Blast from the past

It can be. It doesn't have to be. Someone who continues to listen, does not get upset, does not try to control, even when I am panicked -- someone who does not panic themselves...

I see two ways that approach calm -- one where the panic is suppressed, so that you no longer feel it (temporarily), and the other where mindfulness takes over, and you stay in touch with your emotions and thoughts. I don't see most people making the distinction. They seem to think that suppressing fear is as good as actual mindfulness. If not better, because when mindful, I tend to be nonconforming. That upsets many. Unless I can keep it to myself.

(Which I am not doing while posting this. I don't feel safe doing so. Who cares? )

That's what I learned with school, when I was 41 and in the middle of an accounting final and had a problem I couldn't quite remember how to solve a piece of and wished I had studied just a little harder, maybe 10 minutes? The wishful feeling and disappointment were very strong and the proverbial light bulb went on. Not doing it for the professor, my mother, bosses, my friends, neighbors, husband, the guy down the street. . . I wanted to solve this problem, for me, and I did not study.

Of course, it was not that simple. It was the first of 2 semesters of accounting. I got a "B", only 9 points from an "A" (out of something like 280 points total) and cringed when I realized I had decided I hadn't felt like going to class a couple times and just handing in the homework was worth 5 points. . . The next semester, I vividly remember a struggle I had one evening before class, doing the homework against my druthers of not bothering. But I did it and that semester ended with an "A".

I started other courses/a degree program at another school about that time and, whereas before I had dropped out before the final exam, now I was just not studying for the final or would be taking the final and, as in the 1960s/70s with my first degree, I'd get to the exam and suddenly not be in the mood and just rush through it to get out of there or leave early, etc.

It took 2-3 years to work through that and painfully think about how I like to study versus how one is "supposed" to study. I was getting straight A's but feeling guilty and like I was "cheating" because I wasn't trying my hardest/doing it the way one is "supposed" to do it. I now realize it is wholly my show and about what I want to learn and how I want to learn it; how I learn it best for me.

Now I'm taking a diploma course at Oxford and those people are crazy I got a "59" on my first paper and you know how I felt about that, LOL. However, they grade 30-70, not 50-100! A "59 is a solid "B" (but then, I had been getting straight A's over here :-) It took another couple papers before I realized I was not going to be able to change the "civilized" world to think like I do and I wasn't going to be able to change myself to think like them :-) so I was going to have to carve out what I wanted from this course, for me, and love my "2:2, upper half of the lower second" little self and diploma I'll get in June as I am.

Are you AT Oxford, Perna, or are you here and taking the course "by remote control" -- i.e., the Internet?

I wonder if you've had inept therapists for your needs, I have. I saw one for a couple years in my late teenage years who, for the entire time, mistook my fear and anxiety as resistance. But, my current therapist is absolutely excellent at making the exact distinction you have and it's been very healing working with her. It is all about mindfulness, that's why I'd mentioned someone with a mind/body, holistic approach as mindfulness requires attentiveness to our bodies and senses.

I have trouble with some people's ideas about what mindfulness is. "Attentiveness to our bodies and senses" seems to imply the need to be aware of our breathing, muscle tone, etc., and all that seems to me to be nearly irrelevant. I see the need to be aware of my thoughts and emotions, and why they are there, why they are happening. Since one of my major emotions is that of fear, being aware of it, not trying to suppress it, is very hard. Some people say mindfulness is to be aware of the outside, while for me it is to be aware of the inside. Some people, it seems to me, try to use "awareness of our surroundings" or "the here and now" to try to avoid thinking about inner distress. In other words, I don't think lots of people think clearly about mindfulness, among other things! Which version of mindfulness is the "right" one? If someone says they use mindfulness, what do they mean?

(Of course, I suppose I need to be mindful of how frightening I find the emphasis on the body... )

Remote control, but I have a Student ID with my picture on it and my tutor group is meeting at a pub in Woodstock ("the", not ours :-) this Saturday if you could loan me £3000 to attend? I could fly over and walk into the Bodleian Library and ask for stuff. Mostly I'm just taking the program for the e-mail address Ah, if I were only rich, single, and 40 years younger. My brother wanted to fly over with my niece and meet me for the graduation ceremony but I ain't got the money to go myself :-(

How soon could you pay me back?

