Blast from the past

Yes, she was a single parent -- divorced. I feel sure she saw that as a shameful thing.

How damaging is that kind of judgementalism!

I guess your mother wasn't old-school enough to do as my grandmother did and not give my grandfather a divorce because of how it would have "looked". So, he had a mistress in another city (she lived in Tacoma, WA and the mistress was in Portland, OR) and would go there for an extended period and go by her last name instead of ours.

I do wonder how the "sins of the fathers" (and mothers) visit themselves upon us sometimes. And we children are usually pretty ignorant of what went on until long after we're grown and it's like "Darn! It wasn't their fault.".

Not too far for an affair.

One of the things that is so hard for me is that I periodically revert, and feel as though the same thing is happening NOW.

You are judging yourself.....define "fit in' We don't always succeed; we cannot compare ourselves to others, or we will never live our own lives. Hugs

That kind of situation can be devastating in earlier generations. Yes, she probably was ashamed, but also resentful yet fearful too. Actually you can see that if you read some of the threads where women end up being single mothers and struggle with their self esteem.

Also, what I am seeing is how old you were when this took place too. You were at a very vulnerable age, an age where children are developing deep subconscious problem solving skills by observing their parents. Typically the older a child is when a divorce takes place the more it can devastate them. Children figure out relationship patterns from their parents, not even really realizing it, it is just how we are designed, we don't even realize how much we pick up on either.

Your mother was likely overwhelmed, angry, felt abandoned, and most likely also went through menopause that only aggravated her ability to handle her situation too. These mood changes you are describing? It doesn't surprise me, and there was no way at your age you could understand all that either.

I had severe challenges with endometriosis, and it made me very challenged emotionally. PMS for me was magnified because it was as through I had multiple uteruses and there fore the estrogen shift in my cycles was very overwhelming. I went undiagnosed for years in spite of my efforts to go to my OBGYN and discuss the challenge and the horrible attacks I experienced every month too. My OBGYN kept dismissing me, telling me I must be having cysts form and break and that there was nothing she could do. I finally had an attack that didn't stop and was excruciatingly painful. Finally I had just sought out a new OBGYN, who went in arthroscopically and saw the endometriosis and layzered it out. I was then given an implant of Lupron to stop my period so I could heal. Well, that Lupron stopped my period but also completely depleted me of estrogen to where I completely broke down into a depression so bad I could not even get out of bed or function at all.
It was horrible and no one explained it to me either, however I was given estrogen replacement medication and Zoloft and it took me a few months to be able to function again. That entire scenario frightened my daughter, who later told me she was so frightened and so alone and had no one to talk to. I was so bad that I didn't see that, and because no one bothered to explain it to me, I could not explain it to her. She was traumatized by that, and I feel horrible about that. And my husband grew up in a family where if someone was sick, they were to be left alone, so he never talked to my daughter
or bothered to ask about my condition either. I was a literal zombie not able to function at all for a while.

I got better only to end up going into early menopause. This was all due to that drug that had that side effect however, this happened during a time when doctors were told about it but it was not made public yet. My doctored knew how to treat me, assured me he would help me, but never explained it to me which would have helped my whole family understand it better and not just think I was losing it. I needed my family, especially my daughter to understand it then, not years later because I happened to read about that occurring due to that medication. Again, that was not my fault, but I was looked at like it was and that I was mentally unstable. My records mention a history of depression, oh yeah, what about saying "why" instead of leaving that to look like I had struggled with mental illness depression, which is not the same thing.

It really is important to understand the "why" when it comes to experiencing these challenges as a child. It is not unusual for a parent to struggle and not get the help they need, and they end up expressing behavior patterns that scare their children.

Pachyderm, if you were the only female child in the scenario you are describing, and your mother was so challenged and experienced mood swings from that, probably not even really realizing how that was hurting you because she was just too self absorbed with surviving, that "is" traumatic for you. And your brothers not caring to talk about it, is typical, but they were not needing the same that you needed in that scenario, because a young girl really needs to have a good mentor in their mother or at least an older female
mentor/family member they can have that very important girl talk with.

