Noticing a trend - now what to do with it

Today as I was journaling I noticed there has been a bit of a trend in some of the things that give me internal rage. People have a general tendency to treat me as a child. They act very paternalistically towards me, talk down to me, and generally treat me as though I'm unable to live my life without their advice and help.

This is particularly frustrating as I am actually a very successful person. At 26 I moved to the States alone for work. I knew nobody. I think it was a pretty awesome thing to do and something very few people I know have done anything so brave, yet they treat me as though I'm incapable of making even small decisions for myself. I have a PhD and am pretty knowledgable about a large number of things outside of my discipline and yet older friends and family talk to me as though I can't string two thoughts together. I've raised my kids almost alone for 7 years and my kids are freaking awesome - polite, smart, gorgeous, playful, and yet on the rare occasions we do see family they treat me as though I don't know what I'm doing. So, this frustrates me a great deal. I know they are trying to help me in their own way but I also think that many of them have their own agenda too (my mother for one, who seems to need me to be dependent on her even though I've not lived on the same continent as her for 11 years and rarely even communicate).

I think really I just want these people to respect me as an equal rather than treat me like I am incapable, even though I've proved myself many times over.

So, what do I do about this? How do I stop this being a problem? Just feel the anger and accept I'm going to feel it every time I see these people? Avoid them? (I know I could just tell them to stop but oh my, I just can't do that - I'm not going to offend them and risk losing people I love by asking other people to stop - it's very complicated).

I think overall my concern with TMS recovery is that once we identify personality trait that contribute, I don't know what, if anything new to do about that trait - I mean, it's who I am! I can try to change but I'm pretty sure hat suppression my personality isn't the answer to preventing my inner child having rage. Seems a bit counterintuitive in fact.

 

You can't change the actions of others, but you can change your own response by learning to not react. You may wish to incorporate mindfullness into your daily practice.

 

But I don't react outwardly. I only just realized in reacting internally. I have no way to change that that I can see.

 

Both surpression and expression can be equally dangerous. If you learn how to use mindfullness, you will learn that quite often these thoughts we have about others are from our ego, rather than our heart. By practining mindfullness, it allows you to process a thought more naturally, i.e to be aware but to not pass judgement. The more often you practice this skill the greater space you create between yourself and a thought. Until, eventally, this obsessive thinking no longer has a hold over you.

 

Yeah, I think Mike hit the nail on the head, JS. And he was, of course, referring only to your inner response - to the voice in your head that is telling you all about how people treat you. That voice is making you a victim.

This is what mindfulness (based upon, and going back to, the original teachings of the Buddha) tells us - that our experience of the world and of our place in it is entirely dependent upon our internal response and interpretation.

This is something over which you have complete control. You do NOT have to give in to the voice in your head.

The key to recovery is changing the conversation, and changing your mind. I'm still working on it myself, but I have also made some nice progress which certainly changed my life for the better. You can do it too!

~Jan

 

Brilliant. If you didn't journal and take a deeper look you may never have found that trend. I often tell students I teach that you can't change the way someone treats you but you CAN change how you respond.

I don't think it's a matter of suppressing or expressing it being the "right" answer. In the quiet moments you will know what your body needs to get better. It may even take you some time to do it on a way that is therapeutic for you and that's ok. Or maybe just knowing it will be good enough for you. That YOU know that you have proven to yourself that you are competent. Is that one of your little girl fears? Not feeling competent? I ask because I know it's one of mine.

You're doing great. I hit a road block the other day and let fear tell me I wouldn't get through it only to wake up the next day knowing that I wasn't meant to get through it. It's never over for me and that's ok. The process was what I needed ....as a reduction of symptoms continues....

Sometimes we are searching for something but that's not exactly what we need....

 

I don't think it was. My biggest fear was, it seems, not being good enough to be loved by my neglectful and abusive parents. Now, you'd think I've proved myself but my mom hated that I was smart - she wanted me to be pretty and popular. She never wanted a straight A student and my whole life she berated me for being too educated and not being pretty or popular. She seems to think she would be popular by proxy.

 

To add to this, I think it's about regulating ones emotional intelligence (surperession/expresson) and being able to connect to ones inner self, disconnect is the reason for most of our suffering.

 

Hi JacketSpud,

Reading this, I think that part of you wants to speak your mind about how you feel in contact with some people. I observe fear and Inner Critic activity that you will be cast out of relationship if you are yourself, speak your mind.

You may be able to work with the feelings of fear, and the feelings of not being appreciated, internally as some have suggested. Just getting real with how you feel treated, how your superego is scaring you, how your inner child feels after so much striving (and success!) to be enough in this world ---this is very powerful inner work that opens you up to better self-treatment, and clear connection to how/why you suffer TMS (the feelings of rage, hurt, fear that 'don't want to be felt). To me, this is the heart of thinking psychological.

The superego is treating you like you're not enough, and you project this on the behavior of others, see it in them. You also put up with these relationships because it is a reflection of a familiar inner relationship. A child being not appreciated by powerful others.

Seeing and working with all of this, with compassion, may help you a lot. But at some point we want to take action to change the way we relate to others. This comes in time, as you get more and more real with yourself. We all recreate our painful relationships with ourselves because we want loving contact. I give this feedback with respect and appreciation for how hard it is to really speak our minds to others...your question goes to the heart of inquiring into our suffering as humans.

Andy B.

 

This is really good, deep stuff. I fee it'll take me a while to really get my head around it.