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life is killing me posted:I spoke to my therapist this week, and I’m seriously considering searching for another. She’s been great for two years—but I think she’s not right for me at this time in my life. She helped get me to where I am, but defending my parents by asking me to consider them and their feelings when they haven’t ever considered ours, well, I gotta draw the line there. She asked if I’d loved my dad well. She asked if I’d asked him how he felt about us asking him and my stepmother to wear masks if they wanted to closely interact with their grandchildren. And I do not give a gently caress how he feels about that. She should have been asking me if he had loved me well, how my wife and I feel about their decision not to wear masks (our only substantial ask for when around the kids). But it was all about what I could do to rebuild a bridge that my dad and stepmother lit and is still burning, how they were feeling, how hurt they must feel. My therapist is around their age with adult children and has similar views to them, which I don’t feel I should know about her, and in this session I did not at all feel like she was on my side. I feel like she was instead asking me to pour more into my dad when he isn’t and hasn’t been pouring into me. Find a new therapist. I have also had a really hard time finding a good therapist, I feel like I've gotten the best help from reading and youtube videos for learning, and then having my therapist be someone safe I can talk to and work through emotions with. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbWvYupGqq3aMJ6LsG4q-Yg This guy, Patrick Tehan, has been amazing for narcissistic abuse and toxic family dynamics. Click around on some titles that sound interesting, listen to it while you clean, and you'll end up hearing something that really resonates and he'll offer great advice on working through it.
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Jan 17, 2022 06:14
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"Have you made your dad feel loved lately?" "No I haven't. And I am certainly not going to go out of my way to do so when he is going to try and turn his decision to put my child/children at risk into emotional blackmail because he doesn't want to do something simple that we have asked him to do. If he want's to feel loved as a father, then he better well start acting like a decent human, and then if he can act like a good father and grandfather we will see how much love he gets. Until then gently caress him. I am sick of dealing with his poo poo." Might be a nice thing to say to your therapist next time they try that poo poo.
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Jan 17, 2022 06:21
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Beachcomber posted:I've never had much luck with a therapist. I should try again. Maybe I can find one who understands terminal internet poisoning. I have a drama therapist, she works with me, and had plenty of experience with weird poo poo to start off. Maybe look for one of those?
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Jan 17, 2022 07:56
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I know I've mentioned it before itt (do I have to keep apologizing for repeating myself? probably not) but big time reminds me of when the therapist I was seeing, as I began to scratch the surface of my parents' complete dysfunction (admittedly with a limited vocabulary back then), literally told me that if my parents were being irresponsible and lazy that I should be the adult and browbeat them into functioning. Y'know, the completely insane opposite of how anything should work ever.
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Jan 17, 2022 20:39
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Every therapist I've ever seen hasn't bothered seeing me beyond one or two sessions because I'm too goddamn good at masking, in their opinion I never seem upset enough to have debilitating psychological issues  I have been diagnosed ADHD and c-PTSD. I'm pretty certain I'm also autistic and OCD, and also have some kind of early-age trauma induced personality or identity disorder. And I strongly believe aspects from some cancel out aspects from others in ways that has kept me relatively sane-appearing and high functioning. But I have not been a normal and okay person, I've had a lot of horrifying mental breakdowns, spiraled into extreme self-destructive behaviors, crippling depression and anxiety and self-hatred, convinced myself I'm not even a real human and just a husk and undeserving of love*, several s------ attempts. I'm so loving far from being a regular adult, but I appear happy often enough and can fake it often enough it usually goes unnoticed. I wish there were awards for World's Best Masker. Selective mutism, executive dysfunction, and fear-induced paralysis have kept my breakdowns extremely well hidden. I only scream and howl like a wailing widow for hours/days/weeks/years on the inside, while I sit there cool as a cucumber and tell people "ah, Im just feeling a bit tired today". * That one got really bad on the depo-provera shot, I'm glad it's off the market now. I was 100% convinced that human personalities were tangible things everyone was born with, except for me. I felt it was similar to being born without an organ or a limb. My husband annoyed me so much at the time because he kept telling me I was wrong, and I told him he just doesn't know what it's like because he had an amazing one and he should consider himself lucky to not be broken like me. What does he even see in me. I don't even exist. Blah blah blah lmao. Glad I escaped that cycle of thought. Anyway, show your kids lots of love and affection, nurture them, support them, validate their emotions, protect them from abusers at all costs.
