The Hen House Community Group
This Group is for Hens only. A place where we can share and flock together:) May friendships grow here.
I have endured emotional abuse from my Mother for my entire life. Now that she's becoming forgetful, her horrid side is also becoming more prominent.
She managed to screw up her 3 children and my oldest. My Sister has such anger, I have constant pain and my Brother moved to the other side of the country right after college. My oldest Son spent more time with her than with me as he was growing up. She did everything she could to make him her fourth child, but instead she made him feel like he was always competing for her love.
On Friday night, she said some things that just pushed me over the edge. She completely blocked out my response, but then knew I was angry about something as the weekend wore on and I didn't call her. She had no clue why I might be mad.
I finally talked to her on Monday because I knew I had to do her hair. By this time, she was a lunatic with anger. Mind you...I hadn't said a word to cause this to escalate. She came in my door and infected my space with angry, agressive energy. I don't handle confrontation well, so the more quiet I was, the worse she got!
Ok...no more details. You get the idea. I was a wreck when I got to my shrink on Monday morning and I brought up a form of therapy that an old friend had just had success with and wanted to share with me.
We will be starting something on my next appt. day and I have an assignment to do before then. This will be different than the therapy my friend tried, which is called EMDR. I had to look it up and it sounded like it might be a little rough for me, but my shrink has a more gentle approach that I am willing to give a shot.
The idea is to teach me how to react to my Mother in a way that doesn't immediately cause physical pain. I see the connection, especially since the recent altercation with her. She will never 'get it' so it's up to me to change. I can't imagine how this will work since I've had therapy most of my life. But this guy is different and I trust him.
I am supposed to write a letter to each of my Parents. They should contain everything I'd like to have been able to say. Then I'm to bring them to my appt. and read them to Dean...after that, I'm not sure, but tapping therapy is going to be incorporated.
I'm already stuck on the letter part! I don't think I can read them to him. Dean pointed out that I never cry and I think he's trying to get me to. Grrrrrrrr...I do that better than crying.
Thanks for listening to my novel. I'll probably report how it goes.
Hugs and clucks...
She managed to screw up her 3 children and my oldest. My Sister has such anger, I have constant pain and my Brother moved to the other side of the country right after college. My oldest Son spent more time with her than with me as he was growing up. She did everything she could to make him her fourth child, but instead she made him feel like he was always competing for her love.
On Friday night, she said some things that just pushed me over the edge. She completely blocked out my response, but then knew I was angry about something as the weekend wore on and I didn't call her. She had no clue why I might be mad.
I finally talked to her on Monday because I knew I had to do her hair. By this time, she was a lunatic with anger. Mind you...I hadn't said a word to cause this to escalate. She came in my door and infected my space with angry, agressive energy. I don't handle confrontation well, so the more quiet I was, the worse she got!
Ok...no more details. You get the idea. I was a wreck when I got to my shrink on Monday morning and I brought up a form of therapy that an old friend had just had success with and wanted to share with me.
We will be starting something on my next appt. day and I have an assignment to do before then. This will be different than the therapy my friend tried, which is called EMDR. I had to look it up and it sounded like it might be a little rough for me, but my shrink has a more gentle approach that I am willing to give a shot.
The idea is to teach me how to react to my Mother in a way that doesn't immediately cause physical pain. I see the connection, especially since the recent altercation with her. She will never 'get it' so it's up to me to change. I can't imagine how this will work since I've had therapy most of my life. But this guy is different and I trust him.
I am supposed to write a letter to each of my Parents. They should contain everything I'd like to have been able to say. Then I'm to bring them to my appt. and read them to Dean...after that, I'm not sure, but tapping therapy is going to be incorporated.
I'm already stuck on the letter part! I don't think I can read them to him. Dean pointed out that I never cry and I think he's trying to get me to. Grrrrrrrr...I do that better than crying.
Thanks for listening to my novel. I'll probably report how it goes.
Hugs and clucks...
-
88FWhat I do like is early morning clouds and then they disappear and the sun comes out. That was it's cooler in the morning. I'm sitting here looking out the window at the hummingbird with the river and dike as a back drop. It's hard to invision ever leaving but I'm also a realist with aging, especially when the luncheon we had with thirty former classmates on Monday. Sandra, we get news of...
-
Just thank your lucky stars you dont live with her!
I live with my parents, so in therapy ive had to do the same, change MY thoughts and reactions rather than trying to get them to see where they have gone wrong.
Mine are in their 80's, they are never going to change now, i expect its the same for you.
Ive done that... written a letter to my dad, but i journal it on here, man oh man it felt good!!
You should do it, take it to your therapist, i hope you get the same out of it as i did : )
I dont do confrontation either, and you know what, its not worked for me for my whole life, so now i try and speak up to my dad, that is working for me : ) It takes practice, its learning a new way of life your not used to, so you will f**k it up to start with, but you will get better at it.
You will also feel more empowered, i know i do lately, its made a huge difference.
I'm standing on the side line with a huge flag rooting for you : )
Just so you remember ....I am always here for you!!!
