I Am

[NarcKiddo]

These feelings welling up from a child really resonate with me right now. I was just chatting with my T yesterday about how some things have happened that adult me is really pleased about but child me is really cheesed off with. The dissonance is very frustrating.

And I have just now come off the phone to my mother who wanted to talk at me about stuff she has already shared on family WhatsApp. But it is BIG NEWS that reflects badly on other people, so it had to be spoken of with glee. And then at the end she asked if I had any news. She knows I have just come back from a trip but she answered her question herself by supposing that everything is fine and there is nothing to report. That is my standard grey rock answer to her and it looks like she has got the message. So why am I displeased??? I totally get why you would have bad feelings about your mother not responding to your text in the way that you would have liked, even though you a) probably knew she never would and b) may even have had some level of relief that she was not interested in asking about your life. I posit b) with some hesitation, but our mothers seem quite similar in many ways and it is usually dangerous if my mother actually shines her spotlight on me.

I am really sorry you are struggling with the SI thoughts and I hope they subside soon.

 

[Chart]

I have a tiny little doll that's a baby and it's me shortly after I was born. My therapist gave me some lavender and my baby-me is wrapped in soft cotton and is in a hard empty lipstick case for protection. I always know where he is and I protect him. Often we talk and I tell him that the man who terrified us is gone now and he won't ever come back. We are safe and we don't have to keep being afraid. My morning terror has greatly reduced since August.

[Bach]

My self-destructive streak always resurfaces when I renew my efforts to take care of myself, be good to myself, encourage my health and nervous system regulation.  It's like there are two of me in here, one who is trying to look after me, and another who wants only to make sure that I can never feel comfortable or safe or happy.  I know it's more garbage that came from my mother along with the all the other garbage that came from my mother.  I know why I am the way I am.  I know the ins and outs of what happened to me this and what effect it had on me that.  Is there anything I can do with all this tiresome knowledge?  Anything to actually FIX me?

[rainydiary]

Bach, I resonate with what you are saying and ask myself similar questions.  I don't have any answers and am here with you trying to sort this out.

[Armee]

Totally relate to feeling like there are two opposing people inside. 

It's maddening.

Only trick I'm finding is to listen and care for both parts and learn to understand not why they exist but what they are trying to do and what they need from you, but from sort of a wise adult perspective. Acting more as if you are a teacher and they are two students in your class who have been hurt and need the help of a caring adult.

It's not easy or perfect but it seems to help.

[Chart]

Ditto all that. Feel the same. Gonna "try". Anyway, what else can we do?

[Bach]

If there's one thing I can count on my mother to be interested in, it's problems with my health.  I've had some stuff going on with my woman parts.  Yesterday I went to have a testing procedure that the doctor thought he could do in the office, but it turns out that I'm going to have to have it done under anaesthesia.  I hadn't been particularly worried about this test until that happened, but now I am.  My mother is keenly interested in all this.  I was texting about it with her this morning and we had a whole conversation that was actually about what's going on with me, that included knowledgeable advice and even reassurance, you know, like a real mother would give.  I told her that I felt overwhelmed, and she asked if there was anything she could do to help.  It seemed really sincere and it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling, until I started thinking about it.  Resenting the care she didn't take of me when I was a child and really needed her.  Resenting that I have to be sick or in pain to be worthy of her compassion. 

[NarcKiddo]

I'm sorry you are going to have to have that test under anaesthesia. My doctor thought I would have to have similar although I eventually got the consultant to agree an MRI would be a sensible interim stage, and then I didn't actually have to undergo the hospital procedure because the MRI gave enough information.

As for your mother - mine is also keenly interested in health matters. I tell her as little as possible since she is quite happy to broadcast information around friends and family without asking me, and because although she is interested she does not generally give sensible advice even if it is something she has direct experience of. However it does sound as though your mother did indeed give some sensible and helpful advice. I am glad about that, even if your feelings around the conversation have now curdled into resentment, which is totally understandable.

[Bach]

Random memory:  My grandmother saying about me as a child that "[Bach] will need to find someone to buy her a fur coat and take care of her".  What a strange thing for her to say.  What a strange thing for me to remember.  Is that where I got the idea that I would never be able to take care of myself?

[Bach]

Trigger Warning: Suicidal thoughts, child abuse.
















