How We Each Got Here: The Role Our Parents Play/Have Played

[[az...]]

This is a question I just answered today on another forum, after answering I thought that it would be advantageous for us to start speaking on what could have happened in each of our development and upbringing which caused us to be unable to manage our own emotions and those of others and the threats, challenges, joys and losses in life.

 

 

Q: My mom always screams at me whenever I feel sick and when I don’t go to school. Why is she doing this?

 

 

A: She is scared. She is frightened about finances, death and her own feelings. She is probably afraid of feelings in general. It sounds like you have your work cut out for you, you may love her and she you but I would highly recommend this: “Adult Children Of Emotionally Immature Parents.”

 

This book can save you so many years of pain and dysfunction.

 

She is scared about your development (being able to attend school and find a path in life so that you can become a sure safe bet financially for yourself and for her to know she has done the best she could as a parent.) She knows how scary and wild and awful and ruthless the world is and she is afraid that you won’t make it somehow… after all it is her job to make sure this happens.

 

I think a mother who feels this way just because you get sick is also stressed and strained but she sounds like she cares (this kind of care isn’t actually the highest level of care— it stems from fear,) so if you can become wise about navigating her fear instead of allowing the emotions it causes to overwhelm you and cause you to feel stifled, angry, depressed and deeply hurt then you will find your way through this. It may take many failures and accidents in communication and mistakes and effort and trying, but it is alright that it does and it wouldn’t make sense if all the things that she learned through her life were all changed in a single conversation.

 

She may never change, I mean bank on the probable reality that she will not, it is going to have to be you who does the distancing (of yourself from her however painful) when she is somehow really harming you and doesn’t know. In these times you will need to access a very cold and decisive, “adult” part of yourself. In Psychology this is called the Inner Adult and the Inner Child.

 

You are going to need to learn now to understand that your mother isn’t going to be able to do any of this for you, and until you do it yourself (all of it) then you will keep going in painful cycles with her.

 

Really wish I could have known this sooner and become more objective about things.

 

If she helps you with too many things, big to small I advise you to begin to start taking on each of the things you are going to need to do for yourself as soon as you are 18 anyway.

 

18 is young and you don’t have to have it all figured out— you will never have it all figured out, so don’t worry about that.

 

Be concerned with self-care and becoming as much of an adult as you are capable of each moment, day, and on and on until the last breath.

 

This ^

 

It will free you to become the real you.

 

You can then decide so many things for yourself, you can allow softness and this doesn't have to be a cold, sterile and frightening process.

 

You can make this into a good challenge for yourself and come out on top. Remember that it is never the small things people talk about and are concerned about… it is always the deeper underlying reason for why people bicker and argue and fight and re-state boundaries.

 

Be kind with her, even sweet to your lovely mother— but be firm and find *your* boundaries. They need to work with what the house rules are if you are living there, but if you are diplomatic and sensitive to her needs, wants and desires and listen to what she says giving her the benefit of the doubt, then you should be able to reach more reasonable compromises on the rules or the behavior of hers that is damaging to you.

 

Note: Because of all the damage done to females in this world, and because of human nature (male and female) women are in desperate need of what safe masculine energy provides so that they can let go of this extreme form of worry/control. After lots and lots of study, I found someone who is helping me understand how to become and return to my feminine self and to feminine energy. I was this, not so much now though because of what happened as a result of a similar environment (control freak mother.) She and I are benefitting from this person’s research and knowledge in this area, it can even help with romantic relationships— in fact that is what the advice is posited as.

 

 

[[Gr...]]

Since I have been learning about anger, my anger, it has surprised me that anyone's anger, is not about the person they are angry at.  It's all about the person who is angry and their expectations not meeting reality. Even if someone if very angry, that doesn't make them right.  It's hard to remember when you are the angry person or even when someone is angry at you. 

[[az...]]

Since I have been learning about anger, my anger, it has surprised me that anyone's anger, is not about the person they are angry at.  It's all about the person who is angry and their expectations not meeting reality. Even if someone if very angry, that doesn't make them right.  It's hard to remember when you are the angry person or even when someone is angry at you.

 

So helpful, in just this way you worded this. Thank you.

 

 

[[az...]]

Kind of find myself here sometimes on the benzodiazepine issue all too often. Painful, but anger is a part of reality and sometimes it sort of really does make sense to be angry. Not that I want to stay this way or be here constantly or in a way that is damaging to me spiritually (and as a result in all other ways.) Today this is again a challenge, so hurt & upset sometimes by the evil in the world and in human nature, thank you for reading and contributing and to all fighting for real freedom here,

 

heaps of compassion 

 

azalea32

[[Sh...]]

