Tag Archives: childhood

Apr 6 2011

Therapy Recap 4/5/11

J and I talked more about my cousin and her status. She went home from the hospital last Wednesday. I told him that I have only talked to her once, and that was Thursday night when we were trying to arrange who would take her to her ect treatment on Friday morning. Then her mother came down on Saturday and is staying for two weeks. I told J that her mother (my aunt) called me twice on Saturday, but I didn’t answer. Later in the day I felt bad so I called her back, and she went on and on, telling me how she has always had strong faith, even during her divorce and her cancer, but seeing her daughter like this makes her really question her faith. I told J that really annoyed me. She is always trying to find someone to blame this on – my cousin’s father, her ex-husband, her jobs, now God. Plus she wasn’t even there when her daughter was at her worst, so she didn’t see that.

Then I talked about last Tuesday night when I visited my cousin, she was still in the hospital then. Her ex-boyfriend/friend was there too and we started talking about our mothers. She said about her mother, ”She drives me crazy, but overall I think she is an easy person for most people to get along with.” I had to bite my tongue, but maybe it is true, she has quite a few friends. Then my cousin said about my mother, “Your mother is nice to me now, and she is very good to my son, but when I was little I wasn’t good.” It’s true, that is what my mother thought. Whenever my cousin would leave after a visit my mother would say, “What is wrong with L? She just lays on the couch, she never does anything.” I told J that I felt surprised that my cousin felt this from my mother, maybe my mother even said things like that directly to her, I don’t know. I also felt bad for her because aunts are supposed to be the nice ones, and here she has a mean aunt, and it’s my mother. I also told him that it was a combination of validating and fear hearing her say this about my mother. I have been telling J all along that I am never good enough for my mother, but I always had the idea in the back of my head that maybe it wasn’t her, it was me, I’m too sensitive. But if my cousin felt the same way… However, my cousin is very sensitive too, so maybe both of us are wrong.

That night my cousin also said that she thought my mother favored my sister over me. I didn’t know why she thought that. J and I talked about childhood stuff. He asked me if my mother nagged me to be perfect, ie; homework, keeping my room clean. I said that she didn’t have to nag me, I did all of that on my own. My clothes were organized by color in my closet. I told him that they still are. ROYGBIV, you know? He asked me what this type of organization says about me and I said I guess I am a control freak. He disagreed and said that I prevent anxiety on the back end by organizing things on the front end. It gives me some control, but he doesn’t consider it a control freak. I guess that would be if a pink shirt was mixed in with the black shirts and I had a panic attack. That would be over the top. J said that he organizes his clothes in the closet, work clothes vs other clothes, but his t-shirts are just all in a drawer. My t-shirts are folded so that they can all be seen from above, with drawer dividers, and also in color order. Hey, it makes it easier for me to find things, so don’t criticize me!

We talked about what I should be doing for my cousin now. I have been giving her space. I told J that I feel that she doesn’t want me around, that I was in her space for two and half weeks and now she needs to be away from me. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone there every day. He asked me what she is doing or saying that leads me to believe this. I told him that she isn’t doing or saying anything, it is just my distorted thinking. Yay for me! Progress in therapy I guess.

But he did tell me that I should call her and just say that I’m around, if she wants me to come by I am available, if there is anything she needs I should let her know. I told him I could do that.

We also addressed how I should deal with her mother. I don’t want a relationship with her mother, she never wanted one with me, and now suddenly I’m her best friend. She texts me all the time, she wants me to come over and visit. J said I should ride the wave, deal with her while she is friendly, but keep in mind that it won’t last. I told him that she annoys me so much and I am very angry with her, and seeing her is fairly intolerable. I said that I know he told me to let the anger roll off of my back, and he said he knows that is easier said than done. She wants to plan a weekend at the beach, but she told me that she doesn’t want my mother to come. J says if she mentions it, I should tell her that I am not comfortable doing that. My mother still doesn’t know any of the stuff that has happened with my cousin, or my involvement in this.

