Hi everyone

[Depression = 72% of members]

A little bit about me. I am 29 years old, still trapped at home with my 62 year old BPD mom (she has tremendous stigmas about mental health and so has avoided being in situations where she could be formally diagnosed; her solution is to believe that the concept of "mental health" does not exist for her as such, and that her perceptions of reality are identical with reality, unable to understand or acknowledge the interpretive layer that we all possess). My older brother (the only sibling) escaped in 2009; I have been living alone with mom since that time, and the abuse has ramped up now that there are no witnesses. As I have only recently learned in the last few years, mom is not "normal" and both my brother and I have been subject to emotional/covert incest. I am the "chosen child"; my older brother was more of the "left out child" and thus was able to individuate slightly more successfully than myself (though he still struggles with a low-grade depression; I'm more deeply self-loathing)

I've been secretly going to individual & group therapy for the last twelve weeks, but that didn't stop mom from somehow bringing to bear her frighteningly powerful force of will to somehow discover not just that I am attending therapy, but the exact name of the therapist I'm seeing! How she achieved this breach of confidence is still a mystery to both myself and the therapist; I am extremely careful to take all relevant therapy materials out of the house with me in my backpack when I leave so that nothing is to be found.

In 2005 dad finally pulled the plug on the marriage. Dad tried to compromise, but mom raised it to all-out war and dragged it through the courts. Thanks to mom's distortions, she managed to force a wedge between the kids and dad and so I've been estranged from him since I was about five years old when she forced him to move on his own to another state for his job when she refused to go with him, and she kept the kids as well of course. My brother didn't buy into mom's nonsense as hard as I did, and so managed to maintain a slightly better relationship with dad. (I have been in email contact with him for a couple years now, but there was some verbal/physical abuse in the past so I still keep a distance. He's been in therapy, though, so maybe I should try harder to reconnect.)

I've been isolating from mom for the last several weeks, locking myself in my room and not leaving while she's awake; we essentially have had an off-and-on total breakdown of communications for the last few years. Typically I dote on her hand and foot; I was 24-hour nursemaid for her last year for several weeks after two major surgeries. But no matter my unprompted kindnesses, she treats me like property or an object that only exists to fulfill her needs, and she will steal from me or hide/damage my property when she is acting out or not getting her way. For the most part she speaks to me in one of two ways: either it is a demand that I do something for her, or (when I don't follow through) it is a sniping denigration and blaming me for her problems. I still buy into this quite often, and so in two seconds she can destroy days of effort on my part to build up self-esteem.

Among the various slew of diagnoses I have received at different points in my life include depression, complex PTSD (dissociation, hypervigilance), Bipolar I, Schizoaffective Disorder, Avoidant Personality Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and social anxiety. I also have some self-soothing OCD-type behaviors (perfectionism, counting, doorhandle germs), and if my isolation to avoid mom continues, it threatens to turn into agoraphobia.

My traumas and deep depression culminated in a suicide attempt in 2007. I'm on medication but the learned behaviors of 20+ years of depression are still there and so even when I'm (medication-induced) "happy", I can still be depressed from the environment and learned behaviors. My self-care regimen is still spotty at best; just engaging in the basic requirements to stay alive are often a terrible, unsatisfying chore. I experience disordered eating, often don't get out of bed for one or two hours after waking up, and so on. And as I slowly begin to take on more responsibilities for myself, I find that my thinking becomes scattered and I have a hard time fully focusing and staying engaged to completion with an identified personal goal or task. This is the "One-Mindfulness" component of DBT, but so far I haven't seen a strategy for how to accomplish this, just a general observation that separating worry from other activities is beneficial.

I've currently become dissatisfied with my individual therapist due to her views about how to treat trauma, which (despite saying she has extensive trauma training) essentially amounts to pretending the trauma doesn't exist & just moving forward, which I think is a terrible approach. I'm trying to heal this tremendous pain I have inside, but she's offering no path forward. I've tried doing a PTSD workbook on my own, but my avolition and lack of self-interest makes me discourage very quickly if I don't have the therapist's support. As a result, I only got through the first chapter and my self-loathing means I don't think I'll be able to do any more of it. My self-hatred, combined with the tiny amount of effort I'm capable of expending on completing a task solely for myself, means that even if I determined that I wanted to switch therapists I probably wouldn't since I don't have enough regard for myself and I can avoid the effort of doing the work to switch therapists by believing that I deserve the therapist's painful inability to help me heal from trauma.

