I'm Laurie Gottlieb. I'm the author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and I write the Dear Therapist advice column for the Atlantic.
And I'm Guy Wench. I'm the author of Emotional First Aid, and I write the Dear Guy advice column for Ted. And this is Dear Therapists.
Each week we invite you into a real session where we help people confront their biggest problems and then give them actionable advice and hear about the changes they've made in their lives.
So sit back and welcome to today's session. This week, a woman with a difficult mother wonders if there's a way to interact with her that won't cause so much pain.
She was saying that she'd always tried to be a good mother. I felt they poked, She'd kept poking at it. She would talk quite defensively about why she couldn't have done them better, what was going on for her at the time.
First, a quick note, Dear Therapist is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute medical or psychological advice, and is not a substitute for professional health care advice, diagnosis, or treatment. By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let iHeartMedia use it in part orn ful, and we may edit it for length and clarity. In the sessions you'll hear. All names have been changed for the privacy of our guests.
Hey, Lourie, Hi guy. So what do we have in our mailbooks today?
Today we have a letter from a woman who has a difficult relationship with her mother, and it goes like this, Dear therapists, I am writing for help with my relationship with my mother. Since I stopped drinking a couple of years ago, I have felt a lot of resentment when I'm around her. This came as a surprise to me. I want a relationship with her, but I've come to think that the low self esteem I struggled with throughout my twenties, which led to a pattern of numbing with alcohol,
was the result of having two emotionally neglectful parents. A depressed and alcoholic father who was often absent, and a physically present but narcissistic mother. I learned that my feelings didn't matter, and I've carried that into adult life. When I am around my mother, I feel like she takes up all of this space and oxygen. What hurts most is that she rarely asked me anything about myself except one or two token questions, and she changed the subject
back to her rapidly. She is also very defensive about any feedback or even the most minor hint of criticism. Things became very strained between us about two years ago when I accidentally opened a can of worms. My mom for many years has worried obsessively about my older sister, who has various emotional difficulties and has genuinely struggled with life.
Not that I haven't, but my mom has a narrative of me being quote the strong one, and she says this to me directly, things like Claire struggles, but You've always been much more resilient. I find this incredibly painful because this isn't how I see myself, and because I feel she's used this narrative as a reason not to give me support. This included the period of my late teens when I was self medicating with party drugs, skipping college due to lack of motivation, and clearly developed an
eating disorder. But I can't remember any adult in my family ever asking if I was okay. I remember my mom yelling at me for skipping college, and when she found my antidepressant, she said, you don't need to be on those. Finally, a couple of years ago, I ended up telling her that I didn't like her, casting me as the resilient one, and she got very defensive and then went to Pieces in the end collapsing on the beach and saying she thought we loved each other again.
It seemed to be about her. I took a break from her for a few months, but when she visited me months later, we segued back into this conversation and it became very heated. She went to Pieces again and I ended up looking after her. I'm trying to see the best in my mother, but I grapple with questions of whether I should ever ask her to do anything differently. Is there any point given her history of defensiveness and poor listening and communication skills. I would really appreciate your advice.
I feel so stuck Melanie.
Well, I really feel for Melanie because it sounds like she's in a lot of pain about this relationship and obviously has been since her childhood, and from what she's describing, her mother certainly has limitations, and it sounds like Melanie is having a hard time accepting what those are and
navigating around them. She I think, keeps hoping her mother will show up for her in a way her mother never really has, and so she's really stuck in this limbo of wanting a relationship with her mom that she can't have and at the same time perhaps having trouble exploring what relationship with her mother she could have. And that's where she's stuck right now.
Yeah, we see this so much where people come in and they're really in pain over the relationships with one or both parents and they want to have a relationship with that parent. But what they're really not clear on is do I want a relationship with this parent given this parent's limitations and what would that look like versus still having that childhood fantasy of I want a relationship with the kind of parent that I deserve to have. So let's go talk to her and learn more about
this relationship. Absolutely, you're listening to Dear Therapists for my Heart Radio. We'll be back after a short break.
I'm Laurie Gottlieb and I'm Guy Wench and this is Dear Therapist.
Hi Melanie, Hi there, thank you for coming on the show.
Thank you for having me.
You're very welcome. We wanted to start with this question. Tell us a little bit about what it was like growing up with your mum.
I would say that we were loved as kids, me and my sister. You know, we did nice activities. We saw friends for we went on outings. We had all our sort of practical needs met. They had Christmas presents, we had some holidays. Things were quite good in ways. But looking back, I feel like my mum has never really been sort of present mentally, and even now I never feel like she's really fully present with me. I also feel like we didn't get enough validation of our emotions.
So I feel like what I was really missing was that kind of calm, attentive presence and like the nourishing parental influence.
Do you remember moments from your childhood in which that was absent.
I can remember being really little, like five or six maybe, and my mum walking me home from school every day, and every day she'd ask what did you do at school today? And I remember that every day I'd say nothing. And I think this is strange to have that awareness of what was going on for me at such a young age, But I think what it was was like,
I never really felt like she was interested. I felt it was a standard issue question, so I'd always say nothing because I didn't really feel like she was listening.
Did you wish that she had asked something else? Or did you just feel like if I answered, she's not going to be paying attention.
I think it was more the latter. As I've got older, I've definitely wanted her to ask different questions, and you know, the kinds of questions I would ask friends. For example, I wouldn't just say how was work and then move on. I'd say, you know, like, how was work he says you were having a rough time lately, or how is that new manager working out? So I've always felt like the questions are kind of standard issue. She doesn't really listened to what you say, and then she's kind of moved on.
Where does she move to when she moves on? Is it about her? Is it about small talk? Where does she go?
