I am sinking

[hhaw]

Going out into nature is its own therapy, ime. Good for you and DD.

I'll suggest the book PAIN FREE by Pete Egoscue.  It's what keeps me walking normally.  Not miracles, but ways to troubleshoot pain and bodily malfunction with static exercises designed to shorten and lengthen muscles, tendons and ligaments to align one's skeleton.

You can buy it used on Amazon.  I have a copy I carry with me and often gift it to friends and loved ones.  Last week I found my 20yo DD on her back, knees raised in my favorite and most helpful pose, bc her lower back finally drove her to seek help from the book she'd resisred up to that point.  Sometimes I have to assume that position for over an hour....sometimes 2 hours, but it always brings relief.

I wish I had the discipline to go through all the exercises daily for self care and to keep my body aligned opposed to using it to troubleshoot problems.

[escapingman]

I am starting to get quite annoyed with DD, I am trying to move on with our lives but she does everything to hold me back. I just arranged for her to have sleepover at her best friends house and she complains and wants to be with me. Last time she had a sleepover at another friends house she complained about the mother and says she doesn't want to go there again. She keep coming to me wherever I am and wants my attention, she has completely stopped going out seeing friends. As much as I love her I need some space from her at least sometimes, I need some alone time to recharge my batteries but only get it when she is in school, but then I need to work so I either have to forfeit work to get it or else I am not getting it at all. How can I get her to get out of the house and see friends without throwing her out? I am getting worn down and also worried about her.

[square]

This sounds to me like seperation anxiety.

She may not be aware of it.

I have all the sympathy in the world for your introverted need to recharge because boy do I feel the same way.

I think you need to prioritize addressing the seperation anxiety so that you both get what you need rather than trying to force something where neither of you really get what you need.

I had written a post previously with a method of CBT for seperation anxiety that was successful for me and my kid. My kid is 17 and still has vestiges of it, but because she feels safe and in control, she keeps pushing herself iusing the method. Just last week a situation came up where she was asked to drive people she doesn't really know to a place she wasn't at all familiar with, without a parent. Previously that would have been a Hell No but on her own she asked me to go with her on a prior day to practice the drive, then when the day came she went with no fuss.

It's worth it to take the time and effort to grapple with this in a way that avoids her having to resort to unhealthy coping mechanisms like causing troyble, lying, etc. She's a good girl, she has panic attacks and needs you to guide her through this.

[escapingman]

Square, that might be it. Or she is worried I won't come back. Last time when I left for 2 days for work she was catastrophising before and was talking if I had an accident and got killed and what would happen to her if that happened. She said if that happened she would not want to go back to live with her mum. But I also think it's one of the things with the times that the kids nowadays are sitting at home on their phones and just watch tiktok and have conversations online. But she needs out a bit, I know she enjoys being out with friends, but it seems to just not happen right now. This will be a couple of though months for her (and me) anyway as we are going to find somewhere else to live and move, she seems excited about it but might worry as well.

[square]

Seperation anxiety includes worry that you might not come back.

The TikTok generation may have more issues with it, but that doesn't make it less of a struggle for her. She's not out to ruin your life, she's a child trying to cope.

She does indeed need to get out and have friends and so on. I'm suggesting you work with her on that so she can handle it without resorting to extreme behaviors. The rollback on triggering activities is temporary and partial, and the emphasis is on giving her the tools to manage things rather than "oh well, give up, give in, let her run everything" - which is definitely the wrong move.

[Poison Ivy]

"that doesn't make it less of a struggle for her. She's not out to ruin your life, she's a child trying to cope." I agree with this.

[escapingman]

"that doesn't make it less of a struggle for her. She's not out to ruin your life, she's a child trying to cope." I agree with this.

I do know that, but it's not making it easier.

[Poison Ivy]

This might have been asked and answered, and if so, I apologize for not seeing it. Do you have a therapist, escapingman? I found it helpful to go back to my therapist (whom I first started to see when I was a teenager) when my own children were struggling as preteens and teens.

[escapingman]

Poison, I did have one. She was alright but not what I need now. I am planning to get another through my health insurance, but the renewal is quite soon and I will wait until then to avoid spiraling costs.

[Poison Ivy]

Therapy is expensive. I understand waiting.

[escapingman]

I got her out the house today and she is spending some time with a friend, I am not sure if it was her or the friend who instigated it but I am pleased.

