[Partless]

Hi

Haven't posted in a while but T is away for summer vacation and I just want to share and I'm feeling quite agitated.. Today was at mom and dad's, invited with sister, and I'm so pissed off because often I end up getting triggered when I go there.

Like mom doesn't get help for her mental health issues, and it comes out in different ways, from making me worried about my sister, and I can't tell it's something I should worry and she's relapsing or not and then in a day or two something else comes up, it's dad, it's the neighbor, and sometimes I create a narrative expecting something to go to a resolution as it keeps building up and up...and then I go there today and she acts childishly almost as if she's bit dissociating from her real self just to take a break from the suffering she's enduring but also the suffering which she already been projecting to and "sharing" with family, whether they like it or not, by making others worried, angry, exhausted....

Like today she laughs at everything and keeps looking at me as if I'm supposed to share in the laughter, as if I'm supposed to dance to her every mood! And then in general when I'm not sharing in your mood you get concerned. If you're down and I'm happy then you get jealous and try to bring me down. If like today you're happy and I'm not, you think something wrong with ME. It's not personal, same with my sister, though because of our personality similarities and also because unlike my sister I'm not on heavy antipsychotics and mostly looking flat, I seem to be an easier target for you to compete with, to attack, to play with.

I can't take it anymore...it's a cycle, a whirlpool, and as soon as it starts I have to watch my emotions so I don't get sucked in, either out of fear or compassion for parties involved. I feel tense all the time, often spending at least couple hours a day just self-massaging, yoga, whatever the hell to bring me to some level of ease, to ten minutes of peace. Even when you're not here, you're here, a simple call from you does it.

Yes, yes, I know the theory, it's not MY problem, she and my sister and my dad and everybody else including me is an adult, I should mind my own business, don't take things on, blah blah. Come to think of it, it's easy for T to say that to me, my T's patients are strangers, she don't know them outside the session. Can she be like that with her own mom, I doubt it!

Easy to practice in office but not so with own family at home when you get triggered, when your mother's mental health issues and how your dad and whole family reacted to it in the past, is what keeps triggering you (I often felt dad did not do a good job handling it or containing it or pushing mom to get better; I feel it's partly because my dad knew mom was "too good for him", as she often said, and if she did not have these mental health issues she'd have divorced him years ago.) Which of course resulted me being raised in a family full of mental health issues, instability, and abuse, and is partly responsible for my sister's earlier hospitalization and also my own problems).

I do every time try to remain separate but sometimes like today I felt strong aversion to everyone in my family as soon as I sat down, I hated them for their weakness, for being defective, for making me defective. I hate myself too often for not being strong enough to handle these issues better, another sign of me being weak, knowing there are people out there who come from abject poverty, have lost body parts to disease or war, and are much stronger than me. But I can't help it, this is how I'm made, I'm very sensitive, very emotionally receptive. I am better with boundaries than I was some years ago but emotionally still when I'm in that room there is great vulnerability.

Today I hated that whenever mom is in a mood, dad starts joking around and not paying attention to what I or anybody else is actually saying (which then makes me react by instead being serious and trying to force people to be present, which needless to say is not effective nor proper thing to do, only adds to my anger), and how my sister looks at mom all paranoid and with disgust, hate it how mom won't share what's on her mind but insists on putting up a good front and projects her discomfort into others and me, like asking me if I was not okay.

I wanted to say, Yes but because of YOU! You're willing to go to a hundred doctor but the one person who can help you and frankly help me (because dealing with you is a pain!), help our whole family, you won't! My sister was hospitalized and now she takes a bunch of pills, I take three and up to five sometimes including for sleep, but NO you won't go to a therapist, no you won't take psychiatric pills, and so everybody has to watch you and your moods every day and play this stupid game of "guess her mood and play along."

One day you're paranoid, one day you look so vulnerable and child-like I just want to hold you and want to cry for you and feel so bad for you cause you do that game sometimes that you do a child's voice and say you're lonely and then laugh it off but I feel the pain behind it. Then one day you're distant, one day you become preoccupied with my sister and I don't know and I can't trust your account and if my sister has started to act differently and may potentially be relapsing like she was the time she was hospitalized or if it's just your own anxiety and drama. One day you seem so kind and your heart is so big and you make my favorite food and tell me inner secrets and worries and I open up to you and I feel like we're best friends and I can share with you and I have my mother back and the future is bright and anything is possible and I think about getting married and maybe one day having a kid and you could be a wonderful kind grandma, the next day you seem ready to shame someone and have a mocking laugh to your voice and become too nosy and seem to want to know where I am and what I'm doing, as if you're mad at the world that's leaving you behind, and I suddenly have this fear about what I told you last night, as if I were drunk when we talked, as if anything I said can be used against me, my weaknesses, that you will humiliate me, that I was duped!

