[CantExplain]

I have a mother-shaped hole in my heart.

Madame T wanted me to close the hole.
I wanted her to fill it.
And neither happened.

[archipelago]

I have had a hole like this as well. My mother was neglectful and distant, practically absent. There is an essay on the "dead mother" that addresses this in a complicated way, but basically says that you can't even mourn the loss because she is buried in a place where you can't find her so there is a void instead.

I've never wanted my therapist to fill the hole. And he's not exactly wished that I would close it either. It is more that I have to be aware of it and come up with internalized ways to provide for that so it's not such a void and be very gentle about doing it.

I have done some of this work by being more self-compassionate and allowing others to care as well, including my therapist. That's not the same as filling it, but it has the effect or replacing an old void with new kinds of relationships, including with myself.

Hard to describe and even harder to deal with.

[ThisWayOut]

I'm going through that same struggle at the moment...

[archipelago]

Here are some notes from the essay on the dead mother. It is by Andre Green, who is quite difficult to read and uses lots of psychoanalytic language, but for what it is worth, maybe this will provide something.

In his book, On Private Madness, French psychoanalyst André Green raises the possibility of “a psychotic kernel" beneath "the garden variety of neurosis." Though complex and dense as a text (and possibly hard to read for people not familiar with how "the Freudian project" was taken up in France by Lacan and his followers), the theory is fascinating and has far-reaching implications.

Here is Green on the ego structures and difficulties found in psychotic patients, specifically for this essay the borderline:

The ego envelope is not experienced as protective or elastic, as an enrichment of experience but as a loss of control, as the last defensive measure against implosion, disintegration, or loss. The ego envelope, this insufficient shield, protects the vulnerable ego, which is rigid and lacking cohesiveness. The inner splitting reveals that that ego is composed of different, non-communicating nuclei. These ego nuclei can aptly be designated as archipelagos.

By means of this metaphor, I shall try to describe some unique characteristics of these psychic structures. Instead of a myriad of islands surrounded by ocean, one might think of isolated pieces of land delineated by void space. These islands remain without the possibility of connection with each other. There is a lack of cohesiveness, a lack of unity, and above all a lack of coherence and an impression of contradictory sets of relations–roughly speaking, the coexistence of contradictory thoughts, affects, fantasies, but moreover contradictory byproducts of the pleasure principle, the reality principle, or both. This failure in integration gives the observer the feeling of aloofness, an absence of vitality, as these separated islands of egos (self-object relations) do not succeed in forming one individual being.

In my view, these islands of ego nuclei are less important than their surrounding space, which I have described as void. Futility, lack of awareness of presence, limited contact are all expressions of the basic emptiness that characterizes the experience of the borderline person. In the borderline there is splitting within the psychic sphere as well as splitting outside of objects. The psychic space is like archipelagos of ego nuclei separated by void. The psychotic blankness is characteristic of borderline persons, and it is radical decathexis not depression.

Green connects this void, blankness, and splitting within and without to a complex set of mechanisms related to object-loss, mourning, and decathexis. "The mother," or the primary cathected object, is not only buried, but buried alive. And inexplicably, the tomb is also in a sense “buried” alongside—a tomb that is nowhere to be found. Because her burial and burial place is a blank, a void, a literal hole in a hole, the lost object cannot be found in order to be lost again. In other words, the object cannot be de-cathected in the painful but necessary process of mourning and object-loss. (This dynamic set out by Green is basically following the short essay by Freud on "Mourning and Melacholia.”) The “normal” process leads to a kind of dis-indentification with the “lost” or "dead" object, in order to separate and at least according to Green, not be buried alive in a voided tomb as well.

Here I pause to wonder if the acts that appear to be oriented toward death, toward suicidality, are none other than an inflection of the problem of not feeling alive in the first place? In other words, as Herman describes in her book on complex trauma, the unbearable feeling states in dysphoria are often temporarily relieved by severe blows to the body, in what may appear to be acts of manipulation or self-harm, even threats of self-annihilation. Herman observes that they function instead to ground and soothe, to prove that one exists. For if I feel pain (or anything at all), I am not dead after all, but alive.

