Who do you go to for advice when you can't turn to family?

[Changing4Best]

My mother loved me dearly, but she did not teach me a lot, as she worked a 40 hr week. Daddy taught me a bit about cooking, but not enough to really be able to cook much but soups.

Reading cookbooks is not easy, even with what I learned in Home Economics as a guide. So I eat a lot of "finger foods."

There is a program for the elderly called the "In-Home-Aide Program" that I am very lucky to have. My Aide takes me to the grocery and around town once a week to run errands. She also helps clean my apartment and socializes with me. What a gift from God! I can also ask her for advice and she gives it in a motherly loving way. I started to receive this service when I was in my late 50s. I was a lousy wife and never had the chance to be a mother. Thankful, in a way, for that last. I would have pitied any kid that was raised by me, because I would not have been able to give much in the way of advice.

 

[NoWhereKnowWhere]

I can't fulfill that need but how do I stop wanting it?

Maybe you're asking the wrong question. How can you support yourself while struggling with reality difficult emotions? What do you ordinarily do did self care. I don't think you ever really do stop wanting it. Especially with the way the media seems to portray the perfect mother bit. But like Friday says they don't really exist. But what the perfect mother is to some people like us is just someone who gives a shit.

It is just the emotion that I am dealing with I need the emotional discomfort to dial down a notch

I definitely feel like I should clarify. I said I accept it I didn't say I'm ok about it. It just is. I still feel really sad and angry sometimes and that's ok. It's really f*cking sad and hard and it's totally unfair. I feel like it's easier to just feel those feelings than try to reason with them. That's also a big task but it's worth it. If you can allow yourself to feel bad and try to be non judgmental about your emotions it's really going to help. I'm still struggling with this bit but I think it's a practice like most things.

Logic just doesn't seem to be affecting it any and that irritates the crap out of me

Logic can only do so much. You're human and humans experience suffering. It's just a part of life. The Self-Compassion Exercises by Dr. Kristin Neff website has a great guided meditation for really difficult emotions called 'soften, soothe and allow'.
Might be worth checking out. It's really helped me.

 

[LadyZane]

I'm almost 40 and still struggling with this one. I used to just withdraw and "only count on myself" which meant ... withdrawing constantly and not really facing life or decisions at all, because I didn't know how. I spent my 20s watching reruns and didn't even date for years because I just didn't have the mental resources to recognize qualities a decent partner would and wouldn't have, and to do the things I needed to do to BE a decent partner. I would latch on to bits of advice that other people mentioned getting from their parents and grandparents in casual conversation. I still remember one female friend joking about her grandma's advice not to sleep with a guy until after eleven dates. It was like I whipped out the mental notepad madly scribbling it down. Eleven dates? So arbitrary! But I had literally nothing else to go on.

My marriage now is kind of a roller coaster because of this. He grew up in a similar situation which makes things even more nutty. I don't understand how to recognize my own needs, much less how to communicate them constructively, so they just build and build until they blow up and I never see it coming. I can't tell whether my husband is being unreasonable in a given situation or if it's me, and the confusion means that I rarely feel satisfied with how things turn out in a disagreement. I try to read everything I can on the internet to help me understand, but couples advice and even the couples counseling we tried seems to be geared exclusively towards more or less mentally healthy people. It all assumes a level of comfort and emotional regulation and understanding and ability to trust and make decently healthy attachments that I just don't have. So it's pretty much useless.

 

[FauxLiz]

I can't/don't turn to my family and really have no one close to me. It seems sort of sad I guess but I turn to my T or the internet when I need advice. I research the heck out of things before I make a decision.

 

[Friday]

is just the emotion that I am dealing with I need the emotional discomfort to dial down a notch if that makes sense. Logic just doesn't seem to be affecting it any and that irritates the crap out of me.

Yep :)

Which is why I brought up the normal-nonabusive-parent thing. More of an emotive reasoning thing, rather than a logic thing.

Instead of it being "I can't turn to my mom/family because of abuse..." Which carries with it the implication that if there isn't abuse? Then one could turn to them. Which in turn brings along with it a lot of less than / insecurity / missing out, etc.? As each assumption spurs wrong conclusions, which spurs more assumptions, and more wrong conclusions?

How mind blowing is it to think that almost everyone was that clueless as a teen & young adult? That almost everyone was seeking outside sources of information? From how to do their hair, to reading the back of tampon boxes, to figuring out friendship, to a shoulder to cry on, to paying taxes? That almost everyone is asking friends, coworkers, bosses, neighbors, strangers how to "do" things, or if what they're doing is "okay"; as well as almost compulsively copying peers, and attempting to both blend in, and not let on that they don't "know" how to do something? :sneaky: Does that totally bake your noodle?

The only real logic piece I'm trying to offer here is that the logic of Not Abusive = Everyone else had/has assistance = Wrong. So if you take THAT concept and start looking at teenagers? Start listening to people griping about "I wish I had those problems!" Without the idea that they have those problems PLUS some kind of imaginary SitComMom / support/ advice... So how dare they complain about... And just take the problems straight? That they're learning these things from scratch, just like you? If you can remove the faulty logic of the fairytale, you might just find your insecurity dropping, as the playing field evens out & you take people off their pedestals. Almost everyone's a noob in the beginning / it's extremely rare anyone got to be a beta tester (had parents who taught them everything before they needed to use it, or who provide awesome tech support). You're not weird for not having early access, & not knowing how to do things. Most people don't. Most are starting out the adult lives as total noobs.

