Yesterday I talked to my friend Elizabeth. \u00a0I wrote down some of the things she said.<\/p>\n
Today I woke up feeling the usual misery.\u00a0 I tried to bring compassion to it.\u00a0 Then I thought, as Elizabeth said, that I was hardening my heart against myself.\u00a0 Then I felt an awful pain in my heart, that convinced me that Elizabeth was right.\u00a0 I\u2019m angry at myself for messing up whatever it was that was bringing me the days of grace<\/a>.<\/p>\n Take a big step back.\u00a0 Here\u2019s this woman, who\u2019s struggled with depression and terror and self-hatred for her whole life.\u00a0 She\u2019s had very little real happiness.\u00a0 Recently she had the experience of being comfortable in her life and in her body, that she was doing just what she was supposed to be doing.\u00a0 She felt better than she\u2019s ever felt before.\u00a0 It lasted for a few days, then faded and returned for almost a month, then disappeared.\u00a0 This woman felt very disappointed and sad at the loss of the \u201cdays of grace.\u201d\u00a0 Now she\u2019s very angry at herself for wrecking this good thing.\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t know how to make it happen, she doesn\u2019t know why it went away, but she\u2019s blaming herself for doing something wrong.\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t know how to turn it around, and she\u2019s angry at herself for that.\u00a0 Elizabeth saw a dynamic of a mother hating a helpless frightened baby, which sounds very accurate. \u00a0I think “inner cold mother” and feel my heart soften. \u00a0O the poor thing! \u00a0How\u00a0painful to be hating your baby. \u00a0And she probably feels justified and she probably also hates herself for not being a good mother. \u00a0Her husband is away and she has no one to turn to. \u00a0My heart just goes out to her. \u00a0There’s the compassion I\u2019ve been trying to find. \u00a0There, there, dear.\u00a0 you did not mean to scare the baby.\u00a0 Nobody ever taught you how to be a good mother.\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry you\u2019ve been in so much pain.<\/p>\n As I paid attention to this mother, I could feel her hating her baby, hating herself for being a bad mother, hating her baby because the baby wouldn’t be comforted and that made her feel like a bad mother…. \u00a0and having no resources at all to deal with it. \u00a0So there’s no way she could be conscious of any of it. \u00a0What an intolerable bind. \u00a0No wonder she drank.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday I talked to my friend Elizabeth. \u00a0I wrote down some of the things she said. Today I woke up feeling the usual misery.\u00a0 I tried to bring compassion to it.\u00a0 Then I thought, as Elizabeth said, that I was … Continue reading