The important part in terms of practice and intervention, in what Green articulates, is that the void or blankness, when meet with such things as “the rule of silence" or "the veil of neutrality" in the psychoanalysis of a patient can have disruptive effects, to put it mildly. Even the gentle techniques such as Winnicott's "holding environment" or Roger's stance of “non-interference,” Green points out, potentially match void with void, thereby, producing dangerous consequences for the therapy, and more critically, life and death crisis for the patient.

Note: "cathexis" is just a term for an intensive emotional investment. In the process of mourning a loss, you are attached to the "object" the person who you have invested in, and so part of you is lost too. The process involves "de-cathexis" or letting go of the attachment so that loss doesn't involve a part of you and you choose go on living without it. With the void of the dead mother, this whole process is disrupted because the process can't take place in the sense that you can't find the lost object because there is a void there instead. That is the main point of the chapter.

[unaluna]

A guy i knew in college built a hologram-generator in his basement, only he was MUCH cuter than Sheldon Cooper! Anyway it occurs to me that it didnt impress me much because i experienced my mother as a hologram - look but dont touch; only preprogrammed responses. I need to read more Green.

I think we have to feel the hole on so many levels before each level can than be filled in.

[ListenMoreTalkLess]

Originally Posted by CantExplain

Madame T wanted me to close the hole.
I wanted her to fill it.
And neither happened.

Great insight! I think that sometimes when bad things happen when we're kids and we're not rescued from them, the "hole" from the pain of what happened lives on in us. And we look for something or someone to fill it. Things that fill it-- drinking, drugs, food, overworking, etc, are rarely satisfying. Trying to use people to fill it rarely turns out well-- that's too overwhelming a task for anyone, and the people who do want to take on that role are the most incapable of engaging in it.

Sounds like you're in a good space for change.

[Daeva]

I have that hole as well. My ex-C once told me that it was this void and i just kept trying to fill it with different people but it'll never be enough so instead we need to learn how to stitch it.

[sweepy62]

I also have a void im not looking to fill it with anyone, just want to understand it and tame the feelings associated with it.

[CantExplain]

Originally Posted by archipelago

Here are some notes from the essay on the dead mother. It is by Andre Green, who is quite difficult to read and uses lots of psychoanalytic language, but for what it is worth, maybe this will provide something.

In his book, On Private Madness, French psychoanalyst André Green raises the possibility of “a psychotic kernel" beneath "the garden variety of neurosis." Though complex and dense as a text (and possibly hard to read for people not familiar with how "the Freudian project" was taken up in France by Lacan and his followers), the theory is fascinating and has far-reaching implications.

Here is Green on the ego structures and difficulties found in psychotic patients, specifically for this essay the borderline:

The ego envelope is not experienced as protective or elastic, as an enrichment of experience but as a loss of control, as the last defensive measure against implosion, disintegration, or loss. The ego envelope, this insufficient shield, protects the vulnerable ego, which is rigid and lacking cohesiveness. The inner splitting reveals that that ego is composed of different, non-communicating nuclei. These ego nuclei can aptly be designated as archipelagos.

By means of this metaphor, I shall try to describe some unique characteristics of these psychic structures. Instead of a myriad of islands surrounded by ocean, one might think of isolated pieces of land delineated by void space. These islands remain without the possibility of connection with each other. There is a lack of cohesiveness, a lack of unity, and above all a lack of coherence and an impression of contradictory sets of relations–roughly speaking, the coexistence of contradictory thoughts, affects, fantasies, but moreover contradictory byproducts of the pleasure principle, the reality principle, or both. This failure in integration gives the observer the feeling of aloofness, an absence of vitality, as these separated islands of egos (self-object relations) do not succeed in forming one individual being.

In my view, these islands of ego nuclei are less important than their surrounding space, which I have described as void. Futility, lack of awareness of presence, limited contact are all expressions of the basic emptiness that characterizes the experience of the borderline person. In the borderline there is splitting within the psychic sphere as well as splitting outside of objects. The psychic space is like archipelagos of ego nuclei separated by void. The psychotic blankness is characteristic of borderline persons, and it is radical decathexis not depression.

