A Mother's Love.

Photo by: Tim Bindner Photography

 

I met for the second time with my new Psychologist and she is helping guide me to discover the root of my anxiety.  I think deep down inside I kinda knew the source but needed validation.  How ironic.

During my last visit I was challenged to set aside 10 minutes a day to worry, and I can say I have been doing this.  It is not easy.  Well, the 10 minutes of worrying is easy, it is the other 1430 minutes of not worrying that it is difficult.  This visit I was given the task of making ‘simple’ decisions and living with the decision.  Simple for most, not for me.

Our discussion and Dr. Erin’s observation was that most of my issues with indecisiveness and uncertainty come directly from the interactions I had with my mother growing up, and ever continues to this day.  My mom loves me and did her best to raise me to be a good man, but I am learning now that the method (at least my perception of it) was not healthy.  In a nutshell, if I shared a feeling, thought or decision and mom agreed with it, I was praised for that and it was accepted.  When she didn’t agree, there was often criticism of my thinking, feeling or decision.  She would try to convince me why it was wrong, compare it to what others were doing (often bringing up classmates if she could), and in a few cases telling me “well that’s stupid.”  Ever been told your feeling was stupid?  To this day she still does this.  If something I say does not conform to her way of thinking it is wrong and she will continue to try and convince me to change my mind on the topic.  As I wrote earlier I frustrate my wife with my indecisiveness.  My mom is not the person most people think they know her as.  These are my experiences and interpretations of the way I was raised.

A huge part of what I am and have been dealing with in making decisions is the risk of being wrong or criticized for those decisions.  I look for validation and confirmation, most times asking close friends and my wife “is this/that okay?”  Mentally I feel like a dog whose owner walks in the door and may love on me or kick/smack me, and I never knew what reaction I was going to get.  Now, I want to point out there was never any physical abuse with me, but the mental torment was there.  Validation, especially of my thoughts, emotions, and feelings are a huge source of my anxiety.  It is something I have grown up with and now am working through this trauma.

Decisions, even minor ones like where are we going to eat, what color shirt I should buy, or what time I should leave for an appointment need validation for me.  Many of you will think that is petty or immature, but you have not lived my life, nor known what I have experienced.  Put an abused animal or person in a loving environment, and how long will it take them to show trust?  A day, week, month, year, a decade?  In some cases never, but I am trying.  I am finally at a point where I can understand why I am this way and I am working toward being more decisive and feeling comfortable with my decisions.  For now, I am working on small decisions.

I have never had a problem making decisions, it was the confidence in the decision I made.  I am now trying to make the decision and live with it.  If my anxiety goes up, then I write it down and worry about it in my 10-minute window, daily.  I know I have this ability, especially with photography and my choices in music.  I have confidence in what I want to shoot (may not always get the result I want/to expect), but I know what I want to shoot.  The validation of my work is internal only.  That is a topic for another post.

Part of the reason some of my posts are password protected is that I don’t want my mom to read these things for multiple reasons.  First, as mentioned she would argue that she never did anything I mentioned above and that my feelings/interpretation of her guidance was wrong.  Next, I don’t want to hurt her feelings, and this certainly would.  Finally, she would not let this go.  Every conversation would be an interrogation that I do not want to have.  I learned years ago (teenage years), to keep my feelings, thoughts, and emotions in check when I was around her, talking to her or talking to people that might ‘spill the beans’ to her.

I am glad I am facing my issues, working through them, and most importantly have the support of my wife, a few close friends, and my Psychologist.  I have been sleeping better the past 10 days or so.  I am NOT taking any medication for anxiety, and after decades feeling a bit of peace within my soul.  I am still a long, long, long way from inner peace, but I feel confident that I am moving in the right direction.   This introspective look into my biggest anxieties is something I need so badly.  Every day is new to me, and for the first time in a long time, I have new energy and drive.

I’ll end with a quote from Bruce Lee “I am learning to understand rather than immediately judge or to be judged. I cannot blindly follow the crowd and accept their approach. I will not allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation. Fortunately for me, my self-knowledge has transcended that and I have come to understand that life is best to be lived and not to be conceptualized. I am happy because I am growing daily and I am honestly not knowing where the limit lies. To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery. I treasure the memory of the past misfortunes. It has added more to my bank of fortitude.”

Until next time,

Tim