She often moves on to her. She'll bring things back to her own life, her own experience quite consistently.
Do you have recollections from your adolescence of moments in which this dynamic happened? Where she wasn't quite present, or she seemed to be asking the question, but the substance was lacking.
For you, I do there was a particularly difficult time in my late teens when my mental health was going downhill. She would kind of demand factual information from me, didn't really ask what's going on for you? Is everything okay for you? How are you feeling? I would be asked, why are you seeing that? You know, what kind of
anxiety do you have? And oh? At that time, and it has other times felt like a sort of bombardment of questions as opposed to like I'm here, I'm listening, you know, asking more open questions of the kind I would like someone to do when I'm feeling fragile.
I think that goes back to being five years old and leaving school, and instead of saying how are you, she said what did you do today? There's a very different questions, and that wouldn't be a big deal if she meant it in that way, but it sounds like she did not mean it in that way. She wasn't looking to really hear how you were. And I think that when you were struggling and you were trying to get help in your teens there were Again, wasn't that question of what's going on? Talk to me? I'm here.
How can I help.
As well? If you you were seeing a therapist and taking medication in your teens and your mother was against it, then how did you get hooked up with a therapist and a psychiatrist.
I went to my doctor at how old? Seventeen? I went to the GP. I was referred to psychiatry.
But Sora Melanie, usually at seventeen it goes through a parent. You just initiated this yourself. I think there's something wrong. I'm going to contact myp and not even tell my parents about it.
I didn't. I didn't really feel I had an adult who would be there for me. I felt very alone with it, and I think I I was alone.
You said that your father was largely absent. Can you tell us a little bit about him as well, so we understand the context in which you ended up going to the doctor alone.
My parents divorced when I was twelve, and it was very messy and in the same town as us when I was seventeen, but I could go long periods without seeing him, and in the years running up to that age, and for some years after. He had long periods of serious alcoholism. He wasn't really there a lot of the time.
Did you see that in the house before they divorced? Did you see him drinking and checking out?
Yeah? Yeah. After my mum left him, he kind of deteriorated quite quickly. We were still living with him, but he was off work with depression. He was drinking a lot, and he was kind of leaning on me and my sister emotionally as like a twelve year old and fifteen year old, So that was very difficult.
Was the reason that your mum left him because he was drinking and not doing anything about it.
I think she left him because he was just not being a present partner, not pulling his weight around the house. And really they're just quite badly matched. That's quite obvious with twenty years of hindsight.
How did you feel about them separating? You were twelve. Do you remember how they told you?
My mum had told me she was going to leave a couple of years before she did, and then I think she tried to stick it out. I don't think I was that bothered by the separation itself. I think it was all the stuff around it. So how it was handled the fallout, I.
Suppose what did the fallout look like?
So my dad deteriorated and was drinking a lot and not looking after the house. He was spying on my mum. He had followed by a detective. At one point. There was a very weird situation. They were living next door to each other because my mum owned the house next door. She previously rented it out, and in the absence of many other options, she just sort of moved in there. I felt very kind of self conscious about this strange
situation at home. My dad was a mess. We're probably exposed to a lot of stuff with him that we weren't capable of dealing with. It didn't really feel like there was anyone asking us how we were doing.
You say you were exposed to things that you're not supposed to be exposed to. Can you give us an example?
Just his sort of letting it all hang out emotionally. And I was dating someone new and he'd say, what hals he got that I haven't got, And he would say to me how lonely he was. And there was a time when he was saying to me, he was so lonely, and he really found it hard going to bed and being alone in bed, and I offered to stay in bed with him to ease his life, and I did, and I didn't really want to because I
was twelve. I didn't want to share a bed with my dad, but you know, I wanted him to feel better. It was a horrible environment.
Did you ever talk to your mom about what was going on with your dad? The things where he was asking you for company in ways that weren't appropriate, That he was telling you things about his personal struggles that weren't appropriate.
I think I told hers some of it, and I think she actually directly observed some of it and was quite critical of that.
But in terms of protecting you from all of this, can you remember at all what maybe even one of those conversations might have been like?
No, do you recall how you felt at that time? Were you angry? Did you blame one or the other? Were you talking with friends with things that emotionally for you?
I felt worried about my dad, and at times I was trying to be there for him, and at other times I just found it so horrendous. I didn't want to look at it. And then I would, you know, try and spend more time away from him, and I'd feel guilty about that.
Where was your sister and all of this. You mentioned that she's three years older and that your mom does recognize that she struggled from the fallout of all of this. So what was going on between the two of you? Did you support each other? Did your mom listen to her a little bit more?
We were not close at that time and not for many years afterwards. Actually we were quite mean to each other. She kind of scrambled much more than me to go into looking after dad and felt very very protective of him, And looking back, I think I saw that she was a bit more angry with my mum. We're very close now and I like a great ally in her, very grateful that we've improved our relationship, But I don't think she was getting much input from my mum at that time either.
Was there anyone at the time who knew that you were really struggling? Because I want to point out when anyone we ask you how you felt, you almost each time first responded about how your mom or your dad felt before you could talk about how you felt. And I think that's probably representative of what was going on. But was there anyone who asked who you approached and talked about how you felt.
No, there wasn't anyone.
What happened when you were seventeen and you went to go see the doctor and you were referred to a psychiatrist. You told the doctor a little bit about what was going on.
I didn't tell the doctor about any family circumstances. I mainly talked about my sort of mental health symptoms. Referred me to psychiatry, and they did a proper assessment. They put me on antidepressants, and they referred me for cognitive behavioral therapy. I quit after a few sessions because I was aware. I didn't pursue it, but I think what I really needed at that particular time was just an adult to take an interest. We weren't talking about what was going on at all, and I was kind of
doing exercises to address my symptoms. And I remember thinking, you know, I've been feeling suicidal for months and you're giving me exercises.
