Processing a dream I don't understand

[Riv3rW0lf]

Yesterday when I went to bed, I asked myself to send me a message, to explain myself what is happening. I've been triggered none-stop for the past few days. My inner critic is through the roof, as I keep working around the house like a tornado. I am impatient, I am looking for fights with my husband. I am keeping myself on a short leash by working it out, but I can see myself acting and I know I am off... But I have no idea why. Seeing it and controlling it truly are two different things. Breathing does not work, self-care does not work.

I asked myself, is it stress from this new project I am trying to get? Is it just tiredness? Am I bored from the groundhog day that I keep reliving, taking care of my family?

The dream I had yesterday though, ended up being about my mother, who I haven't thought about for the past few days.

I dreamt I was at a family fathering with her FOO. And she left, was no where to be found. And her FOO were all talking against her, and laughing about her pain, her hurt, who she was. And I became highly angry, but assertive, in a way, I started being myself freely. When one of my aunt told me to go call my mother over, I took her by the neck and told her I was not hers to control. That she should go herself, since they were the reason she was gone, and not me, and that while she was at it, she might as well remind herself how ignorant and stupid she is, and she should, for once in her life, show a little empathy and kindness to my mother. Then my favorite aunt was laughing in my mother's back with another one of my aunt, and I called her out on her behavior, made her feel small and ashamed. I was basically going around my mother's FOO, suddenly seeing all the dysfunctions and standing up to them. No empathy, no fear. I was suddenly conscious of the power I hold and was surprised at how fearless I could be.

I woke up less triggered this morning, a bit more peaceful, but still not fully understanding what is going on in my unconscious, not understanding my emotions and having a hard them processing them, because of the confusion.

Maybe this dream is actually about the usual pull of wanting to feel sorry for my mother, the tender side of the abuse showing up, and I am fighting it, creating inner turmoil.

I do not know.

Maybe I am just seeing a bigger picture, which includes all of my mother's FOO and the abuse she went through, as many of them are dysfunctional (I see it now). For a while there, I thought my mother was the problem, but she is truly only one of them. When I went to visit my grandmother last time... The way she told me to eat mushrooms, and how she told me my children, who had just had a big brunch at the restaurant, were not eating... I saw something else. It shocked me, how she said it, like I had to berate them, to be angry at them for not eating. She was demanding, somehow. She didn't look soft at all. I always thought my grandmother was soft, but she is not.

My mother comes from a family of dysfunction. They all have a public face and a hidden one. I think part of her was always just looking for love and validation, and was only met by ridicule and intimidation. She could never be heard, nor seen, and she hates herself.

I guess this is what I was processing. Some empathy for her... Empathy for her comes and goes. It is dangerous to have too much of it, as it makes me want to call her and be kind to her. But my kindness would just be used against me.

I am not lying to myself: there is no coming back from this decision I took, my mother does not forgive, nor forget. I know that all too well from seeing her behaves around others who have hurt her in the past.

Too bad... is what I am getting at, I guess.

Sadness rises. Maybe I can process it now.

[Notwendy]

They say we work out emotional issues in our dreams.

I have had dreams of screaming at my BPD mother in anger. I'm relieved when I wake up and know I didn't do that.

But I also have empathy for her. I think you are realizing that often abusive people grew up with abuse too.

There was a shift in how I perceived my BPD mother as I learned more about the dynamics in families.

I saw her as the one causing the problems, and my father as a victim of her behavior. Now, I see that he also had choices, and how co-dependency and enabling played a part too.

Being around her FOO, I feel invisible as they don't seem to see or hear other people. They are not bad people, but there's an NPD streak to that family. I feel they look down at me and while it can bother me, I have enough of a sense of self that I can see it's them, not me. I am not less than them, no matter what they think.

BPD mother is actually afraid of what they think. She tries very hard to impress them. She has a poor sense of self and has not achieved the kind of career success they have. ( both men and women in that family ).  I have actually felt sorry for her at times- it must have been hard to grow up with that. In addition, I suspect she may have been abused at some point. I don't have proof, I don't know who- maybe a neighbor or distant relative.

BPD mother's FOO seem to be patronizing of her.

Perhaps your dream is allowing you to see a larger picture.

But like you, having empathy doesn't change the need for boundaries. Understanding that your mother may have been treated poorly doesn't mean you tolerate her treating you poorly.

A goal is to break this cycle in the family.

