Shame since Nmom went into long term care

[Amadahy]

Hello, everyone!

Nmom went into long term care at the end of May, 2020.  It's a beautiful, appropriate facility and she is getting excellent care.  She is doing very well, overall.  She does have somewhat predictable cycles:  doing well, getting bored and wanting to get an apartment, getting a UTI or having a fall, recovering and then the cycle starts again.  She's now getting bored and wanting to get an apartment, to go back to how it was when she was more able to be independent (and I was doing quite a bit, actually!).  I can't visit with COVID-19, but I speak to her a few times each week and the nurses and staff are always available for me to ask questions. They have assured me and I know, really, that she is unable to live on her own. 

I feel bad about this.  I feel bad to the point of shame. 

Shame has been the hardest emotion to define and treat as I've tried to heal from C-PTSD caused by Nmom's abuse. Each time Nmom goes through the cycle of wanting to be at her apartment again, I am flooded with shame.  I know, logically, I should not feel ashamed of anything.  Nobody could have tried harder to help her, even to the point of having her in my own home, which reactivated my C-PTSD.  But, whenever she's doing well and obviously wanting "out," I am flooded with feelings of being a bad daughter, a bad person.  She used to wish bad things for me and part of me thinks that if I don't help her out now, I'll face something horrible in my elder years (if I make it to them).  I know this is my programming and not reality, but my body reacts in real ways -- hypertension, shallow breathing, digestive issues, paranoid thoughts, etc.  How can I calm this down?  I do have a good therapist, but have just started a new job and haven't been able to make an appointment in some time. 

I still get so aggravated with all this.  When the shame flares, I feel unloved, defensive, angry, sad, helpless, hopeless.  It affects me and my FOC greatly and I don't want that.  I want to flourish without being triggered by a Nmom who could care less that she has nearly done me in. 

I'd appreciate any words of wisdom or successes you've had in healing shame.  Thank you.

Much love,
Amadahy

[Adrianna]

I understand where you're coming from. It's part of the process of healing from the trauma.

I really couldn't get through the shame until I went through the anger phase. Once I realized I had been lied to, manipulated, guilted and emotionally abused, I got really angry. It lasted a while and still is there somewhat to a lesser degree. This phase is important because it means you are really acknowledging what happened and it helps you see that:

It wasn't fair.
You didn't deserve it.
Nothing you could do for her could ever be enough.
You have wasted so much time trying to please someone who quite frankly couldn't care less about you as a human being apart from what you can do for her.
Your mother is not capable of loving you for who you are, not because you aren't worthy of it (you are), but because she's literally incapable of it towards anyone.
You're not a bad daughter.
It's not your job to fix her life.
You're never going to have the mother you deserved.
She will control you and ruin your life if you let her.

Once all this sinks in, the shame isn't as much of an issue anymore. I do still feel it here and there, especially when talking to someone who thinks I'm too sensitive, or thinks I'm awful for not continuing to cater to my grandmother. I feel it for a bit, which is very uncomfortable, then I acknowledge that these people don't know what she did to me.. they can't relate. She almost broke me down as well so I know how severe it is. I feel confident now that I don't necessarily need validation from anyone regarding the level of abuse which I have endured, although it sure does still feel good when someone else actually gets it and acknowledges my experience.

I hope you can find time to start therapy again. Regarding the physical trauma Responses, I'm reading a book called The Body Keeps the Score which is about that. It's a well known book which could help.

You're not alone. Hang in there. You've got nothing to feel shame over and once you see the reality of what she has done to you, you won't feel that shame as much, although getting there is a hard process and involves looking at things from a brutally truthful perspective.

[Amadahy]

Thank you, Adrianna!  Your advice is golden ... the trouble is that I don't know how to be angry or maybe to let it all register.  I did get furiously angry when she started in on my children, but for myself ... meh.  I need to explore this.  I think part of it is that I am afraid of my anger ... a coping mechanism (a bad one) has been to turn it inward toward self-sabotage, self-hate, depression, etc.  If I let the anger flag fly ... wow ... I just can't imagine, really.  Something to address with my therapist.

I know that whenever I've addressed a self-loathing emotion (like listed above) and processed with my therapist through EMDR, these subside into sadness.  I can deal with sadness.  One day I'd like to just experience ease, though.  Just ease and happiness. 

xoxo  Thanks, again.

[Psuedonym]

Hi Amadahy,

You are right, this is a super tough one to deal with. That. creeping guilt/shame that. you always seem. to be fighting off. and takes so much of your mental energy. I would highly recommend listening to Jerry Wise's videos about systems feelings and false guilt. It's very validating.

Another thing that was hard to wrap my head around and yet really important is that you are LESS powerful than you think you are. It goes like this, you believe deep down (because it was drilled into you) that you actually could fix your mother and her sadness and unhappiness if you really tried. You could actually do that if you gave it your all, which is where the shame is coming from. To accept that you can't, that you're not actually able to perform this miracle because nobody can, would mean feeling helpless about the situation, and that you would be stuck in helplessness and sadness (because your mother inflicts all her feelings on you) forever, which would be worse than the guilt. Here's a pretty good article about it: https://nickwignall.com/guilt/

Again, this was a tough one for me to accept because its such an unconscious belief. Even now, a couple of months after her death, I can imagine her sitting in her lovely AL apartment by herself, full of self pity, and think 'how sad'. Then I remember that when my dad was alive, he literally worked/stressed himself to death trying to 'cheer her up' and deal with her moods and she STILL ended up in a mental hospital for a week for threatening to kill herself....because she wasn't getting enough attention.

