YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

The French Canadian biologist sits down with Paul and talks about experiencing covert incest by her mother who she believes also had Borderline Personality Disorder, and her complex relationship with her safer but extremely codependent father. Julie shares about her struggle to share intimacy with her husband and the progress she’s making in releasing some of the trauma thru somatic therapy.

http://mentalpod.com/archives/4071

This episode started fucking me up almost immediately.

When Julie was talking about seeing her mother nude in the bathroom I started feeling sick and angry.

My mother isn't too involved sexually in my life, like Julie's was with her, but she's also childish and tries to live as if we're friends of a similar age.

My brothers and I grew up with her walking around with her tits out. I quickly became desensitized to them so that isn't the thing I felt she did that made me feel gross. But the first time I felt gross was as a kid talking to my grandmother and her telling me that my mother "got her wish." She said that she wanted to marry a man with fat legs (thick thighs) because she wanted children with fat legs. A few years after telling me that my grandmother repeated this story in front of my mother and my mother began laughing and and pinching my thighs (my brothers and i usually just wore underwear or underwear and a Tshirt around the house.) It made me so angry and feel gross.

I feel similarly gross when when my mother tells me how much I look like my father. If we're arguing about something or just I'm upset about something she'll stop short - because she can't take anything seriously, and say "you know you look just like your father right now," and smile like an annoying fucking Cheshire cat.

In another forum I posted a link to a movie called Tickled. It's a documentary that looks into gay-for-pay dudes that get tickled forcibly on camera. A poster there said the idea of being forced to laugh would make her murder someone and listening to this and then listening to this ep made me realize my mother does this. She doesn't physically tickle me, well, yes she does try but what I mean is whenever I'm upset or avoiding talking to her because I know if I say anything it will all be screams and cursing. She ignores whatever I'm feeling or saying or not saying and stays in my face, staring at me, CACKLING or smiling until i uncontrollably smile back. that is how she has won any disagreement we've had since I became a teen. (actually since I became a 20 something because we never talked at all when i was a teen because she was at work 80 hours a week). I hate it. She doesn't know how to approach any adult emotion. My cousin died of a heart attack last year and we went over to be with her brother and sister-in-law. When my uncle suddenly burst out in tears and wails, and my aunt was too drained and preoccupied telling reletives on the phone about the death, my mother went over to "comfort" him. She put her hand on his back and just started fucking laughing and saying "Do I know you? Since when do you cry?"

Fucking fuck

FingerLak3e,

That is one of the saddest most fucked up forms of emotional abuse I have ever heard. That is so sickeningly sadistic. I'm so sorry. What a mind fuck that must be. Your mother is one sick woman.

I would also caution you to not dismiss the effect of her forcing her nudity on all of you. "Getting used to it" can often just be how we shut down to numb ourselves, which then makes it difficult to access the truth of those emotions we buried. To process those feelings we need to feel them. I still struggle to "feel" feelings like most people do. I rarely feel joy or sadness like I think other people do. I get traces of them, but they feel very mild and fleeting. So I mention all of this on the off chance that also what happened to you. BTW when I get triggered by someone who reminds me of my mom I can definitely feel rage and like I'm crawling out of my skin.

Could I add your post to the "possibly read on air" pile? If so, how would you like me to refer to you? If not I totally understand. I think your experience is really important to share because so many people think abuse looks a certain way when in reality it comes in so many flavors.

Hug,

Paul

I have been listening to this podcast for many years and I felt compelled to comment on this episode, it was genuinely disturbing. The guest, Julie L seemed to have no understanding of mental illness at all, it appeared Paul was trying to explain to her the mindset of someone who can endure the pain of setting themselves on fire was not in a good state of mind. The guest was almost shocked to realise that the average person (including me) reaction to this would have been 'poor woman', she almost could not fathom the fact her mother was a mentally ill person who was clearly experiencing a tornado of emotions. The guest kept saying 'well, she should have gone to therapy', based on the guests lack of understanding of mental illness I'm inclined to believe the mother probably didn't either nor understand what was happening. This woman was clearly mentally ill, clearly, I don't know what she had but she was very ill and I don't think this was all a manipulative ploy for attention, the guests view was simplistic, that she endured all these years of pain and burned herself for 'attention' and should have gotten help by herself. Incredible.

