Update: untangling myself from an unhealthy mother-daughter relationship

[Libra]

Hello,

I am coming out of lurker mode to give an update on my mission to untangle myself from my enmeshed relationship with my mother and to find peace with my true authentic self.

My mother and I are very LC for the moment. Mainly thanks to the fact that she is away travelling more often than not.
But even when she is in the country, I consciously keep LC: a phone call once a week, no endless futile texting, and no more suggestions and planning to accommodate her visits to us: if she wants to see us (mainly the grandchildren), it is up to her to signal this. No more over-exertion from my part to accommodate her and her feelings, in other words.
She has been over to our place a few times, and it is all upside-down and oh so confusing. I can actually feel the effort she makes to be positive, polite and constructive. She even reflects on her own past a bit, admitting that she was over-protective of me for example. Also during our phone calls, she will resist the usual criticisms and try to keep it conversational.
It has come to the point where I have to remind myself that she can act very differently, and that – no - I am not paranoid and my memories of our last fall-out are not fantasies. I have even wondered if maybe she is bipolar, the contrast is really that big.

I have continued T. We discussed therapists in a previous thread on this board, and I am now quite confident that my T is very capable. But progress is slow. He keeps coming back to the same point: somewhere, very deep inside of me, there is a conviction that I will never, ever be good enough. I acknowledge that this is probably true, but what can I do about it? I feel as if he is waiting for something to happen. As if he is waiting for me to crack during a session, or start realizing what causes this deeply ingrained feeling. I come out of T with a very deep-gutted feeling of sadness. The crack normally comes that evening, crying until that feeling has slightly passed and I can more or less function again. It never really goes away anymore. I carry it with me. I want to get rid of the weight. I want to understand where this sadness comes from, accept it, and move on. But day-to-day life draws me back in the next day, and there is no more room in my head to ponder its origins.

I sometimes think that I should find myself a log cabin in the middle of nowhere to isolate myself from the hectic daily life of a young family and to give myself more headspace, to sort out these underlying feelings and to give myself room to explore and understand. Unfortunately that is not an option. And so we plough on, trying to function, but clearly struggling to be emotionally available for those that count most in my life, my family.

On another note, I am also very annoyed with myself. On one of my mothers’ recent visits, she was ‘offering’ to mind the children during the summer holidays. She has always helped out up to now, but due to our recent NC I had planned the whole summer without keeping her in mind. I accommodated, and offered to cancel one of the activities (1 week) so she could spend some time with the children. This is logistically easier for us, and the children enjoy it as well. She translated this into 3 weeks, because they ‘don’t like the activities anyway’, which is completely not true. I told my T this story, and exclaimed that it is no use telling my mum anything, because she just doesn’t HEAR what I am saying. He told me that – of course she wouldn’t hear me if it didn’t fit into her goal, which was having the children for as long as possible. I mulled over this for a long time after that session, and I finally realized something: I had always thought my mother wasn’t very intelligent (she keeps repeating this herself as well), but when it comes to getting her will from me or pushing my buttons, it is me that has been dumb, not her. This is a huge disappointment for me. I always prided myself in having a good EQ, but this story and other experiences that were re-analyzed during T have made me realize that this is not at all the case.

I ran into a link of Bowen’s family systems theory in a recent thread on this board. That lead to an epiphany of sorts: I suddenly saw how – after my parents’ divorce – my brother was parentified and I became even more enmeshed. This system went haywire when my brother moved out (as soon as he could, only to roll into an even worse relationship), leaving me as sole focus for all my mothers’ worries, insecurities and projections. This insight in my recent past caused a big wave of anger to roll over me. For the first time I could clearly see that I was a simple pawn in a very complicated chess game, and that all the hurt and mental trauma that it caused me was utterly out of my control and not at all my fault in any sense.

