Diary of a Mad Woman

Dear World
(Friends, Best Friends,  family members, co-workers, ex’s, strangers, everyone):

I know when you look at me and my life, you are probably envious. “Wow. I wish I had life as easy as she’s had it. I don’t get why she’s all worked up, I’d love to have life as easy as she had”. I see your glances, I feel your judgment, I feel your disapproval of me when we talk. I know how you feel about me, you’ve already told me. I’m selfish, self-centered, unforgiving, lazy, self-richeous, and my expectations are too high. You look at me, you look at my life, and you think “Wow she’s really a spoiled asshole” and then usually, there’s some sort of verbal accusation of me by your judgments.

After you get to know me and my life is when problems happen. All I’ve ever looked for was someone to listen. But instead I’m met with frustration, criticisms, YOUR thoughts YOUR feelings YOUR view on how I’m acting, thinking, behaving, feeling.

None of are you are LISTENING. You’re not hearing me from a place of understanding, love, acceptance. You’re listening with your ears, with your own thoughts, you’re not listening with your heart.

I understand why you feel as though my life is easy and for you to be envious. I know of wordly struggles going on in the world today, with the job market and the economic state of the world today. Yes. I do nothing. But I ask you, does that take away any sense of humanness of me? Am I without human rights because of what i DON’T do?

I know you think of me as the crazy one. I know off the bat that you will defend my parents. “They did the best they could”, “You don’t know how hard they’ve had it”, “They’ve provided everything for you, and you’re looking at what they DIDN’T do?” “I wish my mom was as cool as yours”. Because I have “everything” I need, that means that everything in life is perfect? Blissful? Happy? Based on what is provided FOR me?

Does having everything handed to me on a silver platter really make all problems disappear? Everything on the outside is beautiful so the inside stuff doesn’t matter?

All I ask is that you look from a different view. Think for a moment about my point of view. Let go of your judgments of me and my parents. How do YOU see my parents? Warm? Compassionate? Loving? Kind? Unselfish? Do you think that is how they ALWAYS are? Can you even fathom the thought that maybe there’s another side to them? If they are always so pleasant, why am I the way I am today? Why do I live the way I live today? If they were as they seemed to be, I would be a successful person. Meaning having a life of my own. Maybe even a family of my own. But I don’t. I have nothing of my own. I’ve been an adult, legally, 15 years. Why am I still here?

The world is a cruel, ugly place. Parents aren’t raising kids, they are supposed to be raising future adults who will be capable of taking care of themselves. Parents are always given the benefit of the doubt. The children are almost always dismissed. “oh you’re just saying your parents are bad because they didnt get you that (whatever) you wanted’ or “because they didn’t let you go out with (whoever)”. You’ll see when you get older, your Parents did a great job.

You assume that my parents taught me everything I needed to know to make it in this world. Maybe you assume we have a great relationship, and that we talk about things. That I can go to them with my problems. Maybe you assume that I am free to talk about how I feel, and they actually listen? Maybe you even assume that they enjoy doing things for me, and often tell me they love me and they enjoy having me around?

Well, that’s all wrong. Truth is, my parents are workaholics. They were hardly ever home. And when they were, it was as if they were on another planet. Everything about me is, and always has been, rejected. If I say how I feel, I hear “don’t feel that way, feel THIS way. This ways is right.” or “You should do something about that”. or hearing about their stressful day.

My parents aren’t perfect. They’ve never admitted it. Never once in my entire life has either of them apologized for mistakes. I’ve never seen any human emotions from them. Other than anger and depression. I’ve never heard a compliment. I’ve never been given positive encouragement. I was never given rules, boundaries or been talked to as a human being. There is, and has never been, support and ANY teaching of making it in “the real world”. My parents don’t know that I am a seperate human being with my OWN beliefs, values, my own brain and my own thoughts.

So I understand I act like a spoiled brat. I know. But your criticisms and name calling is just another walk down memory lane. You’re not benefiting me at all, in fact, you’re further making me untrusting of people. ALL people. If you had good parents maybe they taught you ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all’. (mine didnt). So if you really have a problem with me and my attitude, do us both a favor and let me be. I will find my own way. Thanks.

Me

Susan Shapiro Barash, author of Toxic Friends: The Antidote for Women Stuck in Complicated Friendships, on how to tell when your friendship is unhealthy … and how to disengage.

