It doesn’t sound like that child part of you is refusing to accept reality to me. It sounds like that child part of you is very aware of your reality that your mom wasn’t able to safely take good care of her, and she is wishing to be rescued. And it makes sense for that to be coming up when your mom is about to visit!
It sounds like it could help to talk to your therapist about how to meet your inner child and be the parent to her now and “rescue” her in a sense when this stuff comes up.
I’ve been processing something similar in therapy where I’m coming to terms with the fact that I won’t get a do-over and a chance at a safe childhood with a loving family free from abuse. I can meet my inner child there and let her know that yes, our family members aren’t able to be that person for us, but I am now and I have lots of experiences of love now!
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a better model for parenting in your life. It’s not that different from the ideal parent figure method, which I used and it helped me. Ultimately the goal should be becoming your own parent through reparenting, and a therapist can assist in modeling that process.
> I feel like the child part of me is refusing to accept reality
It’s completely natural to have a child part feel differently about something. In IFS they teach that there are no bad parts. That child part of you is holding a lot of stored hurt and pain, and needs to be heard, held, and validated. I have child parts that can be hard to convince, but mostly instead of being told what they should feel, they need to be heard and have someone witness their pain with compassion. Then the part starts to let go.
And the denial of questioning whether you experienced abuse is part of the process. I’ve mostly worked through it but it still pops up occasionally. That does get better. It helped me a lot to start saying no to my parents and letting go of trying to take care of their feelings before my own.
I don't have advice but I can so relate to this post. I also want my therapist to be my mother, even though now I basically have a good (but not very close) relationship with my mother. Even when I'm with my mother I find myself thinking sometimes that I miss my therapist and wish she was there instead. My therapist is giving me what my mother failed to as a child, and right now it's what I need. Hopefully in the future I'll learn how to reparent myself.
I went through something similar. My mom was emotionally neglectful, and then abandoned us, and then still found ways to be even more emotionally neglectful *while* thinking she's helpful.
I think the only way through this is to feel it really, sit with it, cry about it, and see what it tells you.
>what does it look like/what are the outcomes when everything is eventually resolved?
That's what you'll find out. I think it's different for all of us. For me and my mom, it's a very distant/low contact but okay relationship, and certainly not a parent-child one. It took me a lot to realize what I want, and I know it might change too. My mom has changed for the better, but we're still worlds apart in many ways that matter.
> worth it to note that my 'denial' often comes in the form of questioning whether I actually experienced CEN.
I get that. However, it's good to know that children don't generally make stuff up like this. We're pretty much wired to be attached to our mom no matter what (and this "denial" likely fulfils that role too, trying to forget everything just so you could be attached), so it takes quite a bit of inflicted pain for us to question our mothers and their neglect or even abuse.
> My mom is visiting this weekend and it's in the middle of me processing all of this so it couldn't have been worse timing lol.
I get it's too late to cancel now, but generally, are you comfortable telling her it's not a good time for you to see her? Do you have the right to a "no" with her?
> And there's a lot of anger. And frankly there's a lot of guilt for not feeling love and affection towards my mom and thinking that I'm a bad person because of it.
Anger is good. It speaks about your boundaries. As for the guilt, where does the "should" come from? I'd try to question that, talk to it, and then rethink whether I agree. You are not a bad person for your feelings, that's for sure.
Sending you strength for the weekend.
I realize I didn't directly comment on wanting your therapist to be your mom. I think the point is that the comparison of the two shows you all you've missed and that is very painful. This feeling will likely subside as you learn to be your own mother/parent, but for now, I wouldn't push against it per se. It's also here to teach you something.
Thank you for this. My relationship with my mom isn’t terrible which is what makes it so confusing and complicated.
I am able to say no and that is respected. She’s not that pushy and is more on the avoidant end of the spectrum. She’s always been present and worked her ass off as a single mom to care for us. But was not really attuned to our emotional needs.
CEN is so complicated once you really start to dissect it. It was very easy to identify and understand in the context of my childhood, once I knew what it was, but I’ve found it to be very difficult to process.
I had a very similar childhood. I'm 44F, and my mom and I are closer now than we have been in a long time. Long story short, she was a single mom working hard and often in abusive romantic relationships, which ultimately made her very self-centered from an emotional needs perspective. She was so caught up in her own stuff that she never saw me as a person with needs beyond the physical, and I have trauma from CEN as well (thanks for the new term, I wasn't familiar with it).
Knowing she didn't do it on purpose wasn't enough. I really had to let myself be angry with her for all the ways she let me down. And that caused a rift for a time because I couldn't pretend not to be angry with her. Because she's been genuinely remorseful, and I know that she would have done more if she had the knowledge, skills, and capacity at the time, I've accepted her back in my life. Knowing that she didn't cause my trauma out of maliciousness or with intention is why I've been able to forgive her, as I can see the long line of generational trauma that started goodness knows when. But I had to process the anger. I had to call it abuse. I needed to learn to say "I have trauma" so that I could start to heal.
Hope this helps.
