[tinyrabbit]

Deleted as I think I'm being ridiculous.

[unaluna]

No one is more detached than I am, seriously!

[tinyrabbit]

Well, I was just wondering if this is a big deal or I'm making a fuss about nothing. When I was about 9, I almost drowned because my mum let me go in the sea in choppy water even though I couldn't swim. I remember the waves going over my head, thinking I was about to die, being stuck. The lifeguard pulled me out. My mum didn't seem bothered and didn't take me to a doctor to check I was okay. Nobody mentioned it again. I don't think she or anyone else asked me what had happened or how I felt.

That's not normal, is it?

[unaluna]

No, not normal. That's exactly the kind of weird shite my mother pulled on me. To where it's life-threatening. And you're like - this is my mother, and if I don't watch out, she will kill me. How can you do anything BUT detach? I seriously wanted to go live in an orphanage.

Okay, not exactly. But one time she let my father tickle me so much I couldn't catch my breath. Then she said to him, you're so dumb, couldn't you see she couldn't catch her breath? She could see, but she let it go on. Wtf?

And when I was in 2nd grade, "we" had a kitchen accident. She was breading and frying fish. I wanted to help with the breading, but I just said I wanted to help. She got mad and said, okay, you want to help, move the pot of boiling oil to the other burner. Of course it was too heavy for me and I flipped it onto my arm, thank goodness only there. But how she acted afterward was worse. I had to sit thru dinner and pretend like it didn't hurt so my dad wouldn't get mad at her - I remember her specifically telling me, you don't want your dad to hit me, do you? I ended up being hospitalized for work on the wound some weeks later and a social worker came to the house, but I was interviewed in front of the mother and she told me ahead of time to say everything was alright.

When I started my period at the beginning of fifth grade, she said, maybe your booster shots brought it on. At that moment I knew I could never trust her for any information ever again, that all I would get from her was superstition that could seriously harm me. But I didn't take it seriously enough when it came to psychological stuff.

ETA: but this kind of stuff - there is no one watching out for me, no one paying attention. I'm pretty sure someone paid attention to her. It makes it hard to know what's right.

[tinyrabbit]

I'm sorry Hankster. That completely stinks in every possible way.

I am just finding things hard because I guess I thought I would know if something was okay or not. And now I'm looking back and going oh, hang on, maybe that's not okay and realising I can't tell. Like a little while ago my friend was saying her dad cried at Marley & Me and she and her sisters kept making fun of him about it. I just thought: you take the mickey out of your dad, really, you can do that? I think I knew, in theory, that people did things like that but the concept is just alien to me. You don't make fun of my dad. Like, ever.

The thing is I'm sure people would say, oh, if it was needed your mum would've taken you to a doctor, you must've been fine. But surely you would, just to check?

[unaluna]

You dont have to say you're sorry, cuz I'm like so detached from it, it's weird. I have a friend who says, but it's your mom - like that means something. Even my brother says, but I'm your brother! I'm just, but what does that MEAN? Cuz in my brother's case, it didn't mean he showed up for my big fat italian wedding. That was so far beyond humiliating, I can't even deal. So it's because of their deliberate actions that family means nothing to me. I'm like, who exactly am I, that these people would treat me like this? And these are just the big things. And I just go on my way, neener neener, I study, I get a job, blah blah blah. But I'm very tired.

So I guess I'm not one to judge your situation. My mother claimed she didn't know they had calamine lotion in america (When I was like 50 she tells me this). Michigan is also known as mosquito land. She was just absent.

[tinyrabbit]

Ah, the old "but it's your mother" line. I always think: don't tell me, tell her!

Mine is either absent or insane. I honestly don't know which. Maybe both.

[shezbut]

It is hard to deal with memories like those above. They are bad experiences. I agree with hankster, we definitely dissociate to protect ourselves emotionally & that makes absolute sense to me. My T brings up how this technique was a necessity in life back then for me, but it isn't working for me now.

Now that I'm an adult and safely away from my hurtful family members, I shouldn't continue to dissociate. I have to work towards obtaining new healthy ways of reacting to stress. Mindfulness has been helpful to me with current stressors, but I do continue to struggle with past memories. Acceptance has been a difficult emotion for me to allow. Hopefully, it will come relatively soon so I can move forward into the future without that weight pulling me down.

Gentle hugs to you...

[tinyrabbit]

I also just don't know what is and isn't okay because it's not like anyone tells you. I'm still working it out.

[unaluna]

I think you can just read dr Benjamin spocks book. My aunt had a copy. I don't believe my mother ever asked her a single question. I know I "inherited" my mother's know-it-all attitude and saying "no" to everything and being hypercritical. I used to ask my dad to intervene and he would tell me, someone has to keep the peace in the family. But then I ended up treating him the way she treated him. And trying to act that way with the rest of the world, which didn't always go along with it. So I'm still learning lessons.