This is going on too long, I'm sure I'll be terribly frightened and ashamed of what I've written and regret having shared and maybe delete it, but tonight I need to share with someone, anyone, pain is bad enough, loneliness in pain is much worse, difference between prison and solitary confinement, I'm just reaching out from behind my bars. Thank you for reading.

Do you see what you've done here? You begin by 'ranting' about your mother. To ranting about T.
I tiny we have to seperate what is ours and what is our mother's. Until we've worked on our stuff. It's almost impossible to seperate. This is what T's do. It's not because They don't live with clients is that they know what is there's.
My mother was toxic, I stepped away from her.

[Luce]

Is your mom dissociative? Sounds like she has a lot of different 'mood' states going on there.
It sounds exhausting to deal with her moods, whatever the cause.

[unaluna]

(((Partless))) its heartbreaking. But theyve made their bed. If youre not comfortable with it, you do have the right to make your own. They may join you, they might not. But you dont have to hold yourself back.

[Partless]

Originally Posted by Luce

Is your mom dissociative?

She doesn't have DID as far as I can tell, most likely has borderline traits and when very emotional dissociates. She's never been officially diagnosed and has never gone for therapy, though she's been to two psychiatrists over the years, and left after a session or two when they would not join her in blaming my dad or somebody else. But as you can imagine, therapy requires a different mindset.

My reflections on her are based on myself being in therapy on and off with multiple therapists for over 20 years (since my teens), studying mom's moods, and talking about her to my various therapists as I was working through my own pain and suffering and victim mentality. This new round of therapy started when some years ago my sister was hospitalized with suicidal tendencies, which traumatized me and necessitated therapy once again. She's living on her own now and seems fairly stable, but I can never tell anyways, I don't have a clear memory of how things happened around that time or what the signs were. And that's why also I'm more tuned into mom since then, because of how she mistreated my sister during her crisis period, not intentionally, but because it's hard to care for someone when you yourself are full of pain that you're unwilling to share or get better and yet insist on trying to care for others.

As I write this I'm becoming aware of parallels here too, I should try to focus on myself more and get better. My primary responsibility is to myself, not my parents, not my sister, etc.

BTW I'm in my 30s, she's in her 60s.

[Luce]

It does sound like she is compartmentalizing things a lot, and it sounds as though it continues to affect you an awful lot.
You are right; focus on yourself. You can't change her, but you can make your life better for you.

[Partless]

Originally Posted by unaluna

(((Partless))) its heartbreaking. But theyve made their bed. If youre not comfortable with it, you do have the right to make your own. They may join you, they might not. But you dont have to hold yourself back.

Thank you for your note of sympathy, and also the advice, I appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Luce

It does sound like she is compartmentalizing things a lot, and it sounds as though it continues to affect you an awful lot.
You are right; focus on yourself. You can't change her, but you can make your life better for you.

Yes, "compartmentalizing", that's a very good way of putting, and also true, it does affect me very much. I sometimes get inside my own head and forget how to get perspective. My T tells me to make our interactions into a cartoon as a way to get perspective but I find that feels a bit trivializing it. I'm still in search of some sort of mindful way of dealing with this so I don't get pulled into something I can't do anything about, and also so my own past hurt doesn't constantly and gravely affect my presence

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by Partless

Thank you for your note of sympathy, and also the advice, I appreciate it.

What i meant was - i know it is heartbreaking to be in that situation. What helped me was to think of it as, they have made their choice on how to live their lives. You dont have to limit yourself to what THEY are capable of. I think we have an obligation (like to humanity, to the universe) to make the best of our talents.

[Partless]

Originally Posted by unaluna

What i meant was - i know it is heartbreaking to be in that situation. What helped me was to think of it as, they have made their choice on how to live their lives. You dont have to limit yourself to what THEY are capable of. I think we have an obligation (like to humanity, to the universe) to make the best of our talents.

I think that's a very good point, only if I can somehow get it through to my heart. It's easy to get caught up in drama and also real suffering of people around, and then think what's the point? And therefore don't pursue any goal, don't realize your potential, as it's been the case with me. My T always tells me I have talents and abilities and I can have some success in life. If I can have that kind of emotional intensity that I have about my family, if I can bring that to myself and my goals and put my heart into them, I think I can accomplish things and feel more satisfaction in my life and also make enough money and god-willing one day even start a family...before it's too late.

p.s. I'm glad I posed this thread, I'm already feeling better, and I was feeling so ashamed and worried about people judging me harshly, but so far it's been nice. Thanks everyone.