I mean emotional senses too, that's certainly part of mindfulness, and I do believe it's about internal awareness, certainly not about avoiding distress, but about holding our experience. The thing is, talking theory has not and probably will not get you anywhere, right? You talked a lot of theory years ago, and are trying to explain over and over how no one sees the world exactly the way you do or can handle you or help you.

So... how attached are you to that? Just a rhetorical question.

I "talk theory" because it has been the only way I have been able, to any extent, to understand what happened to me. I have not gotten help from real people, only from books and some here. Of course, you here are not real people, are you?

I'm glad it is rhetorical, so I don't have to argue about it.

((pachyderm)),

I knew you struggled but I didn't realize how "complex" your challenge is. However, what I do remember is what you had shared about how your mother constantly challenged you with "listening" to you and instead often made you feel that your needs or challenges were something you had to hold in and that she was not interested in hearing or attending to your needs. I am sorry that you were treated that way because children really need to have someone who "nurtures", instead of punishing normal cries
for nurturing that "all" children express.

When this kind of scenario takes place, it is harder for a person to adjust to different people who actually express variations of these challenges. In the way you struggle, you are not going to find any therapist helpful that "instructs" you. Anything that resembles any kind of signal that your mother gave you growing up to not bother her with your need to express yourself and have someone respond with recognition and validation, but instead sending instructions to be quiet and not challenge her, is going to trigger you.

In reality, there a many people who experience "some" of this challenge. And if you just sit back and study PC in an overall observant way, you will slowly see these variations, and how different people have developed different ways of trying to overcome it. There are all kinds of conversations taking place about how different people are trying get answers to all kinds of "how to's". The busiest forums are the relationship forum, the depression forum and this forum.

When I joined PC, I had a great deal of fractured thinking, dealing with constant triggers, and racing thoughts. IRL for me was "horrible" pachyderm, just horrible and I didn't have anyone "listening to me". I can relate to how you describe what happens when you get triggered enough, even here at PC and retreat until somehow you can get your mind to calm down and try again.

While I did not have the same exact scenario as you did growing up, I did have some very big challenges that profoundly affected me in ways I didn't really realize. There were so many times where I really needed help, needed to be heard and I went unheard. I grew up constantly being threatened and confused by a disordered person. And I had to adapt to situations that "constantly threatened me". The only thing that saved me is that I did have a mother who loved me and would listen to me with "some things". However, she was always so busy with dealing with the "disordered" child, my older brother, that often she just was not as accessible the way I needed her to be. I had to deal with things that "no child" should have to deal with.

Once I developed PTSD, and again, I did not get the help I needed, even though I did all the right things in my effort to reach out for help, I developed complex-PTSD. I can relate to how you describe how sometimes so much comes into your mind that you really struggle in a scenario where you are trying to tell a therapist what you need. I am very lucky that I have a therapist that is very patient, very calm and listens. What typically happens with me is that I am very misunderstood and I have been misdiagnosed and I did have bad experiences with therapists. I honestly cannot blame you for having an opinion that going that route and reaching out to a therapist is useless to you. You are one of many that struggles in therapy, hence the reason this forum is so busy.

I get triggered a lot here at PC, and that especially happened when I first joined PC too. As I began to learn more about PTSD and pushed myself to interact "no matter what" here at PC, I slowly began to "study myself" every day, and every day I would read everything I said the day before. The truth is, I do not always react well, and I can react badly, but I don't always recognize it when it is happening, especially in the beginning.

I began to learn that what happens with me is that the PTSD going on in my brain, presents moments where if I am interacting and get triggered, something in my subconscious mind pushes forward and reacts, so it is very much like my conscious mind loses control. The only way I could even begin to work on this in a "conscious" way was always "after" this took place. I began to notice this take place in other people who struggle with PTSD too. However, this is something that people who do not have PTSD just do not understand.

