Posted by Quintal on June 12, 2007, at 13:48:32
In reply to Do you want to see this insanity in this house?, posted by rjlockhart on June 12, 2007, at 0:54:05
Yeah, me too. One of my earliest memories is of being in what must have been my highchair and my mother feeding me the new banana yoghurt she'd bought specially for me as a treat. But I didn't like the taste of it, and anyone raised by a borderline mother knows that kind of rejection cannot go unpunished. My dad came home to the aftermath (the entire contents of the fridge, frying pan and cake tin splattered all over the walls) and, again, all of you raised by borderline mothers will know the cleverness with which they can shift the blame.
And a word about boundaries. One time my mother took me to a (Tupperware) party at her friend's house and all the mothers were sitting around chatting etc. One of the women's daughters came in after her bath, wearing a long t-shirt that came down just above her crotch. So my mother reached over and pulled it up suddenly, exposing her genitals. A wave of shock went round the room, and my hand flew out instinctively to try and cover her up - even at that tender age I knew my mother had just done something horribly inappropriate. We were never invited back. Guess who my mother held responsible for that? Guess who took the blame and was 'punished' accordingly? Notice there's a lot of blame and a lot of vengeance going on in these dynamics? Ever noticed how acts of vengeance only come back at you even stronger some time later?
People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder often engender in their children something called 'co-narcissism'. They train their children, partners etc. to be submissive, accept blame readily, be eager to please, defer to other's opinions, and fear being considered selfish if they act assertively, and so on. According to Wiki, the term was coined to refer to a co-dependent personality style like co-alcoholism and co-dependency. These mothers are more likely to see the child as an extension of themselves rather than an individual in their own right:
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"when a young child fails to separate her own self-image from that of her mother. This happens roughly between the ages of two and three, often because of a parent’s own emotional problems. A mother’s encouragement of a child’s self-assertion is vital. When the mother suffers from low self-esteem, she has difficulty encouraging her child’s emerging self. The child experiences this absence as a loss of self, creating feelings of abandonment that lead to depression. To deal with the depression, the child gives up efforts to support her emerging self. Instead, she relies on her mother’s approval to maintain the esteem of a 'false self'."
--------------------------------------------------Well those words ring very true for me. Every attempt at independence was smothered and stifled so she could better keep me under her control. I notice you seem to have great difficulty in trying to move out and get away from your mother. Are you sure this is purely down to your financial circumstances and living arrangements? You know many ex-soldiers have a hard time when they leave the army - their free will has been broken down to such a degree through being conditioned into obeying orders that they have trouble making their own decisions when the need arises.
Q
poster:Quintal
thread:762547
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20070523/msgs/762662.html