I talked about my guilt, how I could have done more to prevent the overdose from happening. I should have convinced her mother that L really needed inpatient treatment, and I should have called her psychiatrist to let him know how suicidal she was, as people were suggesting to me. J said that there is nothing more I could have done. I could have talked to her mother until I was blue in the face, but she wouldn’t listen. She minimized the whole thing, she didn’t even come down here until two days after the overdose, and that was because I called her and said I thought L might die. As for calling the psychiatrist, J said that he has gotten calls from people who are concerned about someone he is seeing. It doesn’t make him pick up the phone and call 911. The next time the person comes in, he would ask about things and make his own determination, or he would consult with other doctors seeing that person. If I had called the doctor, it is entirely possible that nothing would have come out differently, except for the fact that my cousin wouldn’t trust me because I went behind her back. I know all of this logically, but it is hard for me to get over guilt.

I didn’t mention Chipotle and he didn’t either. I didn’t want him to think I am a bad or resistant client.

Somehow we got to talking about our dogs. He said his dog is afraid of thunder and I said, “Oh my god, so is mine. Was yours freaking out the last two nights?” Because the last two nights we had storms in the middle of the night. He said he even told his wife that they would have to call the vet and get something for the dog because they aren’t sleeping and they are exhausted. I told him that he could give the dog xanax. He said his dog starts panting and shaking ten minutes before he can even hear the thunder, and I said my dog too! I said my dog is 11 and she still hasn’t gotten used to it, and he said his dog is 7 and hasn’t gotten used to it either. I told him that now my dog is afraid of wind and rain, and he said his is too because she knows thunder is coming. I can’t remember why we had this conversation, but it was so weird, like just a normal conversation two people would have. I think it had something to do with not getting annoyed or mad at the dog, because she can’t help it when she gets afraid. And my aunt can’t help the way she is and she isn’t going to change, so I have to accept her the way she is. I said, “I don’t have to like it.” And he said that I don’t have to like it.

He said that there was only one instance in the session where I was self-deprecating. Previously I would talk about feeling guilty, and feeling guilty for feeling guilty, and how everything is my fault, but today I didn’t do that and he was very pleased.

I wanted to talk to him about how I’ve been feeling in general since the overdose, emotional, bad dreams, etc, but there was no time. All of this will probably go away in time anyway.

Dec 15 2010

My Grandmother – Part 1

My grandmother was born in 1906 in Andrasovce, Czechoslovakia. Her father was 68 years old when she was born. He already had four daughters and two sons from a previous marriage. They lived on a big farm and he became a wealthy man from the saloon that he owned. But he died when Grandma was twelve. Her mother, who was 39 when Grandma was born, had been married once before as well, and had two sons from her first marriage.

Grandma’s given name was Pauline, but everyone called her Peppi. Two years after her father died, Grandma and her mother, who we called “Little Grandma” because she was short, boarded the SS Rotterdam and came to the United States. It was 1920. One of Little Grandma’s sons had made the journey the year before. He hid emeralds and diamonds in his shoes, and made a nice life for himself in New Jersey, and was able to help Grandma and her mother financially. That’s the story I was told, anyway. Little Grandma lived in this country for 40 years and never spoke a word of English. Yiddish was her native tongue.

Grandma Peppi married into a big, boisterous Hungarian family in 1935 when she was 29 years old. She wanted to be Hungarian too, and she learned the language and how to cook like a Hungarian. Grandma was a great cook, but not a gourmet. She was a peasant cook – soups, stews, bread and cakes were her territory. I loved to eat at her house, there was always something delicious. She would let me help too. One morning she took me to the local farmer’s market where there was a pen full of chickens. She asked me which one I liked and I picked out a particularly pretty chicken. Little did I know that chicken would be my dinner. I never made the mistake of picking out a chicken again. Grandma brought it home, plucked out the feathers and cooked the whole thing, including the feet, which she liked to suck on while standing at the kitchen sink.

I was always of the mindset that cooking is an art but baking is a science. Not for Grandma. She couldn’t read English, and had no recipes. Yet her cookies, cakes and breads always came out the same – perfect. She made hamantaschen all year round, in the triangle shape during Purim, and square the rest of the year. She filled them with poppy seed, lekvar (which is pureed prunes), and apricot filling. She would also make some without filling, and she called those pogachels. One of my favorite dishes was shlishkes, which is like Hungarian gnocchi, a potato dough, boiled in water to make dumplings, then sautéed in butter and breadcrumbs and served with a little lekvar on each one. Not very healthy, but Grandma didn’t have a healthy diet. The only vegetable I ever saw her eat was the carrots from her chicken soup. She grew up on schmaltz (chicken fat) and full fat dairy products. I could always find heavy cream, sour cream, butter and pot cheese in her refrigerator.

