Theraphy Sesson #2
This session I wanted to focus on my roommate and the shit from this weekend. We did discuss it at first, but then the question shifted to "Why do you have a relationship with a person like your roommate?"
Simple...she reminds me of my parents.
So we got into my parents, my family, and the divorce. We discussed my father and his depression/health issues, and the impact that had on me. We also discussed my mother at length and what she did to create the divorce situation. The discussion was a lot of explaining. Not a terrible amount of probing.
But there were some insights that came from it:
-I tend to fall into patterns in relationships where I'm the comfort or the stable person. I'm the one who makes everything better and keeps everything going because that's what I had to be for my parents. I had to take care of siblings, help run the house, and keep things together when life fell apart. Thus the people I tend to pull into my life are often broken and/or extremely selfish people, just like my mother and father.
-I have abandoment issues, which I already knew, but now my therapist knows too. My mother's actions mean I do not take it well when I am failed or ignored, what have you, because it is what my mother did. When I needed her most she left me and my brothers and that is something I've never forgiven her for.
So what does this mean? Well it means I tend to get into relationships, (friends, family, and otherwise), that are effed up because I'm a caretaker. I don't know any better, it is the natural pattern of my existence. I take care of the emotionally broken roommate because that was my father at various points of my life. I put up with the selfish best friend-with-benefits because that was the relationship I had with my mother, craving her to just be as self-sacrificing as I was just once! I suppose in a way I put up with Patric so long not only out of love, which there is, but because I wanted on a deeper level for someone to give as much to me once in my life as I did them, and kept waiting for him to do it. And like my mother he just isn't capable of doing that. At least he recognizes it, unlike my mother who never has.
So yeah...oh how fucked up we all are.
Now I need to get into my inability to keep up communications with friends aspect, that should be a lot of fun....not. Ugh.
Simple...she reminds me of my parents.
So we got into my parents, my family, and the divorce. We discussed my father and his depression/health issues, and the impact that had on me. We also discussed my mother at length and what she did to create the divorce situation. The discussion was a lot of explaining. Not a terrible amount of probing.
But there were some insights that came from it:
-I tend to fall into patterns in relationships where I'm the comfort or the stable person. I'm the one who makes everything better and keeps everything going because that's what I had to be for my parents. I had to take care of siblings, help run the house, and keep things together when life fell apart. Thus the people I tend to pull into my life are often broken and/or extremely selfish people, just like my mother and father.
-I have abandoment issues, which I already knew, but now my therapist knows too. My mother's actions mean I do not take it well when I am failed or ignored, what have you, because it is what my mother did. When I needed her most she left me and my brothers and that is something I've never forgiven her for.
So what does this mean? Well it means I tend to get into relationships, (friends, family, and otherwise), that are effed up because I'm a caretaker. I don't know any better, it is the natural pattern of my existence. I take care of the emotionally broken roommate because that was my father at various points of my life. I put up with the selfish best friend-with-benefits because that was the relationship I had with my mother, craving her to just be as self-sacrificing as I was just once! I suppose in a way I put up with Patric so long not only out of love, which there is, but because I wanted on a deeper level for someone to give as much to me once in my life as I did them, and kept waiting for him to do it. And like my mother he just isn't capable of doing that. At least he recognizes it, unlike my mother who never has.
So yeah...oh how fucked up we all are.
Now I need to get into my inability to keep up communications with friends aspect, that should be a lot of fun....not. Ugh.