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Jan 17, 2022 22:08
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Also when I was accused of faking my personality to impress my inlaws, it's extremely wrong because I'm not a narcissist like that states where I'm trying to manipulate others for my own personal gains. I'm just trying really hard to not be sitting in the corner sobbing for 9 hours over abandoned kittens I can't rescue, then trying to climb onto the roof to jump off or down an entire bottle of sleeping pills when I talk about my masking.
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Jan 17, 2022 22:13
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I'm realizing I rock with this thread so much cause I had a narcissist boss whose behavior had no identifiable attachment to reality. Reading the experiences here help solidify I am in fact not the crazy one. Last year I vowed to find a good PTSD therapist and picked the one with a bunch of trauma certs like CCTP-2, EMDR certified, EMDRIA approved therapist, and so on. She's incredible and can follow my fragmented ramblings.
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Jan 17, 2022 22:19
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I'm reading through old journals and ran across this and it was too  for me to not sharequote:I tried to talk to my mom about how stressed out, depressed and anxious I am. I didn’t bring her up at all, I just said that everything going on is stressing me out. I told her that all I’ve been able to do for seven straight days is stare off into space, that I’ve been vomiting from stress at least once a day, and that I don’t know what to do anymore. I have no appetite and I’m barely eating and I’m having multiple panic attacks daily and I have cried myself to sleep every day for seven days.
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Jan 18, 2022 00:33
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deep dish peat moss posted:I'm reading through old journals and ran across this and it was too Yeah, I recognize this. The barely half-assed acknowledgement that you're obviously suffering with no further support of any kind that's supposed to somehow be helpful? I feel like my mom could have trademarked that loving move.
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Jan 18, 2022 00:50
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Seconding the recommendation for trauma-focused therapists. I've done IT for one in the past, and it involves a lot of very specific skills and training.
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Jan 18, 2022 01:06
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deep dish peat moss posted:I'm reading through old journals and ran across this and it was too Feels very similar to my parents saying "We all have problems," as a way to brush off my explanations of symptoms of depression and anxiety to them. Sometimes followed up by "And the rest of us don't have to pester everyone about them all the time."
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Jan 18, 2022 01:11
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blunt for century posted:Feels very similar to my parents saying "We all have problems," as a way to brush off my explanations of symptoms of depression and anxiety to them. Sometimes followed up by "And the rest of us don't have to pester everyone about them all the time." This, and then 2 hours later my mom is complaining to me about all her problems.
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Jan 18, 2022 02:15
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it's been a while since i posted in here. last time i mentioned that my grandma was declining, right when the pandemic hit; she did pass away in a few weeks. her funeral is one of the rare times i have seen my dad cry, as he's someone who prides himself on being "rational" and "logical." anyways my story is that despite all the issues and warning signs of my parents, i've moved back in with them in 2021, when i found out i had cancer. it has... not been as bad as i thought it would be while being unbearable at times, if because my parents are actually not in the home anymore - my dad has a second house that he plans to retire in, and he's been working remotely from there so i don't have to deal with him often. he is demanding that my mom drive up from the bay areal to norcal to cook him food because he's too important and busy to do it himself and thanks to all the asian hate crimes, he's been keeping a pistol on him or nearby. (i was looking for the tv remote when he was home once and i found the gun. lol.) it's kind of ironic because he's a very dark-skinned asian man who would never pass the paper bag test. one factor that he's spending less time in the house is because of my mom, who is usually more bearable but... she is definitely a hoarder. and since the pandemic, the lockdown has gotten worse. we're trying to clean out the house now, because the plan is that my sister and i will rent it from them since they have another property to live in, and i'm finding stuff like "compound w that expired in 1999" or my mom's balance book from 1984 because no one has gone through the cabinets. and even then, trying to throw away things is another fight - while some poo poo has been cleaned out, the rest of it is sitting around the house thanks to my mom. there is an entire box of old floppies that she wouldn't let me throw away because she wants to get the data from them before we do that, since it was proof of work she had done, but i'd pointed out if she hadn't touched them since the 90s then they'd probably be of no use to anyone. but this is her house so she doesn't have to listen to me, even if that means she's shredding 30 years of paperwork by hand because she doesn't trust anyone to do the job properly. my sister and i begged her to let us hire someone to declutter/clean the house, because she just has so much piled up, but all that lead to was a huge fight between my mom and i. my sister hasn't really been helping, since she moved back in after college and has been living there for the