Through out this episode I kept thinking 'poor woman', the guest seemed to have no understanding of mental illness, emotional regulation and herself seemed to have a difficulty with emotional empathy, I found it genuinely disturbing as I listened to her mothers story of suicide in horror and Paul was also horrified and I immediately let out 'poor, poor woman' and the guest burst out laughing and said 'really ?, no I don't feel sorry for her'. At every angle of Paul attempting to explain different parts of mental illness to her, she's simply shrug, laugh and say she had no empathy and 'well she should have gotten help....' she mentions no tale or anyone attempting to help the mother rather 'oh well, she should have gone to therapy'. Paul attempted to make her understand that the mind of the mentally ill is warped, a mentally ill person does not 'think' like a normal person, this woman seemed like she had a war zone going on inside her and did not know where to escape to.

As a person with an abusive parent I can understand the resentment which can build but the guest had no awareness of mental illness and reminded me of the people who feel people commit suicide for attention, she could not see her mother as a human being with mental illness, as her mother objectified her she did the same, neither had empathy of the other, her mother set herself on fire 'oh well she should have gone to therapy, eugh, she burned herself with my nightgown'. The mother had abandonment issues and outsourced her needs to her daughter the mother saw the daughter as an object.

I left the episode having more sympathy for the mother than the guest, and that is an extraordinary reaction as someone who has a emotionally incest, BPD mother also. This was the first time I left with more sympathy for the mother, I found the guest disturbing.

As a BPD mother of two young kids, this episode made me sob my heart out. Wasn't expecting it, and I found myself feeling so much compassion for Julia's mother. I could hardly bear to listen when she told of her mother taking her own life and seeming to find it amusing. I want to thank Paul for standing up for people with BPD. His comments meant everything to me.

Paul thanks, that means a lot.
I have only really felt a comparable rage with this acquaintance (a woman living with friends of mine) gets touchy with me. I don't like clingy women in general but this one actively has a crush on me and so everything she does to express that - after I have told her I'm not interested and she also knows I'm gay - makes me so pissed.
When we're all hanging out for a day, she'll pepper me with inane comments while standing all up in my personal space "wacha thinking about? Wacha doin? How's that work? What's this?"
She's also come out of the shower nude, with no towel knowing I was in the apartment, trying to hold a conversation with me with all her bits out for the world to see.
While these actions are similar to what my mother has done I never really thought "this is just like what my mother does." I've just thought all these things are gross and annoying and why would you do that to anyone?

You can totally add my posts to the Maybe Read pile.

Sometimes when I'm listening to this podcast, I'm like: what? that counts as sexual abuse? Parents not closing the bathroom door when they're peeing? Parents walking around semi-nude? Seeing your parents naked? I guess if you've told them to stop it, and they persist...

Some previous commenter labelled their mother walking around bare-chested as sexual abuse and I can't help but sense a waft of misogyny and an inability to decouple nudity from sexuality. Breasts are not inherently sexual, folx. Everyone has breasts. People who follow the nudity=sexuality line of thinking are legitimizing rape apologists (eg: "she was asking for it / she was looking, acting slutty") and body shamers. This nudity = sexuality perspective is also cultural; North Americans have a really gross and immature attitude towards nudity. So much so that even though it is legal ( at least in Canada since '93) for women to be topless in the same environments as men (parks, pools, front yards, on the street), most don't for fear of non-consensual photography and sexual assault.

