Day 26: When was the last time you talked to your parents?

Oh, this is perfect for today - in fact I just journaled about it! I talked to my parents on Sunday - actually just my mother, because I make excuses not to talk to my father or do video chat because he always manages to express that I'm "not living up to my potential," the same vibe I grew up with. Before the pandemic, I typically talked to my folks a few times a year, on special occasions. But they were locked down and isolated and I decided to be the "good" daughter and talk to them every Sunday. And that has mostly worked out and been enjoyable, except for the time change thing - they're in AZ so their time hadn't changed and mine had so I called an hour early by their clocks but right on time according to mine and my mom said, "Oh, your brother just started a FaceTime call with us, can I call you back," and I said no, I don't really feel like talking now and it turned into this big thing where I had to apologize multiple times for not figuring out their time hadn't changed. Whew! That was a long sentence.
Anyway, when I talked to them Sunday my mom had to call me back because she was just heading into the sporting goods store to pick up my dad's golf clubs, and then when she called my they were obviously driving and the reception was terrible and she kept saying, "Is there something wrong with your phone?" Hahaha! And what I thought was that now they don't need me to call anymore because restrictions are lifted, so I've been relegated to car time so they can multitask. Anyway, clearly I have mommy issues I need to work on and I'm going to get on that right now.

 

Oufff I understand. Such a bad feeling to try to be there for someone and then realize they don’t really appreciate it. Especially when it’s people dear to us.

My last back acute pain was driving to see my mom. I am relieved I don’t have to see her now that I am bedridden. I called her for mother’s day and my back tensed a bit again but thenrelaxed OUFFF done. Actually, there was nothing wrong with the conversation. I just never know when it will be my mom is very nice or suddenly very cold/defensive/not need me/ critical. Bleeehhh.
All year we would go on walks together and most of the time it’s very nice. She has problems that I worry about, sometimes more then her.
I so need to keep the nice part but learn to better react when it’s not going well.
It’s crazy how our relationship got better since I got diabetes type 1... well whenever I was sick as a kid she would get afraid and care more. If not I was kind of not wanted and a bullet in her life. No wonder I have all these painfull stuff. Sometimes I am afraid as long as my mom is alive I will never get out of it. But it’s so sad I really love my mom.
When I was 27 years old I got out of a horrible relationship and my mom kind of sided/ believed more the guy than me. I did not see her for eight months and I remember being happy and pain free for a while then. After that I saw here sparingly I could feel she was not ‘sane’ for me. When I started to have diabetes type 1 ( because too much stress said the doctor) at 31 yo my mom started suddenly to be much more caring about me. Like she needed to be scared that I die to realize maybe she cares? I decided to take the good out of it at least.
My younger half brother is always more important ( at least between him and me it’s all good) for my mom. Except when I get more sick. Then she kind of rejects him. It’s so strange she cannot love both of her kids at the same time.
I am hoping that you will find a way to just express to your mom how you feel. it’s silly when you have to not call for weeks so they start to miss it.

 

Omigosh, our moms are like twins! Oufff! And somehow I believe you've sketched out both the problem and the solution in the same post. Pretty frickin' astute. We can be free of the baggage without not calling and without being sick and without cutting ties. We just have to be there for ourselves first.

 

and repress the rest

why not.. it's not conscious. Goes right to a symptom without your decision making process involved.

TMS is like Indian Poker. You can see everybody else's hand but your own. To be free of it you do NOT need to

....

Virtually every one of your sentences is reinforcing you having symptoms and you are 'getting something'; first her attentions and later, freedom from having to deal with her. This is Not just secondary gain, but a deeper sicker symbiosis between 'love' and 'illness'. Go review the first two chapters of HBP with just those sentences you typed and you might as well have been one of the people Sarno was writing about. This is not to shame you or anything... hopefully you might get some perspective on how typical your situation is and then find a solution for your symptoms.

