How does it look like when you relive your trauma? part 2

How to deal with it.

For audio version of this post click the thingy here.

So how to deal with this?

I am going to use interchangeably “he” and “she” for the emotionally immature or BPD parent.

Understand

He is doing it to everyone, and no one has complained so far. So people who don't react, they don't give him or her a reason to change. When you react, that person might think, “Oh, what's wrong with you? You’re overreacting!” He is so dissociated from himself, that he has no self-reflection and don’t see his role in the situation.

When you are not emotionally involved with him or her, and when you can actually turn around and leave, and not see them for another month, it's very easy to accept that behaviour for 5, 10 minutes and ignore it. But if you are with someone 24/7, you might be a partner to someone like that, might be an adult child of a parent like that, it's impossible. I don't know how much weed 🪴 you would have to smoke to be that Zen. Why?

1. It's because he is preoccupied with himself. He just thinks about himself, and he does it because there's something in it for him. Egoistic reasons. Feeding his little monster: might be ego, might be loneliness, etc. We’ll talk about it below/soon.

2. She is in your direct environment. She has a certain energy and that energy affects your energy. The universe is made of the same particles as us. We are made of the same particles as the universe. We are one and we affect each other. So, when you’re in the same room or flat, you will affect each other's energies: mood, emotional state etc. Think about all those moments when a pissed of person comes into a room, and everyone in it freezes, get quiet, avoid that person. That’s exactly energies affecting each other.

Support

Because she’s exactly like your BPD mum, like your emotionally unstable or narcissistic dad, and it seems that she just knows exactly how to poke that wound. You have certain triggers: she’s so similar in her behaviour or the way she talks or does things to your mum or dad, that it feels as if your mum or dad is doing things to you all over again. It feels as if you are that 5 year old child again. As if she means to do it. It doesn't mean that it's okay for her to disrespect you, to do against your will, or to not accept a “no”. It's not okay, but she does it, just like your mum or dad did. And that's why I say that we cannot do anything about others’ behaviour, we cannot do anything about them. But you can do something about those triggers of yours, and that is a therapy.

Saying “No”

Now some people are just idiots, narcissistic, emotionally immature, and you cannot say or do anything to make them see how they behave, how they talk, what they say. They have no self-reflection and they do not see their part in the conflict. They're so stack in their heads and routines, that they don’t see beyond the tip of their own nose. Everything is black or white for them.

If you had emotionally mature parents, you wouldn't be triggered by those situations because you would not see those emotionally immature people. Those people wouldn't be in your life, and you'd automatically just filter them out as “do not to talk to”, “do not see them.” You would automatically choose not to be with them. So what you can do about that? Well, this is extremely difficult.

We're talking about saying “no” and not feeling guilty about it.

And if you grew up with a borderline parent or emotionally unstable, immature person, you just don't know how to say “no” without feeling guilty. Without taking it back. Without going back to this person and feeling sorry for him or her, that you said a “no” to them.

If I ask you a question now, how does it look like when you are assertive? How do you look like when you are assertive? How does anyone look like when they are assertive? How does it look like when you say no to someone? Many of you might think, aggressive. That setting boundaries and saying no means being aggressive and rude, and hurting others.

When you were a child, you were trying to stand up for yourself. No one listened to you when you talked, and you were ignored. So, when you would finally yell, your dad or mum would tell you, “Oh, you're aggressive. Why are you so aggressive?” He or she would look hurt. And that’s how he or she would shape you, into believing that being assertive is being aggressive and hurting others... Thus taking the right from you to express your boundaries. And now you simply think that being assertive and saying no, it means aggressive, but it doesn't.

But you don't know that. You don't see it this way. And you have to learn to say “no”. And then you have to learn to keep those boundaries towards people who you are emotionally involved with. Then there is a question, do you want to be emotionally involved with people like that? People who don't respect you.

Setting boundaries is gonna cause that those people are gonna go ballistic because you didn't have boundaries before. Because you didn't say no. It is going to be extremely difficult, because it's not only setting boundaries, learning how to do it, but then, you also have to protect yourself from the explosion of them fighting against those boundaries. And you have to keep them up, even when you have a bad day.

There is a different scenario: there you learned that yelling, being loud, demanding your needs by yelling and being annoying is your way to go through life to get what you want. Is this how you want to be? Can you see how people react to it? Do you feel anger inside of you?

Let go of the control, leave the responsibility to them

What if you stop doing anything, and you just let it be?

The more you try to do something, the more you disturb the water. The more you try to fight with it and the more resistance you put in it, the more difficult it gets, and the more feelings and emotions of running away you have, and that everything is crap. And I know what I'm talking about because I have been there. When I became aware of my internal processes, I realized how many times I have been in those situations, behaving like that.

