Day 15 Letter to my dad

During the past two weeks has your pain been moving around? How has this affected your belief in the diagnosis?

My problem is muscle tightness and exhaustion rather than pain. Sometimes the left side of my neck and back is tighter and sometimes the right. It hasn't really affected my belief in the diagnosis because this has been occurring the entire time and the experience isn't that different just because it's on a different side.
On the other hand, I'd like to take a moment and absorb the idea that this alternating tightness could be a sign that my symptoms are psychological in origin.

Dear Dad,
Why have you always failed to protect me from my mother? I get it now- you do spend all of your time with her and she emotes incredibly strongly. Every moment is about how hard things are on her and how willing she is to do anything. Yet, she isn't willing to do anything. She isn't even willing to do much. It's all marketing. And not once have you been able to see that.
She certainly isn't willing to stop hurting me. She isn't willing to try therapy (even though she's a therapist). She isn't willing to stop making making me responsible for how she feels. She isn't willing to take responsibility for her actions. All she's able to do is hurt. Both of you have mistaken this for love and it's just dumping.
You're never going to change on this. It doesn't matter how clear the situation is. When we went to Italy- it was extremely clear I was having a rough day keeping up. I was falling behind all the time. After dinner I had to stop at the top of the huge stairs before the parthenon. I called out to everyone that I couldn't do it and everyone left me there. No one told me when you'd be back or asked if they could help.
So I sat down next to the wall and waited. When you finally came back my mother saw me there huddled against the wall and made a joke about me being homeless. This is the opposite of nurturing.
It's unusual for me but I spoke up at this point. I told her that it was wrong and instead of apologizing or addressing it she changed the topic and kept walking.
This isn't love, this isn't someone willing to do anything. This is someone that hurts me and I don't have to pretend that things are good between us. She is my abuser but you're the enabler. You're the one that keeps pushing me to mend the relationship when I know it's bad for me and I keep telling you it's bad for me.
One thing that I haven't told you about is the core issue with the forced feeding. You need to know that I was gagging when I was trying to eat that food. Imagine gagging for fifteen or twenty minutes every day for years on end. Don't you think this has effects? Teaches me to ignore pain or to punish myself?
I'm grateful to have a relationship with you but just quit it. Quit forcing me to make up with someone who continually hurts me. This is what she does and she can't stop. She has a long way to go before she's going to be able to.

Dialog with TMS
It is very discouraging that I'm not able to completely believe that you are a function of my emotions and not a physical problem. [To be completed]

 

Luke. Nice letter. (I am a big fan of letter-writing for healing)

Have you thought about speaking with either of your parents from the perspective of how this behavior hurts you? Perhaps ask either of them if they realize that it hurts you?

 

Lori,
To some degree I have told them about how it hurts me. It's very difficult with my mother because if I say something hurts me she does more of it. My father is better unless it's an issue that involves my mother.

 

Congratulate yourself on recognizing their patterns. So many people get caught up and let others push their buttons for years and years, even their whole lives, without realizing what's going on. It has to be tough to deal with it in the present. Most of my parental issues were from my childhood and my mother has mellowed out a lot since then. I have to avoid talking politics with her, though, because she's so fear-based and she falls right back into that "you need to be afraid of this and that" domineering attitude.