I want to move out of this house & live on my own to get away from mom, but due to all of the above I've never had a job, and a couple years ago mom stole all the money in "my" account that dad had transferred there some years earlier to pay off my college debt (she never mentioned to him that she really controlled the account, and she was taking full advantage of how she had convinced me not to speak to him myself so that she could continue using me to get things that she wanted for herself). So as a result, now not only do I not have any financial ability to achieve independence, but I still have this crushing debt hanging over me that was supposed to be paid off. And I can only handle so many things, so I've been ignoring this and I think it's in default now. I'd be lucky to earn enough just to keep up with the ~7% interest.

So anyway, I thought I'd give this whole "supportive community", "message board" thingie a try. My weekly groups are great and I really like all the people there. I never had any friends growing up (again, mom cut us off from all outside social contact), so I'm totally inept in this regard as well. And my not having learned a proper sense of boundaries makes everything feel out of control. I wish there was just a big handbook of social rules & conventions I could look up any situation in so I'd know what the expected thing to do is. As it stands, my typical method is to simply err on the side of not doing a thing rather than potentially violate someone's boundary, so as you can imagine that leads to my not ever doing anything.ß

So strange that I once never thought anything was wrong.

Well, all this typing is giving me a headache so I'm signing off now. I want to apologize for the length and any repetitions or deficiencies of continuity; I'm trying to let go of some of my perfectionism, and in the past I would have spent several hours obsessively editing the above. I'll try to remember to check back in with this board, but it's hard to keep a regular schedule given my current circumstances. I would sign "love", but I sadly have no idea what that means anymore since I realize I've just been being used this whole time.

[peripatetic]

A little bit about me. I am 29 years old, still trapped at home with my 62 year old BPD mom (she has tremendous stigmas about mental health and so has avoided being in situations where she could be formally diagnosed; her solution is to believe that the concept of "mental health" does not exist for her as such, and that her perceptions of reality are identical with reality, unable to understand or acknowledge the interpretive layer that we all possess). My older brother (the only sibling) escaped in 2009; I have been living alone with mom since that time, and the abuse has ramped up now that there are no witnesses. As I have only recently learned in the last few years, mom is not "normal" and both my brother and I have been subject to emotional/covert incest. I am the "chosen child"; my older brother was more of the "left out child" and thus was able to individuate slightly more successfully than myself (though he still struggles with a low-grade depression; I'm more deeply self-loathing)

I've been secretly going to individual & group therapy for the last twelve weeks, but that didn't stop mom from somehow bringing to bear her frighteningly powerful force of will to somehow discover not just that I am attending therapy, but the exact name of the therapist I'm seeing! How she achieved this breach of confidence is still a mystery to both myself and the therapist; I am extremely careful to take all relevant therapy materials out of the house with me in my backpack when I leave so that nothing is to be found.

In 2005 dad finally pulled the plug on the marriage. Dad tried to compromise, but mom raised it to all-out war and dragged it through the courts. Thanks to mom's distortions, she managed to force a wedge between the kids and dad and so I've been estranged from him since I was about five years old when she forced him to move on his own to another state for his job when she refused to go with him, and she kept the kids as well of course. My brother didn't buy into mom's nonsense as hard as I did, and so managed to maintain a slightly better relationship with dad. (I have been in email contact with him for a couple years now, but there was some verbal/physical abuse in the past so I still keep a distance. He's been in therapy, though, so maybe I should try harder to reconnect.)

I've been isolating from mom for the last several weeks, locking myself in my room and not leaving while she's awake; we essentially have had an off-and-on total breakdown of communications for the last few years. Typically I dote on her hand and foot; I was 24-hour nursemaid for her last year for several weeks after two major surgeries. But no matter my unprompted kindnesses, she treats me like property or an object that only exists to fulfill her needs, and she will steal from me or hide/damage my property when she is acting out or not getting her way. For the most part she speaks to me in one of two ways: either it is a demand that I do something for her, or (when I don't follow through) it is a sniping denigration and blaming me for her problems. I still buy into this quite often, and so in two seconds she can destroy days of effort on my part to build up self-esteem.