I will never forget when you talked about a session you had with a therapist where what you wanted that therapist to understand that when you talk, a deep part of you feels like you are going to be hit over the head. Well pachyderm, I can so relate to that and I do have a lot of these kinds of struggles myself. And what challenges me even more is that I live with my husband who actually does this to me "constantly" and has for going on 34 years now. In fact, it is so bad that if I go someplace with him and I am driving, he needs to call out every turn, light, stop sign to micro manage my driving, he is "really bad". He has compulsive ADHD, and I only learned about that this year from my therapist who has met with both of us and has recognized this about him.

Well, I am sure that you have noticed that I can still get triggered and bring "life experience baggage to interactions". I also tend to write long posts too, and one other poster that I noticed does that is eskielover, and once you take time to read her posts, she actually does express "why". If you pay attention, what eskie is saying is "she spent years living with a disordered person and it did profoundly affect her psychologically".

What does help pachyderm is not to just consider "what is wrong with you", but to become familiar to recognizing the different ways others are challenged that challenge you. For example, there have been times where I have reacted to you that probably triggered you, however, what you have probably not recognized is that often what I am doing is "defending myself" in some way. And a lot of that is because in so many ways, I have had to do that "all my life". Unfortunately for me, my survival depended on trying to understand the "disordered" people around me and thrive in spite of it. I just didn't realize the depth of it the way I am seeing it now with help and learning. What has made this more challenging for me is that as I am learning about this, I also have PTSD where my brain gets triggered into responding as though I am being "hit in the head" as you are also describing. Yes, I can relate to how that affects you and there are times where you withdraw until you calm down in whatever way you have learned to do that, and then try to engage again.

The important thing to understand is that part of this is actually something most human beings do to a certain extent. However, when someone has PTSD or has been abused or disabled as you have described with your mother, the individual never really developed a way to "rebound" and not become "crippled with anxiety and disabled" the way you and I do. Yes, it is hard to find a therapist that understands it this way and can help us find
our way forward and really developing abilities to better manage these "episodes" where we withdraw and struggle the way we do.

"I don't succeed ever, though others do. So it seems. That means I am a failure, "wrong", and the others are "right". So I should be like them. Forget what I think, what I am, and try to be like them. Try to be them.

That is a lesson I think I learned early in life. The person I actually am is not acceptable. Not acceptable to my mother, and to numerous others throughout my life (including therapists). And we know acceptance is important to humans." quote pachyderm

((pachyderm))),

Do you know that what you have said here is how "most" people feel? This is "why" most people are malleable and very marketable. This is why people will follow things that are somehow "structured" in a way that promises that if you follow you will be much more accepted and in that will feel happier as a person or that your needs will be met or if you own this, you are in a good place and you are doing all right and should feel empowered.

We often look up to people that appear to have the traits we wish we had, or that we feel are right, we admire and want to believe whomever it may be "cares" about us. We are often drawn to people that seem to have that capacity to stand up and be heard, be able to stand their ground, even when they are opposed or challenged in some way. I remember seeing you say, "I need this person to be", and that need will encourage you to decide that you are just going to follow. Well, human beings always "need" that, it is just how we are designed.

This thread is the most I have seen you talk pachyderm. Often, you say so little, will start a thread, and barely give your opinion. I think that this is good, an important step for you to take.

I don't always agree with you on things, but I always "know" you are very
smart. And you do get me thinking and examining my POV. You are always entitled to your opinion, you are entitled to question and doubt,
you are entitled to be wrong and even change your mind too. I am very sorry that your mother would not listen to you too, that was not your fault
but was her fault, she was definitely not a nurturer or understood what it means to actually "be" a mother. It is sad to me how much that happens
and how I have come across so many that struggle because of it in so many different ways, and they are all nice people too.

(((Hugs)))
OE

Pachyderm, what your mother should have told you and never did, what many mothers fail to tell their children is, "it's ok if you are not like "them". In reality, no one is really "like them" no matter who the "them" is. However, what one needs to learn and have support with, it how you can be different than "them" but be capable of interacting with "them" to get along on a certain level.