The colloquial term “frenemy” was coined to describe a complicated relationship wherein a person causes a friend such pain and anguish that there is a blur between this person being your “friend” or “enemy.” Why is it so hard to tell the difference between the two opposite words that society had to create a fuzzy word to describe a shade of gray? For one, our parents didn’t raise us with built-in “bad friend sensors” because our girlfriends are different to us than they were to our mothers or grandmothers, explains Susan Shapiro Barash, a nationally regarded gender expert and author of Toxic Friends: The Antidote for Women Stuck in Complicated Friendships , an upcoming tome on dealing with female relationships.

With advances in communication technologies, such as Skype and Facebook , women have been able to move farther away from their mothers and siblings in pursuit of their careers and families. And during the process, women sought the comfort of nearby friends on whom to depend, as though they shared the same DNA.

“My grandmother didn’t need a book like this,” Shapiro tells us. “Her family didn’t live three thousand miles away. Today, what women look for in female friendships is what they would look for in a relationship with their mother or sister.”

Additionally, our grandmothers weren’t going to restaurants to meet with girlfriends to talk about their sex lives, careers and health. According to Barash, it appears that these types of gatherings grew from women who sought the deep connections seen on popular television series, such as “Sex & The City” and “Friends.” Shows that highlighted female kinships that are just as strong — if not tighter — than family ties have become a model for real-life social circles and in turn women have grown to trust friends with very private matters. It’s also natural for women to turn to the comfort of friends when they grow older and lose their mothers, sisters and significant others.

Hence, friends have become a fabric of our lives — which also explains why it hurts us so when a friendship is fraught with confusion, heartache and tears. Let’s face it: A mean friend is just as scarring as a bad mother or husband. This is similar to the conclusion made by Barash, which compelled her to explore the key components of damaging relationships and also provide women advice on how to detect such harmful friendships. Here we asked Barash to share with us the signs of a toxic friendship — and how to disengage.

The 9 Signs You’re in a Toxic Friendship

1) Your friend is jealous of you. Jealousy is different than envy and the first can be very toxic for the relationship. Jealousy is: “I want what you have and I want you dead or disappeared.” Envy is just: “I want what you have.” A jealous friend will want to cut you out of her life because she really wants what you have and can’t stand to be around you anymore. An envious friend will want what you have, but will look to you as her inspiration or role model, and compete with you to get in the lead.

2) Your friend is a “doormat”: It’s tiring to always be with someone who is so malleable.

3) Your friend wasn’t there for you. It’s sometimes hard to see if a friend is really a true pal until there is a life-changing moment in your life that requires the person’s support. This eye-opening event is called The Inciting Incident, which is when everything is going along fine, until wham! someone gets sick, or loses their job, or gets married or loses a loved one, and you find that the friend you thought would be by your side isn’t there for you at all. She doesn’t celebrate your good news nor does she help you in times of need. For some women it takes an “inciting incident” to finally notice that a friend is toxic.

4) Your friend is draining you: You feel you’re psychologically and emotionally giving all your energy to her and receiving nothing in return.

5) You don’t share the same values or the same world view: It’s a red flag that this isn’t the right friend for you if you don’t respect her for who she is. I interviewed a woman who wished her friend’s husband ill. It made the married woman realize that her friend’s behavior is nothing like her own.

6) You are using one another: This type of toxic relationship develops among socialites. You want to be friends with your neighbor because your children attend the same private school and you can coordinate a carpool. Will the friendship last? Maybe. Is there really a friendship between the mothers or is it just using? Is it worth turning this friendship into anything more than an agreement?

7) The relationship offers no return on investment: This is similar to a friend who is draining you – but this isn’t just an emotional give and take. If you are the one calling your friend to make plans and going out of your way to be with her, but she makes no attempt to go out of her way for you, then she’s not meeting you halfway.

Your friend is harming someone else or doing something illicit. Do you want to be associated with someone who is morally unjust? That’s a judgment call on your part.

9) Your friend burdens you with a secret: Your friend trusts you by sharing the details of her affair, but keeping the secret has weighed on you emotionally. You might want to keep your distance. If you’re too close to this woman and the secret is really impacting your life for the worse, it’s time to disengage yourself.

How to Disengage: If any of these signs describes one of your friendships, it’s likely to be a toxic relationship that’s burdensome to not just your sanity but hers as well. You could deliberately distance yourself and let the relationship fizzle into oblivion. If you would like to renegotiate the relationship and improve the friendship, have an honest conversation to reveal how you feel. You’ll risk losing this person, but the reward could be improving the quality of the friendship. Honesty is the best policy. Say: “I’m really upset you didn’t do this and this. And I needed you there to do this and this.”

http://shine.yahoo.com/event/thisweekinbooks/9-signs-your-friend-is-toxic-510969/

Imagine a house in which a child feels that the walls and floors are constantly moving and shaking. Would anyone be at peace in such a setting? For the children of alcoholics, life can feel much this way, and it is estimated that at least seven million children in America alone have alcoholic parents.