I am having a lot of thoughts about how to move forward and how to proceed with everything. I think the girls are old enough to start fighting their own battles, at least a bit, me dragging this back to court will with 99% chance end up the same as the system is corrupt, and my bank account will be empty. My current best bet is to just live my best life with DD and hope that STBX lose interest in turning GC against me and that GC will want to reach out. It's a difficult one and I am not sure there are any right answers. My other option is to completely expose STBX, but I really don't know what that could lead to and what she would be capable of doing. I have enough recordings to completely ruin her reputation, maybe getting that threat through to MIL as she would be extremely worried about being dragged through the mud.

[escapingman]

I am not coping very well with this, trying to pack away items (stbx is a hoarder) and clean the house ready for selling it. I feel like I am moving stuff from one room to another and then DD comes and make a mess and I move the items back to the first room etc. I have taken all her items I find all over the house and put in her room and told her to please start sorting it and that I will help her in the end but her room will be my last, she absolutely kicked off started swearing at me for how dare I put stuff in her room. DD really don't understand we are packing up for selling and moving. I am also struggling to move any of the heavier boxes due to my back problems. But I suppose, it doesn't really matter if I am done next week or in a month, but I just want to move on.

[Poison Ivy]

Dealing with stuff in the house, some mine but mostly family members', has always been difficult for me. I'm not a hoarder, ex is, and our children don't hoard but have a lot of stuff and don't live here anymore. The house is finally relatively clean and neat, but it took me a long time to reach this condition.

[hhaw]

I'd like to gently point out you're repeating patterns around communicating and holding boundaries with your DD.

If you do some research, find a way to internalize new habits and get consistent with them.....DD will likely blossom before your eyes....like magic, ime.

It's not easy to stop patterns and begin new habits, esp when they feel so strange and counterintuitive, ime, but your DD and peace is worth the time and effort.

When and uf you're ready, the book The Parallel Process will walk you through the basics, but it's taken me steady support from my T to really get it.

Yesterday my DD20 popped into my bedroom, explained her recent research regardi,g her mental health care, stated her decision, action taken and was so excited and, more importantly, wasn't snarky or asking me to solve her problems for her, which had veen the case BEFORE my T bucked me up and gave me the words to counter that.

"What do you plan to do about that?"

DD20 didn't say anything.  She got busy, found her iwn answers and it's exciting and confidence building for her, opposed to shooting diwn all my suggestions and opinions (she asked me for!!)

T said I was carrying her problems with her, enmeshed and DD20 was projecting her pain onto me....Im a very safe target.  So are you....our children understand this.

By stepping back, hand I,g my DD responsibility for herself I take myself 9ut if the equation so she's left with herself, her consequences and finding solutions.....learning to navigate her emotions without me trying to shield or fix.

It's sebding the message I believe in her OR the message she can't do anything on her own and needs me to help her navigate the wirld and get emotions.

I must tell you, when I put a healthy boundary in place my girls show immediate improvement in energy, respectful treatment if me and they take initiative in their lives.

Like alchemy, EM.

Doing what you've been doing will get you more of what you have.

Mining new information and ways to understand it could lead to better mental health for you and your children, ime.

Not gonna lie.....it's difficult to wrap your mind around New ways of being, after so many years of co Dependence and familiar dance steps everyone knows.

Just saying......ststing a boundary then remaining calm, no matter what your child says or does, provides a safe contauner for your DD to learn how to manage hard emotions.  Kids need and want that.

From a codependent mother's perspective, the need I had for my DDs to BE OK, in order for me to be OK, was a very heavy burden for my kids to carry.

I learned I can be ok, even when my kids aren't.

I learned overcoming reactivity set me up to be responsive and to respond to my girls in the most helpful way possible, which means I no longer get dragged down emotional roller coasters with my children.

Or stop for them to have those hard feelings and for me to remain at a distance, emotionally.

So you know....there have been times where I felt like a sociopath......bc newly created emotional distance isnt just counter intuitive. 

My subconscious belief system made it difficult to wrap my mind around creating distance and alliwing my daughter's to suffer without jumping in and trying to fix it.....just a really destructive message AND my kids could see their distress created distress in me, which makes it difficult for my youngest to ask for help she can accept. 

You might not be able to figure every dynamic out right now, but you can likely gain huge relief for DD and yourself by trying out healthy boundary setting, taking yourself out of the child's problem solving equation and cultivating enough emotional spaciousness to avoid reactivity
and
discover responsiveness, which is really more
choice and the ability to discern between those choices.