Does it always have to come back to Mom?  LOL it just seems that way when discussing life problems!  There was a time when mothers were blamed for "causing" homosexuality due to their too close hovering style.  More enlightened thinking knows that it is not nurture, it is nature.  I think the same can be said of anxiety, the primary condition which led many of us to benzos.  We come into the world wired a certain way and many of us were simply more sensitive to the fight or flight dynamic from the get go.  That doesn't mean that our parents (Dads included) didn't have a major role in who we became, they certainly did!  Many other life experiences also led us down the benzo path and I know for me it had little to do with my parenting.  Just my 2 cents.

 

She

[[az...]]

Does it always have to come back to Mom?  LOL it just seems that way when discussing life problems!  There was a time when mothers were blamed for "causing" homosexuality due to their too close hovering style.  More enlightened thinking knows that it is not nurture, it is nature.  I think the same can be said of anxiety, the primary condition which led many of us to benzos.  We come into the world wired a certain way and many of us were simply more sensitive to the fight or flight dynamic from the get go.  That doesn't mean that our parents (Dads included) didn't have a major role in who we became, they certainly did!  Many other life experiences also led us down the benzo path and I know for me it had little to do with my parenting.  Just my 2 cents.

 

She

 

Yes, thank you SheWhoMust.

 

I think you have very good points and I agree too that this is really part of the whole picture of actual truth here.

 

I really hear the thing about it always being Mom's fault.

 

"Save the drama for your mama" happens all the time too with females who have given birth and dedicated themselves to raising life, they get all the blame and all the excess drama that only comes from the world and other people too.

[[az...]]

Dad had even more to do with my own dysfunction in life, this is no other man's fault but his.

[[Ma...]]

Both my parents were alcoholics, then me and my sister.  I went into rehab in 1991 for alcoholism and haven't had a drink since.  The addiction in my family goes back to 1800's. I had a great great great grandmother addicted to laudanum.  Sux....

[[az...]]

I disowned my mother today, 100%… all of the way, totally.

 

Seeing as this is a thread on the damage certain human beings can do as they attempt to raise another individual up in life, I state now that I do not welcome anything but support for this well thought out and fully formed decision which has arrived in great beauty and timing.

 

Thank God!

[Guest [sc...]]

My mother was mentally ill and as a child she used to beat me, unprovoked.  I never knew why she was attacking me, she would just start wailing on me with wooden broomsticks or wire hangers and take me by my hair and shake me over and over.  I would go to my room and sob and and my body was covered with welts and my hair would fall out in handfuls.  I still find it hard not to hate her for these things as an adult.  I do believe it was the cause of my anxiety disorder which led me to take benzos.

[[az...]]

I am so very thankful for your commitment to heal, scrabblegirl. I thank you for your bravery to share the worst of the worst so we can let the light shine into these areas, those of us who do not know what it means to feel safe and protected.

[[az...]]

My mother was mentally ill and as a child she used to beat me, unprovoked.  I never knew why she was attacking me, she would just start wailing on me with wooden broomsticks or wire hangers and take me by my hair and shake me over and over.  I would go to my room and sob and and my body was covered with welts and my hair would fall out in handfuls.  I still find it hard not to hate her for these things as an adult.  I do believe it was the cause of my anxiety disorder which led me to take benzos.

 

❤️🦁

[[az...]]

I forgot what I was about to post, oh yeah-

 

this is it. I said earlier in another post recently that I lost my grandmother or my mother… I did. She was. My maternal grandmother served as my foundation and guiding star in terms of my need to be seen for who I am and feel safe. My grandmother was my emotional constant. I only remember three silly disagreements (one at age 6 and I don't remember what it was about and then one or two around the ages of 8 and 9) and one serious which happened in my 20's which I do not blame her for. My birth mother who acted as a physical mother, was not at all present for me emotionally… the ways she was "present" were often selfish and based out of fear.

 

What can I say, she did some major damage though I was never touched physically.

[[az...]]

I think that it's possible that the ones in my family are the ones who are actually ill, and not me! 

[Guest [Sk...]]

Does it always have to come back to Mom?

LOL it just seems that way when discussing life problems! 

There was a time when mothers were blamed for "causing" homosexuality due to their too close hovering style.

 

  More enlightened thinking knows that it is not nurture, it is nature.

 

I think the same can be said of anxiety,

the primary condition which led many of us to benzos.

We come into the world wired a certain way

and many of us were simply more sensitive to the fight or flight dynamic from the get go. 

 

That doesn't mean that our parents (Dads included)

didn't have a major role in who we became, they certainly did!  Many other life experiences also led us down the benzo path and I know for me it had little to do with my parenting.  Just my 2 cents.