Grandma made her own blintzes and egg noodles. She made very thin crepe like discs that she would lay on dish towels spread on the kitchen table. She would cut them into thin ribbons to make noodles, and for blintzes she would fill them with pot cheese or mashed potatoes or lekvar. Blintzes were always fried in butter and served with sour cream. Despite her poor diet Grandma never had any trouble with her arteries or her heart. When she was in her 90’s she would say proudly, “I have no cholesterol!” which she would pronounce “cowesterol.”

Grandma had trouble with parts of the English language, particularly the letter “l” and long words. She couldn’t say Colorado. When my sister and I were feeling silly we would say,

“Grandma, say Colorado.”
“Cowowado”

We would laugh every time and so would she. She didn’t go to school here and never learned very much, and when I got a little older I would tease her sometimes. I asked her who the president of the United States was when she arrived here.

“I don’t know”
“Was it George Washington?”
“Hmmm, that doesn’t sound familiar.” (It was actually Woodrow Wilson.)

Unfortunately my grandfather died when I was six months old, and Grandma was 54. Grandpa never had a traditional career, he was an entrepreneur. He owned a rooming house at the beach, made airplanes for the war, owned a candy store and a gas station. I think he also owned a toy store at some point. He died suddenly of a heart attack while he was delivering donuts. At that time he was a salesman for a baking company. He didn’t have a retirement fund, so Grandma had to be creative. She converted the second floor of her house to an apartment by adding a kitchen and she rented it out. She also cared for sick and elderly people in their homes. That income plus her social security saw her through many years. She spent a lot of time at our house, and we would even take her on vacation with us. We would visit her very often as well, weekly or more.

To be continued…..

Apr 21 2010

Therapy Update 4/20/10

I don’t really feel like writing! I’m working a lot, and I’m tired. But I want to get these thoughts down before I forget them all. My therapy session went well yesterday. We talked about the email I sent J and how to proceed. J asked me, “So what is our problem?” I responded that I thought it was my problem, and he disagreed. He said it is our problem. I told him that I felt he preferred to talk about concrete issues, and he said it doesn’t matter what he likes, it is important for me to talk about what I feel is important. I said I disagreed, that if he is better or more skilled at dealing with concrete issues it will influence our work. I told him I wished I had a “real problem”, like binge eating or an addiction and that I could come in every week and tell him I ate a dozen donuts yesterday, or went to the park and got high five times this week.

We talked about my childhood a little, and it seemed he tried to get me to admit that I was “forced” to act a certain way. Like someone told me that I couldn’t talk about my problems or feelings. But it wasn’t that way at all, it seems I took it upon myself to be the good child and not bother anyone with my troubles. We talked about how my sister and my father were sick and needed a lot of attention and I didn’t want to take attention away from them. But nobody expected that of me, I acted that way out of my own accord.

We talked about how my mother wasn’t a real feelings kind of person. He asked me if I am, and I told him I am full of feelings, but I don’t talk about them. He compared feelings to a coin collection, and how I hold onto the coins but I don’t get them appraised so I’m not sure of their value. He asked me if I bring the coin collection into therapy, and I said I don’t, I just report on the coins. He asked me if I had a big coin collection would I get it appraised. I said I think I would. He asked me what would be the negatives of getting the collection appraised, and I said that perhaps the coins would have less value than I thought they would, or maybe they would have a lot of value and someone would try to steal them.

He said he wanted to talk more about the “open wound” that I wrote about in my email. He said he thinks of it as an emptiness or a void. Thinking about that I have to disagree. There is a difference between a wound and void. A void is what is left after the wound heals. We talked about where that wound might have come from and I said I have no idea. I have never suffered any trauma, so I am not even justified in feeling wounded.

He asked me if I want to be like everyone else or if I want to be unique. He said he thinks he knows, but he wants me to say. I told him that I feel like I want to be like everyone else, but when he tries to normalize my feelings by saying other people feel that way, I feel minimized. So it’s a contradiction. He said he knew I felt that way too.

