Parents undermine therapy

Hi

Is it common for family, more so parents to undermine any progress you have with a therapist?

Reason for asking is, for 25 years I was in the mental health system and diagnosed with schizophrenia. So yes, in all that time, it was suggested that I take the medication. Initially, I kept telling them that I’m not schizophrenic, but of course the more you dispute it, the more schizophrenic they think you are. So I found it best to say nothing at all in the end. All this time, my mum accepted the diagnosis, and kept encouraging me to take the medication.

Not getting anywhere in the system, I decided to go private and see a therapist. Over the last five years I’ve been diagnosed with DID. I accepted that more easily, even though I didn’t remember anything traumatic or abusive. Over the years with the therapist it’s become pretty evident that my mum was and still is abusive. I just didn’t see it for what it was. Blind to it, or denial, I don’t know. I suspect more denial than anything else.

Anyway. Mum isn’t so accepting of DID. Has even gone as far as suggesting that I’m being brainwashed by my therapists. Has even tried to discredit them by saying that they’re not being very professional. I have no problem with my therapists. If I had, I wouldn’t see them. I’ve got further with them in five years than I ever did in the mental health system. I’ve overheard mum talking to friends on the phone talking about me. She doesn’t have a good word to say about the therapist at all, and thinks their diagnosis of DID is nonsense.

With mum’s thoughts on the therapists, but not having a problem with the mental health system, it just feels so undermining.

Is this a common problem?

Inconsistent caregiving, neglect, and/or abuse by the primary caregiver(s) are the main cause of DID, so it's not surprising that your mother isn't keen on you having difficulties that she probably feels (and should be held at least partly) responsible for creating.

Schizophrenia has biological components--she can get sympathy from her friends for having a child with an illness she had nothing to do with.

It's common for people to not realize that they were abused--the way a child is treated is "normal" for that child--they don't know anything else, and they're usually taught to ignore their own emotional needs in favor of the needs of the adults around them. They're usually told outright (or come to believe on their own) that they're something wrong with them, rather than with the fact that they're not receiving the real emotional support and care that they deserve to be raised with.

So, the short answer is yes, it's common for parents and other family members to undermine our progress, just like they've been undermining our trust in our own instincts and feelings for our whole life so far.

I'm glad that you have good therapists and that you're starting to sort all this out.

Thanks for the reply. I think your first paragraph pretty much hit the nail on the head. I know initially when I told her of the DID diagnosis, she had never heard of it, so of course googled it. Since that evening about five years ago, she hasn’t spoken of it since with me, only what I’ve heard her say to her friends on the phone. Little I heard has been all very dismissive. Upsetting when I hear her tell her friends about the car accident. Mum won’t have it any other way that I fell asleep at the wheel. But then I can’t tell her that only two days before while in the car with her I was having intrusive thoughts, voices, whatever it was, about driving the car of the road and ending it all. Two days later, it happened. No memory of the accident. I just remember being aware that the road was higher than the car. We were in a ditch. So with mum thinking that I fell asleep, she’s now telling me that I have to start driving again. I don’t want to get into a car with mum and me driving ever again. But I don’t want to have to tell her about wanting to drive the car off the road two days before, just to give myself a valid reason for not driving.

Waking up to what I though of as normal as being abuse has been hard, and is making my relationship with mum very difficult. Not that I want to, but I can’t tell her how therapy is going, concerning her. Just don’t think she would accept it. Going by previous things, and even minor things really, it's denial all the way, or, that I imagined it all. Just as well I’m not looking for an apology, cos it’s unlikely to happen.

I can see the abuse and manipulation now. It sticks out like a sore thumb. One of the worst being is when I’m asked to do something for her. Then I get the whole lecture, ''All the things I do for you''. Then I’m reminded that she takes me to get the bus to go to therapy. So yes, I think she’s completely blind or in denial, that she’s why I go to therapy. Having to pay for it myself grates a bit too. But like I said, I wasn’t getting anywhere in the mental health system.

-- Your story reminds me sooo much of mine...

-- Mother was abusive too me/us too. Tried to force me/us into therapy as a kid trying to get a diagnosis of "this child needs heavy meds that will make them obedient". Did not work. Other abusive people kept telling me/us that the therapist who pointed their abusive actions to me/us, were "brainwashing" me/us and that they needed to talk to the therapist. They wanted the therapist to make me/us more submissive to abuse.

-- I/we never told the family that we are DID. Telling them that would be like another layer of showing them how they forked us up and abused us - and giving them another metaphorical stick to beat us with, because then, they can accuse us of acting out a fake DID to the therapist to make the parents look bad. The parents and all past abusers, keep saying that they did everything for me/us and that we/us are just thankless and that me/us are abusive.

-- So we stopped talking to the blood family, as much as possible. We still exchange a text message a month, something like that, because they send us money. And they send money because they are legally forced too, since they send some to their other child (yes they told us they were sending money to us, only because of legal obligations...).

-- So, yes, I/we relate a lot to what you are going through. And from our experience, the only solution is burning the bridges as soon as possible.

-- Lots of moral support.

__
Zami, with Urielle close.

I can relate as well.

My mom can't undermine our T, we're psych student and pretty picky, so if we say our T is good for us, she's good for us, there's no room for doubting that.

But she tries to undermine the idea of being in therapy, because now we dissociate less, our autism come into light more + we have a bit more flashbacks and panic attack as we're working on traumatic materials. My mom has already said she thinks we're regressing by having different needs than before, we were able to do more in the past, or asks if lower the dissociation is really a good idea, if I really should continue to work on our traumas, etc.

She keeps doing that from time to time, even when I told her the suffering from too many stimuli, the low energy, etc have always been there, it was just hidden by the dissociation, kept away in few alters, so the ANP (me, Daem, Erdian and Kal) could only show the "good sides" of autism and DID.

Before, we were so dissociated we would say "yes" to whatever you asked, not matter if we were tired, or already overloaded by stimuli and close to a meltdown, because we couldn't felt it, or because we switched so the alter who was having a meltdown wasn't fronting. Now we do feel it, and now, we're able to say "no", to keep that boundary and rest when the body and/or other alters need to. Of course, it changes a lot of things in our functioning and in the family's dynamic. But eh, we feel waaaay better than before, and we have more and more "well" moments as we're learning to listen to ourselves and our needs.

But she already feels guilty she didn't see how damaging my father's behavior was, how damaging her own behavior has been, the fact she didn't see her daughter was autistic is too much for her - specially since we discover my brother might be autistic too, and it might come from our grandfather, her own father. Even if she tries to be comprehensive and all, she still tries to convince me it's not that, and to push me (and my brother) to be normal. She stopped a bit those past weeks, after a really hard argument, but I know it will come back.

Hi Angel,

Just wanted to say we're sorry you got a messed up diagnosis and people didn't believe you. It happens a lot and makes us pretty angry.

Your mom's messing with you to make it work out for her. That's not right. You don't have to believe her or pretend. It's your brain! She needs to grow up and admit she's wrong (which she probably won't do).

Iain