How Do I Go About Getting My Whole Being Back?

by Pug B
(Helena, MT)

Visitor's story:

Among everything's else. I want my life back too. But how can one do that when they never had it?

Look, I am a weak person. My mother rules me ... I can't even have my space, or to be away from her! Her second husband sexually battered me and I was lying, at age 13!

As she ages, she gets more and more a force to be feared and at best, humored. She has always used distrust against me. Had abusive, jail worthy partners who have harmed me and my sister and still do.

The financial control is beyond HORRIBLE. I have caught my mother dead in the act of telling lies about me to people, and she lies to me, then lies about not lying. Everything is a "sin" whereby I can't be caught eating a sweet.

Nothing in my own life, what she does or doesn't know, is proverbially sacred. My mother cries poverty but is so far from it its sickening. She wants people to feel sorry for her and is always SICK. She'll hang up on you, leave you to cry your insides to buckets.

I don't know what I want, I have no boundaries, I feel I'll never get married nor be good nor enough.

She's overhauled a huge 'god' control as well, when she's already a major disabler already. I'm almost 50; give me a break. She the immortal power queen never ceased being an axe to grind over my dad, who is deceased now a few months but there's a financial avenue to use.

If I have sex or date, she thinks I'm doing it for money! But one embarrassing time married to my stepfather, at a function with him sitting next to her a manager told her to kindly cover up or leave the venue. She was barely dressed and openly playing some wannabe Marilyn. I don't know what else to say.

I feel no one will believe me but I fail to justify my words for I have never trusted, nor believed myself. I cannot blame anyone person. But somehow I was programmed. And my own Karma isn't so problem free.

My mother's insensitivity, objectivity of her children, control, me me me, obsessions, sickness, lack of empathy, constantly having to self gratify, never having time to talk, is getting more pathological the longer she stays with this particular abusive man.

I just want to stay away from it because it makes me feel I'm the "victim" she once told me I was.

Add me to the list too: How do I go about getting my whole being back?

Positive Parenting Ally's comments:

Dear Pug,

You say that you don't know what you want, and that you "have no boundaries". I think that that is a very precise description of how it may feel, when we have 'lost' our connection to ourselves. (This can happen because of many things, but constant overstepping and disregard of personal space (physical and mental) can surely be one of them.)

When feeling like this, we simply can't sense what would be the good or right thing to do. And that is an extremely frustrating place to be at. The only thing we do know, is that we feel terrible. And how does that help us?

At the end of your story you ask a very important question that I think really hits the nail on the head: "How do I go about getting my whole being back?". How do you 'reconnect' to yourself once you've lost that connection, or never really had it in the first place?

In my experience there are many ways that can can help you find that connection, but almost all of them take time and a lot of self-patience. On such a journey, it is baby steps that bring us forward. But they do bring us in the right direction.

First of all, finding a good therapist that can help identify what it feels like to 'reconnect' to yourself again can be a really good place to start. Because once we get to 're-feel' ourselves (the spark of reconnection has many faces: it can feel like glimpses of inner peace, freedom, unending love and gratitude), it is much easier to re-find it again on our own.

Another thing that helps us in 'reconnecting' is removing ourselves from 'noise'. And by noise I mean everything in the external world that we know severs our connection to ourselves. I know that it is easier said that done, but if you could find some space for yourself that you could dedicate as YOUR space, that would be a great start I think. It could a be a room, a place in a park, a corner at the library etc. A peaceful, quiet place is often a good idea, but the most important thing is that in your head you have labelled this space YOUR space.

And in that space thoughts about your mother would probably appear (thoughts do that whether we want them to or not) but if you've decided that this is your space and that your mother is only 'visiting' mentally, it might help you slowly regain a sense self.

Also, very importantly in this whole process, don't forget to be kind to yourself. This is a big thing which we tend to overlook. And when we choose to embark on a journey of rediscovering ourselves, self-patience can be a real challenge.

We can quickly grow impatient with ourselves when we want things to be in a certain way. And we can be angry at our own thoughts because they keep coming at us with the same old stuff and cause us so much pain.

But if possible, try treat thoughts (even the recurring painful thoughts about your mother) as parts of yourself that are lost and confused and really, really just wants to be felt, and then see what happens in your body.

When a thought like "My mother is so insensitive and controlling and makes me feel like a victim" occurs, start by realizing, okay, this is a thought, it is mine, and it makes me feel horrible.

Okay, but since it occurs, it probably has something to tell me. It wants to be heard. Okay, I'll let it be heard and I'll let it be felt.

So if you can (in that private space of yours), try to feel it. Really feel it. Notice what happens in your body when you feel it. And let it grow. And grow. This may not only feel extremely uncomfortable but also probably counter intuitive because you'd rather be without your thoughts.

But if you allow yourself to feel a thought (no matter how uncomfortable it is), it will slowly lose its power over you, because that is the way emotions work. They build up, and build up, until you decide to really feel them.

I know all this may seem like a lot to take in all at once, but maybe take small steps to begin with. Maybe start by finding different places that you can label YOUR space. Sit in that space. Relax in it. Meditate if you can. And then maybe, slowly, you'll start to feel instances of something like peace inside. Maybe just for a few seconds to start with. But those seconds are worth gold on such a journey.

What I've mentioned here are just suggestions, things for you to try if you feel like it. There are many other ways to approach 'finding yourself'. And some ways work for some people, and other ways work for other people. But I hope there is something in what I've written that you can use somehow, maybe just as inspiration.

I wish you all the very best on your journey, Pug.

All the best,
Birgitte (Positive-Parenting-Ally.com)