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

I was talking to my current almost-attachment figure yesterday (I need to figure out a better way to describe this - she's not a mother figure, she's not even quite an attachment figure; she teaches at my school but she isn't a professor and I feel pretty attached to her in a non-maternal but also not completely normal way) and we were talking about when we were little kids. I don't know how we got onto that topic, but when I go see her we talk about a lot of different stuff so I guess it wasn't so strange.

Anyway, I was mentioning to her how much I hated Hebrew school when I was a kid and she said to me that she hated church when she was a kid, and whenever she didn't want to go her mom would make her go sit in the corner until her mom and her siblings got back from church. She was laughing a little about this, so it obviously wasn't this upsetting thing to her, but it was upsetting to me, and I feel like that's just my own stuff getting in the way.

Obviously I don't think making your kid sit in a corner for a few hours is abusive in the same way that my parents abused me, or even necessarily wrong...I guess I was just thinking of myself when I was a kid and how sensitive I was and how ANY punishment, even ones that might be pretty benign for most people, would be super, super upsetting to me because I would feel anxious and out of control. Obviously these are my issues and not hers; she was a pretty normal kid and wouldn't have been traumatized by that or anything. I guess just my stuff getting in the way, as per usual.

Also, feeling sorry for her and feeling uncomfortable about that because you're not supposed to "feel sorry" for people that wouldn't want you to feel that way about them, or when it doesn't make sense to feel that way about them. Or maybe you're just not supposed to feel sorry for people who you look to as mentors, period. I mean, this is something that happened thirty some years ago; it's not like it happened yesterday or something.

Perhaps something to discuss with T...

Maybe it's also bad to judge people you've never met for stuff that happened literally decades ago...that could be part of it too. So more guilt.

I think perhaps you were feeling empathy for her (vs. feeling sorry for her; something good Ts feel all the time for clients), and that is a very positive thing. As you mention, you were probably projecting some of your own feelings re: your own experiences onto her, since you can relate to what her situation was like (and you can imagine how you might feel were you in her place), but it seems like that would be very normal. And there is no statute of limitations on feeling empathy regarding something someone experienced years ago! I think you can learn a lot from these feelings, so hopefully your T can help!

I don't see any reason you should feel guilty...none of us want to think about someone we care for getting hurt. Perhaps the guilt you are feeling can be discussed with your T as well?

"Hurt" is maybe too strong a word, though. Because she wasn't telling it to me as something that had "hurt" her, but as something her mom used to do that she finds sort of amusing looking back on it. So I don't think she would want me to think of it like that...or feel that way about her...I just don't know. There's something about it that is making me feel really...icky. Maybe I feel like I'm ascribing meaning to it that isn't actually there; it's only there in my head and I'm projecting it onto her.

Well it might have amused her, but that doesn't mean you saw it that way...you might have imagined her as a hurt little girl. Or if you are projecting your feelings onto her, it's a sensitive topic that should be explored further. I am sorry you feel icky about it. Not that it helps perhaps, but your reaction makes perfect sense to me. I hope you are able to process it and come to a better place. You are very self-aware, which is an excellent start!

Exactly this. Which is why it feels...wrong. Icky. Off. Just not okay to think about her being vulnerable like that.

Or maybe just because when I was seeing her hurting in my head, really I was just seeing me.

She's told me stuff about her parents before that I don't necessarily agree with but haven't been super judge-y about...like she told me that when she was little, her father didn't let the kids close any doors in the house because according to him, "Children don't get privacy! Children are the property of their parents." And while I wouldn't do that to my own (non-existent) children, it didn't bother me a great deal to think about that, even though I know if I was in a house like that I would have gone crazy because of my own issues. All I thought about that was, "I can see why she is totally obsessed with privacy now," and put it out of my mind.

I guess this is different because with stuff like that, I didn't have a concrete, tangible image to associate with it in my head. And the way I'm imagining this is really just my own stuff being projected. Ugh. Is there any rational basis for being so upset about this?