Among the various slew of diagnoses I have received at different points in my life include depression, complex PTSD (dissociation, hypervigilance), Bipolar I, Schizoaffective Disorder, Avoidant Personality Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and social anxiety. I also have some self-soothing OCD-type behaviors (perfectionism, counting, doorhandle germs), and if my isolation to avoid mom continues, it threatens to turn into agoraphobia.

My traumas and deep depression culminated in a suicide attempt in 2007. I'm on medication but the learned behaviors of 20+ years of depression are still there and so even when I'm (medication-induced) "happy", I can still be depressed from the environment and learned behaviors. My self-care regimen is still spotty at best; just engaging in the basic requirements to stay alive are often a terrible, unsatisfying chore. I experience disordered eating, often don't get out of bed for one or two hours after waking up, and so on. And as I slowly begin to take on more responsibilities for myself, I find that my thinking becomes scattered and I have a hard time fully focusing and staying engaged to completion with an identified personal goal or task. This is the "One-Mindfulness" component of DBT, but so far I haven't seen a strategy for how to accomplish this, just a general observation that separating worry from other activities is beneficial.

I've currently become dissatisfied with my individual therapist due to her views about how to treat trauma, which (despite saying she has extensive trauma training) essentially amounts to pretending the trauma doesn't exist & just moving forward, which I think is a terrible approach. I'm trying to heal this tremendous pain I have inside, but she's offering no path forward. I've tried doing a PTSD workbook on my own, but my avolition and lack of self-interest makes me discourage very quickly if I don't have the therapist's support. As a result, I only got through the first chapter and my self-loathing means I don't think I'll be able to do any more of it. My self-hatred, combined with the tiny amount of effort I'm capable of expending on completing a task solely for myself, means that even if I determined that I wanted to switch therapists I probably wouldn't since I don't have enough regard for myself and I can avoid the effort of doing the work to switch therapists by believing that I deserve the therapist's painful inability to help me heal from trauma.

I want to move out of this house & live on my own to get away from mom, but due to all of the above I've never had a job, and a couple years ago mom stole all the money in "my" account that dad had transferred there some years earlier to pay off my college debt (she never mentioned to him that she really controlled the account, and she was taking full advantage of how she had convinced me not to speak to him myself so that she could continue using me to get things that she wanted for herself). So as a result, now not only do I not have any financial ability to achieve independence, but I still have this crushing debt hanging over me that was supposed to be paid off. And I can only handle so many things, so I've been ignoring this and I think it's in default now. I'd be lucky to earn enough just to keep up with the ~7% interest.

So anyway, I thought I'd give this whole "supportive community", "message board" thingie a try. My weekly groups are great and I really like all the people there. I never had any friends growing up (again, mom cut us off from all outside social contact), so I'm totally inept in this regard as well. And my not having learned a proper sense of boundaries makes everything feel out of control. I wish there was just a big handbook of social rules & conventions I could look up any situation in so I'd know what the expected thing to do is. As it stands, my typical method is to simply err on the side of not doing a thing rather than potentially violate someone's boundary, so as you can imagine that leads to my not ever doing anything.ß

So strange that I once never thought anything was wrong.

Well, all this typing is giving me a headache so I'm signing off now. I want to apologize for the length and any repetitions or deficiencies of continuity; I'm trying to let go of some of my perfectionism, and in the past I would have spent several hours obsessively editing the above. I'll try to remember to check back in with this board, but it's hard to keep a regular schedule given my current circumstances. I would sign "love", but I sadly have no idea what that means anymore since I realize I've just been being used this whole time.

[Kwamina]

Hi peripatetic

So strange that I once never thought anything was wrong.

Well, all this typing is giving me a headache so I'm signing off now. I want to apologize for the length and any repetitions or deficiencies of continuity; I'm trying to let go of some of my perfectionism, and in the past I would have spent several hours obsessively editing the above. I'll try to remember to check back in with this board, but it's hard to keep a regular schedule given my current circumstances. I would sign "love", but I sadly have no idea what that means anymore since I realize I've just been being used this whole time.

No need to apologies! Your post wasn't that long at all  I am glad you were able to get your story out like this and reach out for support here. Living in the same house with a BPD mother can be quite challenging indeed. I myself was in that situation for many years and know how hard this can be and how much of a toll it can take on you.