Common characteristics of caretakers and parents that accompany alcoholism-such as denial, dishonesty, selfishness, fear, and lack of consideration-have profound and direct effects on children. In this environment, self-esteem is not able to develop normally, and the emotional energy required to live with an alcoholic parent steals from the magic of childhood. These children instead learn to create walls and barriers to honest expression, and to resist sharing their emotions and developing trust. Such roadblocks cause children to shut down their own awareness of how they feel, affecting relationships with peers, relatives, and other adults. Children are left confused and full of self-doubt as they receive mixed messages from parents who are not behaving consistently, or honestly.

Children who speak up about the problem are often met with ridicule. Many times their observations, opinions, and insights are not acknowledged at all. Because immense denial is in operation about the use of alcohol and all of the destructive behaviors associated with it, children gradually disavow what they feel and lose touch with their own sense of what feels right and true.

Before intervention or treatment, children of alcoholics are like caged songbirds. They deny their own freedom because they become used to the dysfunction of constricted feelings and to restrictive ways of solving problems and conflicts.

Common emotional problems
Depression: Children who have alcoholic parents may be at a greater genetic risk of developing a mood disorder, or they may develop depression that results from the helplessness and isolation they feel at home. It is particularly difficult when both genetics and circumstances create severe depression in children.

Guilt, shame, self-blame, and embarrassment: Children exposed to the destructive forces created by alcoholic parents tend to blame themselves for the problems at an early age. This creates the difficult cycle of codependency throughout childhood and adult life in which the child feels responsible for the family chaos and tries to fix and rescue the disabled parents. This pattern runs so deep that children and adolescents may choose destructive and abusive relationships that do not meet healthy needs. The child of an alcoholic remains locked in the past, and often there is an immense conscious or unconscious desire on their part to take care of others and to try to fix other people’s problems.

Such kids are often “parentified”, that is, they are very mature and responsible on the outside, but on the inside they feel rage, fear and resentment about disrupted boundaries, and inappropriate expectations.

Many kids have difficulty asking for help from outside partners or asking playmates to come home with them. They dread having to reveal “terrible untold secrets at home.”

Anger: Anger is often directed at the parent who is not alcoholic, for the child blames the sober parent early on for not stepping in, stopping violence or bouts of drinking, or seeking help for the family. Yet it is vital to realize that the non-alcoholic parent also participates in the cycle of alcoholism by enabling and allowing the alcoholic parent to continue such behaviors. No one is at fault; everyone needs support and help.

Anxiety: Children face very deep levels of anxiety, panic, and feelings of dread because something is never quite right in the home; this insecurity and uncertainty fuel a constant tension within children. Genetics may also play a role here as well. Children of alcoholics are at greater risk for developing anxiety and panic disorder.

Confusion: The ongoing inability of parents to perform functions consistently at home leads children to feelings of confusion, particularly when bedtime, mealtimes, and other structured activities are constantly changing. These are part of the mixed messages children receive, which lead them to their own self-doubt about what is healthy and what is not.

Warning signals
Counselors, teachers, friends, relatives, and other caring adults may sense that there is something “wrong” with a child of an alcoholic, and there are certain behaviors to look out for.

Constant excuses for parents’ absences, delays and shortcomings: These can be seen as evidence that the child has become a clear “parent” within the home, particularly if they are providing care such as cooking, sending kids to school, or if they are completely in charge of the household tasks.

Ongoing or sudden school failure or truancy: Truancy may be a result of the child’s need to remain at home to take care of the alcoholic parent or because chaos does not allow the child regular school attendance. Theft and lying may increase as a coping mechanism for some kids.

New or ongoing aggressive behaviors: Aggressive behavior and acting out in school or during extracurricular activities may indicate chaos at home created by alcoholism. Children who are out of control may display such outbursts in a structured setting.

Isolation, withdrawal, and lack of creating friendships: These signs may indicate that a child is too overwhelmed to include another peer or friend in his personal world. Trust is so undermined for children of alcoholics that they are unable to establish close and meaningful relationships. This difficulty carries over into adulthood, unless direct intervention is obtained.

Frequent physical complaints: Headaches, stomachaches, and limb pains may point in the direction of associated depression and anxiety that overwhelms children who are burdened by constant chaos.