I am so sorry you experienced that, I can't blame you for struggling and feeling confused. I see scenarios in the relationship forum where women are so all about themselves and dealing with relationship issues, and I don't seem them discussing their children, but just mentioning they have children. I had relationship challenges, however, I was very aware of my daughter and mostly concerned about her welfare. I cared about her more than I did myself tbh. However, when I had that very debilitating reaction to the Lupron, I didn't even have the capacity to "think" about much of anything at all.

I don't mean to get all about myself here, but I am trying to help you possibly look at your past in a different way, to think about it where it was not so much that your mother hated you or wanted to abuse or hurt you, but how she was hating what her life was presenting to her that was overwhelming her at times and unfortunately took that out on her children not really realizing the damage that was causing.

For example, my father never let me finish a sentence, he was not doing that to be mean to me, he really only wanted me to learn good English, he just went about it too aggressively which ended up creating problems for me that took me years to work through. There were other things that went on in my family that really traumatized me and I think you have read about some of these things already. My parents never really realized the damage that occurred in their children either. And as you have mentioned, often the children don't always want to talk about it and there can be a child that was affected more profoundly then the other children, that really needs to talk about it. That is you, and that is me, and I have met others with this same challenge.

I don't think a "disorder" is really the accurate term to use either, I think it is a person who was deeply hurt and confused, and just needed to finally have the right person to talk to about it that would validate them, help them understand it better, and even mourn it and think about ways they can finally heal in spite of it. Many times the truth is, "hurt people hurt people".

You certainly do not deserve to spend the rest of your life feeling like you are going to get hit over the head pachyderm, you don't deserve to experience triggers and go through stepping back in despair/confusion/triggered either. I can see that you have come here to PC and you have been looking for a long time. A lot of it really is right in front of you here at PC too. When you say, "I need this person to be", that goes very deep for you, because you definitely had a "need" a long time ago, and even though you tried to reach out, you were still failed in some way. I hear you, unfortunately that happens way too much in human beings or in our society of human beings as a whole.

We are only just really beginning to understand all the ways "children" are affected by what takes place in their families. And we are getting to the point where with what we have been learning, it is time for parents to be exposed
and understand more about how their behaviors, the challenges they get absorbed with and how they interact in ways can actually scare and hurt their children and create life long challenges. It is not easy raising a child, and it is only when someone does it that they realize that too. Usually many things come into focus when a person does it themselves and sees it from the parents standpoint. Many parents do wait for that to happen too.

Yeah this is what a relative of mine and i once said to each other - its too bad we got the mothers we did, but then again good thing it was us, we were tough and survived - we didnt think normal kids would have made it.

Things are different now pachy. You can read yearnings posts about the differences between her old t and her current t, and maybe that can help you pick out a good one for yourself. Plus everybody here is ready to give you an opinion, for better or worse! Its not like you have to go thru this alone. You have resources. You have friends.

That is what happens when someone has complex PTSD. They get triggered and actually feel like that struggling child, it feels real to them and they can lose track of time and be in an odd mindset even for a few days. That has happened to me and it scared and confused me. It isn't just a memory for me either, I feel everything about it as though it is in the now.

Not female.

Oh, then I had it right a while ago, I did think you were a male, but someone told me I was wrong and that you were a woman which confused me and the person was insistent. I am sorry about that pachyderm. Even with that mistake, you still have the same challenges, you were still at a challenging and delicate age when your father left and being the middle child is known to be a challenging spot because of how that child is not the oldest being in a more controlling position nor the youngest that often gets passes and may not have been quite old enough to be as affected as you were. And you were probably the more sensitive in the group too.

What is the age difference between you and your brothers?

Three, and a year and a half.

Ok, so is your older brother three years older than you? Then your younger brother a year and a half? I am just trying to exactly how you are positioned, it is important believe it or not.

Why is it important (and to whom)?

