Tough therapy session

Awesome post, I read it when you posted it and kept thinking about it since..I find myself in everything you have written. The chase for approbation, validations, acceptance. Not only once I thought to myself about exN, "my, he would fit perfectely in my family!" or "my mother would love him!" lol. My mother being an N. I possibly want to get in touch with some therapyst to dig deeper my own addiction cores and issues with my past as well. Good Luck to you!

You are getting at the ROOT CAUSES now and this is a necessary piece for healing and beginning to learn who we are, where we came from, and why we have the current relationships that we do. So much can get buried and forgotten from our families or origin and I have found it life changing to look at the old wounds and family dynamics in order to learn, release, and move past the chains and old belief systems which kept me stuck in unsatisfactory relationships. Years ago on the Oprah show a relationship specialist said that we keep revisiting that which is not fully healed in US. We attempt to work it out in current relationships and we will continue to draw in and attract to us the senario's which are still unhealed from our primary relationships with our parents. Unfinished business. This is not about blaming, not about revisiting old wounds and staying stuck. It is about revisiting old wounds and at long last releasing them with the tools we now have as adults. One of my biggest crossed to bare in terms of my self esteem and image was the fact that my father who is also a PD totally favored my sister. She could do not wrong and no matter what I did, I was either somehow the "bad" one the one who annoyed him or he ignored me completely. My sister on the other hand needed to make no effort and was completely adored just the way she was. Basically what this set up in me, and I had no idea of this at the time, was a deep insecurity with every man I become involved with, because deep down inside, I was convinced that they did not really love me, they loved someone else. I created triangles in all my relationships with men. If they spoke of past girlfriends, wives, ect... I was convinced that they still loved them and that they were better than me. I sabotaged every relationship with men that I had. I would become obsessed with these thoughts and jealousy to the point that I would make myself sick over it and I am sure it was no picnic for them as well. Also I attracted men who were just like my dad and did have OW they still loved so that I could play out this happy horse shit over and over again. I was always left feeling pain, that old pain, like somehow for no apparent reason, I was not loveable, was not good enough, and that all men were secretly in love with someone other than me. This was my old tape and I was stuck in this for years. What a horrible way to live. These relationships were doomed from the start. I was damaged from my past and they were damaged from theirs. Whenever a man would come along who was not a party to this script and was not going to somehow make me feel bad, I would repell these men and find them boring and they could not hold my interest. I had it all backwards. The sick disordered one's were my "loves' of my life" and the healthy loving one's were yesterdays news. I began to see this pattern quite clearly several years ago and it was not until this last one that I began to do the work because he was exactly like my Dad and it was triggering me all over the place. I felt like I was 5 years old again, getting yelled at, the violence, the mind games, the triangles, and all of it they were even both auto mechanics, so the smells and look was the same. I was brought to my knee's this last time and had nowhere else to go but up. I began to do the work on me, never mind him and what his deal was. What about who I was and what MY deal was. This is when it all began to click for me and make sense. When the focus was put on me and my part in all of this and what kept attracting me to these no win situations and what kept me there long after the honeymoon stage was over and done with and how I was dancing the dance and keeping the dynamic going on in my life. I learned that I was the honest child in the family the one who called a spade a spade. The intelligent, insighful one, and empath. I was confused by my father's PD and would speak my mind. My sister who was not as bright or more of a kiss ass, not sure of which, lol, would keep her mouth shut and not call him on anything, so naturally she was the favored child. I would jump through hoops to gain approval and he had already shut me out because he could sense that I could see right through him, so I was bad supply and she was the adoring good supply. I was not doing anything wrong. I was just being me, real, and this apparently was a bad thing in my house of origin so it confused me. We are told to be honest, yet when we are we take a beating and are insulted. I began to see this for what it was when I came on here and learned how this all plays out. That as long as you keep your head in the sand, you are great supply; as soon as you figure them out and demask them; you become bad supply. Sounds simple enough now, try to explain this to a child not an easy thing to do, plus back in the day, no one talked about PD's so you were left thinking and feeling that it was somehow your fault and so the patterns get established and the pain becomes the norm and the loving relationships become the unknown and unfamilar. In the beginning it is important to look at them and what just hit us. After awhile unless you want that stage to become chronic, it is essential to begin to turn the focus inwards and begin to do the work on ourselves and begin to take resposibilty for our own destiny's. Our current thoughts and behaviors are going to create our future and if you feed the heart, head, and soul with toxic waste materials then this is the future which is being created. Thanks for an insightful, positive, relective, honest post TRN1. The truth will set us free; and we are the Captain's of our own ship. God bless, Goldie

