Calmdown
Bronze Member
I lived alone with my mother, my parents separated when I was 2-3 years old. My mother struggles to control her emotions (maybe because of ADHD and/or childhood trauma), because of that I wasn't safe. She screamed at me very often and over and over, it never stopped like after a minute but took a long time until she calmed down. I remember that she once spit in my face when I was like 5-7 years old. I remember how often she threatened me to send me to an orphanage. I remember how one time I feared she would kill me, I wasn't eating properly at that time (not swallowing my food completly) and she went to the kitchen and then stormed to my room, I thought she took a knive to kill me so I pressed against the door as hard as I could while she tried to forcefully open it. She just wanted to "show" me how to eat properly in a theatrical aggressive way.
I had selective mutism in school, no one was helping me - at home my mother knelt down in front of me, pleading with a praying gesture, asking me what else she should do, like it was my fault.
Not everything was bad, I also have many positive memories.
If my mother would behave like that today I would have no contact to her. I call it a truce, because it wasn't really possible to resolve the past with her but today we get along well. However I never let her touch me and most of the time I keep an inner distance.
As a child I probably was also responsible to regulate her emotions, this is something I still do for several other people, like a social worker and therapist.
We meet every 1-2 weeks to go for a walk in a park or wood. Sometimes she tells me about her self reflections and I listen and give my input, the last years this was ok for me as I am just doing it automatically anyways but since some weeks I am so "open", I don't know how to say it, my past feels closer, my inner child more present etc.
So while walking with her today I said sorry to my inner child. She told me about her insights and I was quiet and never looked at her, to get distance. Then she told me about how in the past she was close to hitting a friend of her but that it would be different today. I really needed to look away and get distance because her being aggressive or mentioning aggression makes me furious. So I was there listening to my mother and her insights while she treated me so badly as a child, I feel like a stupid bi*** that just gets used.
I get treated badly and then I am there for these people to use me. My father is similiar regarding that.
I could tell her that I don't want to listen to anything regarding aggressions from her, but I feel like I can't, because there is so much at the moment that I have to fight for that I can't start another one and it would break the truce in way. I would feel bad for her if I suddenly acted so differenty, because there were some moments in the last years where I even felt somehow close to her.
I had selective mutism in school, no one was helping me - at home my mother knelt down in front of me, pleading with a praying gesture, asking me what else she should do, like it was my fault.
Not everything was bad, I also have many positive memories.
If my mother would behave like that today I would have no contact to her. I call it a truce, because it wasn't really possible to resolve the past with her but today we get along well. However I never let her touch me and most of the time I keep an inner distance.
As a child I probably was also responsible to regulate her emotions, this is something I still do for several other people, like a social worker and therapist.
We meet every 1-2 weeks to go for a walk in a park or wood. Sometimes she tells me about her self reflections and I listen and give my input, the last years this was ok for me as I am just doing it automatically anyways but since some weeks I am so "open", I don't know how to say it, my past feels closer, my inner child more present etc.
So while walking with her today I said sorry to my inner child. She told me about her insights and I was quiet and never looked at her, to get distance. Then she told me about how in the past she was close to hitting a friend of her but that it would be different today. I really needed to look away and get distance because her being aggressive or mentioning aggression makes me furious. So I was there listening to my mother and her insights while she treated me so badly as a child, I feel like a stupid bi*** that just gets used.
I get treated badly and then I am there for these people to use me. My father is similiar regarding that.
I could tell her that I don't want to listen to anything regarding aggressions from her, but I feel like I can't, because there is so much at the moment that I have to fight for that I can't start another one and it would break the truce in way. I would feel bad for her if I suddenly acted so differenty, because there were some moments in the last years where I even felt somehow close to her.
