Relationship with parents worse since therapy - how to move on / repair

[MunsteadWood]

I’m in my mid 40s, eldest of four siblings. Both parents (early 70s) still alive although feeling increasingly old and frail, I’d say until recently we had a really good relationship and enjoyed spending time together. I had a happy childhood and as far as I can remember my parents were loving and supportive, although I remember struggling with low self esteem and anxiety in my teens which to an extent has continued to present day (although age has helped this and I give fewer shits now!)

I had a health scare a few years ago, and I was fortunate to be referred for some NHS psychotherapy to help me during the difficult time, as I found the experience really stressful and overwhelming.

The therapy (I had six sessions) was really helpful and I spent quite a bit of time digging into my past to examine the root causes of my anxiety, which I found really made me better able to cope with the health stresses I was experiencing as it made me realise my anxiety was disproportionate to the experience, and I am likely better able to cope than I give myself credit for.

But the side effect is it’s really changed how I view my parents. Basically the therapy threw up the idea that a sizeable part of my anxiety come from overprotective or anxious behaviour by my parents, which still continues to this day (for some reason more intensively focused on me than my siblings, or at least that’s my perception). I suspect I have internalised my parents’ worry about me as a feeling that I generally cannot cope with life’s stresses. (It was me who reached this conclusion, not suggested by therapist).

I now find it really difficult to communicate with / be around my parents as when they worry aloud about my life (or that of my siblings) it feels quite triggering and I find it hard not to get cross or upset. There’ve also been a few instances recently of my (normally very mild mannered) parents losing their cool and shouting at my two primary age DC, which I think is because they get angry on my behalf about my children making my life “difficult” (which they don’t, they’re just being children, and I chose to have them!).

My parents have both had their own traumas in life, and I know have approached parenting with love and a desire to do their best. I am sure my parenting isn’t perfect either (who’s is?) so am trying to be pragmatic and kind but it all feels quite raw.

My parents generally have a very repressed approach to mental health (I suspect one of them has mental health issues themselves but they’ve spent many years denying it) and I don’t feel I could ever tell them any of this, so as a result I’m now just screening maybe 2/3 of their calls, have stopped suggesting we meet up until it’s been so long I feel I just have to etc, which I appreciate must be hugely confusing and hurtful as they have no idea what’s caused it.

Probably the answer is more therapy, but I’m not sure how feasible that is as I could only get it by going private. Is there anything else I can do to keep the relationship warm and friendly but also maintain a bit more boundaries? I’m feeling horribly guilty but somehow still don’t want to pick up the phone when it rings.

So therapy has made you view your parents interactions with your children in a different light but you don't want to say anything directly to them about their behaviour so are trying to ignore them?
Do you feel that you need more therapy to look at why you can't talk to them about it?

This is quite new information that you have discovered about yourself and it will take time for it to settle.
Are you feeling anger towards your parents, and if so how are you processing this?
It will be really difficult for you to deal with this situation in a logical way if you are upset. Do you have a partner who could step in and take over this while you are coming to terms with things? Is it possible to separate your parents current behaviour from the past and find a way to communicate that you are not happy with it without having to tackle the past? What is it that you want them to stop doing?

I guess it's normal that the first born gets the brunt of parents anxiety unfortunately for you, I think most are more relaxed with later born DC. If your parents reacted to the world like it was unsafe then you would have picked up these messages and internalised them. Is it difficult now to accept the damage your parents have done to you?

Sorry, more questions than answers there
.