 

HA!! Understanding what one should do is one thing but HOW??
If you find one please let me know haha
And I am sorry you have the twin ...
In my case my mon is also full of TMS ( ‘genetic back problems? Hmmmm) from very burried emotions and she bites when you try to make her feel stuff ( I don’t try anymore I learned better) . She also likes to just completely forget things from the past ( things she might not be proud of) and telling me I invent things if by accident I remember some family memory that does not suit her. This of course makes me super angry but at least now I don’t live with her and I can just go home. It’s actually something I learned to less be upset about : I am still mad but I don’t need to argue, try to prove my point etc like in my teens and early twenties. Pheww.
Oh and the random taboos. Without warning you get snapped at of you talk about something she does not want to. I understand now she just gets defensive when some subjects makes her feel or think something unpleasant but it’s really hard to guess and changes. It would be nice if she could simply ask to not talk about x and not throw a tantrum suddenly. Maybe I actually shaped this behaviour when I was insisting about finishing a discussion as a teen.
It’s sad. My younger brother went to live in another country to flee a bit the stressful family atmosphere. I am in the same city and feel sometimes guilty that I will not take my mom home when she gets too old. But I know I will go crazy. Very happy my husband is totally encouraging me to not feel guilty about it and to prioritize my health.
Now that I think of understanding why she reacts the way she do helps me feel less affected: like somatic tracking of my mom’s tantrums hihihi.
I cannot figure out why she cannot love my brother and I at the same time? Why she always need to choose one not the other? There is like zero conflict between my brother and I, we would love to share lol.
Maybe if I figure this out, why she feels the need to do this, it will be easier?

 

Oh yes, I know these stuff is creating my tms. And so much more. Thank you for telling it to me again- I need all the convincing I can as I battle with the thought that i have tons of TMS but also a stuctural part :/. I am afraid my huuuuge massive tms caused not only my diabeties but also a back injury.
———
When I started to talkback to my mom after my bad relationship ( late twenties) I was very often mad at her and was completely done with repressing it. Once, on a roadtrip, where she was stuck in the car with me for eight hours I really exploded. It was the first time she was unable to supress me. Finally she changed strategy and said that fine, she is such a bad mom she should just kill herself. I remember that was completely ridiculous to the point I think it made me almost laugh. Since then she is alternating between « yes si am sooo terrible » or yelling at you so I know there is just no way for me to have a conversation on these things with her. I need to have these conversations in my head not with her, it’s useless. I later learned from my brother she had pulled the ‘ i will kill myself’ to him pretty often when he was 12-14 years old! I had no idea, poor kid.
At the end of this roadtrip conversation my mom actually told me she prefers to not have a close relationship with me, just like with distant friends. That hurt like hell of course and I stayed away and grew nice deep satisfying relationships elsewhere. Then two or three years later I got diabetes and some wall broke in her and she definitely look for a closer relationship with me, except when she gets defensive. This is the positive part I decideecto take. I mean I never heard my mom tell me she loved me before my diabetes- it’s not her type to say things like that- I think she really learned to do it sometimes now.
i think i realize with my head everything but where to start and what to do about it is confusing. I started journalism but it’s like without end...

I don’t expect someone to have the time to read a ‚resume’ of where my tms comes from. I today don’t see how I could have NOT gotten pain and auto immune diabeties with that cv. I am on a waiting list for professional therapy because it’s a bit too much, hard to not feel overwhelmed and not be afraid that it’s somehow ‚too much’ to repair.