past ten years, and her reaction to me asking for help dealing with our mom's hoarding was "well i've been dealing with this for years, you just have to accept that this is the way things are  " i don't think staying home has really helped her, since my mom definitely does the "complain about how we can't do anything on our own and then does it for us without asking" whole thing. like... it took my sister finally aging out of my parents' insurance to start finally making her own appointments for doctors and stuff, because my mom would do it for her. and when i lived on my own, she would show up at my apartment unannounced with groceries i didn't ask for; i appreciate the free food, but she never gave me any warning in advance and would just show up with what she thought i would need or like, which was frustrating. this has meant that my sister is super indecisive (as am i)anyways one of things we're doing while trying to defeat my mother's hoard demon (the walk in closet was completely filled up to the ceiling with her clothes) is remodel the house, another source of fighting between me and her. i wanted to have a interior designer because i didn't want to deal with trying to figure this out while recovering from cancer while my mom just wanted to do everything herself except she has no time to handle it because my dad is demanding that she spends time with him up north because he's lonely and oh also, my grandfather is dying, and she's also going over to his place and spending time to help take care of him too! (after he died my grandma had a stroke, so 2021 was just utterly relentless.) in the end, the compromise is that i'm hiring someone to help me with my room and bathroom, they can do whatever else they want to the house because despite them saying they want my input because my sister and i will be taking over it, they clearly already have their own ideas on what to do. whenever i bring up what i like or think looks nice, they immediately judge or criticize it - something i did call my mom out on, when she was bitching about how i was wasting my money (she told me that if i was just throwing money away to just give it to her instead) on hiring a interior designer when i just have to know what i want, and i shot back that every time i showed her a color or style she would go "are you sure that's what you really want?" her excuse was that she wanted to make sure that i wasn't making a choice i would regret lol
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Jan 18, 2022 03:46
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Do not rent that house from them.
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Jan 18, 2022 04:05
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trust me it is something i've been resisting to do for years, but i am just so tired.  the bay area is brutally expensive.also when i have to return to office, i'd rather deal with a 1-2 hour commute versus the 4 hours i was dealing with before. edit: i should also add that when i mean that i am tired, i mean that i had been absolutely exhausted/fatigued/dealing with brain fog for years, and when i finally talked to the doctor about it (because i had just chalked it up to not getting enough sleep and the commute), it turns out that my thyroid had stopped working in addition to the cancer. moving back in isn't ideal and honestly one of my worries is that i will absolutely regret this, but i also need to fix my health and i don't know if i can continue doing it as i was before. this isn't just "ugh i guess i'll just move back because it's cheaper/closer to work" situation, i'm just completely exhausted and i want to just catch my breath. Splash Attack fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Jan 18, 2022 |
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Jan 18, 2022 04:18
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Living with those people is not going to give you more energy.
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Jan 18, 2022 10:10
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believe me, i went into this with misgivings but it has been surprisingly okay. the one who i had a difficult time living with growing up was with my dad and he's basically living in his other property several hundred miles away; he does come back once a month or so but usually stays for a day or two and then leaves because he feels like no one is paying attention to him. the thing is, despite everything i don't hate him; i pity him. he is a very lonely old man, and he is upset that he doesn't feel that close to my sister and i which makes me feel bad until i have to interact with him and then it's like "ah yes this is why we don't talk." i've mentioned it before but i'm not his biological daughter and he knows, but he's never made me feel like i wasn't his family. in fact, i was his favorite growing up and to be honest, i miss my dad from that that time - he would read me stories every night and went out of his way to spend time doing things i enjoy to make me happy. now everyone has to do what he wants or he'll make everyone miserable, but i think that has always been there, it's just when i was younger it felt like he made a effort but as he got older he stopped. i think he has a better relationship with the people he works with/mentors. the part of the thread where people were talking about how when a family member passes away and finds out that they were warm and fatherly to everyone but their own family hits a little too close to home. i feel like i could go on about my family but i don't want to just ramble on because it's a lot. i appreciate and understand people's apprehension at me moving back into the house but it turns out that years of therapy and growing a sense of my own identity does change the balance a bit. i would definitely never suggest for anyone else to do it just because i'm able to put up with it; it is very much a complex situation. and tbh, i do appreciate my parents because they aren't the monsters that people have shared in the thread. they just refuse to fix their own issues due to their own past traumas and experiences.
