Day 10 Who you hide emotions from

prisd

prisd

Peer Supporter
I definitely hide my emotions from my mother. She is a pretty cold, stoic personality, and I really feel like we're opposites. I am a warm, very sensitive personality. I don't feel like I can share much with her. She's never asked me about my pain, and I feel ashamed even telling her I have any. It feels like I'm complaining. Sometimes, I feel like breaking down and telling her I feel like she doesn't care about me, although I know deep down she does. For a long time in my adult life, it wasn't a problem because I would only see her once a month and I actually felt closer to her. But now that she has a granddaughter, I see her every week. I feel like I'm a teenager again when I had an eating disorder in high school, and my mom never said anything to me about it.
 
Hi prisd,

This post and the one yesterday about being self-critical ring large bells for me. My mother is very similar in personality. I've spent my whole life hiding pain and problems from her. Only once when I was suffering from severe depression in my late teens did I come clean. She wasn't exactly compassionate, making me regret my decision to tell her. I have a warm side to me but mostly put up a cold front these days. I have adopted her stoicism when it comes to my own problems. I say everything is fine, okay when actually it's is anything but. At least I acknowledge all this now and from the sounds of it, you are beginning to see what's going on beneath the surface too.

I was at the hairdressers the other day reading one of the typical ladies' mags. I like the agony aunt pages where someone has a problem and asks for advice. I skimmed through this particular article. It concerned a woman whose mother had cut her out of her life recently despite the woman trying so hard to be a good daughter. As I say I was just skim reading until I hit this particular paragraph and took a photo of it on my phone. I don't like to plagiarise so these are the words of Philippa Perry from Red magazine.

"Her sometimes cruel-sounding and sharp remarks are a reflection of how she probably talks to herself. I expect she's got a very harsh inner critic. It's typical for people who are hard on themselves to be hard on their children. She probably tries not to do this, but it slips out nevertheless."

I never thought of my mother as being hard on herself, assuming she was too busy being hard on just about everyone else. The above gave me pause to think as both a daughter and as a mother. I know I have been incredibly hard on my elder daughter, now an adult living independently. She turned out to be just as aloof as my mother and I feel I have caused this. Oh, dang, there's the inner critic again. I best go chase it away...
 
Hi prisd,
Reading your post, I feel a lot of tenderness for our human condition. That those we want support from, and love, feel like they don't have the actual capacity to do this for us. And yet, we still long for this. In time, you may develop your own attuned love for you, just as you are. Giving yourself what your mother cannot. I think this development, or revelation of your own love, and attunement starts by seeing your own hurt and disappointment. When we are with the hurt, our own love grows. I hope this is your experience.
Andy B
 
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