suicide threats

by

Rough EMDR Session

Trigger Warning: animal neglect, effects of abuse, bpd mother’s suicide ideation and threats

Last Wednesday, in therapy, we did more EMDR work. It was intense and really really hard. I got stuck for a while.

Started out because my dad said stuff to me, asking what I’m going to do about my cats. I explained I’m taking them to a shelter, because I can’t take them with me, and if I let my mom have them she’d eventually dump them in the woods. He made some comment about how he’d do it too, and that’s what happened with the cats we had when I was young before my parents divorced.

He’s ALWAYS saying these awful, cruel things about my cats, because he hates cats. I HATE it.

He then went on about how I didn’t take care of them so we got rid of them. I was like, “I was FIVE YEARS OLD.” And he just rolled his eyes and was like, “So? They were your responsibility.’

It still makes me angry. It’s complete bullshit to expect a 5 year old to be completely and solely responsible for an animal.

While working with EMDR, I quickly saw the connection between being expected to take care of an animal all by myself at 5, and having to take care of my mother. It was like, “I didn’t take care of my cats, and then something bad happened. So if I don’t take care of my mom, something bad WILL happen.”

Fuck it’s so depressing to look back on it now. That I had to fucking have that weight on my shoulders.

I got really really stuck during EMDR, and I was somewhat dissociative. My therapist had to keep reminding me to stay in the present, stay grounded. It felt like a long time where I just couldn’t get past the, “My mom IS going to kill herself. She’s going to do it, something’s going to push her over the edge.”

It was a struggle to call it what it really is. My mom is NOT suicidal, she uses threats of suicide to manipulate and control people around her. She’s never made an actual attempt, she just talks about it until I panic and try to “fix it”.

Something that particularly got through to me, was my therapist was giving me things to focus on in case I got stuck again outside of therapy, and she pointed out that my mom survived before I was born. That kind of hit me like a ton of bricks.

It’s true. It’s completely, and totally true. She survived, she got on with her life, before I was born. She’s not going to shatter if I’m not around to hold the pieces together. I keep reminding myself of that.

God it was so so hard to face that, to pull myself out of the well worn path of thinking. It’s particularly hard because it involves facing and letting go of a role I’ve played so fucking long it’s become my identity. I’ve found myself thinking at times since that session, “Who am I if I’m not my mom’s caretaker and emotional support?”

I’m not sure. I need to figure that out.