I started changing my relationship with my mother about 5 years ago after I completely broke down and discovered that the causes were linked to my childhood. I have had to become a lot more distant from my mother psychologically - she commented on it a lot after my split from the exn and I had to stay with her for a while...she said you never talk to me at all...I find it painful and difficult to distance myself from her but have simply had to do it as she has put me down too much over the years and tried to get me to believe a picture of myself as defective, hopeless etc. This isn't really conscious on her part...it is a style of relating, objectifying me. I am finding that I can have a relationship with her where I support her when I can or am willing to and don't engage in any emotional games. I know she has felt rejected but that is just unfortunate. I wholeheartedly believe that we learn to ignore our feelings in childhood and this makes us prime targets for pds.

Apparently when we are seriously emotionally stuck in an unfulfilling relationship, we need to find the roots in the childhood. This is what I read and have been told by therapists. As well as you I “discovered” with the help of my therapist my childhood wounds. I really had no clue before. It was a chock for me. I really thought I had a happy childhood. The reality is I censored myself and my conscious from doubting it. It was tough, so tough. I even thought I should not know it, because of “what can I do now?” (My parents both past away). They never meant me any bad. As usual, you know it... Now, I am glad. This knowledge really served me. Not only to understand my reactions and emotions, but also to adjust my self talk. I hope it will be very helpful for you too Love Winter

Now, your therapist is getting to the real root of the problem, and that is always going to be a tough one to face. Because, it would mean you would have to force yourself to "let go" of the expectations that you have in your mind of how you are suppose to be loved by your Mother and accept that it isn't that way at all. I can relate 100% with what you are saying. I had to face the same fact. But, with that said, I don't "hate" my Mother, she is still in my life, she just now has boundaries with me. something that NEVER existed before my journey to healing. (one example of how this narc experience IMPROVED my life) I learned to accept Mom for who and what she is. I love her still, she is my Mother. She just isn't the Mother I yearned for, a Mother that was depicted as perfect in all the stories I read as a young girl, and all the characters on tv that I viewed as loving unconditionally, and showing their children love, while growing up. I accept who she is now, and don't harbor ill feelings towards her. It is what it is, and she is elderly now, and there is no sense on "making her pay" at this point in her life. She is human after all, and there are things that happened in her life that changed her drastically, so she had her own "bag of hammers" to drag around with her as well. Does it make it right? No...........but it doesn't change anything either. We can't turn back time and have a "do over". So, what I have done was create boundaries, I say "no" when I want or need to, she no longer manipulates me, she can't. Our relationship has changed quite a bit as I said. But honestly, if not for my narcs, and my healing, and digging back to my past, I would have spent the rest of my life, or at least hers, as an emotional prisoner to her. And having this revelation, for me, is priceless. Your sessions will be tough as you trudge through all of this, but it will open your eyes to some things that you may have never been aware of before. I hope you spend more time on this subject with your therapist. I think it will make a world of difference in the end for you. Good luck and please keep us posted!

It is interesting the damage our parents cause.. There is a root to the problem.. And you are figuring it out.. Good for you.. It's very wise to use the tools available .. With therapy, reading ,and Lisa's six steps ..you are on your way to a Home Run! Thank you for sharing. Hunter

"neat" that these connections are being made...as painful as they can be and as tough as they can be to look at and examine. I am so glad that you are examining and processing...this is huge! What a breakthrough you will experience when you go through the process. Your therapist sounds very good and I am so glad you are going. I am proud of you TNR for breaking the cycle. It is so not easy, but so necessary to live an authentic, empowered, healthy and happy life. Thank you for sharing this. It is helpful to understand that often our problems have very little to do with the disordered ones and the fallout from the disordered ones is often the "gift" of them bringing them to the surface where they must be examined at last. Most sincerely, (not) spinning.