Could it be because of my mother?

[recover]

((((((((((((((((((((((earthhorse)))))))))))))))))))))))
what horrific traumas you have survived. and you are so wise and kind and caring despite it all.
your mother is evil and does not deserve the title of mother.
not many words but lots of love and support. you are amazing.
love,
recover xo

[earthhorse]

Dearest There, CT, Coconuts and recover,

Thank you so much for supporting me on this very hard thread.

I have been trying to get back here all week. I had things I wanted to share about it... Instead i found myself just really needing to support and see others. As imperfect as that is. I would wake up everyday compelled to post, but found myself by the end of the day still not returning to this thread. I am sorry how just not replying gives that dangling feeling. There especially thank you for being so quick to catch me as I was falling. I really needed each one of you so much. And you helped me so much. More than you can ever know!

I just wanted to share a break through I had in EMDR. I feel I have broken a powerful emotional hold. I went from feeling worthless in that scene to now feeling proud of me at that age. Genuinely proud. I was a fascinating, talented young woman, oppressed on all sides, who was dealing with immense stress and trauma as gracefully as someone could hope for. I feel and see and recognize all the damage I dealt with, but I also see how in the person I was, how I laid all the escape routes I needed. I was very creative, clever, resourceful. Art, poetry, science ... the wild. Subculture. All these things helped me survive. Led me to the existences that would accept and love and support and nurture me.

In the EMDR I kicked my mother out of the room and I reclaimed my space. I reclaimed my accomplishments. And I accepted that I am injured. I saw how terribly wrong it was how my mother treated me. I SAW me!

It was an immense relief, a true weight lifted in a way it has never lifted before. Somehow all the empathy, rage, pain, respect, love and admiration I felt for and with people here over the last week, helped me be present for myself. I needed your stories and experiences to be there for my own.

Last night I could not sleep again, after things going so well for a while this was so demoralizing...I felt suicidal all night, super self destructive and felt like there was no way forward for me. Felt I had lost it all, and would never be better enough to live with any kind of hope, at the bottom of a hamster wheel in living hell. I was crying when I came into the door of my therapists, crying, confused, deflated. Disillusioned by my life choices. Only loss no gain... nothing mine. Very much with myself to blame.

Last straw on the camels back it seems. The righteous anger finally broke out, the truth in feeling. The part still can't speak but she has shown me things, she is able to sit and look around, she feels seen. And she hears me, my respect and admiration for her. The absolute love of the littles who found her - ( in the previous EMDR sessions dealing with this scene from the very first a younger part, four years old, came to protect and take care of me, then a six year old part joined to witness and show love). This amazing young woman.

My mother was a liar and a fake. She constantly lied. She betrayed and tortured me. She doesn't deserve a second more of my time. And to think from then to now it has been 24 years! 24 years this monster had me in the room with her crushing me, ignoring my severe distress, taking everything. 15 years of no contact and still she devalues my existence through the harm she did, enters into my life and claims it as her own, even as she denies me a right to exist. NO MORE.

The shift was tangible my whole feeling/attitude has changed - I reacted to people and people reacted to me immediately shifted. An ease, like I had become beautiful, attractive energetically, easy to be around... (hahaha don't worry - well I hope at least this not mania...) It was like a huge weight of anxiety had left me.

And not just that, important decisions crystallized. It's like I could see what I needed. What I really want.

Part of that was returning to the continent where I used to live, where my FOO are.

Outside of the extreme incongruous, not entirely irrational terror I had around my father and his family and the ring. I mean I thought he and they would kill me, kill my family, maim people I love, not thought, I 'knew' for 13 years! Couldn't get around or past that terror until I actually went back in 2017........

But just her, my mother, stalking of me online pretending like nothing happened, making very personal posts on public forums where I shared professional points of view. Her rage and immediate dismissal, disowning me when I told her I had been sexually abused by my father... She sent me into a cowering ball in the corner like she could do like no other. I have hid from her. From her contempt, from her contact, from her constant invasion and gaslighting. But hiding just made her more real.

More was about the way the study i choose crushed me in a way my mother would enjoy, how it is such a crushing, destructive hypercritical, hostile environment. I study at a very prestigious and competitive school for architecture and engineering...

