I was thinking about this the other day – the legacy that we are left with how we have been brought up within a family structure and how it can affect us. 

The other day I went to coffee with some friends and I was once again feeling that one person in the group was feeling some kind of sadness or other – she was unusually quiet. I don't really know her enough to ask if she's okay and would not do that within a group setting. The next time, as I sat near to opposite to her, it seemed more ominous, as if it was indirectly directed at me, by my presence. So what is the point of this? I am so used to picking up on others that it is exhausting. The old me comes out, have I done something wrong? What is it that I have done? How can I make amends? The new me says how do you know what she is feeling, it might not be you? How can it be you? You don't see her very often. I still imagine scenarios.

I came to the conclusion that not only I am hyper-sensitive but that it is a legacy that I have been left by my mother. I would always be second guessing what kind of mood she was in after I got home from school as a teenager. A different mother would sometimes greet me, who was rambling, off-kilter, just not the mum that I left that morning. And it was ignored! Like just something I would have to put up with. Some weird stuff directed a lot of the time at me, or so it felt like with ZERO explanations. Conversations being listened to as I was on the phone to friends, with cackling and breathing and then the phone put down. Did I imagine it? My boundaries were not respected, hammering on the door to be let in the bathroom with “I've seen it all before”. 

I developed body dysmorphia, was told I was anorexic looking. Why do you go out looking like that, I wouldn't go out with her looking like that – she would say in front of my friends. Screaming at me in shops if I was 5 minutes late. Shopping for clothes, I'd like something, she'd say let's have a look and see what else is there, I'd ask eventually can we go back and get xyz... to be told “if you'd liked it in the first place, you would have got it”.... huh????

Therefore, logically, is it any wonder that my legacy is people pleasing (or it used to be for years), constant assumption, masking feelings, hyper-alert to any kind of trouble brewing (even if it might not be me that is the problem, I always assume it is) and how must I fix it, can I fix it? It has caused me anxiousness and is very tiring mentally. It's also the legacy of living with an alcoholic mother with low self esteem, passed down to me.

Finally, I daren't ask the person is she okay because we don't have that kind of relationship but there was just stirrings that something wasn't right and it's to do with me. But again, I am assuming... I could be right and I could be wrong.

Liz

A Moodscope member