I think going LC while you regroup is a good thing in the short term. We're all impacted by our childhood experiences. Whether that's from parents, family in general, school, and generally developing survival skills through it all whatever that looks like. And as a child you developed those survival skills as best as you could given the age you were. Now as you get older and with the benefit of therapy you're seeing behavioural habits that are ingrained and will take a while to undo either through therapy or self reflection. Triggers are a good thing, because it gives us an opportunity to look at the trigger, the behaviour, reflect and then let it go. It is cleansing.
Mindful meditations can help. Meditation classes that allow you to see the thoughts surrounding those triggers. It's not easy OP and can be painful.
You are at the start of a journey that will eventually clean you of all conditioning.
Om shanti

Thanks for your replies. @AlwaysBeenYou I actually don’t feel angry towards my parents as I feel now I know my anxiety is disproportionate it’s helped me hugely to distance myself from it, if that makes sense. Like I can look at how I feel about a situation that I used to find really difficult and tell myself “although you’re feeling anxious about this, that’s just because you’ve learnt to feel that way, not because there’s actually something to be anxious about” - which sounds weird but has actually been really freeing! And I can’t feel angry because I know how they behaved came from / comes from a place of love, rather than wanting to be damaging. But suppose I feel irritated, because I feel I’m making progress on the journey, and every time they express worry or doubt about something I’m excited about (new job, for example) I feel like it gives me extra work to do to ignore their worries and keep powering on, if that makes sense. But I recognise it would probably be upsetting to them to hear this (not least because I’d had to admit to them about feeling anxiety, which ridiculously I’d never want to do - my brother did a few years back and they still worry enormously about him). So my knee jerk reaction is just to avoid them, so I avoid this situation coming up - and also because I feel to avoid triggering any worry in them I need to be just relentlessly positive in everything I tell them, which means I don’t really feel I can have an authentic relationship.

The issue with how they’ve (on occasion) treated my children is separate but linked. My hunch is it comes from the same place - overprotectiveness and worry - they want me to have an easy life and when they see my children “misbehaving” they feel cross with them on my behalf. But that makes me feel more distant from them - firstly I don’t want my children being shouted at, and secondly because obviously I love them I instinctively feel protective (of them against my parents), which makes me want to see them less.

i guess I recognise that none of this is their fault, and that my choices are likely a) to talk to them about it (which I’m not going to do), b) massively cut down contact with them but not explain why (which just feels cruel), or find a way to move past it so we can rebuild our relationship, even if I have to accept it’ll never be quite the same as it was before.

@Mysticguru you mentioned a journey of cleansing, which feels appealing! Do you have any idea of the steps I could take that could help? I’d love to move past this but am finding it increasingly difficult.

I would highly recommend more therapy. Those six sessions seem to have just slightly lifted the lid of a box that has been very tightly closed for a long time, maybe forever. You have a lot more processing to do around your parents anxiety and the impact that has had on you. It's painful work, I've done lots of it myself, but it's necessary to understand yourself better

Thank you @Lottapianos and sorry to hear you’ve also gone on this journey. I’m sure you’re right, I’m just not sure how to make it happen! But will explore options. I’d been hoping it would go away with time but if anything it seems to be getting worse, so something needs to change. Wishing you well too.

Nothing your parents have done has been malicious, abusive or neglectful. They are products of their own generation and the ones before that shaped them.

You maybe need more therapy to allow you to move on from your current feelings of teenage irritability to understanding and empathy.

Rather than have more damaging therapy, couldn’t you just explain to your parents that you get anxious when they worry about you, and that your anxiety is disproportionate to the situation. That you’re trying to resolve this but need them on board to make a real effort not to worry about you.

I fear otherwise that the therapist will put false thoughts into your head and you will lose the loving relationship you have with them.

They worried about you when you were young! As do many parents. Please don’t punish them for this foible

