I’m nearing 40 and I still struggle with insecurities, social anxiety and many more. I know my issues coming from my parents mostly my mom. But knowing this doesn’t help me a bit. I’m rarely talking with my parents (especially my mom), im not living with them, I have my own financial freedom etc etc.
But the amount of guilt that im having when I don’t “serve” my life to them makes me feel guilty af. The moment I get in touch with them I regret my guilt immediately. How the fuck did you get out from this loop.
*Ps. Yes I’m seeing a therapist now but she’s mostly telling me this same loop that I’m living – which I already realised before. Hearing what I know doesn’t help me and im looking for a method instead of underlining the same fact over and over. *
*Pss. Yes I’ve told this to her as well and she told me that therapy is not a magic wand*
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I did the same as you now, just living my life.
I don’t have contact with them and don’t allow them into my life. My mother has a husband that should be her companion, not me. Just because she married a grown child doesn’t mean i can’t live my life so i let my life center around me. The power dynamic is now they’re adults and i’m an adult just like them; it’s not they’re a parent and i’m a child anymore.
Oh, she died about…uh…17…18 years ago. I’m in my 40’s. Something clicked that this would never end so I hung up and changed my number. Never heard from her again. Kinda sucks having a dead mother. She had some good qualities, but way way too many bad ones. Then once her influence was gone, I filled that void with better female experiences that I chose. It’s been a little rough in the past but things are great now.
The thing about this is as a kid it’s your normal, you don’t realise that you are being abused.
On reflection, my mother was a narcissist who used me as a tool to bolster her self image. I was manipulated to thinking my dad was a monster and she was a saint,
It’s when I got married and she tried manipulating my views on my wife, that I started to think about my earlier experiences.
Recognition of the issues and time are how I deal with it, plus it is a brilliant role model for what to avoid doing to those around you.
No to little contact and validating my own thoughts and beliefs. My anxiety stemmed from my mom training me to respond to her emotions and
making feel like I was responsible for her. I broke the cycle by going low contact and going to therapy.
I just push through day to day. I recently cut contact. Now I’m just trying to piece myself together.
You might be interested in the subreddit r/raisedbynarcissists. It’s pretty much dedicated to the issues you’re describing.
You were programmed to feel that guilt by your mother. She did this to you. She’s the villain.
You seem to want her to change. She won’t. So don’t get in touch again. No contact is an ethical protection mechanism for yourself.
And please get therapy. She has damaged you. Start getting the damage repaired. Who cares if she doesn’t agree in therapy. She isn’t in your life so her opinion doesn’t matter
It’s was easy for me – I have kids, and its my responsibility to keep them away from that shit. I can’t knowingly put my kids in harms way like that.
If you had kids, would you let her have a relationship with them?
My mother’s issues partly stem from DID as well as drug and alcohol use and abuse and a cycle of abuse going back an unknown number of generations.
Healing started with the realization that my life was more than the abuse and the damage done. I promised myself that I would not continue the cycle onto my children, and have so far been successful.