When other people tell you about their childhoods and your own stuff gets in the way

Ugh. Assuming that's the case, then why would she even tell it to me to begin with? Even though I'm technically an adult now, the relationship is still teacher/student, not one of two friends intimately discussing their past experiences and comforting each other. I don't think she knows anything about my past experiences, although with the amount of anxiety she's been witness to and my various extreme neuroses, she's probably guessed that my life up to this point hasn't all been fun and games...

There was something else she said during this conversation that's also been bugging me. She said it after she told me about her mother putting her in the corner - she said that ever since she was a little kid, like since she was eight, she always felt like she was a grownup, which was ridiculous, because she was a kid. (Her words.)

And I wasn't really thinking and I said I felt that way when I was a kid too because my parents sort of always treated my brother like the kid and me like the adult and didn't have as much time/patience for me and expected me to be a grownup, and I told her about my dad leaving me home alone for days or weeks when I was thirteen or fourteen and how I would organize things really neurotically and he would get home and wreck all the stuff I'd cleaned up and how I started to prefer it when he was gone because then I could have my own space the way I wanted it and I just sort of got used to that. And she said, "Aw, that's really sad."

And then I was like, "Oh, crap." (In my head.) Because we don't usually talk like this, although we do talk a lot about our respective neuroses and excessive need for privacy and insomnia...but nothing as intimate as that whole conversation. It felt good to tell her stuff, but also wrong (past baggage), and what she told me just made me feel...unclean. That's really the best word to describe this feeling.

I do understand. And I think your reactions are normal. I don't know exactly what you can do about it except accept it, though. It is uncomfortable, and it is difficult, but that's part of relationships. She isn't a therapist so she can't and won't treat you in a way that is optimally therapeutic. That's why we go to therapy, so that someone who is trained can help us in a way that normal people don't know.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "accept" it. I mean, I've accepted that it happens and I feel really uncomfortable with it and that I will talk with T about it when I see her on Tuesday, assuming it's still bothering me by then, which it probably will be. I really just want to understand why this happened...by accepting it, do you mean "not thinking about why it happened" or "putting it out of my mind" or something like that?

It means not worrying about "why" and taking it as is. Or you can bring it up and ask your mentor. But no one else, other than her, will be able to tell you why. We can speculate, and give suggestions, but we can't say for sure why. It also means to accept that you responded the way you did, that it's okay, and that there isn't anything that can change that it happened. And accept who your mentor is in her entirety, including the past she's been through.

I don't want to think of her being hurt like me, not even a little bit, not ever, not even in some small way that impacted her later on in life. It's just too painful for me to think of her in that vulnerable position. Which is why I feel so icky and dirty and guilty imagining it.

It isn't her fault, it isn't something she could control, and it isn't something that dirties her or makes her less valuable. It's a fact that horrible people treated her badly when she was younger. Is it hard because thinking of her like this makes you feel compassion for her and makes you realize you might need to see yourself compassionately as well? I know that my healing began when someone I see in a mother-type role told me about the abuse she had gone through. My thought was something along the lines of "who would ever treat you like that? You don't deserve it!" And then I realized...maybe I didn't deserve it, either. It can be an uncomfortable thing to face.

I wasn't thinking it dirtied her or made her less valuable; I feel dirty, not that she is. Because I don't know if that's reality or not and I'm turning her into a victim in my mind, maybe because part of me wants her to be, so we can be "the same". Which is like what an abuser does, who hurts someone because they want that person to be hurt so they can see them in a certain way...maybe this makes no sense, but it feels like I'm making this into something it isn't and THAT is what feels so dirty and icky and wrong. Because I can't know "the truth". I can just know my own experience of it.

Also, NOT this. It is NOT a fact. It is my (our?) opinion. And speculation. Thou shalt not speculate about other people's lives as if thou art a therapist when thou hast no degree or clinical training...perhaps this is where the guilt is coming from?

I am sorry if I upset you. I did not intend to. I was trying to help you move past this and accept your mentor-figure as herself. I will bow out of this conversation now.