That sounds abusive to me...

Which sounds abusive to you?

Sorry - the part about children not getting privacy and being property of their parents.

Maybe (although to be fair, that's how she phrased it but it probably wasn't a direct quote). But even so, that's not the part that bothered me. That's the confusing thing.

I think it's natural to feel empathy for others, especially when we're viewing things from our own lens. Which is also natural. We understand others through relating things to our own experiences. It isn't wrong, and there's nothing bad about that. There's a huge difference between having empathy and a deeper understanding of someone than taking pity on them - and you aren't taking pity on her. You just understand her more and feel where she's coming from. That's a good skill for you to have, a lot of people are lacking in it!

I think you are feeling empathy----and, you may be sensitive to the feelings that lie deeper in her, underneath her adult amusement...I am sure these things were painful for her----many of us use humor, trivialization, and other tactics to lessen the pain/hurt we felt in the past.

T's can feel empathy and pick up on underlying emotions that their clients aren't completely aware of. You might be doing this with your mentor figure. If these are the things she's telling you, what things is she keeping hidden? It sounds like she might have been abused and you might be feeling the emotions she isn't quite aware of (and is hiding behind the humor). You might just be a very empathetic and sensitive person who can feel what's underneath people's exterior appearance. It's a very good trait, although it can make you feel uncomfortable.

I don't think she's telling me this stuff because she wants me to think/know she was abused...but then why is she telling me this stuff? I mean, I guess she tells me a lot of stuff, because she has no filter, and maybe that's just how I'm seeing it based on my stuff and ugh it is just so confusing.

She may not be aware she's doing it. We do lots of things subconsciously that we don't realize. You might just be picking up on it.

I felt really...unclean when she told me that. I felt complicit because I hadn't responded in a way that felt right to me; I sort of ignored that disclosure instead of being like, "Wow, that must have been tough for you." I don't think she wanted that response, but it felt wrong to NOT empathize like that.

I have a friend who told me something similar, that when he was a kid his mom used to make him kneel in the corner with his arms up, and when he told me that, I was like, "That must have been hard for you," he was like, "Yeah, it was upsetting," and I didn't dwell on it, even though it was upsetting. I think maybe my reaction was what was lacking in this situation.

That would make sense. Maybe you can remember this and in the future try to respond more empathetically?

Well, that's the tricky thing. I don't think she would have felt comfortable if I had responded that way. I don't think she wanted that. So if I'd responded that way, it would have made me feel better, but I think it would have make her feel worse. Like the context of the situation didn't really lend itself to that type of reaction, and if I had responded that way, she might have felt embarrassed(?) for saying that to me at all, if she saw how I'd interpreted it, which probably wasn't her (conscious) intention.

My T responds to my past in a highly empathetic way. I hate it. But I need it. So maybe she would have been uncomfortable with it, but it might have been good for her.

Maybe. But is it my place to decide what she needs or what's good for her? She's the authority figure in that room, not me, and I didn't want to make her feel like I was responding in a too intimate way or presuming I knew anything about her life when really I don't. If she was a friend, I would have no problem with it, but she's an instructor, which makes the dynamic really different.

Maybe I was uncomfortable with her vulnerability, or lack thereof, actually. Because she was saying what would have been a really vulnerable thing to me, but she was saying it in such a non-vulnerable way. So I was getting some really mixed signals and wondering, "Is this reality or is this my stuff? And if it is my stuff, am I going to screw things up by responding to her like I wish someone would have responded to me?"

These are some good points. It's difficult when people are sending mixed messages to know the proper way to respond. But either way, at this point, it is in the past and the best you can do is accept it as it was and move on.

I guess what I really just wanted was a bit of validation that this was a reasonable thing to get upset about. Because she obviously didn't think so, but I did, so there was this disconnect and I was like, "What is wrong with me? Why am I feeling this way?"

Yes, your response was valid. It's common for abuse survivors to minimize their experiences, and it sounds like she was doing that with hers. You aren't crazy or over-reacting