Firstly, short-term therapy is a tricky beast. Enough time to start opening up questions and not enough time to fully address them. Basically, your first session is getting a picture of the situation and your last session is wrapping up and saying goodbye. So, you have four sessions to unpack something delicate and complex. No disrespect to the therapist in noting that it can be really hard to keep the work focussed in ‘right here, right now’ issues as you do need context for where you first learned to be anxious, but I can hear you’ve been left dangling. And, I’m noticing the reaction to the therapy is mirroring the dilemma you face: open up about worry and your parents amplify it. Shut down and nothing’s addressed. The therapy opened you up and shut you down. This is a very usual thing to happen in therapy ie that you find a situation from life emerging or being identified there. So: I agree with pp that if you can continue some therapy, that would be ideal so that you can break the pattern of finding that acknowledging something is followed by needing to shut it down. Your parents sound as if they have a pattern of slamming the lid on anything unsettling by reacting with distress and, as you say, that will be rooted in their own pasts. You’ll have unconsciously learned their pattern and that you must contain feelings of anxiety. I had a parent who reacted with anxiety to the point where I often felt my problem had disappeared in that it was overshadowed by theirs. I became someone who eventually learned not to tell my parent much about my life - which is not only sad but I did (and sometimes do) the same thing elsewhere. So, please try and find a good therapist to continue the work.

Thank you. I have also wondered this - as @Lottapianos said just lifting the lid on issues but without fully exploring, possibly that has led me to unfairly pin my problems on my parents (which feels a rather cliched outcome of therapy!!) Part of me wishes I could just shut the lid again to be honest and go back to how our relationship was before.

It’s interesting you teenage irritability @Eyesopenwideawake as that is how I feel - like I’m going through some kind of weird teenage rebellion against my parents, but a few decades late! A bit silly really. But I’m struggling to move past it, which is why i started this thread.

I don’t think it’s a case of false thoughts @queenofthesuburbs as it wasn’t my therapist who suggested these conclusions to me, rather they have slowly come to me since. But I know that if I told my parents they would just say that it’s their job to worry about me, and that I’ll do the same about my children when they’re older (probably true - but I hope I do it more discretely), and probably get upset and feel I’m criticising them (which I guess I am). I understand they’re going to worry, but I find it frustrating because it feels they don’t trust me to live my life - eg worrying that decisions I make (that I feel fine or even excited about) will turn out to be the wrong ones.

Appreciate I do sound a bit like a stroppy teen. And that in the grand scheme of things these are not big issues at all (no abuse or mistreatment). But I’m struggling a bit to change how I feel.

Writing it down on this thread is helping though, so thank you.

Great post from @Craftycorvid

No, the feelings won't just go away - they have to be felt and understood. Please ignore unhelpful comments about 'teenage irritability'. What you're feeling is totally understandable, if not a lot of fun!

Google BACP - British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy - and search for psychodynamic psychotherapists in your area. Psychodynamic therapy looks at the impact of your childhood and past on how you're feeling in the present. It would follow on well from the work you have already started. It can be a long haul, but it's the best work I've ever done. Good luck 👍

More therapy. Six sessions of therapy looking into unresolved childhood issues (as opposed to quicker fix style such as cbt) is really nothing- just enough to bring things to your awareness but without resolving anything.

If more therapy isn’t an option, I feel very strongly that you can do a lot of the work you might do in therapy on your own, through reading, writing, honest debates with yourself. You sound very intelligent and thoughtful and I would imagine that you could get a very long way on your own. I would stay away from online forums etc however which I think often drag people down and keep them mired in past conflicts.

Personally I wouldn’t reduce contact unless you really feel the need to. Real experience of the parents you know and love is a useful counterpoint to lifting the lid on how you experienced some of their non-perfect parenting as a child. I would advise against feeling you need to identify very strongly with the notion of yourself as someone who has a difficult childhood. It might be helpful to keep things much lighter.

Pragmatically, you need coping strategies that you haven’t yet developed as you weren’t aware of the issues.

I’d suggest a few phrases to use on repeat-
Mum, it’s fine. I can handle this.
Mum, stop fretting. It’s under control. I don’t need you to fret.
Dad, stop. This is not helping it’s making it worse.

Grey Rock, where you put them on an information diet. Don’t tell them anything that worries them. Don’t give them information to make your life harder.

Identify what the problem is and who it belongs to. Mum is wittering because she has anxiety. I am not anxious, mum is anxious. Dad is shouting at the children because Dad is a control freak. I need to protect my children, I do not need to control Dad or the children.

Another one suggesting more therapy!

