a conversation in Each Day

After the session I texted my sister

e: I wonder what it means when told by your therapist to think of a place of comfort and you think of your spouse and start to cry. And then immediately stop crying when told to think about your relationship with your mother as a child… 🤔🙄
S:I know what that would mean to me…
e: What’s that?
S: maybe it’s different for you, but if I had that experience I think I would understand it as an expression of how deeply we had to hide ourselves from mom as kids
e: Yeah I had that thought. Like, oh, there goes the off switch on my feelings!
I did think it was weird that thinking of M made me cry though. But it wasn’t sadness. Maybe relief?
S: it’s crazy that it’s still in there.. and triggers even when mom’s not around
relief sounds right… like he’s a place where you can let out feelings even if they’re not about him?
like pretty much the opposite of the sitch with mom, who you can’t show any feelings to because she makes it about herself and freaks out
e: Yeah… I don’t really feel like that with her anymore… I mean, I don’t think I trust her entirely (I’m never surprised when she acts the way she used to), but I think maybe it’s more that I’m more relentless about being myself and either she accepts me or she doesn’t, that’s on her.
But like, a child can’t have that kind of fortitude…
Has your relationship with her improved at all? I feel like my distance has allowed me to force her hand, and you haven’t had that opportunity.
S: it’s ok.. i am mostly myself.. but like a tempered version of myself because if i express to her that i’m depressed or anxious she just makes that worse
e: How does she do that?
S: she offers no comfort or sympathy and then she makes me feel bad for making her feel bad
e: That’s so weird because I’ve told her some of the extent of the problems I’m having (keeping her out of the reasons), and she doesn’t really…
Huh, I was just about to say “react”, but I read what you wrote first… 😅
I think I’m almost impervious to her making me feel bad anymore. I just don’t let her bs impact me. And I’m not saying you’re “letting” it impact you, we respond very differently to these things.
S: it’s not so much that her behaviour makes me feel bad these days.. it’s just that i do get disappointed that I still can’t really talk to her for these same reasons. I do wonder if she responds differently to my expressions of emotional distress than she does to yours. She constantly tells me that I’m like so steady and stable that I wonder if I’m even allowed to express negative emotions or anything other than calmness
e: Jeeze were both locked in our roles from childhood, you calm and steady, me pure chaos.
S: i should have been more of a mess as a kid it would have given me more wiggle room
e: I think you’re probably right about this.
I think I have expanded to fit the role that I perceived they expected of me. You expect chaos you get chaos
S: a good motto
e: Just so you know, I welcome your mess, your negative emotions…
S: thanks for saying that about welcoming my negative emotions
[later in the conversation]
e:Do you feel like dad parented you?
(I don’t, not really)
S: no not really. like i definitely took away ideas about how to be a human from him, but i don’t think it was anything he actually explicitly taught me
e: Yeah that feels right to me. When looking at mom’s anger and his relative calm I knew which one I wanted to be. The fact I turned out like mom is a bit of a kick in the teeth
S: ouch yeah.. i didn’t get mom’s volatile exterior, just her seething interior
e: I don’t think either one of those is serving either one of us
S: no probably not! not sure what to do about it though as the things i seeth about don’t seem to ever abate
e: I had this exact conversation with my therapist. She used the word choice and I wanted to explode
S: what happened after that? did you say anything?
e: Instead of exploding I told her about how when I was in DBT the psychologist told me repeatedly that my expectation of justice was unreasonable. She seemed to get the point.
S: But what is the end result or implication of “your expectation of justice is unreasonable” - is it just “let it go”?
e: Basically. “control the controllables”