I really need to do some more digging into how much I resent this situation. It's very strange, how can you have a fear of abandoment or of disapointing someone you really don't like and who never gave a damn about you in the first place? Isn't a child's physche an amazing thing, it underlies and influnces everything we do.
B |
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Laura
USA
655 Posts |
Posted - 06/15/2005 : 11:53:25
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Hilary,
I'm so glad to hear about your progress. I know it's been a difficult journey to get to where you are today and I'm proud of you!!
My parents were just visiting for a few days for my daughter's bat mitzvah. Oh, my gosh! They never cease to amaze me. They got in Thursday afternoon and said they were too tired to get together at our house with all of us (my sis and her family included). I understood -- they are in their 70's and strongly dislike flying. Apparently it was a horrendous day, although I think they could make anything into a horrendous event). All they did was complain about the flight, the traffic, the weather (which was beautiful - sunny and in the 80's) and anything else they could complain about. We all think there was a Detroit Piston game on and that that's why they didn't come over. They have made it loud and clear to all of us that sports rule their life and that sports ALWAYS come first over any of us. Saturday, the day of the bat mitzvah, they couldn't get it together and were late. Then, instead of coming over like everyone else they retreated back to their hotel room. Sunday they came over for awhile. Then they made it clear there was a Piston game on and that they would be heading back to their room to watch it. Meanwhile, my sis was driving her husband down to the airport and I said to my parents "Don't you want to stay so you can say goodbye" i.e. to my sister when she returned. Had I not suggested that, they would have left without so much as a hug goodbye to my sister. Their behavior just blows my mind!!!! I was telling my sister that I felt like they weren't even here. I was figuring it out and I realized that in the four days they were here, I actually only talked to them for maybe an hour of that entire time, if that. That's so sad. I love my daughters so much, I cannot imagine behaving like that. I'd want to spend every moment possible if I lived on the other side of the country and I'd come to visit.
All my life, my mother always put me in my place...Children should be seen and not heard being her motto. She always tooted her own horn while at the same time belittling me. A big part of my insecurity about getting up in front of people and speaking probably came from my parents and how they raised me. I have always felt that what I had to say did not matter. My husband said to me, the morning of the bat mitzvah when I was to give my two page speech, "It will be the ultimate f--- you to your mother. Get up there and show her what you're made of." Maybe that was running in the back of my mind when I did get up to give my speech, I don't know. Whatever the case is, I felt so proud of myself for not only doing it but doing it well. I've never felt I could do anything well my entire life, because my parents were always putting me down. I found it interesting that I did not experience dizziness ONCE the entire day on Saturday. I think I've found a new inner strength and it feels wonderful.
Thanks for sharing your success, Hilary. Keep up the good work!
Laura
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Hilary
United Kingdom
191 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2005 : 04:12:23
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Thanks everyone.
Sometimes I really wonder who the hell my parents see when they look at me.
Here's a classic example: I'm a tennis fan, and I'm going to see a tennis tournament in Nottingham today which is a warm-up for Wimbledon next week.
I told my dad that I was going to the tournament. His comment: "Oh, wonderful. Are you playing in it?"
Am I playing in it? Sure - me who hasn't picked up a racket in the last 10 years, and a bunch of the world's highest seeds. I'm gonna seriously kick some ass. Jesus.
It doesn't sound like much, but that's seriously enough to set me off inwardly for the entire day. The three-year-old in me starts howling with rage. I can't manage anything further than a biting sarcastic comment which leaves my dad sort of confused and me feeling even worse.
In fact I think this example incorporates everything I'm talking about: passively expressed parental expectation followed by my inwardly explosive rage, followed by me feeling guilty for having the rage and bad about hurting his feelings. And the inevitable sense of "if I was a better person, I'd be a tennis-playing superstar". And the rage that I'm feeling that way at all.
Oy. At least I understand how it works now. |
Edited by - Hilary on 06/16/2005 04:13:23 |
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Hilary
United Kingdom
191 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2005 : 04:26:45
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Logan - thanks for the book recommendation. I'll check it out. It appears we share a mother. For me the combination of parental pressure and expectations combined with the "little adult" syndrom has resulted in a combination of feeling like I'm either immensely superior or immensely inferior to the rest of the world. It's not a good combination!
