[Mouse_]

so a friend that has known me for 5yrs...has been warned time adn time again by me of my personality disorder has suddenly deicided its to controlling...I agreed with her even though feeling that one word is rather harsh regarding the 5yrs we've been friends...and told her that there was a time she enjoyed it even....now suddenly its not working for her...fair enought shes entitled to her boundaries...now I feel afraid that I may get into another relationship and have the same thing happen...I've heard the word control so many times but am struggling trying to understand it....how does one stop it? ...I don't want to control but don't know any other way of being.

[Perna]

Controlling, for me, is related to anxiety. When I recognize I'm anxious and "accept"/agree that that is so, I can usually better control my controlling :-)

Today I got into an argument while driving a friend to an appointment, about exits on the highway and I'd never even driven that route! I was able to hear the frustration level rising in my friend and "let it go" and trust that she knew what she was talking about and that, since I was driving her to her appointment and had no stake in which way we went, I could try her way and her knowledge. So I apologized and admitted to having never actually driven that way and talked to myself out loud that since I'd never been that way and had no stake in the outcome, that it was wrong of me to try to control how we got there.

It's becoming helpful to me to help others and while doing so, make myself let them "control" since it's their situation, not mine. That helps me later, when I'm with others on my tasks, to let them help me with suggestions and look at/share/comfort my anxieties.

Recognizing that you can be controlling is a good first step. Letting people know you know is a good second step and trying to listen to when others are trying to tell you you are over controlling or when there's an argument, stopping and internally figuring out what stake you have in the argument/whether you care about the result or just about being "right" helps me. If you have a more laid back friend or husband, etc. talking about things with them and getting their point of view might help. My husband got me thinking about the old empty toilet paper/paper towel problem and who should change it :-) and, for the 2 of us, there's a 50:50 chance that one will be last or next using something so there's no reason that my stepmother was "right" about changing the toilet paper when you use the last bit, since you might be next to need it and can change it then. A lot of the controlling "rules" I have going for me that I follow are left over stepmother rules and I've never examined them for myself. Make it an "experiment" to start examining every "fact" that you state? "This way is best", "I want X" see where that idea comes from and some of it will be leftover childhood or old fears that don't exist anymore.

I had fun with my friend because when we got off on the exit I had maintained didn't exist :-) it was hard to get off the highway, I had to cross a lane of traffic and people could have been in it (a crisscross sort of situation, dangerous and scary to me) and I teased her and told her I'd make her pay for that. But looking at the other person as a teammate/partner in crime can help too? Sometimes they are right, sometimes you are; both of you get to control/switch off.

[Susan27]

hi again mouse and (((( hugs ))))
i share your angst over the controlling thing.
do you feel posessive too? I do. kills me. I'm threatened by my own bf's son. i can't reason with it. it's on auto pilot.

i'm thinking about it now and maybe the control is because we are so very terrorfied of abandonment and loss...that it is so unbearable and so impossible to contemplate that we think...somehow...by our being controlling that we will somehow literally control that person and keep ourselves safe. altho it never works...they leave...they show us every minute that they don't live for us...they live for themselves...and we feel like an empty shell that doesn't know how to live for ourselves because we only know ourselves through our interaction with them. like if you are looking at me...in my eyes...i am real. i am safe. i am here.

[ECHOES]

But in truth you can't control. You are you and your thoughts are yours. She is her own self and has her own thoughts and makes her own decisions for her own reasons.

I think there is a ton to explore here.

Are you saying what you want and/or need and then she is resonding in some way? If so, you aren't controlling. She is responding. Do you see what I mean?

[Mouse_]

susan, Yes I want to own the person, want to merge with them...and the agony comes now knowing I am doing this and a prisoner of my own defects.

Echoes, she responds and has just got back in touch with me wanting me to explain to her what is going on for me and I told her that I dont want to be this dependent on anyone other again and she now says if I can forgive her we will be ok....now I feel she wants me to want her as much as I want to want her,,,but really don't want to ever go back to taht place, I think I want some time to think about this and not just go back to how it was....

[Susan27]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Mouse_ said:
susan, Yes I want to own the person, want to merge with them...and the agony comes now knowing I am doing this and a prisoner of my own defects. </font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>

OMG, I have that "merging thing" too. I don't think i've ever run into anyone else that used that term in that way and really got it. wow...kinda shocking in a validating kind of way.

SUCKS to live with this identity thing doesn't it??? It's sooo unbearably painful. to feel the need to merge and, well, not be able to cuz i guess we just weren't made to do that once we're adult. you know this means we didn't get to merge when we were supposed to be able to...as babies...and this pisses me off cuz the amount of screwyness i have because of it is unbelievable.

i hate feeling this defective and unwhole. like a half seeking it's other half and it keeps kicking me in the face that i can't have it that way.

arrrggggghhhhh

[Susan27]

p.s. i can't even quote correctly...lol

[Mouse_]

Susan, yes you are correct, it does suck knowing we never merged as babies!! knowing that we can never go back and experienced what we should have experienced...wish at this point I could cry and let it all out and be done with it...they say time is a great physican, I'm not sure about that yet.

[ECHOES]

mouse I understand the merge idea. I never thought of it that way but I like that. I just get so attached and I want to be with that person all the time. I don't see others act that way so I've always felt very ashamed of it. I thnk it's why I stayed alone. Now my son is grown and gone off to live his life, I'm alone and I don't want to be alone but I don't know how to be with someone..It seems so hopeless sometimes.

[Mouse_]

I had so many dreams last night...in the dream I saw all the ways I had grown up learning to take care of others instead of myself...I was taught that not putting my adoptive mothers feelings first was unnpardonable...I am so glad my friend said I was controlling..its made look it up and read about controlling and detachment...I thought taking an interest in my life my feelings first was selfish...I also had led myself to believe that if I appear the most caring friend, that will make me an idealised friend someone you wouldnt be able to live without...I thought if you dont pour symphaphy and lots of words and thoughts on someone you were less then caring...infact I had disappeared up my own arse and simple ceased to exist except where taking care of another wsa concerned and where my battle to be never abandoned was concerned other then this I haven't really had a real relationship with myself or anyone...I wrote my friend this morning thanking her for giving me the chance to see this and that in future if I seem aloof, its nothing to do with her or us its me trying to find what a healthy relationship really is....i never, ever want to go back to how it was...

[CJR520]

My daughter is very controlling, and she has practically ruined two stepsons' lives, and her 21 year old sons'. No one can understand why her husband puts up with her. Then, there is the 7 year old who will be the same if she doesn't pull out of this. He is getting way out of control. She wants to tell everyone what to do and when every step of the way no matter what we are all doing together. She is losing her family and blaming all of us for it. You will be o.k. now that you realize what is going on and can deal with it. What a good friend to try to talk to you and be honest and help you! You will work out of this o.k.! This is something my daughter has never figured out. When we are together as a family or any group we are in, she gets real loud, and bossy, and has to be heard and seen. It gets ugly!!!

[Mouse_]

But did you read where I learnt to be controlling?