Did you tell them that you were feeling suicidal?
I did in the initial assessment, which is why they put me on the antidepressants. I would have thought that information was pastitive the therapist, but we didn't really talk about it.
This feels almost like a repetition of what would happen in your family, where you're doing everything you can to try to let people know that you're struggling, and people are not giving you the kind of response that would be helpful, and you were sort of numbing yourself with recreational drugs. You were restricting your eating, you were trying to find ways to cope with a situation where you weren't getting any support.
Yeah, I think that's right. I was using a lot of drugs from seventeen and these are the kinds of drugs that are really messed with your brain.
What were you using, Well, a lot.
Of eggs to say, that was my drug of choice. And yes, I had an eating disorder. It wasn't ever diagnosed. I didn't ever pursue any help with that, and I just kind of fell out of it at some point.
You know, Manine, it's so unusual for a seventeen year old to pick themselves up and find a psychiatrist and get assessed and then find a therapist. And it's so unfortunate that you were desperately searching for some kind of connection with some kind of adult who you could rely on, because there were none, and it sounds like there was zero connection with a therapist, and that just affirms to you that adults don't see me.
I do remember feeling very alone, completely alone.
And on top of that, your mom found your anti depressants and told you you don't need these, but didn't seem curious at all about why you had them in the first place. Did she ask you about that?
She didn't ask me any questions. It was ironic. She worked in psychiatry herself. Looking back, I think maybe she was feeling scared and she reacted with anger and she yelled at me and said, I remember very clearly she said, I work with very sick people. You don't need to be on these.
Do you remember telling her mom, I'm really struggling.
No. I think I felt like I couldn't trust her.
What did you think she would do if you had said that?
I didn't feel like she would handle them sensitively and you know, tactfully and give me, you know, reassuring input.
So the trust was she won't be able to help me, so it's a waste to tell her anyway, or the trust is she might share this with people.
Well, she has compromised by privacy. At other times, just other things, I felt like she wouldn't be caring and and I needed that care and sensitivity. She was often quite angry with me. I feel like I was struggling and I was kind of granded as Devian. That's how I felt.
This is so important because I think it relates to what you're dealing with now, which is this idea that I don't trust her to be careful with my heart.
I need you to get me right.
I think it's because I just touched your heart in a way that you longed for your mom to that I saw you in a way that you want your mom to see you. And so I think that when we're young and we know that we're not going to get the response that's going to be caring and loving, we start to distrust that person to handle our most tender, vulnerable parts.
That sounds like very accurate to.
Me, and unfortunately for you, there wasn't anyone else that was compensating for that. In other words, what you're probably feeling at the time is that I can't trust anyone with my heart because no one was taking any interest in it. People could see that the parents got divorced, that you might have been struggling. Suddenly there's a weight loss, you're partying too much, and yet no one expressed concern or care, So that mistrust must have expanded even beyond
your mom to people in general. Are there people who can really care for me?
That hasn't occurred to me before, But potentially, yes, we did have relatives who were in our lives. No one ever asked how I was doing. I can remember my auntie stopping me in the street and she sunded very cross and say, you've got very thin, and she kind of pulled at my trousers, just you know, to show how much weight I'd lost. But it wasn't concerned. I felt. I almost felt like I was being told off.
It felt like a criticism, like you've done something wrong, as opposed to tell me what's going on? Are you okay? Can I ask how old you are now?
I'm thirty six?
Okay, So between seventeen and thirty six, what has happened with the relationship with your mom and your dad? And then also you mentioned that you and your sister have now reconciled.
So with my dad, I feel like we're in the best place that we can be. I feel like he has quite big limitations in terms of how close he can just get to people. But I see him more than I ever have. He has to stabilizer relationship, so he's doing fairly well in himself, and I kind of I don't really struggle so much with my relationship with my dad because I feel like that's as good as it's going to get, and it's a lot better than it has been at times.
Does he have any idea about how much you've struggled? Did you ever share that with him?
No? I don't think he can really do emotional conversations.
And what about your sister? When did that reconciliation happen? And what does that look like in terms of the emotional intimacy between the two of you.
I think there's just been a sort of softening for both of us as we've got older. I've made a conscious effort to speak to her more, and we have quite intimate conversations now, like they're really nourishing to me. We would never have had these ten years.
When did that start? And who reached out?
I think she has kind of sprung into action when I've heard some difficult things going on in my life. When I've left relationships, she's made an effort to connect with me and check in with me. I've had some health problems lately, as saying, the last year or two, for some reason, we've started talking a lot about this historical family stuff and current issues which we both have with a mother.
And it sounds like that was the first time that another adult, even though she's your peer for both adults now showed concern for something you were struggling with.
Yes, for example, I left an abusive relationship and we weren't living in the same town, but I remember when I visited home, we were together a bit, and I just remember feeling very cared for by her at that time.
What did she do that made you feel cared for?
She gave me all the kind of kind words and assurances and encouragements that I needed and wanted, and she also helped me navigate conversations with my parents. I think I remember seeing my dad with her, and I didn't necessarily have to tell him, but for whatever reason, I wanted to tell him I've been in this abusive relationship, and I think she kind of helped me tell him and navigate that conversation that he wasn't really that well equipped for. I just felt that she had my back.
