Low-Nurturance Families - Break the Cycle

Hahahaha i guess i sometimes do that. but you made me laugh =) so i think we don't have to worry about that.
plus - i really am stoned on these dang meds.... it's not even 10pm and i don't think i can stay up much longer. blaaahhhhhhhhh

(((((fooZe))))))))

Good for you, Kiya! Lots of things you did today.

Lack of teaching essential skills, like cooking, seems to be part of this syndrome too. What we experienced seems to go beyond low-nurturance, although it definitely fits. I've called it a kind of "psychological munchausen's by proxy."

My mother never taught me to cook, either. And didn't let me take home-economics in school. I knew how to make toast and scrambled eggs. That was it. I remember a boyfriend when I was 18 teaching me how to turn pancakes. And a night that mom was gone somewhere (something that pretty much never happened), and I was probably 17 or 18 or so, and we all went hungry because dad asked me if I could make something for dinner and I didn't know how. My kids (ages 11-17) know how to cook, and have specialties. I remember trying to teach my brother how to bake cookies by distance - email and also mailed him a kit I put together. They laughed at both of us for trying, and he never did attempt making cookies that I know of (this was the brother who is dead now - my other brother beat the system and learned to do things). I didn't know how to clean the house or do laundry or mow the lawn or anything. College roommates and my husband and others have called me a liar, but nobody taught me and I was so afraid of getting it wrong that I couldn't figure it out on my own. Mom banned me from sweeping the floor, permanently, because one time I tried, and it was before we found out I was near-sighted, and I couldn't see the dust piles.

Now I can do most of these things, but perfectionism can be paralyzing at times.

Part Two lol

I won't go into detail at the moment, but... sounds familiar! Well, maybe a teeny bit of detail: my parents were afraid that if I had access to money, whether from an allowance or from working, I might learn to spend it foolishly. The summer between high school and college, when I started working, my father offered to pay me a comparable amount not to work -- so that (I suspect) he could tell me what I could and couldn't buy with my "allowance" and, if he ever wanted to exercise even more control, threaten to cancel it altogether.

She never met a boundary (yours, anyway) she liked? Sometimes it sounds like you're the parent and she's the bratty little kid getting back at you for being a bad mommy to her.

You mentioned adrenal exhaustion. Until I was about your age I believed what I'd been told: that the normal American diet provided all the vitamins we needed so there was no need to worry about supplements and stuff. A normal American diet did mean a cola and a pastry for lunch, didn't it? After a nasty case of flu that put me in bed for two weeks I decided (just out of idle curiosity, you understand) to check out what I really was consuming by way of vitamins during an average day. Of course it turned out that I was way under on a couple and kind of marginal on the rest. Searching around in a bookstore for ways to go about correcting that, I came across Adelle Davis's books. I've been following her recommendations pretty closely ever since. Maybe I've just been lucky, but they seem to have worked pretty well for me. With the restricted diet that you're on, I'd think you'd be at considerable risk for deficiencies unless you took a lot of care to anticipate and avoid them. Or are you already doing that?

Take care, Kiya!

Rap - wow all that is just... like opening a page of a book from my life. SO weird. Even as of last year, mom banned me from the kitchen - talking to me like I was 10
You're gonna break the dishes!! You'll burn the house down!!" I finally yelled back "MOM! I'll NEVER learn to cook if you don't LET me try!!! Now get out!" She said "You can't force me out of my own kitchen!" I repeated my sentence, and again told her to leave me alone!!! It may be the only time that ever worked =) Now days she thinks I cook everything better than her and wants me to do all of it. I told her last night she could have my gourmet pasta for $16.50 She turned me down. LOL These days she is upset with me because I only make one thing; pasta or stir fry or turkey patties. I don't have making side dishes down yet... still a bit overwhelming. So when she wants a full course meal, she has to make it =)

Fooze, good to have another resource - My dr is trying to keep me up to par on all those things... just found out the other day i am getting no protein (i can't always make myself cook - sometimes it is just too much effort). so she sent me home with a protein powder that i have yet to open. =)

You don't change their mind. Not right away. Walk away, if you have to. How old are you? Time for a life of your own...

Oh yeah, WAAAAAAAY time for a life of my own *sigh* how old? in body? 32. in mind? depends on the moment. it's getting it all to work out where it gets hitched up somewhere.