Reading your post it seems you might have internalized the negativity your mom projected onto you. As a result you now seem to be dealing with so-called automatic negative thoughts caused by a overly critical inner voice. We have a thread here about this phenomenon that I think might be helpful to you:

Automatic negative thoughts: Talking back to your inner critic/negative voice

For the last 12 weeks you've been in therapy. Are you familiar with cognitive (behavior) techniques to combat the negative inner voice? In the thread above these techniques are also discussed.

Your mother's behavior does sound very difficult to deal with. Emotional incest is something that can be quite difficult to break free from. In an article on this site the following is said about this:

Recovering from Emotional Incest

An abused individual can attain emancipation and self empowerment with patience, perseverance, and self awareness.

According to Debra L. Kaplan, MA, LPC, an intensive out-patient counselor specializing in emotional incest recovery, the process of recovery is five-fold:

- Identify the family of origin and the particular family dynamics involved

- Recognize any patterns of emotional incest between caregivers and the abused individual

- Learn to set boundaries with that parent.

- Acknowledge any feelings of abandonment as a result of the emotional incest

- Work toward individuation and separation by learning to reparent the self (Inner child work)

You can read the entire article here: Was Part of Your Childhood Deprived by Emotional Incest?

It also sounds like your mother uses things such as fear and guilt to try and control and/or intimidate you. Would you say this is an accurate assessment? If so, I think you'll find our article about fear, obligation and guilt (FOG) insightful:

Fear, Obligation and Guilt (FOG)

I hope these resources are of some help to you. You are in a difficult situation, I believe the tools and lessons on this website might help you better cope with what's going on. Also reading the stories of other members can be very insightful and help you find strategies for how best to cope.

Take care

[P.F.Change]

Hi, peripatetic!

I am sorry to hear your living situation is so difficult. I understand what it'says like to have a mother with BPD and go through treatment for anxiety, depression, and PTSD. One thing about trauma recovery is that it is pretty difficult to do (some would say impossible) while the trauma is ongoing. Is it possible that your therapist is focusing elsewhere for now until you are in a place where trauma therapy would be more effective? Establishing a treatment such as CBT and helping you establish more independence may be a first step. What has your therapist said specifically about your treatment plan? It is helpful to feel heard, so I hope you find a way to address that need.

Looking forward to hearing more from you!

Wishing you peace,

PF

[peripatetic]

Hi Kwamina,

Thanks for the reply. I find I apologize to others a lot for personal transgressions I perceive in myself, and one of my concerns that has become pathologized is that I write too much. Typically I hardly speak in face-to-face interactions (partly because my thoughts become attendant on the other person and so plans about what I'd want to say are unable to be recalled in real-time), so it's easy to understand how my otherwise unfulfilled need to communicate gets concentrated into writing, so I'm quite self-conscious about it. Also burying that wound deeper is that anytime I'm happy or even moderately functional I'm now terrified that this means someone else will chalk it up to "mania", thanks to the Bipolar I diagnosis I got at the local mental hospital back in 2007. And it doesn't help that since that time on numerous occasions mom has ruthlessly gone after the weaknesses & vulnerabilities she knows about me, most notably my mental hospital stays, as weapons of war when she's splitting me black from not getting her way. She cites this as evidence that I am the one who is bad and has all the flaws and that she has none and how dare I insinuate that I have feelings or desires of my own… She splits me anytime I attempt to assert a boundary or otherwise display any outward measure of self-confidence. That pisses her off more than anything.

Anyway, a lot of the issues you raise are things I've slowly become aware of; for instance, I've most definitely internalized her shaming & negativity, and I now recognize that I have a cognitive distortion wherein I will intellectualize & reject praise from others but automatically and uncritically accept negative feedback. I've done a lot of reading off-and-on over the last several years about topics like CBT/DBT, talking back to negative voices, BPD issues, FOG, and emotional incest, and while improving my knowledge of how I've been affected compared to the norm is useful, so far little or no change for the better has sunk into my automatic processes. (However this could also just be my inability to recognize what little progress I have made.) Usually I discourage very easily, but in this case I know at least that learning about it is the first step. I just catch myself wondering sometimes if I'll ever really get better – which I know is a silly, pointless concern, but it still crops up in the back of my head now and again.

