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Barb had been trying for years to improve her relationship with her mother, Sandra. Barb tried everything. She would go over there for a quiet dinner with Sandra and then find herself being criticized for neglecting her husband and son. Barb tried staying away. She caught hell for that too. Her mom would lash out: \u201cYou don\u2019t care about me. You don\u2019t care about anyone but yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n In one session, Barb began: \u201cSo mom asks me to come over Friday night. I hate to say `No,\u2019 but I can\u2019t take it any more.\u201d Mother and daughter image<\/a> available from Shutterstock.<\/small><\/p>\n Visit Original Source<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Barb had been trying for years to improve her relationship with her mother, Sandra. Barb tried everything. She would go over there for a quiet dinner with Sandra and then find herself being criticized for neglecting her husband and son. Barb tried staying away. She caught hell for that too. <\/p>\n Read More<\/a>
\nTherapist: \u201cWhat is the worst part?\u201d
\nBarb: \u201cI hate feeling guilty.\u201d
\nTherapist: \u201cOf what crime are you guilty?\u201d
\nBarb: \u201cOf selfishness.\u201d
\nTherapist: \u201cIs it selfish because you want to spare yourself four hours of name-calling?\u201d
\nBarb: \u201cI feel that I should go there and work on our relationship.\u201d
\nTherapist: \u201cYou are `shoulding\u2019 on yourself. We should on ourselves, we should on others and end up feeling like a pile of should! Did you go to school to learn how to work on relationships?\u201d
\nBarb: \u201cOf course not!\u201d
\nTherapist: \u201cThen what you are talking about is not selfish, but self preservation. Selfish begins and end with you. You take care of yourself and let everyone else be damned. Self-preservation means I take care of me so I can be there for everyone else. To be a good mom, wife, daughter, friend, employee; I have to care for my own needs first. Self preservation is like when your on an airplane and they go over the safety instructions. Put on your air mask first so you can the help those around you.\u201d
\nBarb: \u201cI never thought of it that way.\u201d
\nTherapist: \u201cYou are feeling guilty of the crime of irresponsibility \u2013 you\u2019re the caregiver \u2013 you are guilty because you assume you should work on the relationship.\u201d
\nBarb: \u201cWell, shouldn\u2019t I if that\u2019s what I want?\u201d
\nTherapist: \u201cWhy you? Why not your mother?\u201d
\nBarb: \u201cShe\u2019s busy and has health issues, she won\u2019t change, but I love her.\u201d
\nTherapist: \u201cShe is an adult and plays an equal part in this relationship. She is using your `criminal guilt\u2019 against you. As long as you and she both agree that you are guilty, she will punish you for your crimes and you will let her.\u201d
\nBarb: \u201cWhy do I keep letting her?\u201d
\nTherapist: \u201cBecause you are taking more responsibility for making this relationship work then she is. You cannot let her take ownership over the consequences of her own choices. If you did perhaps you\u2019d find out that your mother didn\u2019t care enough to make any effort. That would be terribly painful. So rather then face that potential, you hope that if only you try harder she will see your effort, appreciate it and change. But when she doesn\u2019t, you are left feeling guilty for failing, for not doing \u2018enough\u2019.\u201d
\nBarb: \u201cWhy doesn\u2019t she appreciate all I do?\u201d
\nTherapist: \u201cBecause she has contempt for herself and for the person she bore. As a `good daughter,\u2019 you stand there and let her, for fear of hurting her feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/span><\/div>
Shared by Aaron Karmin, LCPC, Contributing Blogger<\/a> August 5, 2020<\/p>\n<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1109,"featured_media":8489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5630],"tags":[4140,10105],"class_list":["post-8488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clinicians-blog","tag-anger-management","tag-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/goodyear-village-az-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/goodyear-village-az-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/goodyear-village-az-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/goodyear-village-az-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/goodyear-village-az-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/goodyear-village-az-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/goodyear-village-az-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/goodyear-village-az-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/goodyear-village-az-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/goodyear-village-az-cdp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}