The FastDay Forum

Candice Marie,

Unfortunately. I know that I have done my own damage to my children, as I hadn't done any therapeutic work when they were growing up. I was determined not to make my parents' mistakes, but I made my own! I hope that they, in turn are able to see that I did what I could, even though it probably wasn't totally good enough, and that I am much healthier now. I'll be a wonderful grandparent!

The benefit of hindsight! Yes i would do a much better job if i could do it again!
We did the best we could with what we had at the time! We were damaged by our parents too,which affected our parenting skills
you've now stopped that pattern being handed on to the grandchildren x
Like you said,we will be wonderful - and much wiser - grandmamas,given the chance! X

I actually have more father than mother issues. My father is a very looks-ist person, and I feel that when I was a teenager he was ashamed of me and actually even disgusted by me. I wasn't gross or anything, just a bit lumpen and plain. I see other fathers who dote on their daughters, no matter what, and it hurts.
It's pathetic isn't it to dwell on things that happened over 40 years ago. But my 85-year-old mother-in-law is full of lamentations about how her family treated her as a child - it never heals.

I remember reading an interview with Dawn French once (who has always struck me as a confident and sexy woman) in which she said that when she was a child or a teenager (can't remember which) her father told her that she was to remember that she was beautiful and that whoever she ended up with was lucky to be with her - and I am convinced that a lot of our self image comes from the messages we pick up when very small - to me that goes some way to explaining why she is a confident and lovely looking woman - because she KNEW her father thought so. And that is so important - to be loved for WHO WE ARE, not who people want us to be.

Just wanted to thank all those who have opened their hearts and possibly old hurts to tell us of their experiences. Hopefully being able to share will help the healing process and make us realise that offers have suffered similarly . At some point I may come back and tell my story.

Just wanted to thank all those who have opened their hearts and possibly old hurts to tell us of their experiences. Hopefully being able to share will help the healing process and make us realise that offers have suffered similarly . At some point I may come back and tell my story.

Me too callyanna.

@bracken, you are a very brave woman to admit that you weren't always ideal as a mother, that really takes guts and working on yourself - good for you! Have you spoken to your kids directly about that? I would hope that they would forgive you!

Such stories of transgenerational issues here, it's touching that people feel free to write about their experiences. And for me, the past is not the only story to be told, I also want to talk about the future, and have dreams & make plans. I do rebel against the idea that our past defines us. And, having said that, the pain needs to be acknowledged. So wherever you are on that sometimes difficult mountain track, I hope you can feel free to act on your own behalf, and take the next step, whatever that may be for you!

From personal, and increasingly from professional experience, I have learnt that our past does define us, if we do not undertake the work which is necessary to liberate ourselves from it. However, I have also learnt that it is possible to transform our deepest wounds into great strengths. There is only a hair's breadth between my vulnerabilities and my capabilities. I consider my wounds to be the foundation of my skills as a therapist. My childhood pains have now been transformed into useful gifts, and I don't think that I have any regrets about them because of that.

I am sorry about the mistakes which I made as a mother and hope that my children will be able to understand at some point. I also know that my mistakes were minor, in the scheme of things. I have always been able to apologise for my failings, but that doesn't cause them to vanish. My children will work throught their feelings about their experiences...or not.

I also know that we are not simply a product of our pasts in some determinist fashion; we can transform ourselves. However, I believe that our earliest experiences shape our sense of who we are and some kind of transormative experience is necessary for there to be any significant change in this.

[Debs]

Thank you Bracken for your valuable insights. I am the fourth, and last generation on my mother's side to have experienced problems handed down and they stop with me. I guess we are lucky though to have access to help/therapy, whatever you want to call it, that our mothers, grandmothers didn't have. We have access to better education, our own money, in some cases, and the ability to better control our own destiny. My grandmother was forced to leave school at 14 and work in the family shop and resented that all her life, that resentment passed down and my mum suffered as she wasn't as bright and ambitious, so my nan lived through her other daughter and myself as I achieved what she couldn't.
We can change as long as we recognise the need to, and that is where so many fail, including my own parents.

wow, @Debs, thanks for a glimpse of your female line and their issues! Interesting to ponder the part that ingrained sexism has played in all of that too - as you say, maybe we're the first generation to have the resources and the self-determination to be able to work on those dynamics, yay for us! It does give me some compassion for, or at least understanding of, my own female line too - all that mitrochondrial DNA has to come from somewhere, right? And also I find it interesting to think that the female line is so tied up with food and eating as well as sexism - rather a tangled web, maybe?