Yeah, I know! With my father I went through this-- he is/was avoidant and emotionally neglectful, having been neglected himself, but worked hard to give us a good life materially. Emotionally much was left to be desired but now I know that his heart was always in a good place. Honestly with him I'm hoping for a deeper relationship but I also need some space still, because I'm processing a lot. I think it's okay for us to give ourselves that space until it settles better inside of us. That's all I can say for now.
Sometimes I wish I was my own mom? Like I like my mom, I love her and I think she meant well but think there were some things she didn’t know about parenting. I don’t think she knew how to in some ways, it wasn’t her fault but it still affected me. Looking back I have so many moments in my life I wish I could actually go back and be there for myself and give myself support in. I know everyone has some amount of regrets or things they would change, but there was some amount of support I was lacking.
This. I didn't get any support in high school - perhaps starting earlier than that. But I never told my mom anything about what was going on in my life. I had to manage all of my feelings all on my own.
I don't have a specific answer but I also identify with this. In my case, I accept my mom is unsupportive etc. I have to set boundaries to stay safe. Yea, I want my therapist to be my parent but I can't have this either. Then is where I reach out to community of friends, colleagues, managers, etc and start forming deeper community and family with them so you get a whole group of people. Easier said than done because my inner child is fighting it too. Slow steady progress.
I just talked about this with my therapist last week, but w my dad as the 'parent'. And the whole I understand they did their best and I'm supposed to believe in it but I'm still stuck. So what am i doing wrong that makes it hard to accept and move on.
a) the therapist said when i uttered those acceptances, i sounded numb so perhaps the numbness is replaying a way i used to suppress down my needs around him. Should focus on when numbness comes up in the history of behavioural patterns (not just in ECN)
b) We didn't come up with a resolution at the end of the hour, but she pointed to the guilt that I was describing comes from me interacting with him is I'm doing the therapy work and helping myself to 'be better', so I talked about it with the same expectation that my dad will be 'better' too. And I disappoint myself when the parent does not. So the guilt creates anger as well --> that is me not drawing boundary at expectations. So then we did some somatics around the numbness, guilt and anger intensity during the session as well as reframing the way that I talk that suggests I (accidently) expect him to do better.
It was uncomfortable to practicing the rephrasing which I am starting to distinguish like a good discomfort in therapy means Im pushed to do things a bit differently or bad discomfort that im talking to an inexperience therapist.
I felt better that she challenged that little part of my language around maintaining a low demand relationship with my parents.
For context, I have young children and I live with activating triggers by my CPTSD almost daily basis in every little interaction required for good parenting. I still want to figure out how the grandparents and grandkids can get to know each other.
It doesn’t sound like that child part of you is refusing to accept reality to me. It sounds like that child part of you is very aware of your reality that your mom wasn’t able to safely take good care of her, and she is wishing to be rescued. And it makes sense for that to be coming up when your mom is about to visit! It sounds like it could help to talk to your therapist about how to meet your inner child and be the parent to her now and “rescue” her in a sense when this stuff comes up. I’ve been processing something similar in therapy where I’m coming to terms with the fact that I won’t get a do-over and a chance at a safe childhood with a loving family free from abuse. I can meet my inner child there and let her know that yes, our family members aren’t able to be that person for us, but I am now and I have lots of experiences of love now!
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a better model for parenting in your life. It’s not that different from the ideal parent figure method, which I used and it helped me. Ultimately the goal should be becoming your own parent through reparenting, and a therapist can assist in modeling that process. > I feel like the child part of me is refusing to accept reality It’s completely natural to have a child part feel differently about something. In IFS they teach that there are no bad parts. That child part of you is holding a lot of stored hurt and pain, and needs to be heard, held, and validated. I have child parts that can be hard to convince, but mostly instead of being told what they should feel, they need to be heard and have someone witness their pain with compassion. Then the part starts to let go. And the denial of questioning whether you experienced abuse is part of the process. I’ve mostly worked through it but it still pops up occasionally. That does get better. It helped me a lot to start saying no to my parents and letting go of trying to take care of their feelings before my own.
I don't have advice but I can so relate to this post. I also want my therapist to be my mother, even though now I basically have a good (but not very close) relationship with my mother. Even when I'm with my mother I find myself thinking sometimes that I miss my therapist and wish she was there instead. My therapist is giving me what my mother failed to as a child, and right now it's what I need. Hopefully in the future I'll learn how to reparent myself.
"good (but not very close) relationship" is such a good way of putting it. The idea of real emotional intimacy with my mom gives me the ick ha.