J asked me what kinds of responses I want to get in therapy, and I told him I don’t know because I don’t know what the choices are. I told him it is like needing a new roof, and someone asks what my budget is. I don’t know because I don’t know what a roof costs. Then we talked about leaky roofs, and fixing roofs vs patching them, and putting on a fancy slate roof or a basic shingle roof. I think he made a joke about giving me an estimate. I told him my house isn’t very big.

At the end of the session I told J that there was something I needed to tell him before I go on my trip. He asked me where I’m going and I reminded him that I am going to Mississippi to work with Habitat for Humanity. He said, “Oh yes, we talked about that.” I guess he forgot. I told him that over the last year I have been working on a plan, and the plan was that if I didn’t feel better by my birthday I would have to commit suicide. I told him my birthday was coming up and I don’t want to think about the plan for the next couple of weeks, especially when I am on my trip. I asked him to hold my plan for me. He said, “Sure, do you have it?” I said, “J! It’s symbolic. I don’t have a typed up document.” Clueless sometimes. So I asked him to hold it figuratively and put it in the drawer or something and he said he would.

We went over time a little to talk about this. He asked me what it would take for me to sign on for another year. Another year of life. I told him I want to like myself. Maybe I would sign on to the month to month plan, and he said he doesn’t like that plan, because everyone has a bad month. He asked me if working with the foster child, and the hotline, and going to Mississippi to build houses isn’t enough to make me feel good about myself. He thinks that what we do equals how good we are, and I don’t think so. I think it’s our character and our thoughts and feelings that make us good or bad.

We talked about how I don’t have criteria to determine whether or not I feel better about myself so how can I determine if I should follow through with the plan? I told him that if I don’t follow through I’ll be a failure. I set a goal, and if I don’t meet it, it means failure. But I did say that I might need a loophole, and perhaps the loophole is that I never set guidelines to determine success. I really don’t feel so great about myself though, so I don’t think I’ve been a success in liking myself more.

But J is holding the plan right now, so I don’t have to think about it. It’s in his drawer. Symbolically.

Mar 25 2010

Email Non Update

So J didn’t write back. He asked me why I thought our session didn’t go well, I told him my thoughts, briefly (trying to keep all of my emails very brief), and asked him if he thought I wasn’t being understood because I don’t communicate well. He never responded.

Now I’m not sure if he didn’t get the email, if he is busy, if I’m in trouble, if I seem ungrateful because I said that I don’t think he really got it, etc. I can think of thousands of reasons, but I’m sure that most, if not all, of them are untrue. I hate waiting for responses. I might have to email him again just to be able to move on with my week.

Thank you all for the great dialogue on yesterday’s post. I have a lot to think about. Right now I’m feeling that I just can’t find my place in the world. And not hopeful that I ever will. So I can continue a futile search, or maybe just come to accept the fact that this is the way it is. I feel like the Man of La Mancha (actually never saw the show, but I think I know the plot). I’m dreaming the impossible dream.

The other day when I was talking to my cousin we talked a little about our childhoods. I hate my little child, well, the one I was when I was little. If I ever have the chance to run into her on the street I would push her in front of bus so that she doesn’t have to grow up and be me.

Oct 21 2009

A Pathetic Child

When I was young I used to yell at my little sister. Not yell, SCREAM! I would really lose it, I remember the feeling so well, even though it was 35 or 40 years ago. I hated her. I was very angry. But in addition to that I think that I had a lot inside of me that needed to get out. I never felt like I could “trouble” anyone with my thoughts, or feelings, or problems. So it got all stuck inside, and it needed to get out.

I’m not trying to excuse my behavior, I’m very ashamed of the screaming, and I know it affected my sister. I can still remember how her face looked when I did that to her, and about 20 years ago she mentioned it, but I blew it off and wouldn’t talk about it.

But it makes me sad to think of that little child with all that stuff inside of her that she didn’t feel she could get out.

Oct 6 2009

Therapy Recap 10/6/09

I went into therapy today intending to talk about something because I was sure that J wouldn’t remember what he asked me to do last week, but he did. So we spent the session talking about the good characteristics that I (with all of your help) came up with. Frankly I couldn’t even remember them, I should have read my blog before the session. It wasn’t a very interesting session actually, but there was good stuff about being good vs bad and how much good stuff you have to have in order to be good. Good people do bad things, bad people do good things. J suggested an interesting visual though. He talked about a big whiteboard with a list of good characteristics and bad characteristics. All of the words are in lights. So if I’m late for an appointment the word “UNRELIABLE” will light up on the whiteboard. In my case the word will be extra bright and will blink for a while and will stay lit for a long time, eventually fading off. But if I’m on time for the appointment the word “RELIABLE” will light up, but dimly, and will stay on for a few seconds then turn off.