I haven't really spoken much here about my relationship to my mother and eating, hmmm, sometimes it feels like I'm dragging up all that old s**t again. But my mother was an intelligent woman whose intelligence got all twisted and turned in on itself because of living in a sexist society - she did well enough at school to get into teachers' college, but didn't last past the first term due to lack of support from her family. Her only power was through her family and food was a major part of that. She specialized in mixed messages - one moment berating me for being fat, and saying I needed to go on a diet, the next moment plying me with food and taking deep offence if I wouldn't scoff the lot - a big double bind! And of course everything she said came ostensibly from a place of love (according to her) - and thus was really hard to fight against. I was really lucky to escape her control (with the help of my then-boyfriend, then-husband, now ex-husband) and move to Melbourne 1000 km away in my mid-twenties. She and I had a really fraught relationship until the last year of her life, we never really made the transition to having a relationship between fellow adults while she was alive, although I've done more work on it since she passed on.

I was watching a documentary on SBS last night about Queen Victoria's relationship with her daughters, and I could really identify a lot of the same issues of control! So at least it wasn't only me!

@Bracken, what's your psychotherapeutic paradigm? I will be sitting my comparative psych exam in my Processwork studies soon, so I'm really interested in comparing and contrasting paradigms!

Jools 7. My approach to therapy is an integrative one which sees intersubjectivity as the key to the way in which we are formed and develop the capacity for change. Having said that, I draw from psychodynamic, humanistic and behavioural traditions as appropriate, depending on the focus of the work, how much time is available, and the psychological sophistication of the client. We are complex creatures and therapeutic models are simply crude representations of reality or lenses through which we view it, but I often find ideas from attachment theory useful, particularly when considering how clients relate to themselves and their distress, and also in considering what I am trying to provide for my clients. I see therapy as offering a "secure base" to be internalised and a "transitional space" which offers new possibilities for ways of being.

I like the work of Winnicott, Bion and Assagioli, but see them as cartographers with their own particular biases.

Just popped in here after posting on the Fasting Today thread.

Big thanks to @Debs, @Jools7 & @Bracken for sharing their insights. It is so good to read your posts & know I am by no means alone with my "issues".

I am keen to move forward in my life, but until I resolve, accept & fully file away the past in a little box somewhere at the back of my mind, I won't be able to. Tough call.

Have a good day all xx

Hmmm! Children. As many of you know I am a carer to 3 people who live at home. (husband physically disabled, Eldest son who I am about to talk about, and youngest son who is Autistic) My daughter is now in Dubai but she hasn't totally escaped the genetic heritage passed down through me for problems associated with Autistic Spectrum Disorders.
But, a massive regret I now have as an older adult is when we were having real problems with my eldest, then teenage son, we got counselling/therapy for him. I considered it to be HIS problem so I flatly refused to go to any sessions especially the final session to talk with the therapist. I basically was too cowardly to go. I was certain that I would hear from the counselor that the problems were because I was a bad mother and I just couldn't face the confirmation of that as I thought of it (very low self esteem at that point).
Now 12 years down the line, I know that going to the sessions with my son would have taught me so much, not how to be a good mother, I already was one, but how to help my son deal the fact that he was high IQ, high functioning Aspergers.
He has loved me all these years, yet for quite a few years I could have sent him to boarding school and forgotten about him. This will be my (not so) secret shame I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

Hindsight can be wonderful, but it can also be hurtful. I do think I need therapy myself, but don't know where to start or who to go to. It doesn't help that I am probably Aspergers myself.

Oh Julie - reading your post reminded me of something my mother used to say, often......

"A mother's place is in the wrong"

As a child, I used to really dislike hearing her say that.....but now I'm a mother myself of 22 years standing, I totally understand where she was coming from.

Yes, we become mothers once we have children.....but inside, we are still a person as well. We were that person long before we became a mother, but it seems like we are supposed to suppress all that, put aside all our feelings, forget about our own needs.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing....or it would be if only we had it! Whatever decisions you have made in the past about your eldest son, you made to the best of your ability..at the time. The thing is, we live and learn. You would do some things differently now. That would be true of all of us, so you're definitely not alone.

From reading your posts, it seems to me that you have more than enough on your plate right now, without burdening yourself with feelings of historical inadequacy. When I was in the depths of post-natal depression with my first child, my health visitor used to remind me that it was OK to be a "good enough" mother - and that has stuck with me ever since. We are only human.

I am certain you have been...and will continue to be...good enough xxx

Being 'good enough'. That is something to believe in. Thank you for that. I sometimes do strive too hard to be superwoman. Even now when I am very shortly to be in hospital for a major operation, I am wondering if I will have enough time to build a retaining wall and extend the patio! I barely have it together well enough to clean the windows (too much pain and brain fog from meds) yet I want to dig trenches and haul concrete slabs. Mind you, digging trenches is much more fun than cleaning windows.

Very best of luck with the op @Julieathome - do hope it goes well for you. Once the op is done, your most important task will be.....recovery....so please restrict yourself to making a few plans, but not actually starting anything until you feel well enough. You know it makes sense!!

Take care xxx