Today's Appointment

[LostGentleman]

Truth will remain the truth, no matter how things should ideally be
Actually, knowing what a good mother is like, will show, in black and white, the abuse you were victim of.

It will be further validating all your True, and Real, pain and trauma


Imagine you arrive at a restaurant, and never once had good tomato spaghetti.
You order it, and the dish arrives, is delivered to you, and it turns out it is spoiled.
You taste it, and since it is past due, it tastes terrible.. You know it isn't good, you know it makes you sick, that your belly turns as you eat it, even if you never had a dish to compare that one to, since it is your first time having it.


Now, lets say that you know how the real, good, tomato spaghetti is like.
As you order the rotten one, and try it, you actually are able to pin point why it was feeling so wrong, making you so sick, turning your belly so much, and you are able to add far more details, and have more understanding over your pain and trauma with the bad dish.
You are able to validate even better, your feelings towards it. Your sickness. "It is supposed to be slightly sweet! It is NOT supposed to have hair on it, nor moldy pieces! (...)"


It is normal to feel how you do, it is alright - we are alive, and we process things, we feel many feelings and emotions, and we see them change and evolve, here and there
From the caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly ~ that is your course, step by step, bit by bit..
...and you are not alone

Please remember that
:hug:

 

[Snowflake]

Truth will remain the truth, no matter how things should ideally be
Actually, knowing what a good...

Thank you! I just want someone to know what she was like-not what I wish she was like. The adult me is trying to understand what my therapist is trying to do....I kind of "gets it", it's my inner child who is screaming saying don't forget me and what happened .

I love the spaghetti analogy. :)

 

[PTSDisweird]

I smiled with your post. I love the analogy.

Cute. Always love to put smiles on people's faces. ;)

I didnt understand your first reply though. Did you missclick maybe?

Doubting that you will maybe "leave" reality and "fantasize" your ideal mom, and you will gradually forget your real one, i translate it as you being a deep thinker. I am too, and this thought reminds me a lot. Being deep thinker is good in my opinion, and most likely you are a smart woman. Lets face it, no stupid person is deep thinker. But we deep thinkers may get too anxious at things that other people dont give a second thought.

What scares you is that you imagine your ideal mother as a totally separate person, as i understand this. I will suggest you something that will maybe calm you a bit. Why dont you tell yourself that the idead mother is not a different person than your real mom, but instead is your biological mother with the values and the attitude you wish she had, but know pretty well she doesnt have them. In other words, its the same mother, while doing the things she should do, at least according to her daughter. Does it make seem more safe?

In my opinion we dont lose sense of reality that easily. Especially by fantasizing perfect parents, or perfect life, or perfect partners, friends etc. Also, there are the reality checks, with which you can speak with your therapist. I hope I helped.

 

[Snowflake]

Cute. Always love to put smiles on people's faces. ;)

I didnt understand your first reply though....

I probably did click wrong-lol- I still can't figure out things here. Lol

 

[Lola Nocheprieta]

[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]@Snowflake, I think maybe I know what you are getting at. It has taken me decades to face what my dad was really like, and what was happening at a much earlier age than I would previously admit, even to myself. To everyone else, he was meek and maybe eccentric, but essentially a "decent guy." No one knew the monster I lived with.

Now, for me, I don't worry about an exercise in imagining what the "ideal father" would have been like, because I agree with @joeylittle's comments. I did that exercise and it helped me realize just how far my dad was from even merely "acceptable" or "non-harmful," much less ideal.

However, I have this kind of irrational fear that "getting better" from PTSD somehow erases the past, makes it seem like maybe it wasn't really all that bad. That no one will believe me because I'm too high functioning and competent. It's a fear of having my memories, my truth, my reality, invalidated ... AGAIN. I get where your little child self is coming from! Don't forget me! Don't erase me! Don't invalidate what we know really did happen ... What he/she was really like! It's important to feel validated.

So, I struggle with those feelings. I'm sorry I don't have any suggestions for dealing with it, other than to keep talking about it and clarifying your beliefs and feeling with your therapist. And to reassure and validate your child self, and treat your whole self with compassion. Yeah, yeah ... helluva lot easier said than done.

Good luck, @Snowflake![/COLOR]

 

[Freedomfighter]

Today in therapy we talked about the ideal mom and I read what I wrote over the weekend.

Now I feel...

Well, no one is perfect, not even moms. I had many troubles with mom when I was a child, but mostly those bad memories were incited by my abusive dad.

My mom passed away a month ago and I still feel horrible about it, you want to go back and only talk to her about things that matter to her, not whine so much about things that bothered you, concentrate more on her life and needs.

Well, that is how I feel anyways, she was suffering from cancer, was debating of dying at home, but we wanted her to go to the hospital because she could not breathe. Now I feel bad for that because I wanted her to live and she was ready to go, and my actions may just have lengthened her suffering. It sucks, but I wanted to spend a little bit more time with her before she went, and I did not want her to suffer, and with my PTSD I could not handle much more, was happy there were nurses and doctors who were more adept at handling cancer. But then I know she was not happy in the hospital, not exactly ideal situations in there either.

Hope I was not too selfish in wanting her to stick around, and not being able to deal with her pain, those are all things that I am not proud of.
I see pretty things like flowers and think: she can not enjoy such pleasures anymore and then I feel bad. And then I think about how much she had enjoyed gardening and how much her bad health had taken all that away. When I compare pictures of her garden twenty years ago to now, there are hardly any flowers left now because she was too sick to tend to a garden. Animals from neighbors that destroyed my mom's garden also contributed.

So many things that someone would like to talk about and then when someone suddenly passes away all of those chances disappear in a heartbeat. I wish I had known she had only limited time, and I wish I had visited her when she was still healthy, even though an abusive dad and my repressed memories of that predator stopped me from doing that.

 

[Snowflake]

However, I have this kind of irrational fear that "getting better" from PTSD somehow erases the past, makes it seem like maybe it wasn't really all that bad. That no one will believe me because I'm too high functioning and competent. It's a fear of having my memories, my truth, my reality, invalidated ...

Yes! I think this might be something.