Posted by Racer on October 23, 2006, at 12:32:42
In reply to Incommunicato, posted by Lindenblüte on October 23, 2006, at 11:27:24
Just as a thought, you don't *have* to tell them why? Considering your current situation, could you tell them that you have to be incommunicado until you get some part of your dissertation done? That you're fried by working so hard, and yet you've got so much momentum going you're putting everything else on hold?
As for the larger issues, that's one thing I'm working on, too, in therapy. (Only one of many, though, so not much happ'nin' on that front...) I'll tell you about mine, in case it helps with yours...
A lot of my inner idiocy comes from a member of my family who is a carrier for all sorts of psychopathology. (NOT my mother, by the way.) This person has a history of saying things that are deeply wounding, and then either yelling at one for being hurt, or ridiculing for the same reason. She was explosively violent at times, and I spent my life being stuck in a dilemma: I loved her, and wanted her to love me, BUT I was also terrified of her. She taught me to hide a lot of my reactions, which is still a problem for me. The violence, even though she only hit me a few times, scared the bejeebers out of me, even though it was usually aimed towards someone other than me.
Now, as an adult, part of me feels the need to confront her about all this. There's a problem, though, with doing that: the person who did these things really isn't here anymore. Instead, there's someone wearing her skin, someone damaged from years of alcoholism and her own psychopathology. She's maddening, still, but a bit pathetic. Confronting her now would feel like kicking a puppy.
My T says that we'll do some of that stuff where I pretend this person is in the room with us, and confront that spectre. Maybe something like that could help you?
We'll do that for my mother, too, of course... (One difference being that I actually have "confronted" my mother a little bit about some of it. And Mother and I have both survived. I'm sure that made it to CNN: "Middle Aged Woman Confronts Aging Mother And Lives To Tell The Tale!")
I don't know, that sort of thing seems suspect to me, but I can see that it may actually help me. If I do it, I'll let y'all know about it...
What makes it so hard for me is that it really feels as though there's no one to "blame" for anything that happened. Partly my own pathology: as soon as I say, "someone hurt me," I follow IMMEDIATELY with, "but it wasn't her fault, it happened because she didn't know better, didn't know what else to do, it really wasn't very bad, it's only that I over-reacted, etc." And the fact that the people involved are so different now, it's hard for me to reconcile that, and the love I really do feel for them, with how much damage they caused. (I nearly didn't write that -- I was holding back, since "they didn't really cause it..." They did. I need to face that.)
OK, I can't offer you any wisdom, so I'll stop. How about I say that I'll like you just as much if you never figure this out as if you do. You'll still be a lovely and delicate linden blossom.
poster:Racer
thread:696994
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20061012/msgs/697005.html