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Jan 18, 2022 19:16
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today my mom texted me some vague stuff that seemed to imply something bad was going on with my grandma, and that I should find out and get back to her asap!!! so I texted my uncle and asked him. said grandma was fine and they talked earlier that day. so I texted grandma and yea she's fine and we talked a little bit. classy poo poo, mom.
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Jan 21, 2022 23:20
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Something terrible did happen to your grandmother, she talked to your mom.
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Jan 21, 2022 23:40
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I almost warned her she might get a call but I figure I'd let her enjoy her day instead lol edit: gross, mom called me directly today. told her grandma was fine. then it of course immediately becomes a "why won't you talk to me wow what did I ever do it's so strange and mysterious to me!!" kind of discussion. so I told her exactly what kicked off my finally no longer responding and predictively she claimed to not remember it. well, ya did, bye. hopefully that's the end of that for now. Light Gun Man fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Jan 22, 2022 |
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Jan 21, 2022 23:41
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This quotes a cross post from the ADHD thread but it made me want to tell this thread about my experience with therapy as a child. My mom tried to get me therapy when I was 8 after the divorce. I went for two sessions and was pulled out. I had a really hard time opening up to the therapist, as expected, and was also confused about stranger danger and why I was supposed to talk to this person. After those two sessions my mom berated me for hours about how much money she was spending, and how I was wasting it because I wouldn't talk to the therapist. That trauma kept me away from therapy and opening up to anyone for years. Fast forward to last year, when I was trying to talk to my mom about some of my struggles, she brought it up again. "I tried to help you, but you refused to go to therapy" in this super accusatory tone, like I the 8 year old was morally deficient for not taking more agency in their mental health. It's one of the times I completely lost it on her, and I'm not proud of it, but it also felt deserved. I remember yelling "WTF is wrong with you, I stopped therapy because you yelled at me for having a hard time opening up, how do you not understand how difficult you made it for me to express anything?" Her response was simply a completely cold. "We remember things different."
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Jan 23, 2022 18:09
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eSporks posted:Her response was simply a completely cold. "We remember things different." gently caress I hate this so much. I got this all the time from my (both narcissist) parents. Such a cop out, evasive, cowardly move to reinforce the fake-reality bubble they've built for themselves.
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Jan 23, 2022 18:20
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blunt for century posted:gently caress I hate this so much. I got this all the time from my (both narcissist) parents. Such a cop out, evasive, cowardly move to reinforce the fake-reality bubble they've built for themselves. "I don't remember doing that, but I know I wasn't handling things well either, and I'm sorry if I took that out on you" would go a long way. They think that by staying "I remember things different" they are pointing out the subjectivity if experience in this impartial neutral way, but what it's really doing is asserting there subjective experience as the dominant objectively true version of events that supercedes yours. I find this kind of speak incredibly common all around with narcissist. Using neutral sounding statements in a way gives more weight to one side. Comes up a lot with the "both sides" political rhetoric too. It's only tossed out as a critique of one side and never the other. They can hide behind subjectivity and impartiality without having to consider a view different than their own.
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Jan 23, 2022 18:29
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I was using the bathroom last night and I had the sudden realization that most people don't stand at the side of the toilet to urinate. I stand 90 degrees off normal to go. Realized I started doing it as a kid because people would just walk in, not caring that I was going.
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Jan 23, 2022 19:06
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me: "I'm hungry, want something?" partner: "Nah, go ahead" me: "I'll just not eat then" partner: ????? Eat! Found myself doing this passive-aggressive-response-bs the other day, realised as I did it that it's the poo poo my mum would always respond with if I wasn't hungry but she was. I made beans on toast and told him to call me out on it. (which he did at the time too <3)
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Jan 24, 2022 00:19
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My sister and I had a few therapy situations after our parents divorced too, my mom thought it would cause trauma. Apparently not all the psychological abuse and violence and attempted murder though! That poo poo was fine! Make sure not to tell anyone any of that stuff happened, we wouldn't want anyone to think we aren't a perfect happy family with zero flaws lol. But parents separating? Oh, Reader's Digest and Sally Jesse Raphael said that's the worst thing a kid could have happen to them, don't tell the therapist what life was like before the terrifying psycho powderkeg left, it's clearly only the divorce that needs to be addressed
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Jan 24, 2022 02:19
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eSporks posted:Her response was simply a completely cold. "We remember things different." At this point, the counter-response of "no, you're just lying, because you're a piece of poo poo" comes out so fast I don't even have to think about it.