I suppose she listened, is what she did. I mean, this is the first thing. She can say, the kind words, but in order to say them, she first has to listen and actually hear you and actually see you and actually convey that she gets what you were going through. And then she consider words that are supportive. But even when she's helping you navigate the conversation with your dad, she's clearly listening and seeing you in a way that
none of the family members had. That must have been really important for you in your early twenties to have that experience for the first time of a family member actually caring, actually helping, actually validating it.
Was It was really meaningful, and maybe that was the start of us gradually improving our relationship.
I also think it's one thing to imagine what it would feel like to get that kind of support, and it's another thing entirely to actually experience it. And you had been I imagine, fantasizing about what it would be like your whole childhood to get that kind of support. Maybe you even saw other people with their mothers or fathers and had envy of what you imagined those conversations look like in their households, and so you can fantasize
about it. When you get it, it's almost like you've been dreaming of a meal forever and you're starving, and then all of a sudden someone feeds you. And it feels so delicious to get that kind of support, to be seen, to be heard, to be understood, and maybe in a way that other people wouldn't quite understand because she grew up in that house too, even if she had a different experience of it, So it seems like that maybe set the stage for something to happen between the two of you.
I think it did.
She said, you've gotten into some historical family conversations. What have those been like?
We've just been sharing our experiences of some really difficult times, including you know, our parents' separation and the things that happened around that. And then our experience is moving to a new town a little bit later and both feeling quite lonely, in adrift and like we didn't really belong
and she had some slightly different stuff going on. It wasn't exactly the same experience, but it's been really healing to kind of revisit that in what feels like a safe, nurturing place and both hear each other.
You mentioned some struggles with relationships that have happened over your life. Tell us a little bit about this relationship history and what tends to happen and where you feel things go wrong.
So I'll show you some pretty dubious partners in my twenties. There were people who didn't really respond to my needs or validate my feelings, some quite angry people. But if I've tried to understand the kind of pattern, the sort of picked relationships where I don't feel seen and stayed in them quite a long time on some occasions.
So basically a revisit of your childhood.
Yes, So when did that any drop for you were saying it quite clearly, Now, when did you have that realization that you're replicating your childhood and choosing people that weren't seeing you.
I left a long term relationship a couple of years ago, and I had some psychotherapy after that, and that helped me get a bit more understanding.
And do you see a change in who you select these days? After that insight?
I do my standards are a lot higher. I want to meet someone and have a family, so I have a lot of worry around that sometimes that might never happen for me. Time is sticking away. But I am in a place now where, like I won't accept less and that's good.
It is Are you also in a place where you can feel that, maybe not right away, but with the right person, that you can be vulnerable, that you can trust, that you can give them a chance to see there and be validating and supportive because you also have to bring someone in enough to give them that opportunity. Are you doing that?
I'm practicing. I'm definitely getting better. I've consciously tried to be more vulnerable with people, you know, relatives, friends, romantic partners. Well, I I'm making very good progress there, Like I'm really working on it.
Is that what prompted you a couple of years ago to finally, after all these years, tell your mom how you felt about the way she characterizes you as the resilient one.
Yes, I've been practicing speaking my truth. I've been practicing talking about my needs, telling people, well, I'm not happy And actually I sort of segued into that difficult conversation with my mum or it came out sort of by accident, but when it was happening, I really stayed with it, And even though it's been pretty horrible at times out of conversation, I felt really hurt. I was also really proud of myself speaking minds and in reality, whether she wanted to listen or.
Not, you said that your mom fell to pieces on the beach and sort of collapsed and you had to contain her. Had something like that ever happened with her before?
Not as extreme as that? Now when I'm around her, I think I've often felt like I'm walking on eggshells and I had to kind of navigate a slight volatility, but nothing like that before.
Can you just tell us a little bit about what actually that looked like that conversation when she felt pieces because people use that term, but what was actually happening with her in that conversation.
She was crying, She was saying things like I thought we loved each other. She was saying that she'd always tried to be a good mother. I felt very poked. She'd kept poking at it, and she would talk quite defensively about why she couldn't have done better at what was going on for her at the time.
In that conversation, she really experienced you sharing how you feel as an attack on her as a big criticism of her parenting. She had a really hard time hearing you talking about how you feel without personalizing it as an accusation, and and then she gets really defensive as a result.
Yeah, that was what was happening.
It sounds like she was so busy defending herself that she didn't seem to be very curious about what you were trying to tell her. And I think your message was I was in a lot of pain as a child and it has affected me as an adult, and she could not sit with that with you.
That's right. I expressed it as carefully as I could, and I tried not to lay blame at her door. I didn't really tell her, and I haven't told her about what I've carried through into my adult life and some of the problems I've had. I've always kind of shielded her from that, I.
Suppose, And maybe you weren't just shielding her, but you were shield you because not only have you experienced this pain, but then you experience more pain when you try to talk to her about this and she shuts you down with her own defensiveness. Yes, so it's a painful experience to go to her and tell her this. You're already in pain, but then having the conversation brings on more pain.
It doesn't bring relief, which is what we hope to get from these conversations, connection, relief, understanding care.
I felt like it was actually doing more harm than good, and that's why I kind of shut it down.
Right And in that conversation, she demonstrated once again why you have a hard time trusting her, because she doesn't hear them or address them. She just experiences you'll distress as as criticism and then comes back at you.
What you've seen, as we said earlier, is that she's not careful with your heart. And I think what you're trying to do, and the reason that you wrote to us is you're trying to be careful with your own heart. You're trying to find a way to say, how can I be careful with my heart and also have a relationship with my mother? What would that look like?
That's exactly it.
So what does the relationship look like? Right now?
So I speak to her on the phone. We live in different towns, I speak to her on the phone maybe once or twice a week for a short phone call.
Who calls who?
