Posted by littleone on January 11, 2007, at 14:16:56
In reply to Re: You have lots of wonderfulness inside you » littleone, posted by Llurpsie_noodle on January 10, 2007, at 14:46:34
I guess I’ve felt really concerned when I’ve read your posts about confronting your parents. I know you’ve confronted both of them, but to me it seems like you’re more focussed on your mum. Not sure if that is right, or if it is my stuff leaking through. I’m also having a real hard time remembering stuff you’ve said about all this, so I’m sorry in advance if I get things wrong here.
I tend to feel distressed when I read about how hard you’re pushing your mum to go to therapy and also when I read about how quickly you seem to want to resolve all this. I feel worried that you’re setting yourself up to be hurt.
It might help you to step back for a short while to consider some things. I think that when someone is confronting their parents about childhood problems or their present day relationship, it is very important to sit down by yourself and also with your T to work out exactly what you hope to gain from the confrontation. There are countless gains that people could be hoping for (eg hoping the parent will change, hoping the parent will start to fill some of the child’s unmet needs, hoping the parent will admit to things, hoping the parent will apologise, wishing for the perfect family, wanting to express rage at the parent, wanting to hurt the parent, wanting to elicit sympathy, wanting to erase the past, the list goes on and on and on).
I think it’s also important to then decide if the gain you are after is a realistic expectation. What your chances are of getting it. Whether it is a healthy gain to aim for. And very importantly, working out what it will mean to you if you do or don’t get it. I think it’s also important to try and consider all the possible responses you could get from the parent and what each of those responses would mean to you, how they would affect you.
I’m not sure if you have worked through these points with yourself and your T yet or not. But if you haven’t, it would probably be very helpful to do so.
I know that with my mum, I started confronting her back in May last year. I wasn’t able to do this until I had started to understand some of the patterns we play out with each other. Understanding these patterns beforehand was invaluable because it allowed me to take healthier steps forward instead of being stuck in old ruts. When things fell of track, I could see that it was probably because I fell back into an old pattern with her.
I had to determine beforehand what I wanted to achieve by confronting her. Having this clear healthy goal up front has helped a lot. Both with devising steps towards that goal, as well as helping me cope in hard times and keep moving forward. Mum things have been very hard for me lately and I think it’s partly because I’ve lost sight of the goal. Or I’ve learnt that I had other secret goals that need addressing.
It has been a very slow and very difficult process. There are so many things tied up in mum stuff, it raises a lot of problems for me along the way. I’ve had to learn that I can give my mum the opportunity to change, but I can’t expect her to change, or make her change. And I’ve had to learn how to be okay with that. I have to learn what she is able and capable of giving me, then I need to decide if I can be happy with that. I still have a long way to go before I even decide whether it is in my best interests to maintain a relationship with her or not. It has blown me away to learn that I can even make a choice like that. I had always thought that tolerating and being with family was a “have to” thing and it would be very very bad not to do it.
I think a really important part of this for me has been to stay focused on myself, rather than on her. Stay focused on what steps I am taking to move forward. I need to watch her, understand what she is or isn’t doing or saying, understand what’s happening between us, understand if patterns are trying to play out. But I only look at those things so I am able to focus on how I need to move forward. The only thing I can control is my own actions and reactions. Trying to control her does not help me.
I need to be focussed on meeting my own needs and I need to be focussed on determining what is in my best interests (as opposed to trying to fill her needs through our old patterns).
I would be really interested to hear what work you’ve done so far on the points I’ve talked about above and also on your continuing journey forward. Hearing about your journey can only help me in mine. I really struggle with mum stuff and get stuck a lot.
poster:littleone
thread:720964
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070103/msgs/721362.html