I now intellectually understand well enough that the way she treats me is not a normal or acceptable way to treat anyone (even if my low self-esteem often still says otherwise), so I can now draw a direct line between her treatment of me and my feeling terrible inside. On Tuesday morning mom passive-aggressively denigrated me through my locked bedroom door for my not having personally satisfied some new, arbitrary need of hers. This is quite representative of a typical (one-sided) "interaction" for her, and is the only way she knows how to speak with those she feels closest to. I typically never respond, instead usually internalizing my anger as self-blaming hatred (curious how I treat myself as my own outgroup). I had just gone through a lot of work to overcome a bout of self-hate that had been triggered by my perfectionism on Saturday morning, and I was pretty sure by Tuesday I was over it, feeling good & being functional, but in two seconds her sniping comment was able to tear down all the work I had done. I try wearing earplugs but I can't predict when she'll say something until it's too late. Unfortunately, succumbing to destructive impulses is always easier than being constructive, supportive, or vulnerable, and mom always reaches for the easiest thing she can think of to try and manipulate me. And now I can tell I'm back to my typical baseline of having this familiar chemical release in my stomach that is a good predictor of bringing on my self-loathing & shame.

She's so unwilling to take care of her own basic needs that for many years now she's been scraping the bottom of the pettiness barrel – for instance, diatribes about how ungrateful I am for not putting away her dishes when I only put away my own. And so in that vein, on Tuesday evening I found she had separated out & dumped just my laundry into a wet pile on the floor, I guess because she'd prefer if I do both of our laundry all the time rather than my doing my fair share (every other load) as usual. Never mind that doing this was actually more work for her than sticking everything in the dryer; no, she had vengeful impulses she wanted to exorcise & derive some kind of sick pleasure from. ("There, that'll show him," I'm sure she's thinking. The actual result is that the laundry just gets to be washed again, since I put it back in the tub. Those who are fundamentally irrational will never learn.) So even as I write this I'm trying to remind myself that she's not rational and is just acting out from her disordered impulses, but it's still hard even though my therapist assures me that behavior like this somehow has nothing to do with me. So even though I'm working to try to internalize that message, in some regards it still seems to me her acting out like this very much has something to do with me from her perspective.

And one of my big concerns is that I will lose touch with my empathic nature if I start thinking "me first" kind of thoughts. Often times one of the only skills I really trust about myself is my ability to see things from another's perspective, but reading back what I wrote above, it just seems all so nasty, negative, and one-sided about someone else.

Since I've been in therapy my worldview will vacillate back and forth, sometimes returning to thoughts that I'm making all of this up, that I'm lying, that I'm a terrible son to a sick and disabled parent that needs me, that my research has twisted my mind against her and that mom's viewpoints are the healthy ones. It's very much analogous to what people go through when escaping a cult, and in that regard I greatly enjoyed the Paul Thomas Anderson film "The Master". Hopefully one of the best things about a supportive community like this is reinforcement that I'm not crazy in this regard and that the total inversion of everything I thought I knew is a healthy sign of progress.

Hugs & kisses to you all! [EDIT: I almost signed my real name… oops! Muscle memory!]

[peripatetic]

(Inner thought: How come you're all so interested in me? This is really weird. It makes me want to cry. In fact I just did a little bit.)

Hi P.F.Change,

How are you doing now with your depression, anxiety, PTSD? What is the ratio between still struggling each day with one or more of these issues, versus what has gotten better or easier for you over time? I still have a great deal of trouble with trusting people & not becoming paranoid about others' motives, which is why I'm so indecisive about whether I have a good therapist for treating trauma, or whether I'm picking on something minor as a way to give my distrust an excuse to gain traction.

That's a good possibility you raise about the trauma therapy that I hadn't thought of. I should remember to bring it up at my next appointment to see if this is my therapist's reasoning for holding back, though I suspect it's more in regards to her "in-the-moment" therapeutic style which rejects consideration of past traumas as a kind of unhelpful wallowing. She did ask me why I would want to "retraumatize" myself by remembering things from the past, but I disagree with this framing. I don't think it would be retraumatizing, my thinking is that it would help me process painful events so that I could be unburdened by them & move on. I dunno, maybe there's some new therapeutic movement that has little regard for past traumatic events, but it seems rotten to me.

