Home for the holidays
I had a breakthrough with my therapist today. It inspired me to share this insight instead in hopes that someone may resonate.
Because I have a difficult relationship with my family, particularly my mother, my therapist wanted to meet prior to me leaving home for the holiday weekend to discuss how I was feeling.
In order to understand me on a deeper level, my therapist and I talk about my childhood and teenage years a lot.
If you didn’t know already, the first seven years of our lives are instrumental to our emotional development. Our relationship with our caregivers write the blueprint for our attachment style in relationships that carry on into adulthood.
Today, after sharing another painful story about my childhood, my therapist also had an insight. She noticed a pattern. Many of the stories I told about my mother were consistent with traits of someone who has borderline personality disorder.
She went on to say that in order to unravel the stories and projections I have grown up on, I had to begin to see that her behavior is a result of her conditioning, mental illness, and upbringing.
It had and has nothing to do with me.
So, what do I want to share with you based on this insight?
At the very least, it's that most people’s behavior towards you almost always has nothing to do with you and everything to do with what they're feeling inside.
Does it make their treatment towards you justified? No.
But knowing this fact can allow you to have some compassion for the other person. You can have compassion knowing that they’re a flawed human being just like you. They’re doing their best with the cards they were dealt. Deep down inside there is a hurting child trying to recreate scenarios from their childhood to gain the love they never received.
With compassion for the other person and the human condition, we can shift our perspective, open our hearts, and create healthy boundaries.
If you find comfort in returning home, consider yourself lucky. And I hope you have an amazing holiday if you celebrate it.
If returning home is difficult for you, like it is for me, know you are not alone. Be gentle with yourself. Treat yourself like you would a friend and create a safe distance between you and the other person’s behavior by practicing compassion.
I hope my vulnerability can soften some hearts toward difficult relationships this week. I know sharing this story has softened me.
