Return to insight above matrix

[bethanny]

Hoping to bring comfort and aid but not codependency to a younger, lovely, apparently struggling relative.  I'd guess has been dealing in BPD family scenario.

Vulnerable transition time in life for her. But when has it not been for me. Hah. 

Will her 20s and 30s be an adventure or a gauntlet?  They were an adventure for me at first, a release or at least the leash was lengthened from my uBPD mother but then it was yanked back with so much hysteria and rage that I had seemed willing to take my focus away from her and her needs and I was EVIL. 

I want to help my young relative though I still feel so not on top of life.

My brother encourages I forgive my mother, now deceased.  As if I didn't love her.  My love wasn't the issue. My denial of her incapacity to sustain love, enjoy unconditional love toward me. 

Those "turns" into the witch, even Medea at one point when I became estranged for a long time.

My own fear of my anger.  I need to feel anger and appreciate it, better than confusion and shame and perfectionism. But I think I have tiptoed through my life afraid of a stranger that lurks inside me like the one my mother had.

And also fear that part of me that set off the tasering of raging and shaming from both parents.  Such over-reaction.  Them projecting their self-frustration, self-hate at me. Symbiotically. You become the perfect them, or avatar or hologram of them to soothe their ego, or let their ego vent at you outside of themselves.

And growing up with what I recently read, my mother manipulating a natural, childlike tendency to grandiosity as a kid, morphing into the "extraordinarily GOOD and obliging little girl/handmaiden.  Using that vulnerable hungry grandiosity, making that feel good attribution when I extraordinarily self sacrificed on her behalf or to impress people she needed me to impress for her own ego, and it was a "role" not a natural fluid aliveness and could not be sustained of course, should not be sustained. And investing in that role, there was never a reservoir of good will.  You were as cherished as your latest performance and no past memory it seemed to rest on.

We all have our swings from ideal selves to primitive selves.  Eventually with my mother's shadowing me in my mind and heart, reaching for pleasure or joy was BETRAYAL of her. Abandonment and rejection and I must not turn there.

Complex-PTSD, the survivor guilt. 

This week someone I wanted to admire rejected two pieces of writing I was proud of -- political writing -- and I felt that punch in the gut loss and sense of failure and even horror that I was not the person I was supposed to be, had failed. And frustration he was not the person I wanted him to be. And I let myself turn to others and be appreciated and the shock and grief subsided, though it whammied me at first.

The good news, I knew I was going to get through it.  I knew I had to mourn it.  I knew I would rally and feel some indignation on my own behalf which I did.  I can't control how he thinks, feels or regards me.  I can't and that is okay.  Not everyone has to like me.  Disappointment but I am not made of glass.

The say people who grew up with over-reactions that traumatized us from parents have intense responses when life challenges come alone.  Some people when they have a flat tire, say, call triple A.  When we have a flat tire we call the suicide hotline. Or maybe should because we are so shaken and terrorized.

I have become very socially avoidant especially this last decade.  I want to start fighting it, but a part of me is afraid I will lose the elbow room to ask myself what I want and do what I want and afraid I will get enmeshed and focus on others which was what I was told I was meant to do.  I don't want to wear the mask, the persona. 

It is good to get grounded here. I am about to write my young relative and would like to be honest.

[Kwamina]

Hi bethanny

Welcome back here

Could you tell us a bit more about that young relative you are hoping to help? What is her BPD family situation she's dealing with?

Those "turns" into the witch, even Medea at one point when I became estranged for a long time.

This concerns me. I know the stories about so-called Medean mothers and they are horrifying. I am very sorry your mother behaved in such a way that can be classified as Medean.

My own fear of my anger.  I need to feel anger and appreciate it, better than confusion and shame and perfectionism. But I think I have tiptoed through my life afraid of a stranger that lurks inside me like the one my mother had.

To use the words of Pete Walker, perhaps you can find a way to transform your tears and anger into something more positive: "Healthy grieving can turn our tears into self-compassion and our anger into self-protection."

What is it you fear most about your anger? Pete Walker talks about feeling the fear in your body without reacting to it. He asserts that fear is just an energy in your body that cannot hurt you if you do not run from it or react self-destructively to it. How does the thought of letting yourself experience your fear without running from or reacting to it make you feel?

