I'm dysfunctionally helpful and don't know how to stop

[PreciousChild]

my dear preciouschild,
I only respond to posts that I can relate to and also that I am learning most from....

Thanks @grit. Based on your story about your husband, seems like you're doing your best to maintain boundaries. I think you're definitely on the right road, and I'm sure you'll find the balance you're looking for.

I'm still on the way there. Thanks for your thoughts on how I can keep my boundaries better and for the compliments on my parenting.

 

[TTC18]

How we affect our children, I think, is always hard to assess. My son is my number one priority, and any progress I've made was because I am highly motivated to be good mom to him. ....
....
I go to therapy and work on myself a lot. That's one thing my ex bf kept saying - that he couldn't have asked me to do more in terms of work on every problem we discussed. ...

I am the exact same way, and it occurred to me that - is it possible that 'I'll fix myself and then I'll be perfect' is another way to be perfect? "I'll be the best mom ever" is another way to be perfect, and to earn love?
Work your a$$ off to be the perfect mom, work your a$$ off to be the perfect person, go to therapy, work, strive, and then we'll be perfect, and people will love us, right?
I devoted my entire life to my child, who now, as an adult, hates me. So I'm realizing that my plan of being the perfect mom so my child would grow up happy was flawed. I can point to a million things I did better than my parents - a million times I worked to change something I thought might be hurtful to my child, or a bad example. A million ways I worked to improve myself so I'd be a better mom. To me it all boils down to a single difference. I cared, and wanted to be a good parent. My parents didn't. I thought that'd be enough, but it wasn't. Sadly, this reinforces my ideas of
'If you're not perfect, no one will love you' and
'no matter how hard you try, it's not good enough.' and
'Sure, they say they love you now, but it won't last - no one will ever really love you.'

 

[PreciousChild]

Hi @tryingtocope18. That's really sad that your adult child doesn't show you love. I would find that hard too, and hope my son doesn't become an adult who is hateful towards me, but I really can't control him, so I have to see how that goes.

I am the exact same way, and it occurred to me that - is it possible that 'I'll fix myself and then I'll be perfect' is another way to be perfect? "I'll be the best mom ever" is another way to be perfect, and to earn love?

I think I do this too. I'm a "sexuality/love" type in the NARM approach (Heller's book), and we are guilty of trying to buy love by being perfect, which would compensate for our unloveability. But one way parenting was different from other areas of my life is that my son always ended up dictating to me what I needed to do for him, and many times, I had to shift gears and change paradigms, sometimes successfully and other times not. I couldn't just polish him like a jewel and hold him up to dazzle others in order to distract them from seeing the real me, like I do in other areas of my life. He is his own unique, special little being that I needed to let be.

I apologize for any disrespect, but I have to address the fact that you compared your parenting with your own parents. I could be totally off base, but I've found in myself and other parents, that if I'm doing behaviors that I shouldn't be doing, I would find myself using the rationale that it is at least better than what my parents did for me. So when I hear you using that logic, I wonder if there isn't something there. This is totally a pet theory of mine, so feel free to ignore this comment, but I noticed in myself and friends, that things some people would find horrifying by itself, are excused by saying that at least it's better than what my parents did for me. I decided that only behaviors that were good enough in and for itself were good enough for my child, and not behaviors that did better than my parents (because that is a very low bar).

If you're not perfect, no one will love you' and
'no matter how hard you try, it's not good enough.' and
'Sure, they say they love you now, but it won't last - no one will ever really love you.'

That's really sad. Parents and children potentially can give each other unconditional love, and it makes me sad to hear that it doesn't work out that way some times. I do believe that it is our job as parents to give the child what he or she needs, and get ourselves right in order to do it. I don't believe the child is responsible for doing the same for us, which is essentially unequal. I expect equality in all other relationships, but not with my child. I don't know if others would agree with that. But the fact that the outcome of all of your hard work and effort raising your child is ingratitude is really tragic, and I'm sorry to hear that.

 

[TTC18]

My adult child is struggling with mental illness as well. There's a lot of mental illness in my family, so even though she never met the people who abused me, I think there's some carry over somehow.
I get what you're saying about 'at least it's not as bad as my parent' but I think I expressed myself wrong. I meant that I worked hard to be the opposite of my parents. I literally started making lists as a child of things I'd never do when I had kids. I have read so many books and studies, etc on how to be a good mom - I have wanted nothing more than to be the best, most supportive, most loving, etc mom for my whole life. I know I wasn't perfect - but I always tried, asked for feedback, and generally worked hard for her whole life to be a constantly-improving and always loving mom. Probably over-tried, in retrospect.
I didn't validate myself as being better than my parents. You'd have to go a far way to *not* be better than my parents - it would, indeed, be a very low bar. My parenting bar was sky-high, and I never thought I was good enough. Which is why I was always reading new books for new ways to communicate, ways to get in touch, ways to try harder and everything else under the sun. Problem is, relationships are two-way streets. And if one party doesn't want to be part of it, it just doesn't work - that goes for parent/child relationships as well as every other kind of relationship.
I really don't see it as ingratitude, just another dysfunction. There's just a major world-view block and people giving bad advice and some mental health issues. It's a very sad thing, but hopefully will not be forever.

 

[PreciousChild]

Oh, sorry to hear that your daughter has mental illness. That's a whole other animal there. My mother and her sister had mental illness - like having to call the police and psychiatric hospital serious. But fortunately, me and my siblings seemed to have avoided any serious illness. Sometimes, I feel like if I hadn't gone to therapy and did the work, I could very well have become mentally ill. But I guess I'll never know.

So my comments don't seem to be that relevant to your situation. You seem like you were very mindful about your approach to parenting and went beyond what most parents do to be the best parent you could be. I do agree that relationships are a two-way street, and that your daughter has to do her part to reciprocate, or it's going to go nowhere. I guess all you can do is wait until she's ready to do that. I don't know if it's possible to "over-try", but even if you did, like you said in an earlier post, you showed you cared clearly, and that I think is the most important thing.

 

[TTC18]

Well, over-trying can lead to enabling and taking too much responsibility which I think I did. Overcompensation in a lot of ways. I got nothing so I gave my child everything, and so on. I did set limits, but in retrospect I can see how some of the things I did were overcompensation and enabling. I made mistakes for sure. There are probably eleventy-hundred ways to mess up your kids, and all you can do is try your best and love them and then just wait to see what happens, I guess. Thanks for your comments. :)

 

[PreciousChild]

Yeah, I think I'm enabling too. What's frustrating is that sometimes we don't see mistakes (if we're making them) at the time, so we only figure that out later. But we all make mistakes. I tell my T that I want to make sure my son has plenty of people in his life, so he can get a variety of dysfunctions and not just mine!

 

[TTC18]

That's a good plan!!!