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Jan 24, 2022 02:31
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Classic Comrade posted:that and also if either of your parents comes from an abusive family they're more likely to get into abusive relationships themselves, especially if they haven't worked on recovering from their trauma. then the trauma just gets passed down to their kids too! wholesome fun for the whole family. I've spent the past half year slowly working through this whole thread and this quote is from a year ago, but this is exactly what my mom went through. She grew up under the strict thumb of her Depression Era charmless mother and WWII Marine father (whose parting gift as she went off to college was a straight razor "just in case any of those [racial slur] try to date you"; a story he gleefully told me as a teenager while he flipped that very razor a few feet from my face, laughing like it was just the greatest parental brainwave he ever had). She then immediately fell into a relationship with my control freak dad and married him the same week she graduated. Basically she has never had a moment in her life that was her own. Which means she carves them out of her daily life. Naps, romance novels, changing of subjects whenever anything remotely serious needs to be discussed, squashing extracurricular activities because it's a bother. Many more. But, I can't really be mad at her. She's essentially survived as well as possible considering the upbringing she had. I just wish it was possible to have a genuine conversation with her, and I know that it's probably never going to happen.
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Jan 30, 2022 11:58
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Picnic Princess posted:I was reading an article about C-PTSD recently, and it mentioned emotional flashbacks. It got me thinking, and I can remember a ton of examples where this happened and I just thought it was me being crazy. The strongest ones were when someone starts getting agitated, or lets a door slam or cupboard hard by accident, or sounds like they're stomping. The feelings I had were something far beyond fear. I don't even know what the name for the emotion is. A mixture of extreme fear, dread, hopelessness, sadness, like a massive rock in my stomach weighing me down combined with dizziness and confusion and feeling like I'm in imminent danger. I seem to be in a replying mood. This is also from a year ago. But recently I have been paying more attention to my fears and one I have had forever but only recently thought on this is flash of dread, of somebody breaking in, bursting through the door, screaming. The flash only lasts a few seconds, but it will hit at random times maybe daily. I too cannot name the emotion, but the above description is close. And I too cannot point to any inciting incident. I love locked doors. The more layers of security the better. And I hate having desks or chairs and such behind me. I gotta see the room and keep on alert. I've talked to my older sister about this and she says she feels the same.
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Jan 30, 2022 12:35
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One I just realized recently is olives give me some kind of flashback to early childhood. Frickin olives. We didn't even eat olives. I don't know what it is. It flashes so briefly but it's like 20 different images all at the same time from a 3 year period in my life and leaves me uncomfortable enough that it completely puts me off from eating olives, ever. It was the same place and time as I kept going to during my mushroom trip a few weeks ago. My psyche seems to be stuck there. I can remember a LOT of extremely horrific poo poo that happened, and I'm sure there also plenty I've deeply repressed.
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Jan 30, 2022 21:52
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Was doing some reading and was directed to this article https://louisebehiel.com/the-third-role-the-lost-child/ quote:The Lost Child: Invisible and Unheard
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Feb 2, 2022 05:59
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Okay, so like Ouch
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Feb 2, 2022 06:23
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oof
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Feb 2, 2022 06:42
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Picnic Princess posted:Okay, so like and e: Here's a quote from one of that post's cited sources: http://adultchildrenaca.blogspot.com/2007/01/roles-in-dysfunctional-families.html quote:"Adjuster" - "Lost Child"
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Feb 2, 2022 08:10
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A Bakers Cousin posted:Was doing some reading and was directed to this article
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Feb 2, 2022 08:23
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Yeah. gently caress. That landed. Ow.
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Feb 2, 2022 10:01
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Yeah I would appreciate it if my soul wasn't peered into, thank you.
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Feb 2, 2022 10:55
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quote:"Placater" - "Mascot" - "Caretaker" 
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Feb 2, 2022 11:09
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A Bakers Cousin posted:Was doing some reading and was directed to this article Checking in +1. 
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Feb 2, 2022 11:59
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| # ? Jun 3, 2024 20:36 |
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deep dish peat moss posted:e: Here's a quote from one of that post's cited sources: http://adultchildrenaca.blogspot.com/2007/01/roles-in-dysfunctional-families.html Right in the jaw, gently caress 
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Feb 2, 2022 14:00
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