 

She

 

so agree with this, as I wandered through several foster homes with several different mothers, situations, belief systems etc

from the age of five when  I was removed from my mother care  :oops:

 

so nature  seems to have shaped me often,

as all these mothers had differing views,

which caused many adjustments necessary along the way.  Whew  :'(

Damage can come in so many ways.  :'( :'(

 

 

 

[[ih...]]

You seem very well adjusted to me Sky.

 

Im so sorry for those of you with parents who may well have been damaged by their own. To quote Englands poet laureate , Philip Larkin

 

This Be The Verse

BY PHILIP LARKIN

They fuck you up, your mum and dad. 

    They may not mean to, but they do. 

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

 

But they were fucked up in their turn

    By fools in old-style hats and coats, 

Who half the time were soppy-stern

    And half at one another’s throats.

 

Man hands on misery to man.

    It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

    And don’t have any kids yourself.

 

Philip Larkin, "This Be the Verse" from Collected Poems. Copyright © Estate of Philip Larkin.  Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber, Ltd.

Source: Collected Poems (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2001)

 

BTW, I don’t think its anywhere near this dismal & am also more predisposed to the nature inffluence. I have seen so many different personalities emergre from the same family circumstances.

 

The twin studies have some fascinating data on this.

 

 

 

 

[[Ma...]]

Maya Angelou said you do what you know until you know better (something close to that) so when I think of my childhood, my parents, then all the things I have done in my life, I try to remember that..

.because I can't apply it to me, without applying it to my parents.  I'm not saying it's easy, don't get me wrong.....but it helps me to believe that.....

[Guest [Sk...]]

You seem very well adjusted to me Sky.

 

 

Thanks ihope.  :smitten:

 

I do try and focus on the positives of the negatives often,

and value the lessons I was taught, regardless. 

 

Finding what we lost

within ourselves  ( the need to be loved or nurtured)

in what we do and how we live our life now,

( love and nurture ourselves now )

not repeating the negative behaviour and judgements all over again

via  self judgements sadness, comparisons

anger, blame etc. and lack of self love now

related to the past lack of what we needed then

 

Thats how I think I deal with the pain inflicted back then,

look for changes only I can make now, Me now,

as  we cant change the past however we can  change

the way we think about it  now. 

as a start

 

A saying that helps me adjust my thinking often is.

 

"Everytime you point a finger at someone i.e judging  another

remember there is three fingers pointing back at you. "

 

helps me address my emotions, and not use the intellect so often 

Keeps me more balanced, and a thriver rather than a victim.

 

 

 

 

 

[[Ph...]]

We think our parents were making conscious decisions about how they treated us.  But this is false.  They were acting under the influences of their histories and genes, just as we are.  They had little to no choice in their actions.  Those of us who blame our parents need to rethink it.  It took me 50 years to understand this.

[[Ma...]]

We think our parents were making conscious decisions about how they treated us.  But this is false.  They were acting under the influences of their histories and genes, just as we are.  They had little to no choice in their actions.  Those of us who blame our parents need to rethink it.  It took me 50 years to understand this.

[/quote

 

I believe that also and it takes so much weight, pain, and bitterness with it.....

[[be...]]

My drunken father played a role. But his father was a drunk and his father was a drunk.

 

Mostly I had way too much stress at my job and benzos could have been averted if I just switched careers. What did not help was I asked my doctor dad if benzos were OK to take and he said, listen to your psychiatrist. So I did and have a new one who is doing his best to get me off them.

[[Ma...]]

My drunken father played a role. But his father was a drunk and his father was a drunk.

 

Mostly I had way too much stress at my job and benzos could have been averted if I just switched careers. What did not help was I asked my doctor dad if benzos were OK to take and he said, listen to your psychiatrist. So I did and have a new one who is doing his best to get me off them.

 

Both sides of my family was either alcoholics or addicts.  On my dads side we traced back to late 1800's, my great great great grandmother was addicted to laudanum.  Both parents, uncles, aunts,  both me and sister, and her son.  I bet there are so many more families out there , and yes we are totally dysfunctional  :idiot but we are responsible for our life's as we grow up. 

[[be...]]

Yes Mary I think that is true..............

[Guest [Sk...]]

we are responsible for our life's as we grow up.

 

:thumbsup:

[[Gr...]]

We think our parents were making conscious decisions about how they treated us.  But this is false.  They were acting under the influences of their histories and genes, just as we are.  They had little to no choice in their actions.  Those of us who blame our parents need to rethink it.  It took me 50 years to understand this.

 

This, exactly!!!  Now that I am a parent, I can try to understand why my parents did things and why I do, but some bad habits are still getting repeated, even though I want the best for my kid, just like my parent.  We're all human.