One of the most promising things I have been noticing is the increase in people who have become "Independents". I hope that number increases too because if that happens people will become less predictable and we will have a better chance of changing the chaos in our two party political system and all the different ways that tends to divide our country. One of the things I have noticed especially since I have interacted here at PC is the significance of a label. I have my opinions, but one thing I know for sure as far as the politicians I have been observing is I may agree with "some" things, but I am definitely "not like them". I am just using that as an example, I have been doing that a lot lately in my posts when I say All____'s are.

You are never going to be "like them or someone else for that matter pachyderm", and neither am I. You can go and sit down in a crowded mall and observe people and as you do that you will see that not one person you see is "like you", even if you had an identical twin, you may have a lot in common, but you will both be unique and different too. I have to say that I have been around so many children I have lost count and in all these years I have found that every one of them has been unique. When I taught I found that every child was "unique all unto themselves". I raised a child myself, and I never asked her to be "like" anyone else and she did not have to be like me either, or like what I like or have the same hobbies or goals either. I have always said to my daughter that I didn't care if she had her own little place and chose to spend her days knee deep in pig crap, what will please me the most is if while she is doing that she is smiling and happy.

LOL, pachyderm, how many times have you seen "me" get hit over the head in threads? Ugh, there goes OE, what is OE going to say ugh, lol.
How many other members are like "OE"? LOL? OE takes a licken and keeps on tickin, and sometimes I am the last one standing LOL.
I am laughing, but I still get triggered and I have some really bad days too.
The closest I am going to get to being "one of them" is that I struggle with
PTSD, so I am one of them that has that challenge and it is a really tough
challenge.

OE

It was not a case of "failing" to comfort us, it was a case of active verbal and physical abusiveness when we did something she did not like, if we did not conform, if we were not "obedient". Most likely she felt any nonconformity on our parts would reflect on her, and she would get punished for it. So she had to crush that behavior.

Ok, you say "us", how many siblings did you have and where did you fall into that order, example oldest, youngest, middle child?

How did she comfort, and what did she do that was too abusive in keeping order?

I am just trying to get a picture of your actual environment and the dynamics of
how your mother addressed you and your siblings.

Three boys; I was the middle one. Can you tell (for sure), from that, anything at all?

Comfort? What is that!

One example of what she might say:

"I despise you when you whine!" Or maybe she said "I despise your whining!" I am not sure. Said in a biting, hating way. I can still remember the hatred in her voice.

The verbal attacks were backed up by physical ones, at times. I have in recent years come to the conclusion that borderline personality disorder might be a reasonable diagnosis, though I don't like the "personality disorder" part of that. She could turn from one mood to another in a flash. Characteristic of someone who feels she is about to be overwhelmed psychically, and has to react instantaneously.

I think I know because I can see similar impulses in myself. I know what it feels like from the inside. She, however, seldom had any doubts, as far as I can remember, about her complete "rightness". There was never any idea of getting help for things like that -- I think her family "knew" no such thing was possible. For them, there was only "right" and "wrong".

And shame.

To this day, my brothers do not want to talk about the past -- no use, they say, thinking about things like that.

I don't know how old you are pachyderm and what generation your mother belonged to either. That makes a difference too.

I was the youngest of three, so I was the one who had the least "power", everyone wanted to "control" me and practiced on me. My father was very strict about how we talked, how we used language and while that is not bad, unfortunately for myself at least, he never let me finish a sentence, so not only did I struggle to be heard, but I struggled just to get a damn sentence out without having it picked apart. Also, being the youngest means that it is just assumed that you will be like the other two children, for example, why give them something nice when they don't take care of it and I find it all ruined which means I just threw money away.

Because of how every attempt I made to talk was just constantly picked apart, I got so I developed a kind of speech impediment where I struggled to have the words in my mind be able to come out right from my mouth. It took me "years" to overcome that, and even more "years" to be able to sit and talk with anyone who was authoritative or whom I felt was well educated. Can you imagine my surprise when I saw my records from the psychologists/psychiatrists that said I was intelligent and "well spoken"? I can still struggle if I am reading something that has big words in it because something in the recesses of my mind tend to tell me that because that word is there I will not be able to digest the information correctly. My brain can act like a computer that suddenly had a virus and begins to run slowly. It is just a reaction I have had that I was not particularly really consciously aware of either.