 

[LadyZane]

he logic of Not Abusive = Everyone else had/has assistance = Wrong

I still need to wrap my head around this one. It's reallllly hard not to think this one is true. Especially around holidays--like, say, Mothers Day--when your social media feed is full of people talking about how their moms are the greatest ever and their best friends and they'll be lucky and proud to turn out just like her etc etc etc etc ad nauseam. But I guess I have to remember that anyone who DOESN'T feel that way ... is probably just not saying anything. It's not that they're not out there.

 

[digger]

Mothers Day--when your social media feed is full of people talking about how their moms are the greatest ever and their best friends and they'll be lucky and proud to turn out just like her etc etc etc etc ad nauseam. But I guess I have to remember that anyone who DOESN'T feel that way ... is probably just not saying anything

And also that some people are just saying that because it's mother's day and it's what they're 'supposed' to say and don't want to put up with the wonderful perfect guilt trip/bullshit etc from said wonderful perfect mother if they don't...

 

[EmmaOwl]

Doesn't mean that there isn't a helluva lot of 'check your privilege' type stuff in growing up without abuse. But 'without abuse' doesn't equal with everything imaginable, you know?

Right. I recently posted about my dad giving me "the talk" and so on, which of course was embarrassing but worked okay...but only a couple years before that, I was blindsided by what a period entailed. My mother was too reserved and embarrassed to discuss it. I learned to keep it hidden like shame - hiding any wrappers in the trash, etc.

No matter how many people would say that is kind of odd or unfortunate - and it is, because I grew up thinking - even into adulthood - that's what one does, one hides the evidence... but if that is the worst she "left out" while being a mother, then I'm pretty damn lucky.

Since then? It is so funny, I have talked this kind of thing over with my father quite a bit, some of the things I missed to some of my mother's odd upbringing... and he apologized to me!, he said he knew my mom would never discuss sex but it never occurred to him that she would leave out that little tidbit, too! I guess my dad is a good mom?? but my mom, she's done okay in other respects. Like you said, Friday - it's not a mystical thing that suddenly solves everything.

At the same time... well we all want mystical things that suddenly solve everything! Whatever we don't have is what we might fixate on. Childhood hurts and confusions and daydreams. Some of us might blame it on a mother, a father, or both... I have my own things that are only dreams, and will only ever be dreams. But that's ok and understandable, and even normal, to wish for more.

@Fadeaway, thank you for the thread, and @Friday, I have you to thank for these particular reflections this afternoon :hug:

 

[EmmaOwl]

it's far more common that we're most of us ducking our moms' opinions, advice, and ways to do things... Rather than seeking it out.

True!

How mind blowing is it to think that almost everyone was that clueless as a teen & young adult?

And yeah. Kids are idiots. :eek: All of them, at some point or another. It just is.
As for moms....
... I am a completely grown woman ... but in the middle of writing this, I managed to have a yelling screaming fight about a ham sandwich. With my mother. Who I do love, but still. :rolleyes: Don'cha just love technology? Ha!

 

[guest]

I have to respectfully disagree with the idea that everyone lacks in some area. True, there is no such thing as a perfect mom. But the difference is that those who grow up in trauma households often do not learn basic daily living skills, which often come vis a vis the parent and/or through natural acquisition by environment (both immediate and extended- neighbors etc) that you just simply miss out on when in a trauma situation.

 

[EmmaOwl]

Ok. I didn't learn how to care about myself as a female person. I simply didn't know what to do. There are most certainly basic daily living skills there, that I lacked. I had no one to ask.
Does that mean I grew up in a trauma environment? There was no natural acquisition. It screwed me up. I'm still screwed up about it - embarrassed to post it, but I dig myself ahead and posted because it seems relevant to this discussion.
The question is - does that make my childhood/adolescence a traumatic one? I don't know. I don't think so.

 

[Friday]

But the difference is that those who grow up in trauma households often do not learn basic daily living skills, which often come vis a vis the parent and/or through natural acquisition by

No argument that children in trauma often do not learn basic daily living skills.

It's the reverse logic that doesn't work.

Just because children in trauma often do not learn basic living skills, it doesn't follow that children who don't have trauma do learn basic (or advanced) living skills.**Trauma is only one of the many many factors that affects the acquisition of life skills.*** It also doesn't reverse again. Life skills aren't the only thing affected by trauma. But are just one of many areas affected by trauma, abuse, & neglect. And there we go not reversing, again. Just because a kid isn't taught basic (or advance) life skills? It doesn't follow that they have all of the other effects of trauma (because life skills -or the lack there of- aren't trauma). And just because a kid is taught (or has totally mastered!) basic & advanced life skills? It doesn't mean they weren't neglected or abused.

It's just not a black and white thing where abused kids don't have & non-abused kids do have. Or vice versa.

* To give an example;

Poverty is another super linked / very well known cause of not learning life skills. (Although the same reverse logic applies: Just because a family is poor? It doesn't mean their kids don't learn life skills. It's just common. Not required.). But the inverse? Also true! Wealthy kids also tend not to learn basic life skills. It's not if you're poor you don't learn, so if you're wealthy you do. Moreover? It's basically the same reason in that paradigm that neither is learning the same thing. Neither has those skills in their daily lives. The poor kids because they can't afford those things (alarm clocks to washing machines, food to transportation), the wealthy kids because someone else does those things for them (someone is paid to wake them up, wash their clothes, buy & cook their food, drive them where they need to go). So both rich kid & poor kid are suddenly on their own at college having to learn how to use an alarm clock, wash their clothes, buy & cook food, drive a car! Right along with / next to the abused kid. Who didn't have the same things... For different reasons. As well many many many other kids, all fumbling about doing things on their own, for many many many different reasons.