[WonderGirl]

I just need to get his off my chest. Right before the pandemic became a thing in the US, I had major thoracic surgery. While the stay in the hospital was pretty awful, my recovery once I got home was rapid and smooth.

Mentally, though, I'm a little traumatized from the hospital stay (long story, but it involved not-well-controlled pain). I occasionally have flashbacks and trouble sleeping. I have a therapist who is helping a lot and I'm making progress. So my physical recovery has been excellent, but my mental recovery is slower.

BPDm lives on the other side of the country. We are VLC, but I did tell her about the surgery, but also made it clear that I didn't want any visitors afterwards, which she was fine with. She knows nothing of this current difficulty. At this point I can't imagine telling her that I'm having trouble coping with anything. She always makes it worse. I have a long history of anxiety and depression, all due to her. My diagnosis even says that -- dysthymia due to mother. She has made it clear that she feels my mental health issues are just a form of laziness on my part.

I am projecting my fear of what she'd say about my current condition onto my husband! I keep accusing him of accusing me of not trying hard enough to get better. It's so stupid! He's doing no such thing, and fortunately, I'm keeping most of the projection in my own head. I'm imagining that he is thinking that.

The guilt for my own shortcomings, in this case for being a little mentally fragile, runs so deep. The voice in my head (BPDm's voice, of course) is telling me to "get my act together," and stop feeling sorry for myself. On the other hand, she would also be insisting that I'm NOT healing physically as well as I think I am, probably going so far as telling me I still need opiates, which I stopped taking two+ weeks ago. Kind of weird that she has always maintained that I'm very fragile physically, but the mental issues are not real (neither is true).

I am still a bit vulnerable right now and I am still imagining that my husband is judging me for. . . everything. Like being tired. Or anxious. I finally talked to him about it and he took it just fine, because he is awesome. Also, he knows my mother and understands where it comes from. I does feel really good to write this out here - thank goodness OOtF is a thing! If anyone has thoughts or suggestions that might help me through this final phase of healing, I would be very happy to hear them! But mostly, thank you all for being here. - WG.

[Maxtrem]

I want to congratulate you on your self-analysis! It's good that you're taken conscince that you're projecting on your husband and that he doesn't have any bad intentions. It's also good that you apologized and that you can admit your mistake. 

I already went through something similar at the beginning of my career. For example, my uBPDM continually made me do renovations in the house and criticized my work, while I worked for free, paid for some of the materials... and the renovations were very well done, just slower because I was young and working alone! It was also the same criticism for everything I did! In the beginning, I projected my mother's criticisms to my boss. I thought that he thought I was too slow, that I wasn't learning fast enough, that he would use the few mistakes I had made against me in my evaluation... In the end, no, I had a perfect annual evaluation and he told me that if I liked my job that he would like me to stay on his team for several years. The intentions that I had projected to him were false, it is my mother that would have acted like that! 

Unfortunately, many of the criticisms we have been told remain ingrained, but awareness is a good start to get out of it!