This episode through me for a loop. I certainly have empathy, sympathy & compassion for Julie for all she had to deal with & I could hear how sick her parents were & I felt sad for them, mostly because they seemed to be ok with who they are & what they were doing.
But, towards the end of the interview Paul & Julie were saying that a parent must be a horrible person for their child to cut them off. I took this personally...I have two sons, when they were 10 & 12 my ex-husband turned them against me. I was (& still am) the 'stable' parent, I had rules & expectations, clear boundaries, all the things a good parent should encompass I strived for. My ex on the other hand was the 'party parent'. He didn't have bed time or make the boys brush their teeth, he was their buddy, not their parent (that has not changed). He said out loud in front of the boys, myself & a school counselor once "I will never make these boys do anything they don't want to do." & he stuck to that. He didn't make them go to school or to the dentist for teeth cleanings or even show up at practice or games when the boys played sports. He taught them how to be the victim & blame anyone else for their problems. The codependency runs deep!
My ex & I at that time had a 50/50 custody split, so it didn't take long for the boys to want to stay with him. It culminated one Friday night when the boys were at my house. I had picked them up on Monday from their dads house (they hadn't gone to school again while they were with him) & I told them no videos or games until they caught up on school work. All week they didn't do it, so on Friday I went into my room to watch a video while I worked on my paperwork. My oldest son came in & started screaming at my how unfair it was that I got to watch a video & he didn't. I explained again that he needed to catch up on his school work & then he could. He called his dad to tell him how mean I was...then my youngest son decided to join in & they both began telling me what a horrible mom I was, what a bitch, a stupid whore, I was shocked & hurt beyond words. Then my youngest pulled a knife out & threatened his brother then me. I should have called the cops, but instead I told my ex to come & get one of the boys because i felt they needed to be separated. Both boys went & packed their bags & left with their dad. & that was the last time they were at my house.
Now, 10 years later my youngest son & i have been in the process of repairing our relationship & figuring out how to be mom/son to each other. It hasn't been easy, but we are trying. My older son & his girlfriend tried for a hot minute to have a relationship with me, but they blame me for all their problems & have cut me out of their life. It hurts because they have 2 babies that I am not allowed to see. It hurts because I know that my ex is still enabling them (they all live together) & speaking ill of me to them, he encourages them to keep me away, I think my stability scares them. I also know that my sons truth & mine are different. I would love to talk to him about his side, his perspective of why things went the way they did, but he is so absorbed in being a victim that I don't think he can even try to look outside of himself. I don't know...
But I do know that sometimes a good parent gets the shit deal because the other parent turns the kids against them. My heart hurts everyday because I don't have a relationship with my oldest child & his family, but I can only control me, so I am focusing on being the best me I can & when I think of them I send them love, empathy, the ability to cope, & the hope that one day something will strike them & they will see that I am a good person who desires to be a part of their lives.
Wow, feels good to get that out!

I really benefitted from this episode. I'm fairly new to MIHH, so perhaps there are more interviews in store with people whose histories resemble mine, but this is the first time I've heard someone describe a quality of "Mom-yuck" that is so like mine. The details are different, but the heart-shriveling sense of revulsion Julie describes feels familiar. It is so relieving, like my lungs have more room to move.

I regret that some other listeners posting here had such a different response. I have no children, and it's not easy for me to imagine the parent's point of view. I have no doubt that perpetrators are usually, if not always, manifesting their own unhealed wounds, and great compassion is called for, but I don't expect any victim/survivor to find that compassion for his/her/their perpetrator. If a person can get that far in healing, terrific, but it's a lot to expect, and I see no justification for anyone requiring it of another. I don't see it as the responsibility of any victim to take any particular attitude toward the abuser, and certainly not to ease the feelings of observers.

Still, I understand that there are all sorts of feelings provoked by stories of abuse, and all those feelings are valid. I guess it's a testament to the power of Julie's story that it stimulates such strong feelings, and of such different sorts.

Paul, if you stumble upon this, I sent you an email asking to be put in touch with Julie, if she's willing, but it may have gone into your spam folder. I use a service called ProtonMail, because it's very encrypted, but it works by sending an email asking the recipient to click on a link in order to read the message, which is stored on a server, to avoid surveillance by ISPs. Smart people tend not to click on links from strangers, so it's an imperfect system. Anyway, in case that email didn't reach you, I'll ask here. Would you please, if you get a chance, ask Julie if she's up for trying correspondence with me? I can resend the email, in which I gave reassuring introductory details about myself, if that would help.

Thanks, Paul and Julie.