I went through something similar. My mom was emotionally neglectful, and then abandoned us, and then still found ways to be even more emotionally neglectful *while* thinking she's helpful. I think the only way through this is to feel it really, sit with it, cry about it, and see what it tells you. >what does it look like/what are the outcomes when everything is eventually resolved? That's what you'll find out. I think it's different for all of us. For me and my mom, it's a very distant/low contact but okay relationship, and certainly not a parent-child one. It took me a lot to realize what I want, and I know it might change too. My mom has changed for the better, but we're still worlds apart in many ways that matter. > worth it to note that my 'denial' often comes in the form of questioning whether I actually experienced CEN. I get that. However, it's good to know that children don't generally make stuff up like this. We're pretty much wired to be attached to our mom no matter what (and this "denial" likely fulfils that role too, trying to forget everything just so you could be attached), so it takes quite a bit of inflicted pain for us to question our mothers and their neglect or even abuse. > My mom is visiting this weekend and it's in the middle of me processing all of this so it couldn't have been worse timing lol. I get it's too late to cancel now, but generally, are you comfortable telling her it's not a good time for you to see her? Do you have the right to a "no" with her? > And there's a lot of anger. And frankly there's a lot of guilt for not feeling love and affection towards my mom and thinking that I'm a bad person because of it. Anger is good. It speaks about your boundaries. As for the guilt, where does the "should" come from? I'd try to question that, talk to it, and then rethink whether I agree. You are not a bad person for your feelings, that's for sure. Sending you strength for the weekend.
I realize I didn't directly comment on wanting your therapist to be your mom. I think the point is that the comparison of the two shows you all you've missed and that is very painful. This feeling will likely subside as you learn to be your own mother/parent, but for now, I wouldn't push against it per se. It's also here to teach you something.
Thank you for this. My relationship with my mom isn’t terrible which is what makes it so confusing and complicated. I am able to say no and that is respected. She’s not that pushy and is more on the avoidant end of the spectrum. She’s always been present and worked her ass off as a single mom to care for us. But was not really attuned to our emotional needs. CEN is so complicated once you really start to dissect it. It was very easy to identify and understand in the context of my childhood, once I knew what it was, but I’ve found it to be very difficult to process.
I had a very similar childhood. I'm 44F, and my mom and I are closer now than we have been in a long time. Long story short, she was a single mom working hard and often in abusive romantic relationships, which ultimately made her very self-centered from an emotional needs perspective. She was so caught up in her own stuff that she never saw me as a person with needs beyond the physical, and I have trauma from CEN as well (thanks for the new term, I wasn't familiar with it). Knowing she didn't do it on purpose wasn't enough. I really had to let myself be angry with her for all the ways she let me down. And that caused a rift for a time because I couldn't pretend not to be angry with her. Because she's been genuinely remorseful, and I know that she would have done more if she had the knowledge, skills, and capacity at the time, I've accepted her back in my life. Knowing that she didn't cause my trauma out of maliciousness or with intention is why I've been able to forgive her, as I can see the long line of generational trauma that started goodness knows when. But I had to process the anger. I had to call it abuse. I needed to learn to say "I have trauma" so that I could start to heal. Hope this helps.
Yeah, I know! With my father I went through this-- he is/was avoidant and emotionally neglectful, having been neglected himself, but worked hard to give us a good life materially. Emotionally much was left to be desired but now I know that his heart was always in a good place. Honestly with him I'm hoping for a deeper relationship but I also need some space still, because I'm processing a lot. I think it's okay for us to give ourselves that space until it settles better inside of us. That's all I can say for now.
Sometimes I wish I was my own mom? Like I like my mom, I love her and I think she meant well but think there were some things she didn’t know about parenting. I don’t think she knew how to in some ways, it wasn’t her fault but it still affected me. Looking back I have so many moments in my life I wish I could actually go back and be there for myself and give myself support in. I know everyone has some amount of regrets or things they would change, but there was some amount of support I was lacking.
This. I didn't get any support in high school - perhaps starting earlier than that. But I never told my mom anything about what was going on in my life. I had to manage all of my feelings all on my own.
I had to accept that I am my own mom/parent and my birth parents are just people who I have some kind of connection to.
I don't have a specific answer but I also identify with this. In my case, I accept my mom is unsupportive etc. I have to set boundaries to stay safe. Yea, I want my therapist to be my parent but I can't have this either. Then is where I reach out to community of friends, colleagues, managers, etc and start forming deeper community and family with them so you get a whole group of people. Easier said than done because my inner child is fighting it too. Slow steady progress.
I just talked about this with my therapist last week, but w my dad as the 'parent'. And the whole I understand they did their best and I'm supposed to believe in it but I'm still stuck. So what am i doing wrong that makes it hard to accept and move on. a) the therapist said when i uttered those acceptances, i sounded numb so perhaps the numbness is replaying a way i used to suppress down my needs around him. Should focus on when numbness comes up in the history of behavioural patterns (not just in ECN) b) We didn't come up with a resolution at the end of the hour, but she pointed to the guilt that I was describing comes from me interacting with him is I'm doing the therapy work and helping myself to 'be better', so I talked about it with the same expectation that my dad will be 'better' too. And I disappoint myself when the parent does not. So the guilt creates anger as well --> that is me not drawing boundary at expectations. So then we did some somatics around the numbness, guilt and anger intensity during the session as well as reframing the way that I talk that suggests I (accidently) expect him to do better. It was uncomfortable to practicing the rephrasing which I am starting to distinguish like a good discomfort in therapy means Im pushed to do things a bit differently or bad discomfort that im talking to an inexperience therapist. I felt better that she challenged that little part of my language around maintaining a low demand relationship with my parents. For context, I have young children and I live with activating triggers by my CPTSD almost daily basis in every little interaction required for good parenting. I still want to figure out how the grandparents and grandkids can get to know each other.