Bonnie - I too found Alice Miller's work something I needed to return to after finding Sarno. It fits in perfectly with understanding those parental pressures and the emotional abuse that goes on in families in the most insidious way possible. GOOD FOR YOU for making the decision to move away from your mother, and how interesting that her health gets worse every time you take a step away from her. As for feeling worse yourself when you think about it, I'm not a bit surprised. In "Homecoming", John Bradshaw talks about how children learn to please their parents because their surivial depends on it. Whether or not they like you or you like them seems largely irrelevant. Keep up the good work.
Laura - thanks so much! I'm pleased that your healing is coming on apace too. My dizziness is better, although it now seems to have been replaced by depression - I think I"m going to start a thread about that and TMS. I think it's wonderful that you're doing this work - not least because by doing it now we can all try not to pass our "stuff" on to the next generation! Best to you -- Hilary |
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Kajsa
Denmark
144 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2005 : 04:35:06
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[I told my dad that I was going to the tournament. His comment: "Oh, wonderful. Are you playing in it?"
Am I playing in it? Sure - me who hasn't picked up a racket in the last 10 years, and a bunch of the world's highest seeds. I'm gonna seriously kick some ass. Jesus.
It doesn't sound like much, but that's seriously enough to set me off inwardly for the entire day.
Hilary
You have to excause my english. I am in London (!) and do not have acess to my dictionary...
You write "it doesnt sound like much". But I can assure you.
It does !
It sounds idiotic - and isulting aswell(in a passive agressive way...).
Your father doesnt SEE you. See who you are right now and what you do - your talents, your limits. YOU.
I think it is those "small" things that really hurt because it makes
it SO obvious that he doesnt care about "the true you". To sugest
such a nonrealistic thing !
And perhaps you also feel "If I could participateand compete I would be a better person - a better daughter"
You have all the riht to be pissed off.
Kajsa from Denmark who loves London
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Hilary
United Kingdom
191 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2005 : 11:56:55
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Thanks Kajsa - that really helps, actually. It's very difficult to see the insanity in ones own family sometimes. I knew his comment was f---ed up, but it's really, really comforting to hear it from an outsider.
And actually, what you said is right on the money because the anger I'm in touch with is to do with not being understood or seen for who I am by my parent, but ALWAYS as something more than I actually am, the person they would like me to be. It's passive put-downs time and time again.
That makes me feel pretty damn sad. And angry.
London is cool, isn't it? I'm moving there at the end of the month. Very much looking forward to it. |
Edited by - Hilary on 06/16/2005 12:17:56 |
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n/a
374 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2005 : 14:52:41
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Ouch, ouch, ouch!!!! This topic always gets me going - not just me either, it seems. Just reading these posts this morning (around twelve hours ago) triggered off the rage I feel at my mother - at least it isn't guilt anymore. All my life it seems I felt guilty that I wasn't a good enough daughter and after my father died I tied myself in knots trying to make sure that my mother didn't feel lonely, neglected, had everything she needed etc. etc.
She's never been seriously ill in her life, never been in hospital, other than the maternity hospital having my brother and I (and boy, she never tires of telling us what a hard time she had then); but somehow, even as children we thought of her as someone who was fragile, vulnerable and needed a great deal of care and consideration.
Since doing all this TMS work and sessions with an excellent psychotherapist, the guilt is gone; to be replaced with loads of inner-child rage. My long-suffering safety valve husband lets me rant and rave and the good thing is she doesn't induce TMS in me anymore.
I am trying to get to the stage where I can accept deeply - as deeply as I now believe my physical pain was TMS - that my mother was a victim of her upbringing; and she is the way she is not because of selfishness, but because of the way she grew up. Just when I think I've just about got there - some little thing will drive me nuts again - like not asking me once how I am getting on with the new job I started three weeks ago.
The thing is - do I post this rant or not because that's all it is, really. What the heck - I'm clicking the button! |
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Laura
USA
655 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2005 : 18:43:42
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Anne,
I hear you. It boggles the mind how our mothers act sometimes, doesn't it? I made a beautiful video montage for my daughter's bat mitzvah (shown at the party). The party was beautiful -- everything I had hoped it would be. Everyone but my mother told me so. During the video montage, I noticed my mother looked bored out of her mind and was looking away from the screen at other people. Now, had there been a Detroit Piston game up there and she would have been mesmerized. My mother-in-law and father-in-law (both) were crying, as was my husband, myself and most of the women who were there. I sometimes think ice runs through my mother's veins.
Laura
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Marilyn
USA
18 Posts |
Posted - 06/16/2005 : 19:50:29
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This mother (actually parent) stuff really gets to many of us. I remember my mother blatantly telling me when I separated from a narcissitic, alcoholic husband (after 35 years.........I was a slow learner!)to just get over my pain, because it was upsetting HER!!!