I know all the danger signals in my head started very young. Probably in her uterus actually because I know she didn’t want really kids then, didn’t love my father ( she divorced him when I was one) and really did not want to have a girl and did think about abortion pretty often. She had a big depression after I was born so when I was about two months old she left me with my dad and grandmother and left for a sea trip. Our country then imposed martial law so her ship could not enter the port for a few weeks so she was gone longer than she planned. i was a very supressed quiet kid and was afraid of her because it was just impossible to guess if she was going to be mad or happy at you, it depended on her mood.
I remember at five years old she would criticize me for not being affectionate with her and stuff like that. I know very well I was not allowed to show anger or sadness because it made her feel bad. At five years old she met my stepfather and send me in a plane to my grandmother ( we were away from our country for a year) to have a romantic trip with him before coming back to our country. Three years later we fled our country and ended in Canada. My stepfathetcwas waiting for his papers so for a full year, I had my mom just for me and the places we lives are still linked to hapiness and safety to me. I think during that year ( I was 8 ) it was the only year I did not feel she regretted I was there and I was not a bullet for her.
my little half brother was born when I was eleven and I needed to take care of him alot as his father was usually in a deep depression my mom was working very long hours trying to make a living for the four of us.
During my teens I stopped being a calm perfect kid. I still had to take care of my brother alot and I was doing stupid things. I remember my mother had no idea what to do with me so she went to the therapist with me. After talking with me and then together, the therapist suggested to my mom that my ‚problems’ had something to do with her... we never returned there hahaha.
When i was 18 my mother took my stepndadcand little brother and moedcto the US where she got a good job. I stayed in my house in Canada with my cat. It’s ok, I already knee how to survive by myself, I was doing it since ever but still, I missed my little brother and I didn’t know anyone when I started university. It was a calm and sad partofvmyblife but at least I could be sad by myself.
By the way my real dad still exists but in another country. I would see him a few days every few years. He has depression and trouble with everything but he loves me. Everytime without change. The complete opposit of my mom ( capable, working trough emmigration, cold and unstale affectively). I remember all my life being so shoked by the loving true hug my dad would give me when I arrived that was such a contrast. But we both accepted we are on different continents and that talking to each other is always very hard emotionnaly. Today he has lost his dear wife to covid and is alone and depressed and apart from a phone call where he just cries he misses her I cannot do anything. I can resume my dad with these words: sadness- stable love- but too far.
At 20 I met a narcissic psychologically abusive guy who was my boyfriend for seven long years. The two last years we lived together because my mom and family came back to our house in Canada and it was horrible. At every step it was clear I was too much and that she preferred her life with my stepdad and their son. So I decided it was perhaps better to go live with that unstable boyfriend. He isolated me even further and played with my affective security all the time. I started anxiety attacks as well as sometimes hitting myself ( never hit me the abuse was purely psychological) to prevent me of hitting him. Talk about well trained repressed anger. How in the world can my brain feel safe? I still get this urge to hit myself if in a big argument with my present love but I do not do it anymore and have observed it as a ghost from the past. I can get mad at my husband today ( and probably do so more often as to catch up, poor guy!).
Happily, I was at least allowed by thiscex boyfriend to go to work and it’s trough my work I found some joy and self esteem. One day he wanted to hit my dog so I just took the dog and fled. I lived in my car for one winter and many nice people offered me food and shelter with my dog. I was 27 and ws finaly allowed to live and did not see my mom for a few months. I was surviving ( I started my buisness at 22 and still have it today and love my work) with 20$ a month to eat but I was very happy. I learned about that critical voice in my head, learned to dance and really started to live. Except for the back problems that started around my 20.
I think this back problem saved me from having children with this horrible guy, phew!! I tried to explain to me back a few times it’s ok now but it didn’t work.
At 31 I started diabetiestype 1 . Which I actually manage very well and it bothers me so much less then the back pain. But adds to the hypervigilence to make sure I don’t fall asleep when my sugar goes low and never wake up.
Today I am 41 and am very safe and happy with my current sweet-stable-secure- loving husband for the last nine years. I am truly happy and completly safe but I don’t even think my brain and body ever learned to relax and really feel safe? My life is perfect except the back pain that keeps restricting me more and more.
I am at the stage of discovering it’s pretty obvious I had no choice but to have Tms. I had stomach problems since I remember that got huge at 18. I lost 20kg in a month then amd could eat only boiled zuchnnis. Something I often ate when visiting my dad...i had tons of different symptoms and pains but somehow none has worried me for long but this back pain. I am told structurally there are stuff.
i know tons of it os TMS but when I tried to treat it as not structural it got so worse now I am truly scared of the pain.
Hopefully I will somehow work on all this by little chunks from different sides and will have some life left with less pain. Would be so great.