Posted by lucielu2 on August 14, 2011, at 10:24:56
In reply to Re: help - feels like an impasse, posted by antigua3 on August 13, 2011, at 13:15:53
Hi Antigua, we do seem to be on parallel tracks. I hear so much of what you are saying. It sounds like you are really trying hard to listen to your daughter, it's just that her message has needed some deciphering and your work with your pdoc has created some context for understanding it. I think something similar may be going on with my daughter. She suffers from anxiety and of course, her father and I have been freely expressing all of our anxieties about her starting school. That is the last thing she needs to be hearing since it does reinforce her own overwhelming feelings of dread and worry. No wonder she has felt she needed to avoid us! I told her at one point that she only came upstairs when she wanted something - money, a ride - and she replied that I only came downstairs when there was something we wanted her to do. A fair assessment.
Things between us actually began to open up one night last week when I expressed to her some small measure of grief at "losing" her during this transition, that I would miss her even though she would not be far away etc. And that I felt hurt by her isolating herself away from me. Although she did not respond with a Kodak moment, since then she has been kinder and more open to me, spending more casual time upstairs in the living room, sharing more details. I think I may have been able to express to her some of the things she has felt unable to express herself. I also am responding by trying harder to be the mom she needs me to be, more laid back, and less like the directive one who is anxious to help - too much. We are slowly moving closer to each other. We still have a couple of weeks left, and good things can still happen between us with the barriers lowered somewhat.
I am glad that you have such a great relationship with your son. Ours with our older daughter also is a joy. In our case, perhaps that has unrealistically inflated expectations with our younger daughter, who is six years younger than her sister.
I hear that you are in separation anxiety mode right now, but you have identified its scope and found an anchor for yourself. I hope you might be able to find some small solace in posting here as well. I have always found it helpful during those long weeks to be in contact with others who are similarly experiencing separation. There is a tone in your post this year, Antigua, that sounds different from previous years. Despite the additional challenges in sending your daughter off to school, there seems like a new sense of mastery, of agency, in management of your separation anxiety. Are you feeling this?
poster:lucielu2
thread:992867
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20110706/msgs/993733.html