Day 10 I have to hide my emotions from my mum

I've just finished day 10 and I do feel like this is helping me a lot, like it's giving me the piece I was missing from my healing before. Every day, I'm seeing myself more automatically think about my pain psychologically.

However, I have been worrying that I'm not as engaged as I'd like to be as my mind tends to wonder. Having dyslexia and the tendency to dissociate can make reading longer articles difficult, and I become frustrated with myself. And then I worry that I'm not doing it right. Although, considering the positive changes I'm seeing to my mobility and general decrease in pain (it's still up and down but I believe the overall trend is that it's decreasing), perhaps I need to give myself a bit of grace - clearly, it's working.

I've also learnt that the best time of day for me to spend time on this is mid-afternoon. There's been a couple of days where I've been quite busy and felt too exhausted to fully commit. But on these days I read a bit from John Sarno's book (currently re-reading the Divided Mind) and I still journal before bed so I'm proud of myself.

Lastly, for the question to ponder - I tend to hide my emotions from people a lot but the one person I absolutely cannot try to be open with is my mum. No matter how calm or compassionate I am, she refuses to listen to or understand how I feel. I feel incredibly angry at her and I feel hurt that she refuses to protect me or my sister from dangerous people. Even after over twenty years, she still expects me to put up with abuse - whether that's from my brother, her (now ex) partner or anyone else. As much as I've wanted to talk things out and to make things right, she dismisses me and gaslights me and I've come to realise that I just can't have a relationship with her. I can't express my hurt or my anger, and society tends to blame the adult child for going no contact with a parent. But I've tried really hard... I just can't put myself through the same old patterns of toxicity anymore. Unlike her, I care about myself and I want to protect myself. I want to be the parent my inner child has always needed.

It's hard because I still have to be nice to my mum and remain civil so I can see my sister and my dog who still currently lives with her. Around her, I have to suppress a lot. Although I wish I could scream at her or beg her to just be a mum for once, I know I can't. But writing this here has felt very helpful. Thank you to anyone who's still here reading, I really appreciate it. I certainly needed this.

I'm grateful for this program, grateful for everyone here and grateful for all of the doctors and therapists etc who have researched TMS and made healing possible for so many people. I look forward to seeing what day 11 brings.