[khibomsis]

Hey, we all got abused as children. Some of us rose above it, found this site and used every tool in the book, fully and deeply with a commitment to getting better. In part so that we wouldn't hurt others.
Even BPD people can get better, if they really try.
I'm just saying. One can forgive, refrain from judging and strive for compassion. It doesn't mean we can forget or go back to abuse. I love my uNBPD mother. I even understand more and more how she came to be that way, and I have certainly forgiven her. But while she was alive all that never led me to relax a single boundary. I wish I could have been warmer while she was alive, but I was too busy protecting myself.
Take extreme care, Riv3rwolf. Emotional processing is tiring, and I hope you gave yourself an ice-cream or something nice today. The rewards are immense. One day you will be done and all that emotional energy can go into living the good life.
On a very practical note, if you are anywhere  near an age where you could be going through early menopause, it might be worth it having a gynae check your hormone levels.
 


 

[Riv3rW0lf]

They say we work out emotional issues in our dreams.

I have had dreams of screaming at my BPD mother in anger. I'm relieved when I wake up and know I didn't do that.

I don't know... sometimes, I honestly wish I could talk the way I talked in that dream to abusers. It would make me an abuser myself but then... is abusing abusers truly abusing, or just justice and pay back, one has a right to wonder...  

 

But I also have empathy for her. I think you are realizing that often abusive people grew up with abuse too.

Yes, you are right. I always knew, but internalizing it feels different. I also think the last episode with my father's neighbors really triggered my abandonment. Usually, when I felt hurt because of my father's abandonment, I'd go to my mother, who would revel with joy to be able to "save me" from him. She would show me empathy, she would try... Until the next trigger, then she'd lose it again, and I'd end up reliving my abandonment from her... So I'd go to dad, who would show me a bit of empathy, because it was about mom, until the next hurt... and so on. Goodness, I've just realized how I've spent my whole life going from one abandonment to the other with both my parents.

Being around her FOO, I feel invisible as they don't seem to see or hear other people. They are not bad people, but there's an NPD streak to that family. I feel they look down at me and while it can bother me, I have enough of a sense of self that I can see it's them, not me. I am not less than them, no matter what they think.

BPD mother is actually afraid of what they think. She tries very hard to impress them. She has a poor sense of self and has not achieved the kind of career success they have. ( both men and women in that family ).  I have actually felt sorry for her at times- it must have been hard to grow up with that. In addition, I suspect she may have been abused at some point. I don't have proof, I don't know who- maybe a neighbor or distant relative.

BPD mother's FOO seem to be patronizing of her.

This sounds like my mother's FOO.

Perhaps your dream is allowing you to see a larger picture.

But like you, having empathy doesn't change the need for boundaries. Understanding that your mother may have been treated poorly doesn't mean you tolerate her treating you poorly.

A goal is to break this cycle in the family.

Agreed.

Part of me wonder if I could even go back to be in contact. My husband would have none of it, honestly, and in no world am I going to visit her and sleep over there, nor her come here. I just have this urge to keep her away from my children right now. I'm grieving. Grief seems to come in waves...

[Riv3rW0lf]

Hey, we all got abused as children. Some of us rose above it, found this site and used every tool in the book, fully and deeply with a commitment to getting better. In part so that we wouldn't hurt others.
Even BPD people can get better, if they really try.

Yes, that's truth, and that's what hurts the most. They could have gotten better but they chose the easy path: not confronting their demons, and discharging their shame on us, their children. It's easy to make excuses and say it is a PD, so they don't really realize it, that they just hurt so badly we should work with them (I read a lot of BPD people say that). In my mother's case, because she was alcoholic, she always knew she needed help. And she told me often she was not interested to confront her past when we talked about therapy for her. She chose to stay within her hurt and relive it and discharge it on us. She chose to party and have my bus driver leave me at the bar after school. This is when I struggle with having empathy for her. I get that she was abused, I now feel anger toward the whole FOO, I get where she is coming from. What I don't get is how she just accepted to hurt us, by opting out of getting therapy. She had options, people tried to light her up often and she chose to stay in the dark and refused to carry her own blame. It angers me to realize how a bad mother she actually is, despite her ''trying her best''.

Every time I think of her, and write about her, I start oscillating between empathy and rage. I am quite sure we all do. Truly, I just want peace.
 

I'm just saying. One can forgive, refrain from judging and strive for compassion. It doesn't mean we can forget or go back to abuse. I love my uNBPD mother. I even understand more and more how she came to be that way, and I have certainly forgiven her. But while she was alive all that never led me to relax a single boundary. I wish I could have been warmer while she was alive, but I was too busy protecting myself.

You can feel love for your mother? Were you ever estranged from her to get there? Were you able to contact this love while she was alive?

