messed up

[Tangled Web]

Saw T on Tuesday and it messed up my head HUGE!
I am not saying she did it on purpose but then again maybe she did!
Things were going alright I didn't really have much to say. She bought a fairytale princess colouring book. A big one. And she gave to me. We didn't ask for it........I didn't know what to do so I said thank you. Taking things from people is NEVER ok to do. Especially if it has to do the lils inside. I asked her if it was trick to see if one of them would come out? She said no but who knows.
She told me she didn't think I would have accepted it just yet but she was glad I did. What do you say to that? Just because I took it doesn't mean that it will be used. I just didn't want to hurt her feelings by rejecting it or not saying thank you .
That would have been like a slap in the face don't you think? Well I do.
But the thing that REALLY bothered us was ..........
At one point she was analyzing my words asking me what they meant to me. I said to her oh is it your turn to put me in the hot seat today? It was kind of a joke considering how many times we made her squirm in her seat last time we saw her. Then someone said to her......one of those moments that something just flies out of your mouth and you wonder where the hell that came from........well someone said oh aren't you just the pot stirrer today to T. Well she decided to answer that. And I piped up and said ummmmmm the answer is NO say no that is not what you are doing.......she didn't say that! She said something about it being good to stir the pot. Not sure how she said it or what exactly she said........things get really blurry at this point. But she said something about it being good for her to know what bothers us and how she can get there to get to the issues and something about it being helpful for her. WELL all hell went loose in my head. Totally f*ck*d me up! It is not ok for her to know those things. It isn't ok for her to use any that and she can't be a pot stirrer.

Nothing makes sense anymore. Even though I felt some trust for her on a deeper level.......this has set me back so far. I can't get past it and it just brews and brews and brews and gets bigger and bigger...........I have no rational thoughts what so ever. She is going to hurt me. Why else would she want to know to get to me? What makes me tick and what button to push to get to this place or that place. Why would anyone EVER give someone that MUCH power and knowledge about themselves? That makes absolute NO SENSE to me what so ever. Oh man things are So f*ck*d up now. Panic....that is what I am feeling is panic and anger.
Who the hell does she think she is any ways.......those are thoughts that come into my head. Someone is really pissed inside! SHe shouldn't have said she was a pot stirrer. I knew that wasn't going to be good! Not exactly sure why it bothers me SO much but it really does!!!!!!!
I don't know what to do. I don't even know where to start.

[nats]

sounds like maybe she was trying to get to a deeper level to help you work on stuff that is harder to address. of course, one reason it's harder to address is because it requires trusting that she has some idea what she's doing and that her intentions are good. that's hard!

[Tangled Web]

It definitely has something to do with the phrase pot stirrer. It has something to do with the fact that she wanted to know how the things she was doing or saying were bothering me so she could do it again and get to a deeper level maybe.........or know how to get back there to this point maybe, or something........the thing was she wanted to remember and know how to do this to me..... THAT IS NOT OK!
This feels the same way as all the times the mother would get a reaction of pain or hurt from us and she would hit harder with her word or other things......jus to have that saification of hurting us and she would always get this tiny smirk on her face and say oh that bothers you does it and strike again.......This was more than just a daily thing until we got strong enough and smart enough to hide our reactions and learned how to play the game. It was a necessary thing to have in order for survival in that house and now T is trying to find the ways to bug us too..............even if she is doing it to help not hurt......it still FEELS the same way. I don't know to separate it. I can't separate it. She has now became a threat to us...........Even though she was trying to help, she has became a threat because that kind of help hurts........does any of this stuff make sense?

[nats]

it makes perfect sense that your people would react the way they have. what we're trying to say at the same time is that her reasons are presumably different from your mum's. we're not saying this makes her actions OK, but just that it's something for all of you to keep in mind as your processing this. she did something that upset you, but that does not necessarily mean that she's unsafe. what might be good is to write and explain to her that you were upset by her actions b/c it reminded you of how your mum used to act. that is a valid thing to say. depending on her response you could then discuss the reaction to her personally and how some of you no longer consider her safe and that she crossed a line.

[Tangled Web]

I understand that her reasons are different from what the mothers reasons were. Looking at it from her point of view and without the experiences we have had. But it will still hurt us. Whether the hurt is from trying to heal from past experiences or hurt from the vindictive ways of the mother. It still ends up with being hurt one way or another. So does it matter if the intentions are good or bad if the feeling hurt is the same? That is where we are completely stuck..........and then we think what is the point of saying of anything to her........her words won't change that fact, so what do we do? Does that make sense?

[mosaic]

nats is right that it is important to talk to your t about how you feel about what she did -
i know it won't change what she did that's true, and it won't change how it hurt

this is just my opinion and so you can take it or leave it - but it's an important thing to learn that trusting someone doesn't mean they will never hurt you - and it is more important to experience that a ... rupture? ... in the relationship can be repaired - it takes a lot of courage and work, and it does hurt, and it can be done...

im sorry you had such an unsettling experience so soon after the trust moment.

[Tangled Web]

I did email her..............
Writing the response to nats helped put things in perspective.
This is what I said
I am so stuck right now. The defenses are kicking in so hard right now to protect us. I am trying so hard to not lose any ground I have gained with you but I am losing that fight. I feel defeated. I know you said something to me about why you were trying to figure out how to get to things and about stirring the pot and why that was a good thing in your eyes but I don’t remember what that was anymore. I tried to repeat it and hold on to it but I lost it and now things are really messed up.