One last thing, and this might help you get in touch with the anger that Adrianna mention, is to realize that your mother is using guilt as a weapon to get what she wants. She WANTS you to feel miserable and awful and horrible for not dedicating your life to fixing hers. My mother sitting alone in her apartment? (she would tell my H all the time how she had noooo friends and nooooo one to talk to). After she died, H mentioned this to the director of the AL who looked puzzled and said, oh she had quite a circle of friends here. I later learned that she would call my aunt and complain about said friends. The were never mentioned to me or H, because that would make her look less pitiable, and pity is the objective.

[SunnyMeadow]

I know this is my programming and not reality, but my body reacts in real ways -- hypertension, shallow breathing, digestive issues, paranoid thoughts, etc.  How can I calm this down?

I still get so aggravated with all this.  When the shame flares, I feel unloved, defensive, angry, sad, helpless, hopeless.  It affects me and my FOC greatly and I don't want that.  I want to flourish without being triggered by a Nmom who could care less that she has nearly done me in.

I'm in a similar place Amadahy. I don't think I can give you any wisdom but I can give understanding. I get it and I really wish both of us weren't going through this.

Guitarman shared some things in a topic of mine that are helpful. I was doing these things pretty consistently a while ago but got sucked back into thinking my mom is doing well and dropped my guard. Detaching using gray rock and medium chill and also the Observe, don't absorb technique. The observe technique is you being a doctor with your clipboard and some glasses perched on the end of your nose. You hear the ridiculous things the NPD person says and you observe them like a doctor would. All while trying to not get upset or absorb her barbs. When I'm consistent about detaching, I can do this and I see my mother as an unpleasant lady who lives down the street. I see her as a person I'm not too fond of but feel the need to check in on from time to time.

I have a disease made worse by stress, dealing with them certainly does take a toll on the body. It helps me to refocus and try to get her out of my mind by exercise, a tv show, reading or getting out the house.

[practical]

Thank you, Adrianna!  Your advice is golden ... the trouble is that I don't know how to be angry or maybe to let it all register.  I did get furiously angry when she started in on my children, but for myself ... meh.  I need to explore this.  I think part of it is that I am afraid of my anger ... a coping mechanism (a bad one) has been to turn it inward toward self-sabotage, self-hate, depression, etc.  If I let the anger flag fly ... wow ... I just can't imagine, really.  Something to address with my therapist.

The hardest part for me too: Anger. I almost envy people who can get angry rather than abraid themselves or get depressed. I have no good answer unfortunately, the logical ones like: you aren't responsible for her getting old; are hardly going to help you. There might be something else you may want to look into, the idea that on the inside you still seem to think you are all powerful, so powerful you could restore your M's health and youth to enable her to live on her own again. But not using your "power" to fix her life results in feeling shame. Not sure that I'm anywhere close to it, but maybe food for thought.

Very sorry you are going through this. Maybe as a short term fix have less contact with her as well as the nurses? For me contact with F or M would activate these thoughts because I entered their world.

[practical]

I have been thinking about the anger or lack thereof. Do you know why?

Like you I can get angry if somebody attacks my kids or DH, I defend them with all I have. But when it comes to me, I just go limp. Only if you have really backed me into a corner may I start fighting back. For me, the reason is twofold.

First of, I wasn't allowed to be angry, it was not acceptable in a child, totally unacceptable if my anger was directed against M and swift punishment would follow, and then there were minor points like anger is unbecoming in a girl or later a woman. All this while M would be very angry, it was okay for her, but not for me. I was not allowed to get angry at her, fight with her, and if I did, I got the silent treatment after an outburst of her anger. So anger for me is doing something wrong, feeling ashamed at having misbehaved, having failed M somehow, not being good enough ... And there was the feeling of her love being withdrawn from me, especially when her anger was coupled with ST, my "safe space" seemed to disintegrate from her anger. At the same time even as a young teenager, one of the things I liked about an uncle and F was that I could have a fight with them, because it got it out and then it was over, while M's anger-laden ST would go on for days, sometimes even after I apologized to make it stop.

Secondly, I witnessed the fights my parents would have and that would drag on, the anger they had towards each other even outside of fights, and it frightened me. This anger pulled at the foundation of my safe space = my family, because it came with a thread to the stability of the family. Fights would involve storming of, threads of divorce, putting me in the middle to negotiate a "peace" between them or M telling me she was only staying with this man, my father, because of me. This feeling of losing my "safe space" also happened when M got angry at me, especially when her anger got paired with ST. So anger is associated with the threat of destroying my existence, my safe place, such as it was growing up.

Understanding why feeling anger is so frightening to me, feels so dark, so impermissible, has given me some strength to gain some access to it without being totally terrified, without feeling shame about it or beating myself up about it afterwards. I still rarely voice it out loud, but my journal has pages and pages full of my anger spilling out. Are you able to express any of your anger in a form that might be less threatening like journaling?

Having access to my anger, even if it is only occassionally has really helped me and lightend the burden. Hope you find a way to access it.