In regards to what my therapist has so far put forth as a treatment plan… well, this is my concern, because she hasn't put anything forward. I attend sessions and talk and talk, and after enough sessions of this it eventually ends up feeling like I'm talking to a wall. But I had this experience with my first therapist as well, so I figure it must have something to do with my expectations and how I approach the individual sessions (or my intellect's protective ability to come up with incidental topics to fill the time). I'm working on trying to phrase things as asking for help, but even then there isn't a lot of insight or plan-building offered.

I'd like to hear more from you about your understanding of what shape trauma recovery takes; I know very little about what would help in this area. The extent of my knowledge (which could be wrong) is that there has to be some grieving, opening up in session, letting your defenses down, and achieving some catharsis from the pain, probably over multiple occasions. Is that accurate? What else is there from your experience?

Have a lovely day.

I picked my username "peripatetic" based on the first time I heard the word used in this Calvin & Hobbes strip.

[Kwamina]

Hopefully one of the best things about a supportive community like this is reinforcement that I'm not crazy in this regard and that the total inversion of everything I thought I knew is a healthy sign of progress.

You are not crazy! When you're raised by a BPD parent, the BPD reality is all you've ever known. You could say that before you only had the insider's perspective and knowledge. Now you've gained new knowledge and are looking at your family dynamics with more of a 'outsider looking in' perspective which allows you to view things differently than you had before.

(Inner thought: How come you're all so interested in me? This is really weird. It makes me want to cry. In fact I just did a little bit.)

Well, because we see how much you've been through and recognize so much of our own experiences in your story. Welcome to the family

I'd like to hear more from you about your understanding of what shape trauma recovery takes; I know very little about what would help in this area. The extent of my knowledge (which could be wrong) is that there has to be some grieving, opening up in session, letting your defenses down, and achieving some catharsis from the pain, probably over multiple occasions. Is that accurate? What else is there from your experience?

I'm not gonna answer for P.F. of course, but I'm sure she won't mind if I share some thoughts

There are various models for grieving. Some things I know about is letting your anger out in a constructive way to regain the ability of self-protection and the use of tears to help you regain a sense of self-compassion. Pete Walker says it like this:

"Healthy grieving can turn our tears into self-compassion and our anger into self-protection."

I just catch myself wondering sometimes if I'll ever really get better – which I know is a silly, pointless concern, but it still crops up in the back of my head now and again.

A silly thought perhaps, but a thought that many of us have had. Recovery takes time, I again want to quote some wise words from Pete Walker:

"Be patient with a slow recovery process: it takes time in the present to become un-adrenalized, and considerable time in the future to gradually decrease the intensity, duration and frequency of flashbacks. Real recovery is a gradually progressive process [often two steps forward, one step back], not an attained salvation fantasy. Don't beat yourself up for having a flashback."

[peripatetic]

Thanks again Kwamina. I'm not sure I have full-blown flashbacks, but I do recognize my inability to let my defenses down no matter how safe an environment I'm in, which is a real impediment to the trauma therapy. And even when I am capable of opening up with my counselor and sharing a painful memory, I've spoken with people in my group and many of them seem to agree that our counselor's approach to trauma therapy only serves to further bottle up the pain that we still carry with us, so I'm trying to convince myself that the effort of searching for another therapist for my individual sessions might be worth it. One problem is that there probably aren't a lot of options for counselors in my small town (many of them are fully booked and turning people away as it is), so…

Meanwhile today I had a meet-up outside of regular group time with two of the group members, and we shared stories of stalking, police corruption, unremitting harassment, and going back to the abuser again and again because the threshold to escape and thoughts of what would be lost (with friends/family on the abuser's side, finances, material possessions, and/or emotional support) is just too great. This reminded me of how important it's going to be for me to move out, since I seem to forget it so often (status quo bias). They provided me with information about an address confidentiality program (ACP) that they've used; the link for all 50 states is here if that helps anyone. (There's probably a better place to post that, since no one is likely to find it here.) But I still have no idea how to go about finding a low-income apartment in my area; my web searches never yield useful results. And my low self confidence makes me unable to explore further even if I do find something that might be a possibility. As soon as it requires more than searching on the web (such as making a phone call or setting up an appointment – if that's a thing, I have no idea), I give up because there's just so much happening all at once and it's so unsettling and scary and I'm numb from the dissociation so I usually can't even tell when I'm scared but the outcomes are the same. And the couple people in my family that are generally supportive of me (since they have some first-hand experience with mom's issues) are undoubtedly getting sick of me for continually talking to them about the same things without ever putting into action a way to better my life. The world is just huge and terribly confusing, and I have no idea how most people navigate it or know how to find things that they want.