Oh, I definitely believe you when you talk about how you struggle and that you don't feel a psychologist will understand it. That is why I feel this thread is good for you, you need to bust through this challenge so you can finally work on that jam you have where you creep along so "carefully" or how a person who is like me who seems strong minded can trigger you, even though, in reality, I am not like your mother and I do have my own challenges that others fail to understand about me.

You have been trying to figure out the mechanics of it, your mechanics, how to express the challenges you have going on under your hood, that are not your fault, but have consistently been misunderstood, hey, me too. And I am sorry, I am really sorry because I actually do know how hard this challenge is. I am also sorry that your experience with a professional, that is there to help you has triggered you too. It only makes the disability worse too, because it is just another authority "like you mother" who instead of listening just gives you directions that really don't help or address "the challenge that is all about you". That is what creates all the "junk" that comes into your brain where you retreat, need to take a break until you can try again. You want it, you genuinely try, but you have not been able to describe it in a way where someone gets it and can finally "help you work past it". I have that junk overload that happens too, I have different reasons for it, different triggers, but I have definitely been misunderstood and misdiagnosed and not given what I needed and deserved so I could find ways to clear my mind and function better.

I had a conversation about this yesterday with my T. I actually said the right words, did the right thing by trying to reach out for help too, however, what happened to me, that actually does happen a lot, is that my symptoms looked too much like other symptoms that express other disorders and I was misdiagnosed therefore making me even more misunderstood and mistreated. I was even given a medication that should not be given to someone suffering from PTSD because it only stimulates the brain making the symptoms even worse. And when that happened I was misdiagnosed yet again. And, if I did have the right help, my records would be right and I could have used them in my court case, it could have been so helpful to me, but the way my records came out all wrong makes it impossible for me to do that, in fact it would all be used against me that would abuse in ways that would really hurt me which would be completely unfair to me. I genuinely cannot blame people struggling to "trust" professionals, and unfortunately, misdiagnosing happens way too often.

So getting back to you, I do feel you deserve to be heard and helped and you deserve to find your way past the way you genuinely struggle too.

Ok, this gives me an idea of your environment. You are the only girl in between two boys right?

What was your father like, was he present?

I was surprised to learn and realize, more-so in later years when I thought about it, that my stepmother was going through menopause and did some of her abrupt mood changing because of that. She sort of blamed some of her bad behavior on that, 30 years or so after the fact. It did not help then and only marginally helps now but it is helpful in the "Oh, okay, guess I have to give up on that one" list of ways I felt she was deliberately horrible :-) Being a woman, I can understand and give her some credit in that field.

My T was most helpful, when she dropped the bombshell that my stepmother was anxious and, hence, controlling. She had to have things her way to control the anxiety. She had to be in control of my three brothers and myself and dinner on the table in time and all our beds stripped and sheets in the laundry, beds remade with clean, by 10:00 a.m. every Saturday morning, come hell or high water, etc. or it would reflect on her management skills and/or she'd be "lost" in the disorganization?

Asking for and hearing my stepmother's stories about before I knew her, her life growing up, etc. the anxiety-provoking experiences are there, I can clearly see them. Does your mother have brothers? Had she a clue about raising men/boys before she got you lot My stepmother was the eldest and had 3 younger brothers. She felt like she had to be in control of them, as oldest, and that it was especially difficult because she was a girl. Of course, back in the 20s and 30s when she was growing up, it was a "man's" world. All three of her brothers were sent to college, she wanted to go but was not -- excuse being the Depression, but, her brothers didn't have that problem? She was sent to secretarial school (I mean, she was only going to get married and waste any other education, you know :-)

When I decided to quit my job and start a business on my own, my stepmother was aghast and instantly said, "Don't expect to be getting any money from us!" (Thanks for the support, Mom :-) and re-iterated how daft she thought quitting a perfectly good job and going out on one's own was. Fortunately I remembered her Depression stories and knew from my study of history about the mindset of many of those who lived through that time (my father, on the other hand, as a young, single naval officer with a good guaranteed salary was courted by all the better country clubs desperate for members :-)

A lot of my anger and "fight" has dissipated by trying to put my stepmother in her own life with her own difficult problems. Suddenly getting not only a new husband but 4 children whose mother had died and their emotional needs, etc., "Oh, okay, guess I have to give up on that one, too".

