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It Wasn’t Always Like This … I didn’t Always Feel This Way
One of my favorite childhood memories with my mami, is playing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. The both of us sitting on a green and white stripped lounge chair cushion laid over a long pathway of little rocks in the back of the house, me sitting at the head of the manmade boat and her criss-cross-applesauced feet touching my back. We would take turns rowing on the opposite side of each other while my mami, I mean Tom Sawyer, would describe details from previous adventures, but in our backyard. “Look! To the left behind the Aloe Vera plant, there’s some robbers coming towards us!, paddle faster!” I want to say I was about 5 or 6 and my sense of curious adventure has never left me to this day. For this memory, I will always love my mami.
I Always Had a Feeling Something Was a Little Off
In Junior High, I was embarrassed to have her around. In High School, I had a dream I was so mad at her that I grabbed a hot iron and pushed it against her face. End of dream. Something felt different. More than a typical troubled mother/daughter relationship. What I couldn’t label then was, Codependence, Authoritarian Parenting, Emotional Immaturity, Fear, Generational Trauma, and Childhood Trauma. And a Highly Sensitive Child.
I’m Gonna Be Just Like You, Mom … I’m Never Going to Be Like Her
I don’t know how to sit in these feelings knowing full well what the outcome is going to be. The anxiety of the known. Am I supposed to do breathing and grounding techniques to help me until the moment we speak? How does that help me to stand firm in my boundaries once the time comes for us to have a simple conversation? One of my reasons for setting a strong boundary of, setting a time for us to talk, is the anxiety of getting several texts and back-to-back phone calls throughout the day, with every little afterthought and solving every little what if scenario. This is normal. Our conversations usually consist of filling me in on the top news to keep me safe, things I need to do, and someone who wronged her in some way or another. Usually, I disagree with her about something, or I do not do as she tells me to exactly how she tells me to do it, which results in her fearfully and anxiously raising her voice eventually to a yell, questioning my decisions until I give in or start shouting back at her, and finally her guilting me into doing what she feels is best for me.
Am I Taking Financial Advantage if I’m Taking This Time for Therapy for Childhood Trauma?
There’s always something to hang over me. Something my parents have done for me that I should be grateful for or bottom line respectful for, therefore compliant. This time it’s supporting me financially while I take time to rest, learn to take care of myself, and start a new career. Because in the end, their financial support affects them financially and she knows, if she guilts me enough or yells and intimidates me, that will get me to give in. What is my fear despite her irrational thinking and manipulation? My fear is failing and putting them in more of a situation and seeming ungrateful. Will it affect them? Yes. But not to the drastic point she makes about everything, to manipulate my choice or anyone else’s choice. Her manipulation, control, insinuation, and guilt tactics coupled with a high level of intensity, if I don’t do as I’m told, is so overbearing it puts me in this constant fight or flight anxious state.
I Don’t Know How to Love Her
I’m desperately dying to always make my own decisions whether my decisions go the way I anticipate or not. That is part of learning. As an adult I know this. But when my mom intentionally questions to sway my choices, I then question myself, my gut, and I feel like I’m an ungrateful, spoiled manipulator. Why do I constantly have to regulate my mother’s emotions?! Even as an adult. I go from adult to a fearful 5-year-old. And here’s the kicker, now it’s with any adult but especially in relationships. It’s such a shitty feeling. How do I overcome it?
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson, has been a great resource so far. Suggested by my therapist and looks like many, many other therapists for similar challenges. Or if you’d like to check it out digitally for free from your library, try Libby. If you plan on borrowing the book from Libby, you might need to put it on hold for a while. She’s pretty popular. And, yeah, YeAh, yea I know, I went overboard with the resources. Trust me, I’m setting the whole supportive vibe. You’re welcome. You’re not alone. Your memories, feelings, and choices are real. They’re yours and you’re still loved for them.
Did this article hit home for you in any way? Maybe feel comfortable sharing in the comments below?