I am just trying to think about how you were positioned in your family pachyderm. I was actually thinking today about what it means to be the middle child. I was with a lot of families today and I was thinking about you and paying attention to these children with you in mind actually. There was also three children in my family too, my brother being the middle child had a really hard time too. Although he either had Asperger's or compulsive ADHD because he was a challenging child, could not really sit still or pay attention for very long, tended to be in his own little world too, unfortunately he was constantly punished for it which only made his challenges even worse.

The reason why I asked you about the ages is, for example if there is only about a year and a half between the middle child and the youngest child, then the mother is tending to the youngest child when the middle child needs to have her listening and paying attention to him, it is where his mind is at. What tends to happen is that because the mother is so busy with the youngest, and the oldest child, if he has three years gain on the middle child, will have had more time from the mother, more nurturing during that crucial time in child development. The middle child will often miss out and get the kind of treatment you are describing, constantly being unheard and dismissed and told to stop whining. All the child is really doing is asking for nurturing, nurturing that all children need. But, if the mother is already on to the next child's needs (the youngest), she is more apt to be tired and short tempered and dismissive to the middle child's needs.

I am just trying to explain to you "why" you were punished and dismissed so much. I am trying to help you straighten this out in your subconscious mind that keeps triggering you to retreat as you do.

Pachyderm, the brain learns from anything repetitive, be it good or bad, the repetitive gets hardwired in our subconscious minds. When you say that you feel like you are going to get hit on the back of the head, that's real, that is a deep learned message in your brain pachyderm, that isn't your fault.

From what you are describing to me you get triggered, and your brain re-experiences all the emotional challenges, anxiety, and negative feelings you have from experiencing negative messages constantly from your mother when all you wanted was what "any" child wants, nurturing and attention.

I have these same challenges, a lot of them, if I get triggered bad enough I can really suffer for days. Well, I am very sorry because you have been trying to reach out for help for this, and because a therapist/psychiatrist is an authority figure to you, you really do feel that if you try to reach out and say what you need, that person will do the same thing your mother did to you. I think that is "sad" pachyderm. Your mother failed you because she didn't give you a chance to speak your mind, a child has to have that, it's so important. And it sure doesn't sound like she had the where with all to do it when you needed "again" at only 8, an important age, because she went through a divorce and ended up being a single mother.

Your brother's are not going to see it the same way you know, they most likely got more than you did, it probably was hard on all of you, but you got it the worst, when you deserved better.



OE

pachyderm, you have been observing for a while in PC. I am not sure "how" you observe, but after a while, for myself, I began to recognize how different members struggle that is not their fault, but express the constant messages they got when they were children.

I was with a mother who had three children and I watched her middle child who was near age three. This mother was with me and her youngest child and that middle child was at the point where he had already figured out his own little body parts and how to work them, and was onto figuring out this world around him. There is a saying the terrible twos, but it isn't, it is really the terrible threes because that is the age where a child is engrossed with the world around him and tends to get into everything, tries out defining his control by saying "no" more and also is more ready to explore more interaction with the person called mother or main caregiver. It is normal for children at this age to not really pay attention to "rules" either the attention span capacity to think about "one thing" is very limited. A child can be all about what I do for just a certain amount of time, then that child is on to something else and pachyderm, I have explained this to a lot of parents when I talk about the amount of time that is appropriate for me to entertain this age group. I have found that when I discuss a time period, parents always seem to think it is not enough, and when they respond like that it continues to remind me how much they are not really paying attention to the attention span of their children. I find myself telling them to set aside that time and observe their child in that period of time. What parents don't think is a long time is actually a very long time when it comes to their child. And with little boys, the attention span can be rather short.

I can watch a child and count how long he will "listen" before he reaches out and touches the very thing he was told not to touch. When I do bigger events, it can be exhausting because of how parents will give a command, get distracted from the child and I end up having to watch their child and also try to do what I am doing at the same time. Because parents just don't get the attention span ability in their children, they tend to get angry and yell at their children way too much. I have often had to be very patient because I do get frustrated with how ignorant parents can be. They tend to expect their child to have a brain as developed as theirs and that just never happens and because of that what many parents tend to do is imprint their children with constant negative messages. People do not understand the gravity of the fact that they are actually programing a very complicated and sensitive developing brain that builds on constant messages that are a significant foundation to how the child turns out for their entire life. Often it is like having someone who knows very little about computers program a computer and that computer
ends up running really slow and just doesn't have the desired capacity that is needed.