Does the name Methuselah mean anything to you?

He liked us. He was absent after my age of eight.

My therapist doesn't like the diagnoses of borderline personality disorder at all. He has treated people with that diagnoses and unfortunately that diagnoses tends to get a bad reputation, and most of the people who struggle with it were abused and abandoned and it is not unusual for these individuals to have some PTSD symptoms too. I can't blame you for not caring for the term "disorder" either.

There is nothing wrong with you intellectually as I mentioned, you can digest and comprehend a wide variety of topics. However, I can see how you can be challenged when you are interacting with another person who feels they are "right" and stand firm. I actually have the same challenge pachyderm, however, my life experiences have been such that I had to learn how to stand my ground, I would not have survived had I not learned that. I think there are a few things that came together for me where I developed that bravery and will to fight back, however, I pretty much had to learn to do it "alone, being alone in bad situations". I would not allow myself to stay in a toxic environment, I was surprised to find how many people would however.

Yeah, at the beginning, or in the middle somewhere, I found it very confusing to reconcile my memories of how seemingly evil my mother was, shifting personalities so rapidly, from raging hatefulness to waif-like seeming dependency -- I thought she did that on purpose to trick me -- reconcile those memories with beginning to understand that it was she who was desperately insecure, not me who was the monster she said I was. How she was not really a monster, but only was, to a little person who could not understand what was happening.

She had brothers; I think she was near being the oldest child -- I should look that up. But anyway, she had no clue how to raise children, in any case. She hated/feared sex, and sometimes I have speculated that she feared that we children were evidence that she had had it, and would be sent to hell for that.

I learned that if I tried to stand my ground (with my mother) I would be beaten to death. Well, I felt as though that would happen. It does happen in reality sometimes. Read about it in the news frequently.

And the worst part is that no one will intervene. They all seem too afraid. The sense of not being able to fight, not being able to flee (my mother would punish any such attempt), leads to the overwhelming need to dissociate -- to just "go away" mentally -- not be there. It was the only way I could find to survive. Hence the mental disintegration that still persists in me today at times. And which many people, including mental health people, think is just some way you have of tricking them...

My mother could not handle any kind of opposition -- or even difference. It was a challenge to her that had to be beaten back, by any methods at all. Characteristic of people who feel their very sanity is threatened. I see some political leaders with similar tendencies -- I can think of a couple offhand -- foreign ones, that is...

That is why I think the word "borderline" is justified -- they feel on the edge of disintegration, all the time.

"A lot of my anger and "fight" has dissipated by trying to put my stepmother in her own life with her own difficult problems. Suddenly getting not only a new husband but 4 children whose mother had died and their emotional needs, etc., "Oh, okay, guess I have to give up on that one, too". " quote Perna

You have made some good points Perna. We grow up with these adults who have their own challenges, we have no real way of understanding what their challenges mean to them really, not when we are children. They do things that affect us however in ways we don't necessarily realize either. To top it off, the older generations just really did not know how the things they chose to do to "keep order" may be things that can profoundly affect a child, especially if that child is on the "sensitive" side and may need some TLC. And if that "sensitive child" "whines because they genuinely struggle" and the reaction is what pachyderm is describing, it really can create some life long challenges for that child.
That even happens now, although we have been gaining on our ability to recognize certain needs that some children have where parents can gain better ways to address these children better. While the information is coming out, there hasn't really been enough effort to make it more available, almost in the way that demands a parent learn about it and address it better. There is so much talk about improving education, but we really do need to improve the education of parents so that children coming into the educational system, have the right kind of support in their home environment too.

I hear you Perna about finally getting to the age where one can look back and understand the challenges they faced in their childhoods better. Often the realization comes into play when a person has their own children and sees that it is quite the challenge too.

Pachyderm, so it sounds like after you turned 8 your mother was a single parent?

Did your father pass away (die ) or did he leave the marriage?