As I look back on my childhood, she not only said it then too, but her behavior constantly reminded me that I had better not feel any pain because it would hurt my mother! How f---ed up is that? So, guess what happened to all those emotions I could never feel? :-) |
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n/a
374 Posts |
Posted - 06/17/2005 : 02:12:11
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Marilyn, that's it, in a nutshell - exactly!
'I had better not feel any pain because it would hurt my mother.'
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Edited by - n/a on 06/17/2005 02:12:56 |
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miehnesor
USA
430 Posts |
Posted - 06/17/2005 : 12:02:42
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Hilary- Thank you for sharing your story and your progress at getting in touch with your real feelings. Your story has touched me deeply and I felt the rage bubbling up a few times while reading your words. I suspect this is the root cause of a lot of us TMS sufferers- That we were there to take care of our mothers needs and pain instead of the other way around. The tragic thing is that no matter what the intentions of our parents are- if they have not dealt with their own hurt and pain from their own childhood they will unconsciously pass it on to their children and in doing so will inflict a deep and lasting wound that will take years and a lot of hard work to figure out.
My mother was committed to trying to be the kind of parent she didn't get from her mother; but, she couldn't be because she was looking for somebody to love her and accept her unconditionally. She didn't get it from her husband and I was the first child. When I turned inward due to early trauma she could not handle that and pulled away from me emotionally. The result is that I felt abandoned by my mother and very scared of survival.
(She once told me a story that was a window into her improper parenting and my true feelings. One time I bit her (probably because I was angry) and she said she lost it and spanked me a number of times saying "I am your mother"
she thought to herself- now i've really lost it. To her surprise I was happy and dancing around the room. Why? because I felt less afraid that my mother would LEAVE me. This incident happened when I was say 3 or 4 and I have no conscious memory of it- but it gives a window into the kind of fear I had as a child and why I have TMS now when rage emotions start coming to the surface. I also suspect that the intense fear of abandonment really started in infancy with the trauma of the vaccine and the shuting down of all feeling at the ripe old age of 4 months. This is something that i've seen confirmation in the book i'm now reading "The New Primal Scream".)
Now I am feeling the deeply repressed feeling of rage at not getting the unconditional acceptance and love that I deserved to get as a young child. The rage seems endless and the work at feeling it and accepting it goes on. I've found the inner child concept very helpful in dialoging and visualization to provide that love to myself that I didn't get. The wounded feelings of the child are still there- frozen in time- waiting to be recognized and accepted and ultimately hopefully one day resolved.
You deserve a lot of credit for persuing the truth of your childhood.
Also thankyou for the others that have posted on this thread. Compelling stories. |
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Hilary
United Kingdom
191 Posts |
Posted - 06/17/2005 : 17:28:06
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quote:
Originally posted by Marilyn
I had better not feel any pain because it would hurt my mother! How f---ed up is that?
I agree with Anne, Marilyn, this really struck a chord with me. thanks for pinpointing this dilemma so exactly.
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Hilary
United Kingdom
191 Posts |
Posted - 06/17/2005 : 17:40:46
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miehnesor, thanks for sharing your story also.
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Originally posted by miehnesor
My mother was committed to trying to be the kind of parent she didn't get from her mother; but, she couldn't be because she was looking for somebody to love her and accept her unconditionally.
Someone wise said that 180 degrees from crazy is still crazy. My mother did the same thing and sometimes I feel great love for her simply for trying so damn hard to get things right. Unfortunately an unhealed, frightened and damaged child cannot be an effective parent no matter how desperately she tries.
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The rage seems endless and the work at feeling it and accepting it goes on. I've found the inner child concept very helpful in dialoging and visualization to provide that love to myself that I didn't get. The wounded feelings of the child are still there- frozen in time- waiting to be recognized and accepted and ultimately hopefully one day resolved.
The rage does indeed seem bottomless, but at the very least we are now aware that the rage is now there and in my opinion that puts us in a very special club.
My internal landscape has changed dramatically in the last few months. Every twinge of pain, dizziness, itching, anxiety or depression I get, my first thought is now, "what's making me angry?" and I wait to find the answer. Normally it is followed quickly by the thought, "oh that's so petty", "just get over it", but I'm wise to that now and proceed to get angry at THAT thought! It's an endless process that I'm sure will always be a part of my life. |
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In the name of love