I felt I had to do something like this to be 'valid' to be heard, to be taken seriously. Honestly to win approval. But I should have known EVERYTHING my parents wanted of me, wanted to claim, and own, and show like an object they had wrought was bad for me. My parents had this strange way of providing support but then pulling it out from under me, giving but not enough, then reclaiming even that. There was neglect too during school, I had to do everything on my own, no support, no attention, no concern, no rewards either... like not having clothes or underwear... I had to work for, scavenge or steal what I needed...

There was nothing wrong about not being able to finish highschool back then, considering my history. There was so much right about going to art school. There was everything wrong with my mother just moving me around like some pawn or lifeless doll, never asking me what I wanted, never allowing me to finish things, with the excuse that something else was 'better ' for me - exposing me to violence and abuse time and time again. Disrupting and blocking my path and wishing me to be treated badly. To suffer. Inducing powerlessness even and especially when I felt powerful.

Don't get me wrong I don't regret having done my architectural and engineering studies. But I now have permission from myself not to be like her, not to be in 'her' image - all the nonsense fantasies she fed me, impossible expectations, combined with absolute disapproval and utter contempt of everything I did. Not to be like them - my disgusting brutal, narrow minded family, who only cared about maintaining what was on the outside for others to see. But wrought destruction in the lives of their children, and betrayed their very souls time and time again. I refuse their soulless powerless, cruel, invisible existences!

I feel like I am reclaiming my life and choices! I don't feel like I've ever really had a 'positive transition'. Now finally...

Love,
EH

*edited twice by EH to make it more legible

[Couragetoday]

Hi Earthhorse,

I think what’s great about being here is setting a pace that is manageable and customizable to you personally. For me, it is Sometimes hard and takes time to come back to certain threads.

I have a huge smile on my face, reading about your experience with yourself at a younger age through EMDR, knowing and feeling and believing how resourceful, how full of worth and Resilience you were/are. Celebrating with you! I too am grateful for all parts of Earthhorse,each one bringing you to where you are today.

I relate so strongly to being in that unique EMDR state, and having that power to both honour the horrifically painful experiences, but also changing the outcome in a way that feels so uniquely empowering and very very real and healing also. I’m so happy you had this experience.

The realizations about your mother, and reading your determination To separate yourself from her imposed toxicity, harm, influence,...you sound so powerful and empowered EH.

Supporting you on this leg of your journey. Please be as gentle as possible with yourself with the ups and downs that sometimes come along with these deep realizations.

Lots of love,

Couragetoday

[coconuts]

Wow Earthhorse, I am so happy for all the insight and growth you are gaining.

I think having this place to share and respond when we are ready is great and it does honor us in this journey giving us the understanding and the space we need.

Your insight is so wonderful. Being able to see yourself for the glorious person you have become. Being able to separate yourself from your mother and that toxicity she tried to impose upon your life. You have been freed of so much burden. It was never your burden to bear.

I love all your parts Earthhorse, your younger compassionate parts. Your strong but injured parts. I love how they are all gaining strength. I love how much you have acknowledged them and embraced them. What a healing time. So very happy for you.

[earthhorse]

Thank you sooooo much Couragetoday and Coconuts. Thank you for reading through these long posts, ( slightly guilty about wordiness, bad typing, and how that is hard for tired people to read), and hearing me. I really love and admire you both so much. Sorry if saying this is triggering or too much, if it is, just feel free to know I like you and I am very happy to feel connected with you...

It's amazing to me to have such wonderful friendships with you, I feel you deeply, I carry you with me through my days. I think of you sending love, warmth form y heart, kindness, and I sing a song and imagine you with complete tenderness. They say people can feel these kind of thoughts when others think of them this way, it can even help our immune systems haha. I hope you do sometimes. I seem to feel your presence and thoughts, I love that my mind turns to you. Many parts of me connect with you both.

I like the boundaries we get to have on this medium. So much of what holds me back form sharing things in 3D is my fear of harming or overwhelming others... but also gettign too close too soon and then being heartbroken when I feel alone again and like all I do is destroy things. Sharing on taboo topics like this somehow is a maker or a breaker in terms of intimacy - and the need to share does not always match the pace of trust... So much of what i like about here is being able to be genuinely close, to answer that deep need to share , be heard and be understood, and in my case to give and to love, to trust and feel connected, I need this so much. But also the distance on our own terms when we need it, or just can't reply or post ( which admittedly happens to me a lot) - I love that self care is kind of built in... I love it here, it's carrying me through a very, very hard time on my life yet again! And I feel so honored to have your support.