You know how the mother would try and try to figure out what bothered us so she could use it against us to hurt us and how important it was for us to protect those things and keep them so hidden from her so she wouldn’t know how to hurt us. Because once she learned what bothered us she would use it over and over again to get to us. She would do everything in her power to the stir the pot and cause trouble just get a reaction from us…….she would do whatever it took to hurt us.

I understand that your reasons are different from what the mothers reasons were. Looking at it from your point of view and without the experiences we have had. But it will still hurt us. Whether the hurt is from trying to heal from past experiences or hurt from the vindictive ways of the mother. It still ends up with being hurt one way or another. So does it matter if the intentions are good or bad if the feeling of hurt is the same? That is where we are completely stuck..........to us it won’t make any difference and don’t know how to change that……………………………..and then we think what is the point of saying of anything to you........your words won't change that fact, so what do we do?

I don’t know what to do. Everything is just spinning and no matter how hard I try to make it stop it doesn’t. I can’t make it go away. I can’t change how this feels. I can’t change anything……….This is ONE of the biggest things we have spent our whole entire life protecting and hiding and preventing people from ever doing and you go and tell everyone who was listening that is what you were trying to do, how you were trying to understand how things would effect us so you could use that……………… What were you thinking????????????
THE END

I don't know what good this will do but at least I tried. I told T what is going on at least.............don't see how that will change anything and was hoping it might of made things better but it hasn't......

[mosaic]

you did well writing to your t and explaining where you are with things. i hope t is able to help you work through the tumult and find some solid ground again for you.

we're listening too - and can tell how totally off balance things feel for you (that's probably putting it way mildly)

[Tangled Web]

another piece of this in regards to forgiveness...........have no idea if this is right place to put this but because it fits with the above message or was a continuation from the top message and circumstances I decided to put it here............

when someone does something like this we close the door and lock it and never look back. we have gotten to the place where we can just close off certain parts of things and still have contact with the person but this forgiveness piece that you talk about doesn't happen in our world and we have a strong urge to make them pay for their mistake and only after we feel that they have paid enough are we able to move on.........and I know that isn't the right way to do things so I shut that down and end up saying nothing and that is why we usually end up walking away
and in order to make a person pay for their mistakes they have to hurt twice as bad as we do
now like I said we don't do that anymore but that is the only way we know how to move on from it
I learned well from the mother
but even after 20 years I still haven't learned to move on from it……We have no idea what forgiveness is or what it even looks like..........all that ever happens is that it is avoided at all cost
because I don't want to hurt people anymore...............but if you don't hurt them then how will they ever learn from their mistakes so they will never do it again
OMG WOW YIKES
I realized now we have now gotten into the lessons I learned as a child
the only way to teach us anything as we were growing up was to hit us or hurt us..........my mother would tell our dad to hit us because that was the only way we were going to learn and it was a very effective way in teaching us things. She would hurt us in order to teach us things which was also a very effective way to learn things so it got to the point that every time we felt any kind of pain, we were looking for the lesson in it that we had to learn. That is how we think people are supposed to learn from their mistakes, whether it is right or wrong makes no difference.
and we know that if they are hurt are enough they will in fact think twice about doing it again
so forgiveness was NEVER option
pay back was and pay back was always a b*tch
and to be expected
now makes complete sense to us
that is ALL I know I don’t know any other way.
How is anyone ever supposed to teach us that…….teach us another way to look at it or another way to do it? That seems down right impossible!
Kathy

[nats]

hi Kathy,
i think what you've said in these last few posts is really important. you (and your mum) are right that pain IS a very efficient teacher. however, speaking from a pedagogical standpoint, it is not actually the most effective teacher - but that is a conversation for a different time.

two points come to mind. first, feeling hurt is horrible and unpleasant, but it's a perception and perception does not always equal Truth. i.e. your T's behaviour hurts you because of how you are interpret her actions not because her actions actually damaged you or were bad in a universal way (this may not make sense, so please just ask and i'll try to say it in another way).

second, if your parents taught through pain then it's very understandable that you can't imagine forgiveness without pain. it's what you spent your formative years learning. however, you live in an adult body now. you have the capacity to learn new ways of dealing with problems and you can change your perceptions and not let your mum's teaching control how you view relationships anymore.

forgiveness to us has always been about ourselves and not wanting to take back our power from the person who wronged us. it's not about letting the other person go unpunished, but rather about recognising that the other person's action didn't destroy/damage us in a permanent way and we don't want to waste any further time obsessing over them (or shutting them out, which also requires extra energy better used for something constructive) and thus continuing to feed their power over us. again, this may not make sense and may not seem relevant to you in any way. just thought we should put it out there for consideration.

[Tangled Web]

I do understand what you are trying to say here nats.
The problem is separating those perceptions...............
The rules on how we were taught to live in this world have been deeply engrained in our head for many years even including our adult years.
It is ALL we know
so that is why it so hard to separate those perceptions.
Plus the fact that we have know this T for what a year now and have known my mother for over 40 years.
And to add the cherry on top....here is the real kicker for us..........I found a place of trust with our new T (something that was always forbidden) but I went there because I wanted to heal.......and this is what has happened. Try to imagine how loud my mothers words are right now in my head. And how I went and proved her right on all those lessons we learnt about trusting people other than your family.
Things are so NOT good at the moment.........I can't find my way out of this.......
TW

[nats]

hearing you that it's very hard. hoping you find a way to keep working at it. sitting with you if you want.

[Tangled Web]

Thank you nats for hearing us and sitting with us. It means a lot
TW

[MakersDozn]

We hear you too. The whole thread resonates with us. Kathy, glad that you had the insight about how pain acts as a teacher. We believe strongly that insight is a big part of progress in healing. And nats, your thoughts have been helpful to us too.

MDs