Anxiety about severing the ties with my parents
I have been told by many different therapists that if my parents could not be nice to me and not emotionally and verbally abusive then I shoud cut the ties so I did. April is a bad month because both my parents b-days and their Anniversary is in April. My mom's B-Day is coming up and I sent her a plain birthday card. I am afraid of the consequences. I am sad tha t our relationship ended up having to happen this way. I am dealing with alot of anxiety feelings and symptoms. Please respond I need a hug.
Becky
Becky
Replies
I have had problems dealing with the emotiional abuse heaped on by my parents for many years. In the past I have also been advised that cutting ties might be a good move. for 12 years i lived in Atlanta while my parents lived in NY and FL. I still had plenty of anxiety issues to work through but not having the constant emotional morass to wade through definitely gave my psyche a break. I live in FL now and my dad has passed but my mother is still here and in rare form. I deal with her regularly and it is disastrous for my ego. My big problem now is that I am depending on her for some financial help so I put up with my mother\'s unique form of insidious ego diminishing haranguing. Not a pretty picture i can tell you. Don\'t be too afraid of the consequences of the distance you may need to put between yourself and your parents. It doesn\'t have to be forever and it doesn\'t have to be final. There is a way to do it without them knowing that you are deliberately doing it, and you don\'t have to be punitive about it. But for a while it might make you feel just a litle bit better to wake up and know that someone is not going to be choking those wretched feelings down your throat. At least for a little while you can concentrate on giving yourself some positive feedback and self-talk without the voices of disdain shouting in the back of your brain. Good luck. It certainly is a self-esteem builder when you can rid your mind of the negative voices and put some positive feelings in there. It takes time but it definitely works.