I do feel empowered.

I wonder if you have experienced it too? But for me dissociation does not always have a protective function, but more like a entrapment function?

I don't think my current T. really gets it - the kind of dissociation I am experiencing... I saw the DSM, and a letter on her little table when I came in and I thought for sure now she too would now confirm a DID diagnosis - (turned out it was just for her supervision work). I was kind of bracing myself for this.. I am still not sure to be honest... whether this is DID or just a normal scope of fragmentation and dissociation as part of cPTSD?


***** SOME TRIGGERS FOLLOW ****






This mother part, she was enormous -

yes my mother, the one that is her and not the part that takes over me, traumatized me with her constant, emotional and verbal abuse, neglect and control. She sexually abused me very violently on one occasion when I was an infant. She was scarily violent in general...Somehow she beat the other children though and not me... every child in the family had a special way that she would torture them, and single them out for special favors, so they would have a place but also a unique punishment/torture.

Weird, but she used me like this to vent upon, she was cruel to the others, but she really, really hated me... then would turn around and say very grandiose things like "you can do anything" or you are "so beautiful"... or give me a lot of responsibility for housekeeping and the other children - which made me feel so important but also like I was never in control, and that I was essentially incompetent. I was also there to care for her/ wait on her, to meet her needs like a servant, but my sister and brothers for instance did not have that role... Often things I had to do were beyond a child's developmental capacity and she would mock and taunt me about not being able to do things well... I kinda of learned that I had to cover things up, that failing or making mistakes wasn't acceptable - but also I learned not to respect my limits and keep trying well beyond my energy capacity. I always felt incompetent but also responsible... if that makes sense? My whole self on the line...

My father really played into this, setting my mother up in competition with me... he would come home and praise my work, treat me like a little 'wife' and compare me to, and then criticize, my mother - he did this until he stopped raping me, then he started hating on me too - ( even though my servant function remained)- from the moment I got my period I think - it was just venomous hate.... but I remember all of his abuse was hateful, it just used to be speckled through with 'good' daddy.

Every now and then she would spend some special time with me, like allow me to crawl out of bed, which was such dangerous place, and join her on the couch in the evenings while she watched soaps, she wouldn't let the other children do that. I used to love lying against her body. I got so much comfort from this. I think this, next to caring for my younger siblings, is what allows me to be physically affectionate. Becasue hugs and kisses and being kind weren't her thing...

long story about how I was excluded from as much contact based physical abuse - ( I mean she would use long isolation, shutting me up in a room all my childhood... I don't remember her hitting me at least) I think this holding back on hitting me, which I interpreted as reward for my 'goodness' - was linked to her very violently hurting me earlier in life - I mean it was hate r*pe she took me an already r*ped and abused infant and then r*ped me out of rage again, I was badly physically injured.... I have a memory also of my father nearly killing me with physical abuse, throwing me around the room and I think this level of unpremeditated destruction and loss of control may have freaked them both out... there was this theme - a bit of really of control abuse, and then moments of regret.

She saw my birth as the beginning of her entrapment. And saw me as the one destroying her life.

She, the mother part, was squishing me out of my body.

Part of bringing her in, the mother in my memories, defusing her, was first urging her to rest, to be minded, the little one was very good at doing this, shhh, shhhh mommy. I laid her out on the bed in the room and the two child parts minded her, the teenage me - still felt squished though - perhaps suffocating underneath the resting mother, weighted down, invisible, wiped out, while my mothers needs were centered. My T. said my mother is just a big child, there she is screaming and crying out. And I saw/felt what she needed.

Then it was just really hard to work out where I begin and she ends physically - I know this is especially common feeling among mother-daughter incest survivors, especially if the abuse occurs in early childhood it gets hardwired... and then of course in terms of identity. I had always been afraid to be my mother... the long term life choices that are not my choices...hating seeing her features in my face, hearing her voice in my voice. The mother part, would just be me/ 'is' me and all I could do was watch on, no space for me....