Adults and teens can really struggle and end up blaming themselves when it isn't their fault at all that they might have some very real insecurities. That is constantly expressed in countless threads here at PC. The same questions pop up constantly, the same emotional challenges pop up constantly. I have met some amazingly gifted and intelligent people here at PC that really struggle through no fault of their own. They tend to blame themselves and be confused and they don't really realize how very much it is really not their fault either. I see all kinds of people really trying to "problem solve" intently not realizing how some of their inadequacies were taught to their deep subconscious minds by repetition of messages they received over and over again, a deep program they don't realize is hardwired into their subconscious that is just not their fault
at all.

What I have noticed in my years of working with children and families is how much parents really do not realize. It is not that parents want to intentionally harm their child either. It is just that they really do not realize the significance of the messages they send to this little person that is like a little sponge that just absorbs so very much. And a child doesn't understand it, a child just has typical "nurturing" requests and if those requests go unanswered or punished, it affects that child for the rest of their lives in some very profound ways. Unfortunately, when that happens often society will further punish them and it can lead to a person who really struggles to thrive and self punishes for it or also reverts to doing things that end up causing harm to others. For example this knock out game we are being challenged with, our challenge with bullying in schools, online predators that look for people they can harass and upset in some way because it is the only way they can get some kind of attention and sense of gratification or skewed empowerment. Many of these individuals are very intelligent, however, that intelligence is wasted and disruptive, when if it was caught early and nurtured, it could have been very productive instead. It has become extremely expensive to our society overall, so much so that it has really put the overall health and welfare of many at risk.

Personally, I get very frustrated because I spent years seeing things take place that could be substantially improved. There is so much conversation about education, however if you talk to any teacher they will tell you they can only do so much because they cannot go home with the child that comes to them to be educated.

Science has taught us that a child learns so much in the first three years of life. The response to that has been to try to push more at them then should be, and the other challenge is that many of these young children get dumped into day care programs when what they really need is a knowledgeable parent that is right there with them to nurture them in these crucial years. It is very significant to pay attention to what is put into the deep subconscious minds of these young children. There is a great need for awareness about this that is really being missed, I see it constantly.

This psychotherapy forum? Read all the things different members are asking for, needing from therapists and toss and turn psychologically trying to figure out how to get their needs met. Many are asking for something they needed very early on pachyderm. What most are really asking for is a repetitive "positive" response to finally repair and help their brains develop an alternate deep hardwired subconscious message that can help them have something "positive" to go to instead of the "negative" their brains keep going to. As you have shared, "I feel like if I say it I will get hit over the head".

What you need is to have someone who can see that and a program where you can get constant "positive" reactions so you don't continue
suffering with that old "negative" that your brain turns to psychologically and emotionally. No, a drug doesn't fix that, it only helps with the symptoms, but it doesn't "fix" the problem.

When someone has PTSD for example, they need to say something over and over again and get the right response of validation and comfort, over and over again so they can finally have something more positive hardwired in their brain. However, when someone has PTSD resulting from trauma, because of how different things get stored in different areas of the brain where speech may not be present, it can take extra time to get to a point where these pockets can come forward, the conscious mind figures out how to put language to it, connects it to the event or events, and finally is able to store it all together where the person feels settled.

In the PTSD thread Patagonia talked about being encouraged to go off medications and have therapy. I think that what the therapist is trying to do is clear her brain of the drugs that treat the symptoms so she can get
these pockets out, put them all together with a story/language and finally get them processed. I think that what I have been discussing here is finally "slowly" being recognized but at this point they are just trying to
see if this will actually work.

I am trying to respond to your need to analyze in an effort to help yourself
figure out the puzzle you keep struggling with. I hope I have helped some, I am "trying" to reach out to you, you deserve that, I can see that and I know you are trying.

OE