Getting help
There are a number of interventions that can help children of alcoholics. Counselors, friends and teachers can refer families to pediatricians who are in touch with local social support programs. A child psychologist or child psychiatric physician can determine whether children require individual therapy and/or medications to deal with possible concurrent depression and anxiety.

But the cornerstone of treatment for children of alcoholics is group therapy. Groups provide a place in which children can express their deepest issues and feelings in a safe environment with peers. A group is sometimes the first safe place where a child of an alcoholic can establish trusting relationships. Secondly, groups comprised of peers and facilitators can provide supportive feedback and help children to understand that they are not alone.

Healing occurs in groups when peers can identify their problems and emotions and offer solutions to each other. Kids also learn to become honest with their feelings and to break the pattern of denial about their family alcoholism. Far reaching, enriching, and inspiring programs such as Alanon and Alateen teach children how to focus on their own part in the cycle of alcoholism. In these programs, even if the parent does not stop drinking, the nonalcoholic parent, children, friends and relatives can learn how to stop the pattern of enabling. Alcoholics must improve their lives on their own. The child learns that he is not responsible for the alcoholic’s behavior, but he is responsible for creating his own inner peace and harmony regardless of parental behavior.

This form of treatment and therapy is a slow, ongoing process, and the key to the birdcage that imprisons the children of alcoholics. These songbirds are then given the opportunity to learn new melodies and to finally feel free.

There’s a 100 different things that I could be (and am) taunted for. It could be my weight. My unemployment. My living situation. My lack of friends. The way I eat. The way I speak. The way I walk. The way I talk. Name it, I got it.

I have 2 huge clashes.
For one, I’m human and flawed.
For the other, I’m an outstanding perfectionist. Do I dare say I’m a perfect perfectionist?!

I am and have been constantly ridiculued and judged by my parents. My father was the first person to ‘make light’ of me. Once I tried to pronounce a word like electricity, it took me 3 times to get it out and my father laughed at me. (Yes I know fathers are that way.. but it was a constant occurance) My mother takes stabs at me about my weight and what I wear. She gives me compliments if I look “good enough”.

Friends are no better. Worse, actually.

What happens is that I feel overly sensitive, overly self-conscience about myself, mostly about my physical appearance and I hide; I isolate, I avoid social activities.

I want to begin working again. It’s been nearly a year. I have an incredible amount of fear and anxiety, because of the 100s of things iknow *nothing* about, being an adult #1. How NOT to get myself be pushed around and bullied. How to stand up for myself. I am a magnet for bullies because I am so easily pushed around. I feel bullied just by people looking at me. I expect to be mocked, laughed at, pushed around and bullied.

I can, and often do make fun of myself. But it’s different when others do it. It causes me to feel ashamed, ugly, stupid, downright retarded. Oh what I wouldn’t give to be thin, friendly, outgoing, smart, to look “acceptable”. But instead I’m short and chunky, introverted, plain.. if only I looked better.. if only.. but I’m not.. and I can’t be.. so I better keep trying..

Self-acceptance instead? Hmm. What a novel idea..

http://www.soulpoint.com/newrelationships.html

A dysfunctional relationship has certain qualities about it. These qualities are as follows:

1. A sense that you have to fit into someone else’s perception of what is right or wrong in order to be loved.
2. You feel confined.
3. There is always something to fix in the relationship.
4. You feel like you’re settling.
5. Who you are is diminished in the relationship.
6. Your needs are not met in one way or another.
7. You’re never going to be good enough.
8. You feel trapped.
9. Being there is not what you really want, but you’re afraid to leave.
10. You find other ways to satisfy yourself to keep your mind off how unhappy you are in the situation.
11. When it’s good, it’s really good, but when it’s bad it’s horrible.

These are just some of the signs of a typical dysfunctional relationship.

On the other hand, a healthy relationship has these characteristics:

1. You feel honored.
2. You feel more alive.
3. There is nurturing and support for you to become more of who you are.
4. There is strength coming from your partner allowing you to explore ways to expand into new territories.
5. There is trust.
6. The goals are the same, even though the ways of expressing them may be different.
7. Each brings healing into the other through depth and security.
8. The relationship causes you to create a new dynamic based on the future rather than on what has been known in the past.
9. There seems to be a knowing about the other person that goes beyond this time and space, as if you had known each other before.
10. Your partner is more than you would have known to ask for.
11. You wonder how you ever got this lucky.

The differences are dramatic! Take this simple test to see where your relationship falls regarding these distinctions.