Hugs
Just writing the letter can be cathartic. Getting out all that you have held in for years. It is the first step in letting go and healing if only for you. Reading it aloud furthers that as well as letting you have a chance to get those pent up emotions out in a safe environment. Pent up emotions, especially anger, hurt, and fear, can reek havoc on us physically. Yes, letting it out makes it more real and then we have to deal with it, but holding on to it just hurts us more. Plus, I have found a good cry can be very cleansing and even a welcome release.
I can empathize on the mother issue. My Mother is a piece of work herself. She is still emotionally and verbally abusive as well as selfish and manipulative. In my 30's I thought I had done some good work on my mommy dearest issues, and I had, just not enough.
It became painfully clear when I turned 40. For the first time in my life I "really" stood up to her and drew a line in the sand. And it was over my daughter. I could stand up for her and not myself. I learned through the experience though that to teach K that no one had the right to treat her like that that I had to show her by not allowing myself to be treated that way. Huge "Aha" moment for me.
Our relationship is still rocky, for her, but not for me. When she starts her crap, I identify it, state that I will not put up with it and why, and then remove myself from her until she gets a clue, however long that may be. Over the past few years she has learned that I will not suffer certain behaviors. And she likes having a relationship, although SUPERVISED, with her granddaughter enough that she mostly behaves. The second she doesn't, we are outta there.
She told me once that,"I am 68 years old and I don't want to change for anyone!" Fine. But I won't be around. Sounds harsh, especially to a parent. But I have to set my own boundaries which are good for me, my life, and my family. And abuse is not acceptable to me and certainly not for my daughter.
Hope something in my ramblings there helps you and lets you know that I understand.
Sending hugs, love, and comfort.
Tonna
will help. Confrontation is hard. The thing is all this stuff builds up in you and of course can give you more pain.
What I know about you is you give and give. Your are so worthy of receiving. Sometime I think we have to withdraw a bit from the people who have a negative impact in our life. Maybe that is something your mom
Needs to hear. I realize they live close and avoiding them is impossible.
I am not a stranger to the relationship thing with parents. I just did not ever live close to them. We always had
A thousand miles between us.
You are one strong chick and I hope this works. You deserve peace and TLC.
These yet to be written letters are not intended for my Parents to read. My Father will be 90 in a couple months and though in great physical shape, his Dementia is on the fast track.
Mom is nearing 87 and is right about where Dad was at that age...repeating things and refusing to believe things she can't remember being told.
So...this is all about me. I'm supposed to set some boundaries with Mom (that scares me the most) and learning to not react to what my Mother continues to put me through. End result? Less physical pain.
Oigh, mothers and daughters have been butting heads forever and for different reasons. I had such issues with my mother and sister from the beginning of time and up until recently (last autumn) it has gone away and I know it is because of me. I finally figured it out for myself and I think it is a journey that we each have to find within. It is wonderful that you are taking the steps with someone you can trust.
I always thought, how can an 80+ year old woman still drive me nuts, but there was no way I was going to blast my mother. For all her bad traits, I knew what it was to be a mother and the unknown sacrifices that one makes. But she still drove me to tears at every visit and it wasn’t going away for me.
I can’t tell you what you will find, but I will tell you what happened to me, briefly. Driving across the country alone, I reflected on this and cried and yelled and finally discovered what it was that hurt so much. It was not what I expected but it was a new layer to me and one that I didn’t want to admit to because it went against my principals. But my principals were created to protect me from this kind of thing. A double edged sword.
Then, when I was all cried out, I asked myself what I was going to do for myself to change that, and most importantly, how long did I want to hold a grudge. Was I done now? I decided that I was and like quitting smoking….this time it took. I gave up the fight. When I no longer had a vested interest in what my mother thought of me, things started to change. I became lighter and wasn’t looking for negative comments. My mother started to change.
Of course she didn’t suddenly start encouraging me, because she was the same,,,just as competitive as before, but she DID start to lighten up also. She stopped criticizing me. I had changed myself, and it gave her a chance to change slowly without realizing it. Now for the first time in my life, these last 6 months, I have enjoyed visiting her and do so often.
So keep at it, Cherry. I think you are doing a bang up job of it, pain or no. That woman loves you to pieces as you do her, so it will be worth it. I look forward to hearing that things are much better.
I need to do the same thing for dad this time. I'm glad you shared this topic. I'm going to suggest to my daughter that she do the same thing. A letter to me and one to her dad. I think she has someone she can share them with. As you know things are awful and getting worse between my daughter and I and dad.
I'm going to write dad and Tara and share with my pshychiatrist.
Maybe both of us can start healing our relationships soon. Be totally honest, get mad and sad and then enlightened. I wish you the very best live has to offer. Stay in touch and take care of yourself. I'm going to give Tara some distance.
Thank you for sharing. Hugs & prayers,
Marci
Heather
My Mom has been doing everything she can think of to 'kiss up' this week. I think she knows she did something to make me so upset, but just doesn't get it so she's trying to make up for her behavior on Monday. I was gentle...never raised my voice, while she was an angry, in my face, lunatic.
This side of her is a lot easier to take!
I think I could write a novel to myself about the bad/sad stuff and never a letter to my Mom. I have this feeling that at her age.....I just don't want to guilt her with that. How do you recover if you can't make it right? She has tried......but soooooo many memories.
I actually got an "I love you." That was a first!