On hypervigilance after a long time

[Corvidcore34]

I just want to lock my door, all I wish is to be able to lock my door, I feel so nervous that my mom might enter, I don't know why, I'm normally not on the lookout for my mother unless she is on a crisis. I'm normally not like this which is good since even when she is not a crisis she loves to enter my room my no previous warning to see if I'm not "doing anything wrong", whatever that means. Why is this happening to me? Now if she enters my room she will definitely think I'm doing something wrong, she always bases it on how I react when she enters the room, and now I'm definitely going to jump and scream when she does it

 

[Dynamic]

oh, that sounds so stressful. what do you like to do in your room? to enjoy?

 

[Corvidcore34]

I'm never good at calming myself but I'm going to try. I need to calm down I'm so scared

 

[Dynamic]

Im glad you are here @Corvidcore34 .
what else is on your mind?

 

[Corvidcore34]

I think I'm finally starting to calm down thank you so much for your help :) I don't know why this happened to me, ever since I realized the abuse I feel like I have been changing a lot

 

[Dynamic]

oh good I am glad. no worries. here anytime to talk

 

[arfie]

could you be hiding on the wrong side of the door? just wondering. . .

for sure, when my roommates get on my nerves, i hide in the big bad world where i have far greater chances of improving my housing situation. it's far easier to hide in a crowd than in a confined space.

but that is me and every case is unique. . . i never really had a mother, so i'm functionally clueless on the mom factor, beyond a few older roomies who wanted to parent me. none of those stories had happy endings in my own case.

steadying support while you find what works for you, corvid. sort freely. sort often. be true to you.

 

[Corvidcore34]

could you be hiding on the wrong side of the door? just wondering. . .

for sure, when my roommates get on my nerves, i hide in the big bad world where i have far greater chances of improving my housing situation. it's far easier to hide in a crowd than in a confined space.

but that is me and every case is unique. . . i never really had a mother, so i'm functionally clueless on the mom factor, beyond a few older roomies who wanted to parent me. none of those stories had happy endings in my own case.

steadying support while you find what works for you, corvid. sort freely. sort often. be true to you.

Thank you for answering me :) Right now my mother isn't on a crisis, so there isn't really much to hide from, I just was on fight or flight mode but didn't know why, but even so I'm better hiding at my room. Both my dad my dad's mom know about the sexual abuse, but neither of them did anything about it

 

[Movingforward10]

Can you put some boundaires in? You are allowed to be in your room and have some privacy.
That might help a bit. If your mum sticks to boundaires, although she sounds someone who crosses them in abusive ways when in crisis, and may struggle with them when not in crisis.

This coming into your room to check you're not doing something wrong, is an example of not having a boundary and using something to justify her lack of boundaries.

I'm sorry other family members knew what happened and didn't step in to protect you.

 

[Corvidcore34]

Can you put some boundaires in? You are allowed to be in your room and have some privacy.
That might help a bit. If your mum sticks to boundaires, although she sounds someone who crosses them in abusive ways when in crisis, and may struggle with them when not in crisis.

This coming into your room to check you're not doing something wrong, is an example of not having a boundary and using something to justify her lack of boundaries.

I'm sorry other family members knew what happened and didn't step in to protect you.

She just doesn't know any boundaries, that's why I started writting here (she is bad with technology). I used to have a dairy but once she found it and started looking for it everywhere until I threw it away. She also checks on me regularly, and when she is on a crisis she does it like every 10 minutes and forces me to tell her exactly what I'm doing until she believes me.

It is tied to her depression too. She says that me, my brother and God are her only reasons to live, and as such we shouldn't keep any secrets with her. She knows every single of my friends secrets, even the ones that they haven't told anyone else but me and it makes me feel so guilty, as well as the moment she knows I have a secret she forces me to sit in front of her until I tell it to her, as well as having to help her make my brother "speak up".

Finally, I actually asked my mother once to let me go to therapy, but somehow my mother managed convince my T to let her be in the room too. It made me feel very uncomfortable, especially because once I made her leave the room with my psychologist (in a kind way of course) and later in the car she wouldn't drive until I told her what I said to the psychologist, I had to make up a gross lie in order for her to let me leave. It is really a big part of the reason why I can't get help.

 

[Friday]

She just doesn't know any boundaries,

That’s very much my mother, minus the abuse; and to a large extent most of my extended family, as well. There’s a communal property & top down matriarchal hierarchy… that most people cheerfully exist in / are baffled as to why I’m bothered by it… that I simply refuse to.

If I’m in my mother’s house? There is no where she perceives as “mine”, or more broadly “not hers” (that she has no right to do whatever the hell she wants with, whenever she wants). Even if I’m just visiting, she’ll go through my jacket pockets, my purse, read any mail/documents inside my purse/glovebox of my car, mess my stuff about (deciding rather than being IN my purse, or car, or pockets… they “should” be in miscellaneous places about her house, or the garbage, or filed with her attorney, or, or, or… it’s infuriating. And unfixable. This is simply the way she is, and there’s no changing her. Believe me, I’ve tried. Everyone has tried.

When I’m just visiting I have a whole lot of good options by way of maintaining really strong boundaries (like locking my car & refusing to unlock it for her, or giving her a set of keys*; not taking my jacket or purse off; or getting up and leaving the moment she crosses any of my boundaries, etc.).

If I’m actually STAYING with my mother for any length of time? I’m screwed. She’ll unpack my luggage, donate half my things, and disperse the rest across 3 floors (of the house), several storage units in different buildings, & multiple safe deposit boxes in different banks.

I can fight with her all day long about it, but that’s all it will be, a fight. It won’t actually change anything.

So my ONLY option, if I want any degree of control over my stuff / my life? Is to not stay with her. AND, once I’m no longer staying with her? Refuse, flat out, to any demands she makes I’m not perfectly happy in supplying. (Keys to my home, vehicle, storage; numbers to my work/ doctors/ bank accounts; details of my friendships, relationships, goals/aspirations, etc.)

My mother is a lovely person, with a huge heart, otherwise brilliant mind (that she can’t wrap her head around privacy & personal belongings baffles most of us), and amazing spirit. But all of us (adult kids) believe she’s one tragedy away from being a hoarder, and some of us believe she’s already got a pretty hefty case of OCD (she’s constitutionally incapable of not “moving shit around” if she perceives it as “hers” to do with as she pleases… amd she cannot seem to make the leap between it being her responsibility to do so when we were children, ended when we grew up). But, diagnoses or no? This is just who SHE is. If we want her in our lives (and we do), we have to work around her quirks. Because she’s not changing.

* Keys. Everyone in my family exchanges keys with each other… except me. This has caused a lot of fights over the years, but the fights over my not giving my mom -or anyone else in my family- keys to my homes, cars, bank boxes, mail boxes, etc.? Are a small price to pay to be the ONLY fight … instead of the inevitable fights, across countless issues, which would follow once access was granted.

 

[arfie]

Right now my mother isn't on a crisis, so there isn't really much to hide from, I just was on fight or flight mode but didn't know why, but even so I'm better hiding at my room.

personally, i find it much easier to establish my escape routes on the good days. mother may not be in crisis today, but the pattern seems to guarantee that safety won't last. taking action on the good days may help with lessening the mama drama on the bad days.

i can respect that it is easier for many people to hide in their rooms, but there is considerable truth to you earlier thread about the probability of your finding your healing path while you are living with your abusers. their house, their rules.