Green connects this void, blankness, and splitting within and without to a complex set of mechanisms related to object-loss, mourning, and decathexis. "The mother," or the primary cathected object, is not only buried, but buried alive. And inexplicably, the tomb is also in a sense “buried” alongside—a tomb that is nowhere to be found. Because her burial and burial place is a blank, a void, a literal hole in a hole, the lost object cannot be found in order to be lost again. In other words, the object cannot be de-cathected in the painful but necessary process of mourning and object-loss. (This dynamic set out by Green is basically following the short essay by Freud on "Mourning and Melacholia.”) The “normal” process leads to a kind of dis-indentification with the “lost” or "dead" object, in order to separate and at least according to Green, not be buried alive in a voided tomb as well.

Here I pause to wonder if the acts that appear to be oriented toward death, toward suicidality, are none other than an inflection of the problem of not feeling alive in the first place? In other words, as Herman describes in her book on complex trauma, the unbearable feeling states in dysphoria are often temporarily relieved by severe blows to the body, in what may appear to be acts of manipulation or self-harm, even threats of self-annihilation. Herman observes that they function instead to ground and soothe, to prove that one exists. For if I feel pain (or anything at all), I am not dead after all, but alive.

The important part in terms of practice and intervention, in what Green articulates, is that the void or blankness, when meet with such things as “the rule of silence" or "the veil of neutrality" in the psychoanalysis of a patient can have disruptive effects, to put it mildly. Even the gentle techniques such as Winnicott's "holding environment" or Roger's stance of “non-interference,” Green points out, potentially match void with void, thereby, producing dangerous consequences for the therapy, and more critically, life and death crisis for the patient.

Note: "cathexis" is just a term for an intensive emotional investment. In the process of mourning a loss, you are attached to the "object" the person who you have invested in, and so part of you is lost too. The process involves "de-cathexis" or letting go of the attachment so that loss doesn't involve a part of you and you choose go on living without it. With the void of the dead mother, this whole process is disrupted because the process can't take place in the sense that you can't find the lost object because there is a void there instead. That is the main point of the chapter.

As far as I can see (not very far!), this quote offers no plan and no hope.

[CantExplain]

Originally Posted by Daeva

I have that hole as well. My ex-C once told me that it was this void and i just kept trying to fill it with different people but it'll never be enough so instead we need to learn how to stitch it.

Yes, I think this was Madame T's plan. You say "stitch", I say "close" but it's probably the same thing.

[Lauliza]

I agree here. For me, I would rather there be more focus on the here and now and not the root cause. This kind of analysis places so much emphasis inward that I'm afraid id lose myself in it. We need to look out of ourselves in order to close (or stitch) the void.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[archipelago]

There are really two processes sometimes taking place at once but are really separate. One is the uncovering work that looks into the depths of the past or sometimes more recent things. Then there is our own responsive in terms of developing despite this apparent problem. Like I said, I've learned things like self-compassion, being there for myself, in the present, as if fostering a relationship with myself and strengthening it. This is helped by the relational focus of my therapy, but it is somewhat different from having the therapist fill the hole. Instead the therapist models a healthy relationship, that is internalized and then acted upon with others and in this case with oneself.

[Asiablue]

Out of interest, all of those who say they feel a void inside, can you describe how that feels physically in your body and where? Because i feel that void too but am interested to know how everyone experiences it, is it the same feeling for everyone?

For me it usually hits me kind of in my solar plexus and radiates up into my heart, it feels like a dull all encompassing aching pain that literally takes my breath away for a few seconds.

[Syra]

Originally Posted by CantExplain

I have a mother-shaped hole in my heart.

Madame T wanted me to close the hole.
I wanted her to fill it.
And neither happened.

Perfect.

[archipelago]

Originally Posted by Asiablue

Out of interest, all of those who say they feel a void inside, can you describe how that feels physically in your body and where? Because i feel that void too but am interested to know how everyone experiences it, is it the same feeling for everyone?

For me it usually hits me kind of in my solar plexus and radiates up into my heart, it feels like a dull all encompassing aching pain that literally takes my breath away for a few seconds.

I also feel it in my chest area. Sometimes it feeling crushing and not really a void like thing at all. I do feel suffocated at times when it happens. Mostly though what I feel is like I am falling into the void, just dropping without any safety net. It is vertiginous.