Reactivity is reacting the way you've always reacted....without having a second to consider other, more productive, options.

Survival brain kicks in and all choice goes out the window.  That's biology.

Practicing healthy boundaries won't change you.....but your DD should immediately notice and begin feeling safer if you're consistent with holding them.

That feeling, for you and your DD, will be an amazing prick in how your home and relationship function, EM....ime, of course.

Not easy, but certainly doable.

[escapingman]

Great replies, thanks.

I left DD for 5 minutes and did some breathing, then talked through it with her and now all is good. She asked for a cuddle as well. She is really healing, a couple of months ago this would have escalated into her screaming and kicking. I think we both are moving in the right direction, but it's hard work when all the extra stress is on.

[escapingman]

I put some scary search conditions in and got some really scary and for me accurate results. I will link below, I don't really know where the article really comes from but it is almost describing me down to a T. It is about how INTP deals with domestic abuse.

https://funkymbtifiction.tumblr.com/post/158454453740/the-effect-of-emotional-abuse-on-each-type-intp

[square]

I did not see a section on INTP and abuse. I saw an anecdotal description of a successful relationship with INTP, and a description of effect of abuse on a different MBTI type. Did I miss it? INTPs want to know.

[escapingman]

Square, I am sure it was about INTP. I copy the text and put it below.

INTP

There will be some variation depending on when the abuse took place in their life but there are some things that will remain the same.

Okay so, INTP's lead with Ti. This means that during the abuse an INTP will often detach themselves from the situation and by doing so allow themselves to get through it. Unlike the Te doms however, they do not compartmentalize, in that they will not get through a day of school or work only to fall apart at times when they are alone. Instead they will learn to detach themselves at all times meaning that when they are in the situation they will often not truly 'feel' it. This can also manifest itself in excessive alcohol or drug use as this does technically distance someone from the reality of their home life, but it is far less common in INTP's than ISTP's.

This means that during the time of the abuse they will be even more introverted and removed from reality than a healthy INTP would be. They will remove themselves in any way they can, excessive reading, watching TV or playing video games is common, anything that means they can for want of a better phrase 'enter another world.' To others they will often come across as cold or anti-social as they are placing so much emphasis on not feeling what is happening. This will lead to an underdeveloped Fe and if the abuse goes on for a long time this will lead to a resentment of Fe not only in themselves but in other people. They tend to go into a judgmental mode when others seem to be leading with Fe or at least those who hold ethics over what is logically consistency.

image
The thing about this however is that it can easily create a negative cycle. What an abusive person wants is to cut you off from other people and by the INTP behaving in this way it becomes hard for them to form strong or deep relationships with other people anyway. They become closed off, spend more time with the abuser and therefore get even more closed off.

So, in short, the main way that abuse will affect an INTP will be that they cling onto their Ti with everything they have; their other functions are of course utilized but they are underdeveloped and extremely limited.

Once they are out of the abusive situation they tend to go into a shock mode, meaning they do everything they used to do into day-to-day life and keep to their usual routine (Si) but they tend to do so with a blank mind. Next comes the Fe, often a grip. This will take a few weeks/months to get to but when it hits, it hits hard. They've got however many months or years of actually connecting to the lower function on a serious level as well as dealing with what happened to them.

While this does happen for most Ti doms within the first few months, some don't accept this. They stay in the over powered Ti state, the issue with this is that (particularly if the abuser was in their life for years) the only way to truly get better from anything is to fall apart first so you can put yourself  back together, something that can be a bit challenging  for Ti doms to get themselves to do.

[square]

Thank you! Legally blind and can be visially disoriented in unexpected ways (it's hella weird). Reading now.

[square]

Yeah, I can relate to that. I have withdrawn from the world. Have no friends. Distract mysef easily with reading and stuff like that.

I tried to solve the issues with Ti, and while I went the wrong way initially, I ended up in the right place.

For me, some of the worst was just the pure illogic of the verbal abuse. It actually hurt my mind. I could handle nasty but true or true-ish or I-can-see-how-you-think-so stuff, but double binds and gaslighting made me lose it because it made no sense. I feel much better being able to find the sense by stepping back - the words are illogicsl but the intention is, while maladaptive as all hell, bound to something unrelated to the words.

I don't know what it's like to come out of it because I'm just in a weird hibernation state.