Maybe all the intrusive noise in my head about "I wish I was dead" "Why am I here?" "Why am I alive?" "Why can't I just die?" "I'm going to kill myself" is child me (Middle B?) reacting to my mother's feelings about me.  I think that my mother's fondest wish when I was a child was that I would die.  It would be a win-win for her, because then she wouldn't have to deal with me anymore, and she could get attention for being a tragically bereaved mother.  I think the only thing that stopped her from doing it herself that time when I was around 9 that she strangled me with her hands until I started to black out was pure self-preservation.  After all, she wanted to be a tragically bereaved mother, not an evil murdering mother.  What sticks with me most about that incident is that after she let go and left the room, I laid on her bed for a few minutes thinking something along the lines of "Yeah, that happened, she did that, whatever."  It felt FAMILIAR.  Based on that memory and on flashbacks, I've had a belief for a number of years that she tried to suffocate me in my crib when I was an infant, but thinking about this now, it occurs to me that maybe she didn't do that herself.  Maybe there was some kind of incident in which I almost suffocated (crib bumpers in the 60s anyone?) but didn't, and that awoke in her the notion that my dying would solve her problems.  Who knows?  Not me.  And does it really matter?

There's so much I want to say about this.  I want to write it out like a court case, a reconstruction based on photographs and documents and witness testimony, an argument that it really was her and not me...but I can't.  It's so confusing.  There are so many details.  I don't even know where to start.  Especially because if I DID write it out, I'm pretty sure it would sound completely crazy and then I'd have to doubt ALL MY CONCLUSIONS about...well, everything.   

[Armee]

NONE of what you wrote sounds crazy. I mean crazy your mom would do this but very very believable as well as your insight to her beliefs about how she would gain attention.

I am so sorry you experienced this level of abuse. It's also extremely damaging to be choked. This story is extremely sad and a very very very good explanation for where these "suicidal" thoughts come from. In quotes because I don't believe them to be suicidal but as you say basically introjects from your mom's wishes and also probably flashbacks from that time/times.

 

[sanmagic7]

bach, i echo armee.  it doesn't sound crazy to me, you don't sound crazy to me.  the situation was crazy, yes.  it should never have been, should never have happened to you.  i don't normally use 'should' but in this case there is guilt and shame involved, but it all belongs to your M.

 

It's like there are two of me in here, one who is trying to look after me, and another who wants only to make sure that I can never feel comfortable or safe or happy.

i know this feeling all too well, especially when i'm working on my eating issues.  so glad you wrote this - it gives me something to explore and discover what's going on underneath.  thank you, bach.  love and hugs

[Chart]

For me, if "crazy" is reacting with sensitivity and pain to horrible things that were done to me... then yes, I think I'm crazy.
But I actually believe it is the "other" world that is crazy. Not all feel horrible. The alternative is to relieve the suffering by inflicting the same torment upon others... this satisfies many people. There is that choice in trauma. There are two pathways to choose from. Be like the abusers... or not, and suffer terribly in silence and without hope. Heckava choice to make. But we have chosen to NOT hurt others. And we grapple with our choice for our pain is naked and undiminished. I echo Sanmagic. What you wrote about being two people is true for me too. It is the eternal struggle. The constant inner conflict. The voice of our abusers on nonstop repeat. Some days I can suppress that foul alter ego, some days not.

But I don't think that's crazy. I think that inner fight is healing.

[Bach]

Thank you for your replies, friends.  I agree that I am not suicidal, which makes the intrusive thoughts particularly galling.  I know you would all believe me and understand if I tried to describe what my inner children are dealing with, but most of it is not as straightforward as the incident I recalled above.  Most of it was subtle and dark and impossible for a child to understand.  Impossible for a child to understand, and very confusing and distressing for an adult to try to make sense of.  In fact, in a weird way it's a relief that I have one specific memory that I know for sure happened that I can point to and say "There.  ABUSE."  Because otherwise I really might not know that it wasn't all me, that there never were reasonable explanations for how I was treated.

[NarcKiddo]

In fact, in a weird way it's a relief that I have one specific memory that I know for sure happened that I can point to and say "There.  ABUSE."

That resonates. I have some specific memories that I can now file under "abuse" but I wasn't always sure even about those. Yet the relief I felt was huge when my therapist, without my asking, said categorically that my childhood was objectively abusive.

I also get the impression that your mother was not necessarily always deliberate in her abuse. Or at any rate that not all of it was conducted with malice aforethought. It's even harder to wrap one's head around abusive behaviour if the abuser is not necessarily conscious that their behaviour is abusive. And, just to be clear, I am NOT suggesting the abuser should be given some sort of pass because they didn't overtly intend to be abusive all the time. Only that it is so much easier for the victim to blame themself if they have any sort of supposition that there may be reasonable explanations for how they were treated.