I'm not upset at YOU, HazelGirl. And I do appreciate your help. I guess this situation is just bringing up other things for me. I can't know what her life has been like unless she explicitly tells me, which she hasn't, and I feel really wrong about thinking about it, like maybe I WANT her to have been hurt just so she could be "like me." But I don't. Because thinking about her being sad or scared or vulnerable makes me want to protect her. Obviously because I wish people would have protected me...not because I think being abused damages someone or makes them less valuable, but because it's really sad for someone to go through that, even if they're just going through it in my head.

I also think maybe this is just past experience making me see this differently. I had a teacher a few years ago who shared a ridiculous amount of personal information with me about her own struggles with self-worth, anxiety, depression, and her father's unreasonable expectations and emotional aloofness. I felt like I could trust her based on how vulnerable she'd made herself, and slowly I started opening up to her and when she showed me it was safe, I started to trust her and even rely on her.

My needs were eventually too overwhelming for her and she realized she was in over her head. She left me when I needed her most, telling me she had her own kids and her job to focus on and I was taking up too much time/energy. I was suicidal at that point, and even more suicidal after she pretty much abandoned me just like my mother did. It was devastating, and sharing information about our childhoods is how it started.

My stuff again...

It sounds like you talking this out on here is making things more clear for you. I think everything you have brought up is probably contributing to how you are feeling.

But I do want to say something really quickly about wanting her to be "like you". It's completely normally and okay to want that. It's how human beings relate to each other, and it's part of the building blocks for emotional closeness. Abusers don't do this, they project. That means they ignore their own bad and instead blame others for their bad. Rather than relate to others equally as human beings with positive aspects and negative aspects, they judge others and hurt them. I hope that makes sense.

I think it's more that some stuff my former teacher told me about her childhood, I interpreted as abusive (because that's what it sounded like and even the way she was telling it made it sound like that, like it was really traumatic and scary for her). But apparently she didn't interpret it the way I was interpreting it and she was confused that I thought her father's refusal to let her feel emotions had impacted her so much. I thought we were on the same page, and I thought she could understand me because we'd gone through similar things. We had, but we'd interpreted them and made sense of them in our heads in very different ways, and she did not appreciate my projections onto her experience.

And when I would tell her things towards the end and be like, "You understand, right?" because our situations in my mind were so similar, she was just like, "No, I don't understand; I have no idea how to help you with this; this is so beyond my purview it's not even funny." Because I assumed that since both of us had experienced emotionally distant parenting, we could understand each other and she could help me considering how emotionally stable [I thought] she was. Apparently not so.

I am so sorry about that. It sounds terrible. She most definitely was trying to distance herself from her pain (because normal people would try to relate to you and try to understand you as much as possible). Your pain probably was similar, but because she refused to see her own pain, she couldn't see yours either. I can see why that would be incredibly painful and anxiety-provoking. Now that you are sort of understanding where these emotions are coming from, can you ask your current mentor about her experiences and see what her response is.

My T always says that safe people are those who are in touch with their own pain and willing to admit to it. It sounds like your former teacher couldn't do this and it ended up hurting you considerably.

I thought she WAS a safe person in touch with her own pain, considering all the stuff she told me about her anxiety and depression and suicidal ideation for many years and eventually how she realized she needed to get better for herself and for her children who needed their mother. I thought she was a good role model for me because she was "better" now. I think she was better - I think I just reminded her too much of a place she didn't want to return to. It was just so disappointing for me because I felt tricked, because she'd told me for literally two years that I could trust her, and when I finally started trusting her enough to show her my true pain, she left. I didn't see it coming and it confirmed my worst fears about people leaving when they see the real me. Or abandoning me like my mother did. Ugh.

Do you think I could ask my current mentor about her experiences without that seeming invasive/inappropriate/boundary-crossing? Even though we do talk a lot about personal stuff, she usually brings that stuff up, not me, because I am trying really really hard to respect her boundaries and not impose myself on her more than she's willing to let me. And our conversations only exist because I go to her to help me with essays, so there's also that...I'm not trying to attack your suggestion, because I do appreciate all your help with this, HazelGirl, but I really don't want to pull her closer than she'd like and then for it to all blow up in my face.