I tend to call her. I've encouraged her to call me, but she so she tiptoes around me a lot. She seems to say, I don't want to bother you. I don't want to bother you, Whereas I would like her to call me, because then I'd feel like she was taking an interest.
Talking to someone that you have a difficult relationship, once or twice a week is frequent. What makes you want to call her? What are you hoping to get from those conversations? And are they nourishing in any way?
They're not nourishing. I think a sense of obligation is a large part of that. I often feel quite rejected during those phone calls, because she talks a lot about herself. I should tell you anything and everything going on in her life, and then she kind of ask me one or two kind of standard questions, has work or what are you doing today? I don't feel like she's present.
You said you call her out of a sense of obligation. Does she have anyone in her life? Did she get remarried?
She did? She has a partner of about twenty years now. She has a few friends.
Do you have any relationship at all with this person or is this person more similar to your mother where it's more superficial.
More superficial. He's a good guy, but he's a real talker like my mother. I visited them at Christmas. I wasn't sure whether to do it because I have a difficult time there, but I did, and I realized between the two of them, I'm left feeling sort of really overwhelmed at how much they talk at me, and I feel almost invisible.
Is your sister there at Christmas?
She has a partner and a baby now, so she was there after Christmas for a couple of days.
You mentioned in your letter that your mom characterizes your sister as the one who really struggled. Tell us a little bit about why your mom believes that what she was seeing with your sister that she wasn't seeing with you.
It's strangerly because I feel we've had a lot of very similar issues and got very different treatment.
Your sister is the one who seems to have found a healthy relationship and the family the things that you're wanting. Does your mom notice that that maybe you are struggling with some things that your sister is not.
No, I don't think she wants to see To give you an example, you know, like I said earlier, I would really like to meet someone and have a family and feeling a lot of worry around that. And my sisters had this baby. I'm very happy for her that, you know, I'm feeling worried about myself. And I've heard my mum say things like I'm so so relieved or
so happy to have a grandchild. And I just wonder to she ever wonder about what my emotional experience is at this time in my life, single in my late thirties, wanting to meet someone. Does she wonder? Does she ever think about it?
Does your sister know how worried you are about this and how lonely it is not having a partner right now.
I've maybe touched on this with my sister. We haven't gone very deep into it. Sort of want to respect happiness with our own situation. God knows she deserves it.
Isn't it possible that this is both and that you can be happy for your sister and also be feeling worried, lonely, sad about the fact that you haven't found that yet.
Yeah, I'm aware that's possible for those two things to coexist.
One thing that you have to keep in mind is that when so many people have failed you so consistently over your life, it's very natural that even when you do find someone that you trust, like your sister, and you've prepared that relationship, and you still hold back a little bit because fully trusting is still scary. And it's also possible that you've been trained by your parents to first think about the needs and feelings of the other
person before your own. So you're worried about, oh, she might experience that as you're saying that you're envious or something. And I think it's important with your sister, she's demonstrated that she can be there and she can hear it.
Yeah, none of that had occurred to me, And I think you're right.
I want to go back to your mom. What is it that you are hoping for in terms of your relationship with your mom at this point in your lives.
That's the challenge that I'm struggling with because it's been quite an intense couple of years where I've kind of worked out what I was missing. I've been longing for and what I perhaps feel like I was owed that I didn't get. I don't know what to hope for. I know i'd ideally want from a relationship with my mother, but I don't know where to aim.
You said something in your letter that I thought was really important. You said, should I even try to have this kind of relationship with her? Given her limitations? I thought that was a very important question, because I think when I ask what is it that you want with your mother, where you go is what do I want
from the mother I should have had? So there's the mother you have and the mother you wish you had, and those are two different people, and you think you're finally coming to terms with the fact that those might
be two different people. Some people spend their entire lives trying to make the mother that they have into the mother they wish they had, and they end up getting repeatedly injured in every interaction because they leave feeling un seen on, heard, invisible, not cared about, criticized, whatever it might be, over and over again. And I wonder how much grief work you've done around the fact that you might be able to get some things that are nourishing
from your mom. If you're able to grieve the fact that she is not the mom you wished for, there might be things she can still offer you.
No, I haven't done any grief work, and I think I'm in that exact place that you've just described, a feeling frustrated expectations and feeling kind of bruised by every interaction. Almost.
It seems like with your father you were able to say these are his limitations, but with your mother that's harder. What is the difference for you in terms of the way that you've sort of accepted that your father struggles in the way that he does, but not really being able to accept that yet about your mom.
He asks me questions about my life. He takes an interest. He tells me he's proud of me for things that are meaningful to me, like writing that I've done. I'm trying to carve out a new career as a writer, and he's made really nice comments about the things that I've done on that front.
Does your mom know about this the writing?
Yes, and doesn't show the interest that would mean a lot to me.
Has she seen anything that you've written?
Some things? I had a restaurant review in a magazine, like a big national magazine. I was quite excited about that, and my dad made a kind of big fuss about it, and my mom said she'd read it. But when I asked her later, what did you think of that bit about you? Because I'd referenced her in this article, she didn't seem to remember.
Tell us what that was like for you that moment when you realized either she read it and didn't remember, or she really never read it, And especially because it was so personal it was something that you referenced about her, I feel.
Like it touched a nerve and I've been in this place before, or feeling like I really see you and value you, my mother, And not only do you not see invalidate me, but when I'm doing it for you, so you seem to miss it.
There are numerous ways in which you're still getting bruised, as you said, by your mom. If you're calling twice a week, she doesn't really need to because she's being pursued by you she likes, but every time you call and she doesn't, you get a little bruised as well. And so part of the problem currently with your mum is not just that you're not sure what are the terms of relationship you can have. But it's also that you're still getting bruised at the same time.