[Asiablue]

Originally Posted by archipelago

I also feel it in my chest area. Sometimes it feeling crushing and not really a void like thing at all. I do feel suffocated at times when it happens. Mostly though what I feel is like I am falling into the void, just dropping without any safety net. It is vertiginous.

Yes! I recognise this it's crushing but also like you're dropping, like when an aeroplane drops quickly during turbulance or an elevator dropping and your stomach kind of drops too?

[wotchermuggle]

Originally Posted by CantExplain

I have a mother-shaped hole in my heart.

Madame T wanted me to close the hole.
I wanted her to fill it.
And neither happened.

My heart broke a little reading this. I feel your pain though. I wish I had something more profound to share.

[ShrinkPatient]

Originally Posted by Asiablue

Out of interest, all of those who say they feel a void inside, can you describe how that feels physically in your body and where? Because i feel that void too but am interested to know how everyone experiences it, is it the same feeling for everyone?

First, let me apologize in advance if I start to ramble or just don't make any sense.
This "feeling" overcomes me most when there is something or someone that I feel fills in the void (I guess). When whoever that is or whatever that is, is out of reach (almost always)....well, it's a devastating hit for me. I have to agree with everyone. For me it's like every frightening feeling hits all at once. I feel every scary sensation at the same time, starting right in the center of my chest and radiating out to my heart. It's like an explosion at the same time you feel crushed and smothered. It's like feeling your heart skip a beat and then race. I'm numb and oversensitive. I feel like I'll never be happy again but I can remember what it tastes like and every thought or memory is an "arrow to the heart" kind of sensation and everything starts over, AGAIN.
I knew I'd ramble. Well anyway...that's mine.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ShrinkPatient]

Originally Posted by CantExplain

I have a mother-shaped hole in my heart.

Madame T wanted me to close the hole.
I wanted her to fill it.
And neither happened.

Wow!!! Well, I'm just waiting for My dose of rejection from my T. I'm sure it will be any day now. I already anticipate some of the loss and pain.
I have no wise words. After reading these posts today, it seems like the only way through this emptiness is to accept the fact that you just don't get a mom. Unbelievably, I've never really considered that. There's always been a secret part of my heart that has never given up the idea that someday, someone will actually want Me.....or something like that.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jacq10]

Originally Posted by wotchermuggle

My heart broke a little reading this. I feel your pain though. I wish I had something more profound to share.

Me too!

[TMWBE]

my mother
has a
mother shaped hole
in her heart,

so do i.

[Lauliza]

Originally Posted by Asiablue

Out of interest, all of those who say they feel a void inside, can you describe how that feels physically in your body and where? Because i feel that void too but am interested to know how everyone experiences it, is it the same feeling for everyone?

For me it usually hits me kind of in my solar plexus and radiates up into my heart, it feels like a dull all encompassing aching pain that literally takes my breath away for a few seconds.

Physically it is like a churning pit in my stomach. Not pain necessarily but more of that dullness that you describe. It radiates from my stomach into my chest. I was so used to it at one point that I thought that was the only way there was to feel.

[Asiablue]

Originally Posted by ShrinkPatient

First, let me apologize in advance if I start to ramble or just don't make any sense.
This "feeling" overcomes me most when there is something or someone that I feel fills in the void (I guess). When whoever that is or whatever that is, is out of reach (almost always)....well, it's a devastating hit for me. I have to agree with everyone. For me it's like every frightening feeling hits all at once. I feel every scary sensation at the same time, starting right in the center of my chest and radiating out to my heart. It's like an explosion at the same time you feel crushed and smothered. It's like feeling your heart skip a beat and then race. I'm numb and oversensitive. I feel like I'll never be happy again but I can remember what it tastes like and every thought or memory is an "arrow to the heart" kind of sensation and everything starts over, AGAIN.
I knew I'd ramble. Well anyway...that's mine.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

great description. Especially the heart skipping a beat, then racing.

Everyone has come up with great descriptions. I wonder if i should make it a separate post, i don't want to hijack Can't Explains post.

[Rosondo]

I typed this thread title and came across this blog.

A Mum Shaped Hole