I totally understand what you are saying. It sounds like your former teacher put band aids over her pain and managed to move past it that way. Unfortunately, you happened to remind her of what was hiding and all those past pains began to threaten her when previously they had been covered up by denial.

I don't know your current mentor, but she sounds trustworthy enough to at least ask. I would hope she would be responsible enough to only bring it up if she was willing to discuss it. And I can't guarantee that something like what happened before won't happen again. But I want you to know that it wasn't your fault and that if the same thing happens, it wouldn't be your fault now. Other people have their own junk and when they don't deal with it, it can come out and hurt others. That's what happened with your teacher and what I hope doesn't happen with your mentor. It has nothing to do with you, though. It's not our fault if other people don't adequately deal with their pasts.

If I were you, I would bring it up. Mostly because I wouldn't be able to handle not knowing. But it is up to you what you will do. I think either way, it would be good to talk to your T about this.

Thanks, HazelGirl. I think I do want to bring it up, but I will talk to my T about it and see what she thinks, since one of the things we are working on is being very, very careful not to cross other people's boundaries, and I don't know if this is a boundary for my current mentor or not. I sort of feel now like I want to tell her all about MY childhood pain, which is the part that feels wrong, because it's a burden on someone who isn't a friend but who is technically just an instructor at my school, even if I look to her as a mentor. It burdened my old teacher a lot, and while that definitely wasn't my fault, it doesn't change the fact that it destroyed this relationship that I was convinced was going to help me heal.

I do understand that. I was thinking about this and I had something similar to this happen (although there were a few differences).

I knew someone much older than me (we'll call her C), and when I was in my first and second years of college, she was a mentor of mine. I told her a lot and she told me some things. But then everything started changing. She talked to my younger brother who told her that things I said were lies (he is a terrible liar and is very narcissistic and was probably spinning tales to make her think he was awesome, while talking about how terrible I am because I was his whipping post for his hatred). She stopped talking to me and started to judge me without ever telling me what happened. I ended up piecing things together to understand, but it hurt me considerably. She turned her back on me and hurt me simply because someone else told her I lied.

I say this for a few reasons:
1. I understand the pain a situation like that can cause
2. To illustrate how empathy should work. Although my situation wasn't completely like yours, I was able to find emotions that are in common with yours and relate to you there. If someone can't do that, it's their problem not yours.

I'm sorry you went through that too, HazelGirl. And I think empathy takes maturity from both parties, and self-awareness, and my teacher didn't have that, so she was literally unable to empathize with me. I don't blame her for it; she didn't know any better. But that doesn't make it any less traumatic.

It doesn't make it any less traumatic, no. And it still hurts. It does take maturity, both to give and receive it. And unfortunately, she couldn't. I don't blame her, either. But I definitely don't blame you. And your fear is understandable, but that's not how everyone is going to respond. It has nothing to do with you crossing boundaries or forcing yourself onto others. It has to do with their inability to get in touch with themselves. You can't know someone's boundaries (except the obvious ones) until you hit them. And proper respect for their boundaires means backing up, apologizing, and not trying to cross them again. No one is a mind-reader who knows instinctively where other people's boundaries are.

The issue with this teacher is that even SHE didn't know where her boundaries were until well after I'd crossed them. So with my current mentor figure, she might think it's okay for me to tell her stuff but realize too late that she's in way over her head.

Yeah, and that makes relationships with these people confusing and difficult. There is no way to predict whether that will happen with someone, though. A healthy response is "Hey, I really don't want to talk about that right now. Can we talk about something else?" rather than "No! I can't relate to this! Get it away! AHHH!!!!" (I'm dramatizing obviously to hopefully get a small smile...sorry if it offends). But again, that's their reaponsibility, not ours. And it makes relationships a little dangerous and scary. We aren't ever 100% sure. But it's either jump in and hope that things will work out (while accepting it if there is pain involved), or run away forever.

I ran away for too long. It was miserable and lonely. I don't recommend it. But the alternative is potentially feeling pain from betrayal or abandonment. I am learning that the pain is more bearable than the crushing loneliness and insignificance that running away created.

Thanks HazelGirl. I appreciate it.