Posted by sunny10 on May 11, 2005, at 12:08:22
In reply to Zero Feelings (Possible Trigger), posted by cricket on May 10, 2005, at 16:50:46
I have not spoken to my mother in 20 years.
I do not "feel" anything towards her except pity. She is truly a miserable human being who will die alone.
But I will not allow her to have a relationship with my son, as she wants, because I do not want him to absorb any of the poison I had to absorb from her emotional abuse until I was eighteen and could leave the house.
I think that perhaps you have disassociated your feelings for her as a natural mechanism for simple survival. But the fact that you are in therapy and question whether you "are worth" the compliment you received for being a good parent tells me that you may not be "feeling the feelings" for HER, but you have incorporated your mother's distaste for you as distaste for yourself. Now you are stuck with the bad feelings about yourself.
I think your T is trying to get you to "feel the feelings"- pushing it at you- because you can't deal with why you feel that way about yourself while continuing to disassociate yourself from your mother. Because you're not truly separate; you and your mother. You have incorporated her as your "critical voice" and need to learn how to take away power from that "critical voice" in order to find peace and acceptance for yourself.
I'm not a T, and cannot say what is best for you.
But as a fellow sufferer of early childhood emotional abuse and neglect, I would suggest you speak directly to your T about why he is "pushing" you. As the professional, maybe he DOES think that you need to "deal with her"- or maybe he wants you to make a demand as to what you want- or.... anything... but I assume there is a "method to his madness" here.Maybe print out your original post here and read it to him, or let him read it?? It'll serve two purposes:
1) let him understand you better, and
2) give him a chance to make it clear to you why he is doing it.At least, in theory....
Or I'm reading into something that wasn't implied...
Let us know how it goes, though, you've definitely piqued my interest!!!
-sunny10
poster:sunny10
thread:496131
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050504/msgs/496416.html