That sounds spot on to me.
Earlier, you said that she does have some good qualities. Can you tell us a little bit about those.
She's had a career previously where she's been in psychiatric nursing. She's really good at looking after I can't believe I'm saying this. She can be very good at looking after very vulnerable people in certain contexts.
What are the good qualities that she has that relate to you?
Now I feel guilty having such a long pause.
Is this Why do you feel guilty?
Because I think she's fundamentally good person, and I feel bad not immediately being able to identify how she's good to me. I know she loves me, she's giving practical help. You know, she was welcomes me into her home.
You know she loves you, because.
I don't know. She hasn't really used that word. It's not really something we used in our family a lot.
But she's never said I love you.
She very rarely says I love you. I think she might write it in a birthday card. Sometimes she tells me she cares.
About me, and that's how she says it, I care about you.
She expresses that she cares for me. So I'm struggling here.
And I see that. That's why I'm asking you these questions, because you have this idea that somehow, and it's probably true, that she loves you, but she has had great difficulty communicating that to you and communicating it in a way that feels loving. And so you're really scrounging here. I love you in a birthday card rarely, Otherwise you're trying to think of loving acts. You're saying, maybe she helped you practically, which is a way of showing love as well.
And it's okay that you're being made aware in this conversation and specifically with this question of what her limitations are, so at the same time that we're looking at what she has to offer, it's also good to be aware of what she can't really offer, so that you don't get, as you said, bruised every time you don't get those things.
And I think, Benny, that what makes it difficult and confusing for you is that seemingly she seems to be able to offer other people that which you wish she would offer you, she is really concerned about your sister's mental health. She has compassion for her patients who are struggling and suffering, and so you see those things and you go, Okay, well you have that. Why aren't I getting any of it? And I think that's the confusing part.
That's very resonant. I think other people see her as a very kind, compassionate person, you know, people love my mother, and I think it was very confusing, and I think for a long time I sort of felt like there must be something without consciously thinking it, there must be something wrong with me as the one not getting this.
Right, and that is very painful.
Do you have any idea why your mom was more able to see what was going on with your sister and her pain and she has been able to see yours.
I don't know. I think she was struggling herself. She was in a lot of financial distress when she was a single parent. She was worried about my sister. She was looking after her ex husband when he was in the depths of alcoholism in a very involved way, and maybe they just was in space and she couldn't face it. That was the sense I got, was, don't you dare give me anything else to worry about.
And I think you heard that as a kid, and I think you complied. That's part of the thing that you are more resilient than your sister, that you don't want to have that narrative because in the family it got expressed. Well, if you are, then you have no feelings that we have to worry about, which obviously it's not the case. But I think you figured out really really young that taking yourself to the psychiatrist at seventeen by yourself, there's a real thread there with you of
I'll take care of myself. You don't have to because I'm not getting it from you. And it's possible that that's what she was picking up on as well. You seem more self sufficient. You seem more like a wind up kid that you just let them loosen. They go. Now where they go was to the partying and all kinds of other distressing places. But I think that your sister probably came across as needing much more than you when you were younger.
That sounds right, And I am very self sufficient, you know, I've been through a lot of really tough stuff and done a lot of it.
Have you ever shared with her a vulnerability that wasn't about the relationship, sought her advice about something that wasn't about her, so she had clear runway to kind of in that way.
When I'm feeling fragile. I've tended to avoid her for all the reasons we've covered. I ask her advice about low level stuff because I think it's a good way to bond with someone asking their advice. So I might talk to her about decorating.
For example, Okay, and how does she do that? So she's happy to help. When it's about decorating, she's happy to help.
Do you enjoy having that interaction with her? Or is it more strategic I'm going to do this because it gives us something to talk about. Or do you get something out of it?
I don't get anything out of it emotionally necessarily, but I derive some I guess enjoyment from the fact with having a conversation that kind of is back and forth, like a more normal conversation for me. She's not in broadcast mode.
Can I ask what you think might happen if you didn't call her twice a week. Would you feel lonelier? Would you have to sit with your grief a little bit more.
I have taken breaks from her at times. What has it been like, honestly a relief. But the longer break was after one of those very difficult conversations that kind of went very badly.
And then did you end up calling her to re establish contact or how did that happen?
We reestablished contact because I had some health problems and she had VI in my sister, and I felt like it was the time to kind of let her back in because she was worried about me, and it was nice to have her interest and concern. Actually, but I do sometimes because I'm busy and because I think, let's see what happened, and so I don't call her that regularly all the time. I sometimes leave it and I just see, let's see if she makes an effort.
And picks up the phone.
She tends to send me a message and say when can we talk Melanie, And I tend to feel frustrated because I want to have the kind of relationship with my mother where we don't need to schedule times to call each other. And I'm they're thinking, oh, we're close enough that you can just pick up the phone if it's a bad time. I'll just say it's a bad time. I tried to say these kinds of things, so but she will do the same thing every time. Which is this very cautious text.
Message You've actually told her, I would love for you to just call me when you feel like calling me.
I maybe haven't said that I would love it. I've said you can, And maybe that's an important difference it is.
I'm thinking about what is it that you want at this point from the mother that you have that would feel good or nourishing. It might not be what you had hoped for all these years, but she still is there, and it sounds like there are some aspects of being in contact with her that could potentially feel good to you. What do you think those are?
I would say just a little bit more of her attention when I'm with her. I don't expect like a total change of personality, but just a little bit more presence. If I make the effort to go and visit her, which is a day's travel, I'm there because I want to connect with her, and if she could just stay with me for a little bit longer and have a conversation and not be flapping around the house doing sure is doing Sometimes it feels like doing anything else other than sitting and catching up with me.