I need to get the positive words to light up brighter, and flash, and stay on for a longer period of time, and the negative words to light up more dimly, and stop flashing, and turn off sooner.

Unfortunately J did not have one of these whiteboards to give me, he said it has to be in my head. My homework for this week is to notice 2 or 3 good things and 2 or 3 bad things and how much they light up, whether they flash, and how long they take to dim. I can already tell this will be hard, and I really have to differentiate between good deeds and good qualities. Sigh.

Now this is what I really have been thinking about and wanting to talk about:

When I was 5 years old I was hit by a car. It wasn’t a big deal, I wasn’t hurt except for some cuts and bruises. The doctor came to our house, he happened to be in the neighborhood for some reason. I remember being in the den of our house and the doctor saying, “She has no broken bones.” I thought to myself, “bones can break?” That was really surprising to me. I knew what bones were, but I had no idea they could break.

So I spent the next few years trying to avoid breaking my bones. I didn’t know how they could break, so I basically avoided doing anything. One of things I did was to change the way I slept. I started sleeping with my arm above my head so that no part of my body was leaning on my arm. That way it couldn’t break. To this day I sleep like that. But I’ve had shoulder problems, and my arm pops out of the shoulder socket really easily, especially if my arm is above my head.

I wake up most nights 2 or 3 times because my arm starts dislocating, and sometimes if I move wrong when I’m sleeping it totally pops out. It goes back in easily, luckily, but it’s somewhat painful and kind of a surprising way to have to wake up. I’ve tried to change the way I sleep. It’s hard to fall asleep if I’m not in my usual position, and if I do fall asleep that way I invariably wake up later with my arm above my head again.

To sum up, when I was a child I started a behavior, based on a false belief, that continued throughout my life, and even though it is causing problems on a daily basis I can’t change the behavior.

Isn’t it that way with thoughts and feelings, in addition to behaviors? I developed thoughts and feelings when I was a child, possibly based on false beliefs, that continued throughout my whole life, and even though they are causing problems on a daily basis I can’t change the thoughts and feelings.

Oct 4 2009

What I Need to Remember

I think I should make it clear that I am not comparing myself to Ted Bundy. It might have sounded like that in my last post and I’m sorry if I gave the wrong impression. I guess I chose someone very extreme to make my point, but I really don’t think I’m anything like Ted Bundy, except we both volunteer at a suicide hotline.

So what I think I need to remember is:

1. Bad thoughts and feelings happen to everyone.
2. Bad thoughts and feelings don’t make someone a bad person.
3. Good people have bad thoughts and feelings sometimes, it is a part of being human.
4. People aren’t necessarily good or bad and there is no need to classify them as such.
5. I should hold myself to the same standards that I hold everyone else. I am no better or worse than anyone else and I am not more or less important than anyone else.

I am reading a book called “Reinventing Your Life” by Jeffrey E. Young and Janet S. Klosko. Their premise is that there are patterns in our lives (they call them lifetraps) that start in childhood and reverberate throughout life. It begins with something that is done to us when we are children by our families or by other children (or I might add even by ourselves). Eventually the lifetrap becomes part of us. It determines how we think, feel, act, and relate to others. Even when we appear to have everything we are often unable to savor life or believe in our accomplishments.

I don’t think that they invented this concept, but the book is easy to read. It has little quizzes in it and chapters based on the various lifetraps, which include abandonment, mistrust, emotional deprivation, social exclusion, dependence, vulnerability, defectiveness, failure, subjugation, unrelenting standards and entitlement. I dare you to find someone who doesn’t have one of these problems! I have a few, I don’t even want to admit how many. I believe that some of them are co-morbid, and some are overlapping in their symptoms.

I recommend this book, it’s enlightening. The steps that one would take to change the lifetraps are well explained, but I think it would be hard to make these changes alone. If it was that easy there would be no need for mental health professionals, would there?