I don't feel like I love my mother. I am at a point now where at least, I don't actively hate her. But I can't say I love her. I am angry at her and nowhere near forgiveness. And I think, in the end, that's the issue. I love her, but I cannot forgive her what she has done, which put me in the never ending anger-guilt pendulum, because my deeper self strive for love and forgiveness, but part of me just cannot let go.

Take extreme care, Riv3rwolf. Emotional processing is tiring, and I hope you gave yourself an ice-cream or something nice today. The rewards are immense. One day you will be done and all that emotional energy can go into living the good life.
On a very practical note, if you are anywhere  near an age where you could be going through early menopause, it might be worth it having a gynae check your hormone levels.
 

Thank you so much for your kind words. I am, indeed, very tired. While reading this, I was eating a cookie I baked with my daughter earlier, so I did treat myself. It is sweet because, she asked for it. Her father left to walk with her brother, and she just put a chair in the kitchen, climbed on it, looked at me and said: mama I want to bake a dessert! ... I wasn't in the mood at all, but how could I ever say no to that? Made part of me happy to bake with her.

I am not near an early menopause. I think I am still drifting off the last trigger I went through with my father's neighbor... I should really journal more often... Have to remind myself: this is a flashback. this is not my reality, not my present. I have a loving family, and I chose a healthier path. All will be well in the end.

Waves.

[khibomsis]

Yup, that's where we live. Between empathy and rage. I went NC with mom twice, once for two years and then a couple of years later for another two. Both times it was me putting my healing in front of her needs, and she never forgave me. It was in my early twenties, and eventually I evolved into controlled low contact and grey rocking, which I kept up until her death. This was long before I knew the terms. But hey, way into my fifties she would still FOG me for the NC when powerfully moved.  My sin was exactly putting my needs first, before my enmeshed family. It took a couple of decades for me even to explain to my siblings why it was wrong to split me black for this. I was like "I get to have a life". They were like "noo". Really.

The way I found myself out of it was to put love for my inner child first. Empathy for me. Rage as a protective mechanism, for me.
And cookies with your little girl, well, nothing gets better than that. It is never too late to have a happy childhood 
 

[Methuen]

is abusing abusers truly abusing, or just justice and pay back, one has a right to wonder...  

One certainly does have the right to wonder.  At the end of the day, I think the most important thing to do is stay true to ourselves.  In the short term we might feel temporarily better to fight back.  But we all know that won’t bring any positive results.  Instead, it contributes to escalation.  In the long term, I think we’ll feel better about ourselves if we take  the high road  instead.  

Still, there is no harm in wondering, especially if  we consider all the options rationally first before reacting.  

Riv3rW0lf, as lousy as you are feeling right now, does it help to remind yourself that this is temporary?

I’m curious.  You mentioned breathing and self care aren’t working.  Any thoughts about why they’re not working?  Is your mind racing?  How can you slow it down?

If I remember right, you are a runner.  Does that sometimes help?

Don’t give up on these strategies.  Be kind to yourself today, and maybe just patiently keep trying whatever usually works best for you…it will come around.

I sincerely hope you start to feel better soon, and that today is a better day.  

[Riv3rW0lf]

Methuen,

I am now back to normal ... I'd say I got back to normal yesterday and much better today.

Yes, my mind was racing. I can now see my defense mechanism.

I was triggered by my visit at my friend's house and at how close one of them is with my father. It reactivated my abandonment feeling. So I started doing stuff around the house, but rushing through. For every tasks I finished, I started two more. Ended up overtired and overstressed.

Breathing and mindfulness are very hard to achieve when I am in that state, it's a gigantic effort.

Truth be told : checking things off my list ended up being what freed me. Then I could calm down and go back to my normal rate of doing, because there weren't anything left to do in the immediate.

I wonder how to get out of Flight when I get so deep within it. I know I have to just sit through, meditate, be mindful and listen, but I find it incredibly hard to do... It is achievable in my normal mode, but when triggered... Doing things, checking things off my list seems like the only door out of the state I fall in, like it gives me endorphine it seems. Like a drug addiction. Really strange.

I kept running, doing self care, I was just ... Racing, yes. That would be the right word.

I will have to ponder it for a while.

This is how both my parents deal with their emotions. My mother is always doing something, it is the usual high energy of Borderlines I guess. But it is also how my father works through them, he told me once, after a big fight when I was about twenty : "Riverworlf, I  am hurt deeply by what you just said. I will leave now, not because I am angry, but I need to work until I feel better and we can talk about it later." And he left to work on his house siding.

I am like my father. A silent, calm doer, because it soothes me. But I exhaust myself like my mother.

Anyone else do that?