I've investigated what it means to truly "forgive" the abuser, in the best therapeutic sense of that word (the common understanding of that word is so distorted that IMO it makes it dangerous to use), and I've realized how true it is that I'm still holding onto pain and self-blame because I haven't learned true forgiveness. I've read about it now so I can understand how far I have to go, but I still don't really understand operationally how to put this into effect. I immediately "forgive" others for anything they do to me or how they treat me – but this is not real forgiveness because their acts don't bother me since I believe I deserved it, and so I think of them as the in-group. I hold myself to account for my own actions, thoughts, behaviors, intentions, desires, and needs, since I have access to this information, and when any of these do not align with the ideals I hold for myself, I go into shame, self-blame, or extreme self-hatred or other forms of mental tortures. And the closest I get to forgiveness for myself is when I stop caring – but this is not true forgiveness, either. And so I have no concept of it, even though you could ask me what true forgiveness is and I could provide you with the exact textbook definition of it.

And I look at lists of cognitive distortions, and I have the majority of them.

But learning is not healing, and I have no idea how to accomplish that. I just feel so held back, like no matter how willing my intellect is to dive in head-first and openly discuss my problems, no matter how voraciously I desire to assimilate new information on these topics – somehow it just won't sink in. I'm still awaiting some kind of "breakthrough" session. Maybe it will come, or maybe this is some kind of misguided fantasy I have about how the therapeutic process works. I do understand it's a process, and I do try to be patient with myself. But when I have these moments where I'm trying to look back and assess how far I've come since this point or that point in time, I do get hard on myself when I can't see the progress. And I don't even know if this is because I really haven't made progress, or because somehow I can't see it due to a mental filter that cherry-picks the negative and disqualifies the positive.

I wish there were a drug I could take that would make me "dumber" by calming my intellect down so that I could be more vulnerable; I have some sense that this would improve my ability to heal, but again, this could just be my own crazy or inaccurate hypotheses. Reality check, anyone? Are there any drugs like this? A truth serum, perhaps?

Well, this is a lot of complaints and I don't expect anyone to actually read all of that; I feel like I'm selfishly "using" this board without giving back, and if too much of that kind of psychic debt builds up, my guilt overshadows what personal benefit I'd get from continuing to "use" the board in this way. Obviously, again, just from having written that out I see it's my problem, but I still don't know how to reconcile this with the fact that I hate endlessly grousing and yet that seems to be exactly what I'm doing. So again I find myself hating how I am when I'm trying to be functional – and this usually sends me the message that I should stop being functional if I can't live up to my own standards that I have for myself. And now I'm thinking about what a coward I am for just avoiding mom rather than trying to do the scary-but-would-be-satisfying-if-it-went-well thing of talking to her and trying to enforce my boundaries that I've only recently become aware of, but in face-to-face interactions she has far more experience at dominating other people verbally, and her double binds are subtle and come fast. So probably what would happen is I would do lots of coping ahead to prepare one thing that I wanted to say; if I said it to her, she'd explode with intimidation tactics and accusations, and then if I were to be able to respond at all I'd have to step away and spend a few hours figuring out what my response would be, because she would be so compelling that I would believe or agree with most of what she was saying – so it would be monumentally confusing, hurtful, depressing, and it would yet again crater my self-esteem.

I'm just blathering now. Even I'm getting sick of how much I'm going on and on and on, and I don't even know why I'm posting such a half-baked piece of tripe as this. But at least people can choose not to read it.

(Yes, you can see my negative voice is taking hold there. "Trying to figure out how to make progress" inevitably leads to me beating myself up somehow.)

I think I'm just going to cower in bed now, and maybe never get up (what a nice thought that would be).