What if there's not a change in her but a change in you.
That is where I get stuck because that just isn't a meaningful relationship to me. I don't seek out those kinds of friendships, but there's not connection.
Well, I think when we talk about meaningful one thing that has been missing has been authenticity. That you haven't been able to show up with the truth of who you are, and when you do, she falls to pieces. That's seen on the beach. But what if you showed up authentically and there was a change in you, not expecting anything to happen differently with her, so that if she falls to pieces, you don't have to put her
back together. What if you became more confident in your truth because you're doing that with your sister, it sounds like you're doing that in the relationships that you're pursuing now that that becomes your mode of being in the world, and that with your mom. You're not expecting her to have a personality transplant, but you're showing up differently knowing that she might or might not be capable of doing
something different. But that you're not depending on it. What you are depending on is that you're going to do something different, That all of these patterns that you still have around her you're not going to uphold anymore because they're not nourishing for you to be that way, to be inauthentic, to hold back, to be invisible, That you're not going to be invisible anymore, and she can do without whatever she will, but you're not responsible for her feelings.
That your visibility you've focused on her.
That sounds like something I would want to aim for. I find when I'm in her home particularly, it's such a knee jerk reaction with me that I feel like I can't control it. I feel rejected and I withdraw.
What happens when just you and her? If that happens, go out for coffee, so she's sitting down, she can't start busying herself with other things. She's sitting down facing you for a chat. Does that ever happen? Do you get more of attention when it does? If you do that rather than sit in her house where she can find a thousand things to busy yourself with.
It is better. And for that reason, I've tried to reduce the number of times I'm visiting her and encourage her to come and visit me and then go for coffees and meals and things in it is better. She visited me a while ago and we had just really horrible conversation, but before that we'd gone to this museum that was a lot of fun and you know, we were laughing.
So you can have fun with her.
I can have fun with her.
So, Melanie, we have some advice for you, and we're going to start off with your mom. One thing that we talked about today was not about changing her, but
about changing you and how you react to her. And one of the things that you've struggled with your whole life has been showing up authentically because either you would get hurt because you would get ignored, the subject would change, you wouldn't get paid attention to, you would get a factual question instead of an experience or feelings question, or more recently, your mom would fall to pieces or get defensive.
All of those things might still happen, but we want you to show up authentically anyway, because you get hurt by not showing up. So you're already getting hurt, and I know you're trying to protect yourself, but in protecting yourself, you're actually doing the hurting. Because it's not protective. You then feel lonely, abandoned all of those feelings. So we want you to be able to just be yourself. And it sounds like you're able to do that more with your sister, but we want you to do that with
your mom as well. And part of that is going to involve when your mom says, how's work, you can tell her how work is, and you can say and I'm also trying to date and I'm feeling really lonely and I'm kind of worried about whether I'm going to meet someone. And if she changes the subject, you can say, hey, Mom, I really wish that I could talk to you about this. When she texts you and says when can we talk,
you can actually say to her. We talked about this distinction today, about the difference between you can call me anytime, and I would really like it if you would just call me. That would feel really good. I would love to hear from you. I would love to know that you're thinking about me. So all of these things that you're not saying, we would like you to say, and not worry about whether she's going to get defensive or not respond in a way that feels nourishing to you,
or she's going to fall to pieces. If she does fall to pieces, you can say, hey, Mom, it sounds like you're not able to really talk about this right now, so let's talk another time. And then you go take a walk, you do yoga, you breathe, you call a friend, you do whatever feels nourishing to you, without worrying about my mom's falling to pieces and I didn't put her back together. So we want you to try that in your interactions with her this week. We want you to
be different, not expecting anything. And then here's the other part. While you're doing that, we want you to notice any moments of joy or even just fun that come up. So with your dad, it was really nice when he could join with you around your writing, even though you have no expectations that he's going to connect with you emotionally in the ways that you wish that he would. With your mom, even with that example where you said
at the museum you had fun. Whatever it is where there are these moments where there is something that feels good, where I feel like I'm glad that I'm talking to my mom. We want you to notice them, and we want you to write them down, and we want you to keep a journal. We just want you to start looking for those a little bit more, and we think you're going to see them a little bit more when you're not being disappointed by her reaction. And to be clear,
you're always going to be disappointed by it. It's always going to hurt, but it won't feel as sharp when you are showing up from the adult place as opposed to the wounded child place. And along with that, we would like you to do some grief work, because you're going to have to contend with the fact that your mom is who she is and that you did not get and probably will not get the kind of mothering that you would have hoped for. There are groups for
this kind of loss. You can find them and maybe join with other people who have had similar experiences, so that you can really kind of let go of those expectations by grieving it, not by shutting it down or compartmentalizing it, which is what you've done, or drugs that you used to do, or the not eating all the ways that you tried to deal with it. We want you to deal with it head on by really going into that sadness and that grief so that you're able to let it go more gently.
Two other quick parts. Number one, with your sister, we would like you to have a chat with her this week, and you're feeling stressed about being able to find someone, and you really want to find someone and kind of share that with her. We think that you've gotten so much closer and there's still a little bit more closeness that you can have with her, because even with her, you're holding back a bit that again that habit from
childhood of I can manage me. I don't have to mean on anyone that there's still some more to unwind there With your sister, so she knows how you feel, and maybe she realizes that, but it's different for you to be able to say it and for her to be able to hear it and respond hopefully in a compassionate way. The last thing we'd like you to do.