It’s so much easier for me to understand things on an intellectual level than on an emotional level. On an intellectual level I see that I am really no different from most people in my abilities, my talents, my vulnerabilities. But I don’t FEEL that. That’s where there is a disconnect for me. It seems like a huge jump to make and I can’t see how to get there.

Sep 24 2009

Parent Insight

Today is my mother’s birthday, so we spent the day together. We had lunch and walked around a fun historic city that is nearby. It was really hot and humid, but otherwise a nice day. It’s been 11 days since her husband passed away, and she has closed all of his accounts, arranged for his daughter to pick up his car, cancelled his insurances, notified all of his doctors and dentists, talked with her financial planner, and booked a cruise to Bermuda with seven of her single friends. And one wonders why I have such high expectations of myself? I can’t help but be intensely aware of everything she is saying and doing lately, and how these behaviors and comments have shaped my development when I was a child and young adult. Maybe it’s because I’m in therapy and am more self aware.

Here are some examples. My mother was telling me about my sister’s husband, and how he didn’t go to work one day last week. She thought he was very upset about the death of my mother’s husband (actually I think he just had a cold) and was too emotional to go to work. Her comment was, “He’s not like us.” She said the same thing about him 11 years ago when his and my sister’s son, my nephew, had a major surgery to reconstruct the bones of his skull. He was 11 months old at the time. We were all sitting in the waiting room of Children’s Hospital and the doctor came in towards the end of the surgery to tell us that the surgery is almost over and everything went fine. My brother-in-law started to cry. Later my mother said, “He’s not like us.” Meaning, we don’t expose our icky emotional feelings to the world. We hide them and move on to the next hurdle. No crying, no missing work, just move on.

Today my mother was telling me about my cousin. My cousin is going through a divorce, her husband got laid off and she had to get a job. I asked her what type of job my cousin got. Her response was, “I don’t know. She’s never known what she wants to do. She’s tried so many different things, who knows what kind of job she can get.” This was a bit personal for me, because I’ve never known what I want to do, I’ve tried so many different things, and I don’t have “real” job. The way she said it, with a degrading tone to her voice, made me wonder, “Does she think the same way about me?” Because my mother values hard work, commitment, nothing wishy washy.

My mother’s values have imprinted themselves on me. That’s a normal parental thing to do, we pass on our values to our children. It’s not good or bad, it’s just a part of parenting. A problem arises when a child’s personality is so different than the parent’s personality. Those values may not be in sync with the child’s personality. So how does one resolve that dilemma? Maybe that’s why I often feel torn inside. I have a need to show the world that I am capable, confident, competent, that nothing fazes me, that I can solve all of my problems on my own, that if something difficult comes up I deal with it and move on. But inside I know I’m not like that. I’m emotional, not always capable, have no confidence, everything shakes me up. If something difficult comes up I do deal with it and move on, but do I really move on? Or do things build up inside of me to the point where I engage in self destructive behavior?

Sep 23 2009

Therapy Recap 9/22/09

I had to cancel therapy last week because it was the day of the funeral. It’s really hard to go back when I’ve skipped a week. Monday night I could not fall asleep – I think I finally fell asleep at about 3am, and then I woke up at 6:30am. I also had a really bad stomach Monday and Tuesday morning.

The last time I saw J he assigned me homework. I was supposed to write down one good thing I did and one thing I’m grateful for every day. I actually did the homework Tuesday through Saturday, but that was it since my mother’s husband died and things got crazy. I had a really hard time with the homework. The grateful stuff wasn’t bad, but coming up with good things was very difficult. Two of the days I didn’t do anything good, one day I made a donation to my friend Ann’s foundation, another day I bought girl scout cookies even though I don’t want girl scout cookies – I donated them to the troops. I did a volunteer activity one of the days, which I don’t even think counts as good, but I was desperate. I was actually going to go to the humane society and adopt a dog just so I had something to put on the list.

J said that wasn’t really how the homework was supposed to go. He apologized. He said he didn’t intend for me to go out and search for ways to be good, I was supposed to just write down things I did in my daily life that are good. But I don’t normally do good things in my daily life, so I’m a bit confused about what he was looking for. He said in the future he’ll give me more explicit directions. He gave me back my list and I ripped it to shreds. I said it was stupid. Mature of me, isn’t it?