I am terrified of my own anger because it might make me like her. So getting angry at her in the way I did, seeing how different I am, was also very healing.

But when this is so much a part of you, like one of me, an overwhelming part... it puts another dimension on what happened in EMDR ... am I making sense?

I wonder if the mother part is still here now or if in some way there has been 'integration'... this word doesn't make sense though. I always thought the trick with parts was loving them in, understanding what they are holding and releasing them from their freeze. And when I got the screaming mother in this scene to rest and be taken care of, this seemed like that. But the moment of gaining back power and being able to be there as my adult self now, and see myself as independent and powerful enough to be present, the most important thing was the separation, the expulsion of her. Not me having to go any where, running from her, but getting her out. Her no longer being me, and having a me again.

All this work I am doing now... it has been so vital. But it feels progressive, it's the stuff I need to shift so that the things that perhaps happened earlier can be tolerated... so I can manege to self care. Because basic stuff has been hard for me so much.

Usually i need four or more sessions to resolve the level of distress in a scene. Every time I do EMDR the earlier stuff comes up and it is also a kind of confirmation... In the second session of this scene because the child part was such a big part of what came up, my T. encouraged me to see and love the child parts. When asked, I saw my five year old self, a cousin of my mother had come to stay and it was the only time I think I had a special birthday. I remember standing in the garden with my dolly I had being given , feeling so special and cared for, looking though the fence at the new house being built. And my T. said imagine her, what a pretty little girl, "take a picture"... On those words something totally flipped for me... I just leapt up from my chair and started to run in my T's office toward her garden doors. My T. is great at calming me down... I am great at calming me down now after so long doing somatic experiencing... but it seemed to confirm early flashbacks of, intuition about, pornography.

There is so much I have not yet unpacked. I know I am a minefield. My T. is away now for a month will be back on the 14th of May... I think I will just do one more scene, one connected to my father/men, before I refocus on just getting through school and back to work with CBT. I will keep up the EMDR during graduation I hope... have to see how things go. Just know that I hope to maybe do a lot more intensive therapeutic work after I have my master, this is literally all the time out I can take out before I lose everything I have already done in terms of points etc towards that degree, which represents a ton of work and money... have to just find a way not to suppress what needs dealing with, but somehow "function" and structure my life again.

Thanks again if you managed to get through this very long post!

Love to you,
EH

[there]

eh,
Just want you to know I have empathy for how you had to survive your mother’s abusive control.
Celebrating your gains and cheering you on to your graduation.

[coconuts]

Earthhorse, I love your wordiness. Makes me feel not so alone in my wordiness lol.

It sounds like you have processed so so much lately and it seems very empowering and enlightening. This is hard work and you are doing great. It honestly sounds both tiring and invigorating at the same time.

Cheering you forward for you masters. You are awesome.

I may say more later when I have had more time to think on your post but I wanted to reply right now with some praise and encouragement

[earthhorse]

There,

Thank you so much for reaffirming me and relating! Just wanted to say again how much your support helped me on this thread. Thanks so much for seeing and hearing.

Thanks very much. It's still a little touch and go as to whether I am going to be able to get back to school on time. But ya know, my health is improving and I think so! I still struggle with controlling motor functions and concentration, !anxiety! - especially social, structure. I am hyper sensitive frequently at the moment and just feel very physically overwhelmnd by sense based stimulation right now. But still do also feel much, much better... slowly but surely. I will find a way

With love,
EH

[Couragetoday]

Hi EH,

I’m glad that you can feel the kind thoughts, intentions and presence all the way over on your end. I feel a connection also.

The instinct to love, nurture, and have a deep well of patience when working with parts Has been a big part of my experience also. However, there have been two insiders in particular that do not respond to this approach.
Integration has always been an indefinable (and uncomfortable) term for me. In the beginning of this work I had one part that feels like they ‘retired’, for lack of a better word. Integration never felt like the right word.

You’ve definitely had some intense work and connections going on.
I hope there are ways you can care for yourself that feel comfortable and restorative to you.
Glad you are here sharing.

Sending some sunshine,

Couragetoday

[there]

eh,
Even with the current difficulties, you're determined to find a way for you. To me, that is a BiG piece of the way you're already finding!