[Kwamina]

I think I'm just going to cower in bed now, and maybe never get up (what a nice thought that would be).

How are you feeling today?

Well, this is a lot of complaints and I don't expect anyone to actually read all of that

Perhaps it is time to change some of your expectations then because I actually did read all of that!

Having a support network as you process all these things can be very helpful so I'm glad you are exploring various options through which you can get support

And I look at lists of cognitive distortions, and I have the majority of them.

But learning is not healing, and I have no idea how to accomplish that. I just feel so held back, like no matter how willing my intellect is to dive in head-first and openly discuss my problems, no matter how voraciously I desire to assimilate new information on these topics – somehow it just won't sink in.

Are you also familiar with the list of 10 ways to untwist your thoughts? You can find them here: 10 ways to untwist your thoughts

I'm still awaiting some kind of "breakthrough" session. Maybe it will come, or maybe this is some kind of misguided fantasy I have about how the therapeutic process works. I do understand it's a process, and I do try to be patient with myself. But when I have these moments where I'm trying to look back and assess how far I've come since this point or that point in time, I do get hard on myself when I can't see the progress. And I don't even know if this is because I really haven't made progress, or because somehow I can't see it due to a mental filter that cherry-picks the negative and disqualifies the positive.

I can relate to that feeling of waiting for that "breakthrough". When I look at my own continued healing process, I've had certain moments that you could describe as breakthroughs. Finding the courage to post on this message board for one was a big breakthrough. The biggest breakthrough I've found was not one specific moment but more the continued process of working on the issues I am dealing with, especially when times get hard. I think P.F. Change shared some very wise words with you: "One thing about trauma recovery is that it is pretty difficult to do (some would say impossible) while the trauma is ongoing."

To be able to heal, it is important that you feel safe in the environment you are in. We also have material on this site about this specific subject:

People can change only from a position of safety.

... .

You want a strong foundation upon which to build your new self, and safety is the core of that foundation.

... .

Safety is something that you want to incorporate seamlessly into your daily life, something you approach with the same dedication as you would a spiritual or moral practice. Safety is something that you must consider no matter where you are at home, with friends and lovers, at work or play. Recovery entails facing horrible memories, painful feelings, powerful bodily sensations and potentially self-destructive impulses and behaviors. To withstand these reactions, you need to feel safe and strong as much of the time as possible.

... .

Facing your abuse and your reactions to it brings with it risk: risk that you will feel overwhelmed, out of control, unable to make the right decision in any number of situations. You can't grow without taking risks, but you won't recover if you take risks that you are not prepared for.

[peripatetic]

How are you feeling today?

It's not like this is unusual or is going to be different just because it's the next day. It's pretty much the same as every day, following a similar arc. When I wake up I have no volition to move or do anything. I feel at once numb and self-satisfied. It takes at least an hour before whatever residual chemical from sleeping has dissipated to the point that I can think of some reason to get started for the day. And days are worse when I have nothing scheduled that I have to be at. Sleep is all I look forward to, a womb and a grave, realer than the rest of the world, closest to life and death themselves.

Finding the courage to post on this message board for one was a big breakthrough.

My natural instinct as a kid was to be an open book, so it comes easily. The unremitting everyday traumas hid all of that, but I've rediscovered this innate ability for the last few years since I've been isolating. So it's not really a breakthrough to be posting on this board. Thinking about and/or discussing these things with others (when available) is something I've been doing for a while.

To be able to heal, it is important that you feel safe in the environment you are in.

Yeah, like I said I'm aware that finding a low-income apartment is important if only for this reason. Most of my time is spent forgetting that I'm supposed to care about this, though.

What I have is all I have, and there is no different.

If mama has a bad day and puts you in the slammer,

And you should be granted enough time to realize you prefer it,

In a cell or on the streets my sweetie is a nomad

Away from mother's loving arms, what devilry would cause this?

I should summon all my strength to fight for your protection

To turn back time and think of how it always used to be

Don't worry, I will save you.

You are mine, the only one who truly understands me

And when this works I'll shower you with loving admiration

And in return you get to be the object of my affection

To salve my wounds and do for me these things of which I ask you

Is that too much, or are you once again a selfish prig?

And if you should run away again,

Don't worry – I will save you.