Answer these questions by using a scale between 1-10. 1 being not at all and 10 being all the time.

1. To what degree do you experience support from your partner?
2. How would you rate the amount of time you feel safe in your relationship?
3. How much of the time do you feel motivated to expand your boundaries within this relationship?
4. How honored do you feel in the presence of your mate?
5. What level of enjoyment do you experience as a result of this relationship?
6. How much of yourself do you allow to be expressed within this relationship?
7. What level of compatibility do you have in common with your significant other?
8. How would you rate the goals and objectives you have in life with those of your mate?
9. How close are your principles and ideals of how a relationship should be with those of your partner?
10. How willing are each of you to communicate openly and honestly about your needs and desires within the relationship?

It should be relatively easy to determine how you rate the quality of relationship you are in by answering these questions. Take the time now to evaluate what kind of relationship you truly desire. Balance that with the answers you gave. What’s there? What’s missing?

No, there’s no “standard” score here to measure your relationship. It is much more powerful for you to evaluate it for yourself and come to your own conclusions.

In the SoulPoint for Couples Series, a uniquely dynamic process is employed. Couples gain a deeper understanding of the causative factors that are being played out in their relationship. Many times they feel a deeper bond with one another and a greater sense of compassion, as they heal old patterns and reclaim the joy and innocence that originally brought them together. Sometimes, however, they learn to move beyond the relationship, gaining the insight to create a new path.

I am an adult female, by birthday definition. I’ve lived with my mother my entire life; other than a brief (failed) marriage. Despite the fact that we have lived in the same house, my mother has never really been here. She “left” about 20 years ago when my Dad left. It all ended. She lost herself in work, and I lost myself..

She stopped cooking home-cooked meals. She never asked about me before then, so that didn’t change. She never took interest in my school; unless I was failing. She told me that my Fathers side of the family wanted nothing to do with us. She’d come home after work in attack mode, asking me what I was doing. And looking around the house like the house was covered in slime and garbage. It wasn’t. She made comments about missing food in the refrigerator and inspect the garbage to see what I was up to. She became very irritated with me if I was watching tv.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that I need to do something to make mom happy. So I did everything. Did it work? no. Did I keep trying? Yes.

Fast forward 20 years later, I stopped cooking and cleaning. There are no verbal attacks anymore. What the house is filled with is a big pink elephant and any denial on her part of any wrongdoing. I’ve been in recovery 4 years now, and I’ve broke myself to make amends. It didn’t seem to get anywhere, but god knows I keep trying.

She gives me praise when I cook a meal. She thanks me for cleaning. She will tell me I look pretty if she likes my hair or what I’m wearing, and loves making comments about when/if I’ve lost weight.

What she doesn’t do, that I suspect *most* mothers do, is tell me she loves me. She never says sorry for the way life has turned out. She never says why don’t you go out and take care of you. If she asks me what’s wrong I know better than to tell her, because she will just dismiss what I’m saying, tell me what to do and gives me about 2 seconds of praise. Her praise is like salt water in the desert. It tastes SO good at first, but then it just keeps me thirsty.

I have been addicted to her praise. It *sounds* so authentic, so sincere. I know in my heart its not truly praise for who I am, only what I’ve done.

I don’t know what to do in my life. I haven’t worked in over a year and I’m afraid to. I am indepedent in nearly all ways, except two. Financial and emotional. I depend on her for both, and it makes me feel blackmailed, especially emotionally blackmailed. I have a book called “the emotionally abusive relationship”. I know its the very basis of our relationship. It’s not really mother daughter, it’s something more along the lines of “older person being frenemy to younger person”.

She’ll say and do anything to “cheer me up”.
Except I’m sorry.
Except I love you.
And the sickness in me–is I keep expecting her to.

I am emotionally dependent on a sick person. I don’t acknoweledge my pain, my suffering, my grief of my life because it will “hurt her feelings”. Especially with her side of the family. She’s the hero, I’m the “loser”.

I know in my head that there’s nothing I can do to “fix” things.

I know I need fixing myself, but I don’t know where it is, what it is, or where to start. I have about 5 different huge issues at once. And every day, I keep waiting… waiting… waiting…

What is the point in trying to get along with everyone? I’m such a brown noser! I’m ALWAYS “trying” to be at peace with everyone. Even the #@$# #@$@# who have NO CONSIDERATION for anybody else!! What do I get in return? I get to be made fun of! I get to be UNplayfully teased! I get laughed at! I get mocked! Waste of time! Fuck it!