We'd like you to do because we think it would be really good if you could find other women, even maybe slightly older women, who you could have friendships with and get that experience, the one that you really never had quite with your mom, and we think one of the best ways for you to do that is to find and join a women's writing group. You're trying to become a writer. Writers need that support regardless, and get to know the people in the group because people do
get friendly and close in a group. Your writing is often very personal and you're sharing personal things, so would like you to do that as well to validate the new endeavor and to perhaps create the possibility of new relationships of people that you can show up to authentically.
It's a really nice idea.
I can do that, and remember the bar for success is you showing up authentically, not how your mom responds, just how you do.
We want you to treat yourself the way that you were not treated growing up. We want you to treat yourself with openness and compassion and kindness and authenticity. The more you treat yourself that way, the more that's going to be the people that you surround yourself with. And if you can do it with your mom without the expectations, you will be able to do it with other people where there are expectations and they do meet them.
That makes sense.
We really look forward to hearing how this goes for you and how it feels to you to show up authentically.
Thank you, and thank you guys very much for your advice.
What I thought was really impressive about Melanie is that she has already started this journey a couple of years ago and has already made significant progress. She's challenging herself in all kinds of ways, she's trying to set standards in her dating, and she's really trying to recover from this very, very difficult childhood and that I think the missing piece has been so far this relationship with her mother.
So I'm really hopeful that this helps her because I think she's been working on herself in all kinds of ways, and I think this would really be the last piece that she needs to really start tackling.
Right.
And when you say the relationship with her mother, I think what we're both talking about is really her relationship
with herself. Being able to grieve the relationship with the mother and be able to be there for herself in a way that her mother is not able to be there for her, and then to also free herself up to enjoy the aspects of that relationship so that she does get something from that relationship, but she'll get the much deeper nourishment from her other relationships that we are encouraging her to pursue as well.
You're listening to THEO therapists. We'll be back after a short break.
So we heard back from Melanie and here's what happened with her this week.
Hi, Laurie and Guy. So I have a quick update for you. I will just start writing with the authenticity because that felt like the most important aspect of it to me. I had a call with my sister and I guess I kind of warmed up by sharing some of my emotional experience around health problems I've had recently, which have been very stressful and times I've been quite upset and worried, and I think normally I realized I would really kind of gloss over this, and I didn't,
and I shared it. And I also told her about the loneliness thing and worrying about whether I'll meet someone again for a relationship. So that felt good, and in response, she opened up a bit more to me in that core. So I wanted to say thank you for bringing that to my attention that relationship could be further improved, because it's really important to me. I've also been working on
it with my mum. I had a call with her and I also shared this thing about feeling lonely and increasingly lonely over the last year and wanting to meet someone, and she said some things that were pretty comforting. Actually they were fairly generic things, but it's the kind of thing I like to hear on this issue, so that was good too. Again, I've noticed on being more tack in other areas. So today, for example, I initiated a difficult conversation with my manager at work that i'd been
putting off for a while. And there is something I'm thinking about with my dad as well. He's supposed to be visiting me when I go to Europe for a couple of months next week, and I've just had it in my head that I really don't like being around him when he's drinking. He can get a bit melancholy and I don't like it. I mean, I'm not sure I'm going to actually say anything to him, but I've just said to myself, I'm not going to pretend to enjoy that anymore, and I'm not going to kind of
sit around and watch it. And I think that is more authentic. So I think I feel good. I feel more optimistic, and I'm going to keep going. The grief work and the women's group. I'm just going to put on hold for a couple of months while I have this nice trip to Italy, but I I've looked at groups and I will schedule that for when i'm back. Thank you. I really am so grateful for the time that you gave me under your advice.
What struck me about Melanie is that she's wanted for so long to have an authentic relationship with the people in her family, and within the span of a week, she took some great risks and actually got some great reward for taking those risks. I agree.
And the fact that she generalized our advice to do that at work as well just shows how much you really got that. I do hope she speaks up though, to her dad when she's on holiday and when he's there and if he's drinking. She has the awareness right now, she says, I don't have to be present for it, but I really hope she'll find the gumption to voice something, because I think that would be very much in line with what we're asking her to do.
Yeah, and you could hear there's some kind of shift going on inside of her. You can hear it in the way that she talked about these experiences. I love that her sister opened up to her as well, when she opened up to her sister, and I like too that she got some comfort from her mom. Maybe it isn't the perfect response, but it did offer her some comfort, and again it was a first conversation. There's so much
room for this to grow. When she shows up as her true self, it gives her so much more power and so much more flexibility in all of these relationships. So I agree with you. I hope she does this with her father as well. And I do hope that she joins a writing group with women, because I think that that will give her even more places to practice this authenticity and to do something that feels authentic to her,
which is writing. So for a weeks of science, I think she did magnificently and I think that she is on the path to do so much more. Next week, we're in session with Anna and Chris, a young married couple who came to us after Anna, who was pregnant with their first child, discovered that Chris had been lying to her.
Well, they see tons and tons of messages to this worker being asking things.
Like hellis your day?
Wow? Yes, it was platonic technically for me, it was still hurtful because it felt like there is some sort of emotional void being filled by talking to her.
If you're enjoying our podcast, don't forget to subscribe for free so that you don't miss any episodes, and please help support Dear Therapists by telling your friends about it and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. Your reviews really help people to find the show.
If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us, email us at Laurie and Guy at iHeartMedia dot com. Executive producer is Noel Brown. We are produced and edited by Josh Fisher. Additional editing support by Helena Rosen, John Washington and Zachary Fisher. Our interns are Ben Bernstein, Emily Gutierrez and Silver Lifton. And special thanks to our podcast Fairy Godmother Katie Curic. We can't wait to see you at our next session. Deotherrapist is a production of iHeartRadio