[cherryjogging]

I can totally relate to all the comments above, the people we want to trust the most are actually the most harmful. In the past year or so I have come to realise how neglectful and unhappy my childhood really was. It was safer to detach and not feel the pain, its just that as an adult, I feel completely locked away, for my own safe keeping. But my real issue at the moment is my mother thinks i am her sensible head screwed on daughter, who she call upon to solve her problems, My mother has never been there for me or my siblings, I have never loved my mother, I cringe when she comes near me and I feel very anxious speaking to her on the phone, and i am bursting to tell her this, I tell her nothing about my life, and as little as I can about my childrens lives but she tries very hard to get involved, and this feeling of telling her my truthfull feelings are going to explode out of me one day soon,

[BrokenNBeautiful]

Originally Posted by tinyrabbit

Deleted as I think I'm being ridiculous.

Our stories, our experiences are never ridiculous.

I have deleted posts, sometimes cause I still feel that way, sometimes.

Carol

[BrokenNBeautiful]

Originally Posted by tinyrabbit

Well, I was just wondering if this is a big deal or I'm making a fuss about nothing. When I was about 9, I almost drowned because my mum let me go in the sea in choppy water even though I couldn't swim. I remember the waves going over my head, thinking I was about to die, being stuck. The lifeguard pulled me out. My mum didn't seem bothered and didn't take me to a doctor to check I was okay. Nobody mentioned it again. I don't think she or anyone else asked me what had happened or how I felt.

That's not normal, is it?

My stepfather dropped me in the water at the beach when I was 5. I was scared of the water for five years. I remember not being able to take baths.

Carol

[BrokenNBeautiful]

Originally Posted by hankster

No, not normal. That's exactly the kind of weird shite my mother pulled on me. To where it's life-threatening. And you're like - this is my mother, and if I don't watch out, she will kill me. How can you do anything BUT detach? I seriously wanted to go live in an orphanage.

Okay, not exactly. But one time she let my father tickle me so much I couldn't catch my breath. Then she said to him, you're so dumb, couldn't you see she couldn't catch her breath? She could see, but she let it go on. Wtf?

And when I was in 2nd grade, "we" had a kitchen accident. She was breading and frying fish. I wanted to help with the breading, but I just said I wanted to help. She got mad and said, okay, you want to help, move the pot of boiling oil to the other burner. Of course it was too heavy for me and I flipped it onto my arm, thank goodness only there. But how she acted afterward was worse. I had to sit thru dinner and pretend like it didn't hurt so my dad wouldn't get mad at her - I remember her specifically telling me, you don't want your dad to hit me, do you? I ended up being hospitalized for work on the wound some weeks later and a social worker came to the house, but I was interviewed in front of the mother and she told me ahead of time to say everything was alright.

When I started my period at the beginning of fifth grade, she said, maybe your booster shots brought it on. At that moment I knew I could never trust her for any information ever again, that all I would get from her was superstition that could seriously harm me. But I didn't take it seriously enough when it came to psychological stuff.

ETA: but this kind of stuff - there is no one watching out for me, no one paying attention. I'm pretty sure someone paid attention to her. It makes it hard to know what's right.

so sorry. (((( ))))'s if you want them.

Carol

[tinyrabbit]

One thing that really frustrates me is that people just assumed my parents knew what they were doing. They're well-spoken, educated and have respectable jobs, so nobody would ever think to ask them if they had the first clue about parenting, if they knew how to brush their kids' teeth, if they knew what made a healthy diet, etc.

My dad is from a violent, chaotic, deprived background, has mental health issues and has no clue about parenting. He can only see things from his own point of view. He thought we should be happy and grateful as, in his opinion, we had it better than he did, and it drove him crazy that we didn't just fall in with this. My mum was 17 when she met my dad (he's nearly 8 years older) and got married at 20, so she never learned to think for herself.

And when you're a kid, nobody tells you the difference between:
- things your parents do that are acceptable and good parenting, which upset you
- things your parents do that are unacceptable and bad parenting, which upset you
- things your parents do that are unacceptable and bad parenting, which don't upset you

I'm only figuring it out now, as an adult, and it's making my head hurt. And then part of me thinks it's ridiculous to be upset about it now, and part of me is too afraid to let myself be upset, hence I'm so detached!

[cherryjogging]

Tiny rabbit, I know how I feel at 43, and I cant get on with a happy fullfilling life until I deal with this stuff, I feel pathetic for having to go over it all and expose it for what it really is, I need to go back and see my GP but im quite sure she just thinks IM mad, if I could push it all back down into the recess of my unconscious where it has been until recently, but i think im going to have to get help to deal with it. just to get it out of my system and be able to move on, So easy to say, so hard to do!