Posted by fallsfall on February 23, 2004, at 8:23:05
In reply to Re: What do you tell your parents?, posted by Karen_kay on February 22, 2004, at 13:45:33
The pattern that I recognized (When I am sick, then I am bad (have done something wrong - evil), and noone will be there), came to me at 5AM the morning after I saw a person who I hadn't seen in 8 years. She triggered many memories. We had been over some things in therapy in recent months. Somehow it all just fit together. And I find that if a situation doesn't quite fit, I'll force it to fit (If I am sick and abandoned I'll find something that I did to interpret as being bad.) I'm still figuring out how to use knowledge of the pattern to make things better.
My mother has never said that she was a bad mother - and I have never thought that she was. I don't think that she knows that she should have been more than she was. As a person, I think that she is limited. It would be like complaining that a mother couldn't drive you to all of your activities because she was blind.
I'm sorry that your mother was hurting - and more sorry that her hurt ended up hurting you. I think it is positive that you can see that blaming her wouldn't help anything. I think that we are in much the same situation.
I like your idea of my talking to them "stopping the pattern". The pattern says that I am sick, so I am bad, and noone is there. I AM sick (Depression), but I am trying very hard not to be bad, and maybe if THEY were there, it would be easier to know that I'm NOT bad. I hadn't seen that until just now. Thanks, Karen.
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> It seems that you wanted to "show" them that you were doing somethign in therapy. Can you not get that validation from yourself, your therapist, your support? Everyone on the board knows you are working hard. Maybe you could just explain that you want more support/validation/nurturing form your parents without going into detail agout your therapy and specifics if it proves to be harmful.My therapist will be thrilled with this comment of yours. We have done some excruciatingly hard work on validation recently. I hadn't seen the talk with my parents as looking for validation, but I think you are exactly right.
Thanks for caring, Karen. You've made me think about some important things.
poster:fallsfall
thread:316484
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040218/msgs/316783.html