We got onto the topic of my mother. Every therapist’s dream, right? It all comes back to the mother. I told J about something my mother did a few days ago that really hurt my feelings and I wondered why she felt the need to do that, but “that’s what she does.” He asked me to explain and I told him that my mother is very judgmental and nothing is ever good enough. I gave a couple of examples. We talked about my childhood a little, and how my parents had very high expectations of me, and not very high expectations of my sister. I think that is because she was sick as a baby and toddler and she could get away with a lot more. I took on the role of the “good child”, and I was smart and well behaved so it was a self fulfilling prophecy. The better I was the better I needed to be.

J postulated that perhaps my parents wanted me to be this good child because it made them look like good parents. Never thought about it that way, but it makes sense. And to this day I never feel like I’m good enough or meet my mother’s expectations of me.

I know that everyone at some point talks to their therapist about their parents. I feel bad about it though. My mother is a good person, despite her flaws. Everyone has flaws, no one is perfect, and plenty of people had much worse mothers than I do. I do feel guilty about the things I said about her to J.

I did some more projecting during our session, but maybe since I admitted that I was projecting when I sent J the email a couple of weeks ago, he felt more comfortable telling me when I was doing it. He’d say, “You’re projecting again.” I don’t do it on purpose, I swear I don’t!

I have more to say, but I’m so tired. In the ongoing dental adventure I’ve been having, the second stage of my root canal was supposed to be last week, but due to the circumstances I had to reschedule. And now my tooth is infected again, so I called the dentist and he prescribed another antibiotic. I took two doses, and last night woke up in the middle of the night covered in hives. I took some benadryl and finally went back to sleep, but since I didn’t sleep Monday night or last night I’m exhausted. I’m on a different antibiotic now, I’ve taken this one before so I don’t expect any hivey surprises tonight.

May 6 2009

Shame Continued

I found another interesting website about shame, and therapy. More about how we develop shame, what happens to us when we feel shame, living as if we’re “OK”, and what helps. Here is the link: About Shame. It is written by Tony Schirtzinger, a therapist in Milwaukee.

Some interesting points from the site and how they relate, or not, to me.

WHERE SHAME COMES FROM
Shame comes from being taught
that we are worthless or bad or something similar.
It comes in childhood from adults who say things like:
“You’ll never amount to anything!”
“You are worthless!”
“I wish you were never born!”
“Shame on you!”

It also comes from severe physical discipline
since each hit of the hand or fist or belt says to the child:
“You don’t matter at all!
Only what you do matters!”

And shame comes from being humiliated for our behavior.
It comes from adults who say:
“What would the neighbors think of you if they knew…?”
“You look ridiculous!”
“Don’t you have any pride?”
“What’s wrong with you anyway!?”

And it comes from being threatened
with shaming, or physical discipline, or humiliation.
When we are threatened with these things,
the psychological message is the same:
“I can and will treat you any way I want to…
You are a worthless weakling at my disposal!”

In my case, when I was a child I was not taught that I was worthless or bad. My parents always said I was perfect. They had high expectations of me, and I had high expectations of myself. Now we all know that having high expectations can lead to feeling imperfect because we can never meet those high expectations. My parents never told me that I wouldn’t amount to anything, or that they wished I was never born. They expected me to be president of the world, master of all things possible, a perfect example of a human being.

I never never never was exposed to any physical discipline from anyone in my family or anyone I knew. I remember my mother hit me once, across the face, when I was a teenager and I said something nasty to her. I deserved it! But aside from that, physical discipline never occurred. Of course, I was perfect so they never needed to hit me, right?

I was never humiliated for my behavior or my appearance. I always felt humiliated for my behavior and my looks, but that was purely internal. No one in my family ever told me that I looked ridiculous or asked what was wrong with me. I asked myself those questions all the time. My mother used to tell me I was pretty and that I was lucky to be tall and thin.

I was never threatened in any way. I never felt like my parents had the attitude that they could treat me however they damned well pleased. They never made me feel like a worthless weakling at their disposal.

Now I am not disagreeing with anything on this website. All of these things can and do lead to feelings of shame. I’m just saying that in my case, my shame was not caused by anything external. Somehow I got it in my head that I am a worthless, unlovable person, deserving of nothing. It would be so simple to be able to place blame somewhere, but I’m not sure that would help me get over it any easier.

I’ll continue with more on this site tomorrow. I am contacting the authors of these websites to ask for permission to discuss and quote their words.