I don't want to wear the mask, the persona.  

You can be yourself here bethanny  I hope we can help you get rid of the mask, or perhaps replace it with a parrot mask, it works for me!

It is good to get grounded here. I am about to write my young relative and would like to be honest.

What would you like to tell your young relative?

[bethanny]

Kwamina,

How wonderful to be embraced back into this precious but emotionally-provocative fold of seekers and bleeders and healers, all.

Thanks for caring and asking. I had an emotionally charged event, well, a few in the past two weeks and glad they drove me back here.  I have been considering returning to alanon and may but this is industrial strength healing here after peeling the onion so deeply now that I can't frame my mother's BPD horrific behavior as justified from stress with an alcoholic husband.

Both parents have now passed. I continue to try to get emotionally grounded and climb out of complex PTSD.

My young friend I want to support her and not overwhelm her but also not minimize within our matrix what she is probably facing. Also remember her situation is not mine even though at her age I really started to crash and burn psychologically.  Since she may eventually seek out insight and comfort here I will respect her boundaries and be vague and general.

You know the vocab! Medea.  My mother I challenged modestly at the age of 30 for me and with horror I watched her within a week blow up our common matrix, the good will of ppl I leaned on, as she solicited their pity and was hysterically inconsolable due to MY crazy behavior of putting a need of mine before hers.  I figured her tantrum would play out, but no. The leash was to be short and non-negotiable. I wish I had known that tough love doesn't work with this disorder. At least that is how I saw it. And blowing up my community, did she appreciate how profoundly cruel that was, or was she hustling to deflect blame and shame from herself?  

People who I thought knew me well rushed to comfort her as I had my heart broken twice, first by her and by then them. I withdrew in horror to wait out the storm. The wait was a decade.  

I had always vilified myself for being so afraid of a seemingly maternal and supportive woman. Why didn't I ever fully exhale around her?  I had to be ready for the next cue, keep the focus on her, keep the witch persona at bay.  The nice mommy and witch mommy seemed to coexist without ever acknowledging the other, but I knew if I didn't live up to nice mommy's agenda, enforcer witch money would make a traumatizing tasering appearance.

Funny, before I left my night shift job a coworker freaked out as I vented anger about a boss she likes and I only sometimes do.  We were online with each other and she freaked out and ended the conversing by saying, "You are not being you. You must go home."  I felt a flash of anger and backed off.  I felt so patronized and yes confused because my coworkers and I often vent emotionally when things get tough at work and we are overworked. She seemed so shaken I could be flat out annoyed and cranky. 

How did she know it wasn't me. Anger is not right or wrong, it just is. She had a right not to agree, but her saying that about not being me triggered memories of my mother demanding to know what had "possessed" me whenever I surprised and displeased her by having age-appropriate reactions to situations in which she wanted a sustaining of this ideal role of perfect child.  Like I deserved exorcising.

I read recently about how parents can manipulate a child's natural capacity for grandiosity, the parental attribute of being extraordinary becomes addictive and the path to an unhealthy perfectionism and conditional self-love is launched for the child to poison its ego for the neediness and ego of the parent.

Another whammy this week, I trusted a new acquaintance, male, and he has been passive aggressive to me and I felt so threatened.  Like I was losing my own self-appreciation with his creepy crazy making behavior as I read it. And it triggered the complex PTSD for a bit and I was spinning in confusion and panic but I rallied and I am not afraid of him. Maybe I scared him too by being honest and open.  I don't want to fight him or flee from him.  He is not determiner of my worth, I am. I can mourn my disappointment. I risked trying to trust him and it was a wrong call.  I over-trusted, my fault.  But his rejection of me and some of my creativity is not the reality of me, the essence of me.  I projected good stuff on him, he projected not great stuff on me. Or simply has different values and temperament. So be it.  I went into serious pain, and it felt like killer pain, but it subsided. I have to make a choice. Should I revisit a new and shared community he is in, or should i walk away since his presence I don't want to share. But am not afraid to share it so it is important to show up further?

Feels good to spill. Thanks so much for approaching me and offering a shoulder and wise mind and heart, Kwamina!  To be continued.

best,

Bethany