Sometimes, just stop doing anything helps. Stop engaging with them. Just let it be. Focus on yourself and your wellbeing. And by wellbeing I don’t mean spa or any industry involved crap. I mean, do you. Cook only for yourself. Do only your dishes. Go for a walk and leave the situation to him or her, and see what happens. You can only do so much… When there’s a conflict, it’s two people involved. Let the other person do their bit and fix it. You take care of yourself. Go for a coffee with that friend you’ve been meaning to call for the past six months. Take a hike. Go to a library to read. Strike a conversation with a stranger. It won’t solve the situation, but you will allow your brain to relax. A small thing, but does good to you.

With some of this kind of people, you can actually stop engaging, and allow it to just be.

These people will come back looking for you.

Some of them will come back, and they will want to talk. Of course, after 5 minutes, it's gonna be back to square one with them. But they're gonna have tears in their eyes, wanting to solve the conflict. They're gonna use words you've never heard them use before. But it's gonna sound beautiful, because they want to do something. They are here to solve the conflict! Then it's gonna be back to square one, but at the moment they want your “not doing anything” to stop. They might even engage in small contact like: “The vacuum cleaner is broken” or “I am going to a shop, do you want something.” Finding a sneaky way to gently finish the “letting go of things.”

The other type is gonna come back looking for your reaction to create an inflammation point, just like my mum did. My borderline mum, would come back looking for any kind of engagement, a battle, because she would feed on it. My mum thrived on arguing, on any kind of frustration, anger. She would get energy of it. In this case, it’s going to be as horrible as doing something. No wonder, that different doctors, on different occasions, told my dad to pack his bags and move out, as there would be no stop to her behaviour.

In both cases, you might feel resigned. Maybe even blame yourself for falling into their trap.

When I moved out and my dad retired, after one month of being alone with my mum, 24/7, his hair turned white. She brainwashed him. He became a version of her. After yet another explosion of anger, rage, fake tears, manipulation, chaos, dramatic argument calling me a whore, and at the same time as asking me if she should go and buy the cheesecake that I love, when I was visiting them, he said to me, “It’s better you don’t come to visit anymore. Mum gets angry.” Some time after that, I chose to cut the contact with my parents.

At some point, I heard that my dad had a mini heart attack while driving. Nothing happened to him. When I was a child, he had yearly medicals done, due to his profession. During one of those medicals, it turned out that his heart looked as if he had had thousands of small heart attacks on a regular basis.

I chose to leave. He chose to stay. My sister chose to create a physical distance in kilometres, but that still affected her horribly. At some point, she chose to leave as well, because I chose that path.

You choose what you want. And a therapy, with me, doesn’t mean that you have to choose the same path. A therapy is to help you come to a decision what you want and how you want it, that is good for you. However, one thing is sure: saying “no” to a BPD dad or mum is a sure thing, and keeping that “no” stone hard every day.

It’s not your fault.

I'm really sorry that it's like that. I really wish it was much easier, but it's not. And it's not your fault. If you grew up with a borderline parent or emotional, immature, unstable, unavailable, and narcissistic parent, you were born into a situation. And this situation did things to you on the inside. It shaped you on the inside in a certain way.

But it might be a shape that you never really wanted to be. That maybe it’s nothing you want to be, but that situation has shaped you somehow. You had to survive that childhood and those teenage years and your twenties, and maybe you're still being there. But deep down in your heart, you know that it's not what you want to be. It's not how you want to live your life.

And to change that is difficult. And to do it alone, it's extremely difficult. And I'm really sorry that this is like that. If it was much easier, it's not only that I wouldn't have to work as a therapist, and everybody would be happy, and the Sun would be always shining, but I wouldn't have to go through all this shit, which I have been going through, healing from my borderline parent and my non-borderline parent who contributed as much.

I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry that it is like that, And I wish it was easier.

Accept your wounds.

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” (Rumi).

So now I want you to think about your wounds, whatever hurts you in this situation. Deep inside, you know why you are with this person, in touch or in a relationship, and there are different reasons for it. Right?

It can be because you don't want to be lonely, it can be because of financial reasons, it can be because you want to prove them that you’re worth of loving, and yourself that you can turn them around and make them love you, or whatever the reason. Think about that reason and accept it. And just say:

“This name the reason is my wound. I accept it. I accept my weakness. I may not like it, and I may want to change it. And I understand it's gonna take time, and I'm okay with it. I'm okay with my weakness that I have, because I want this light, I want this love to enter me through my wound and heal that wound.”

I hope that helps. I hope you liked it.

Have a nice day.

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