What still baffles me though, is the fact that I remember nothing from my younger years. Not one snippet. From 2YO to 12 Yo, we moved a lot, to different countries, different languages, different schools. I only remember the last house abroad, vaguely. I was about 10YO when we moved there. Everything before that is gone. I don't remember the schools, teachers, classmates, houses, bedroom, ... .nothing at all. I have some vague images, but I know they come from photographs, not from actual memories. I only told my T this at the end of our last session. He suggested that the memory loss  might have been due to too much stress with every move, but that we would definately have to get back to this.

The Bowen’s family systems theory also made me realize that I often react differently to my own D9 than my S7. D9 has a beautiful, very extravert personality that thrives on inter-relational feedback. She needs a lot of validation. S7 on the other hand is more introverted. He is very independent and wants to figure things out by himself. I have come to realize that I often have an underlying feeling of resentment when D9 is asking for attention or validation. She seems to trigger emotions I also get when communicating with my mother. I feel as if she asks for more than I can give, that I can never give her enough, and this feeling suffocates me. I love both my children dearly, and I feel guilty and frustrated at my reactions, but up to now I have not found a way to come to terms with these feelings. Maybe this is resentment I dare not have towards my mother that is then transferred to my daughter? This realization horrifies me. I do absolutely NOT want to transfer any trauma to my daughter! I want her to discover and believe in her own worth and to flourish. This then results in frustration and – again – me disconnecting myself emotionally from my family to avoid wrong reactions.

My DH has been very patient. He says it hurts to see me hurting. He says he misses me, because I fade out of the family so often now. He even got cross at my T for hurting me so much. But I told him that my T was right, and that I need to get through this, and unfortunately it will take time.

Thanks for your patience and time,
Any advice on how to move forward from this uncomfortable mental and emotional place would be very much appreciated.

Libra.

[Turkish]

I think it's understandable that you feel more comfortable with your son who is me emotionally independent than your daughter who needs more validation,  given how how you experienced your own childhood. I was the stoic, hermit, abandoned child, and it sometimes drives me nuts how overly sensitive my kids can be,  like crying when getting shots or blood drawn, for example.  I never cried,  but they act like banshees. I would never have gotten away with that!

A better example is when they ask for little validations on schoolwork for example. I don't entrust getting validation unless I preformed well above average.  If I didn't, then I was shamed.  Kind of made me not to care at all!

I think that you being aware of your limitations is good; at least you are aware unlike your mother who may have demanded perfection in her eyes,  yes?

Though D6 is a tough little cookie (her words), I can resent a little that she isn't as tough as I was at that age.  Nor S8, a little of my "I expect you to be a man" BS, complicated further given that I never had a father so I'm "inventing" as my T once told me. 

As a parent, I want to raise my kids better than I was raised,  to be better than me,  and I realize that like all of us parents here that this is a greater challenge than what most parents may have to deal with.  I think realizing this on the front end is a good place to start: self- awareness, and given that,  it's good not to beat myself up too hard about that.  I realize my limitations,  but in realizing those,  it gives me strength to do better,  and also forgive myself fur when I may not do my best.

Does this help you?

I like to think I can forgive myself and also do better at the same time. 

[Harri]

Hi Libra, thanks for posting an update.  I am a bit under the weather today and can't concentrate but I will definitely respond this weekend.  I am very glad to hear that you feel more confident about your T.  A good T makes all the difference in the world.

Talk soon

[Libra]

Turkish,

Yes, I think it is important to realise what is happening, and to learn to understand why I react the way I do sometimes.

The fact that my interactions with my own children are so strongly influenced by my own childhood is something I am only now starting to see, and it is disconcerting and scary.

As a parent, I want to raise my kids better than I was raised,  to be better than me,  and I realize that like all of us parents here that this is a greater challenge than what most parents may have to deal with.  I think realizing this on the front end is a good place to start: self- awareness, and given that,  it's good not to beat myself up too hard about that.  I realize my limitations,  but in realizing those,  it gives me strength to do better,  and also forgive myself fur when I may not do my best.

That is very well put. I need to focus on understanding and learning from my reactions, instead of beating myself up about them.

Thank you Turkish!

Libra.