One thing I picked up from your posts - you say that you don't feel anger at your parents, but the 'irritability' feels a lot like suppressed anger to me, that you are trying to rationalise away. I recognise it because I have some similar feelings, it's a tough set of emotions to balance with the love that is obviously also there.

I don't think your parents are ever going to be a safe place to understand and process these emotions, you need somewhere else.

I'm mid 40s and have sort of gone through similar.

I think ultimately - and there's no time frame on this - you get to a point where you just accept that they are how they are.

One thing that was helpful on my journey was this idea of reparenting myself - what kind of parent did I need - and trying to be that for myself. Also reflecting on what my strengths are and reframing the language I use in my head about myself and about external things. Its difficult without a therapist but journalling can be very helpful.

I think it's perfectly fine to ask / tell them not to shout at your DC.

Nothing in your post suggests you are doing anything wrong. It sounds like you have a pragmatic and forgiving attitude towards your parents, which is healthy.

But seeing them for who they really are with their flaws can be painful and it might take some time for those feelings to really settle and for you to accept and negotiate them. I would give it some more time and then explore therapy if it doesn’t get easier.

I'd imagine your own anxiety has also had an impact on your children.

How would you feel if they distanced themselves from you for it?

Perhaps you were a more anxious child and required more reassurance and they've got stuck there.

I'm not sure getting to this stage is particularly healthy and you need to explore ways to move on, perhaps with another type of therapy that helps you to set out strategies to deal with these feelings.

Thank you for all the kind and helpful replies, lots to reflect on and hugely appreciated.

@FiveBarGate I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make or what you think I should be doing differently. I acknowledged upthread that I’m aware my parenting also isn’t perfect (is anyone’s?) and am happy to be making steps getting over my anxiety, not least because I don’t want my children to learn the same behaviour. I think I’ve also been clear that I feel terrible about how this could be impacting on my parents and am looking for a way forward. I’m not sure how you telling me I am probably damaging my children is helping the situation, although perhaps I have misunderstood (in which case apologies).

I don’t remember being a particularly anxious child (in fact possibly the opposite - I was often picked to play lead role in school plays and did it confidently) but do remember being a bit anxious as a teen. On reflection I’ve definitely had a slightly dysfunctional relationship with my mum in early adulthood - I often used to phone her to talk through decisions before I made them, as though I needed her reassurance or approval to be able to move forward. So I’ve probably not helped matters. Where that mindset came from though I’m not sure.

And on the few occasions it’s happened I always have said to them please don’t shout at my DC. I’ve also said to them that I’m fine and don’t need to them to intervene on my behalf, and that I don’t want my DC spoken to like that. A couple of times I have removed us from the situation and taken the DC home / somewhere else.

But I agree @Sparkiest that considering that I had a “difficult childhood” is not helpful. I didn’t, I had a largely lovely childhood. But still a few things to work through. Some lovely suggestions on the thread though, thank you all so much.

I’m interested by your post @Brightasarainbow - suppression of negative emotions / denial of mental health issues seems to be a bit of a theme in my family (previous generations, not so much between my siblings) so I would make sense if I’ve learnt some of that behaviour. Ironically given my tendency to anxiety, I’m often described (especially by colleagues) as a very calm person - so obviously have some practice at hiding feelings… 😬

Really identified with you saying when you’re excited about some life news they bring up worries… I have this with my parents of the same age amongst other issues. It really feels like a put down along the lines of ‘how would you manage’, or more recently in job interviews that I was perhaps setting my sights too high. The joke is that when I did actually need them emotionally when I made a huge life changing decision that I wanted their support and advice on because I wasn’t coping, there was nothing of substance or reassurance, and now it’s in the past I get comments about ‘what a shame that happened’ when they knew how upset it was making me at the time… I read my parents comments as put downs though rather than worries/anxiety.

I have always sought/relied on their approval, but now I have seen their behaviour for what it is, I too have reduced contact, don’t always answer the phone and am worried they will start to notice I am pulling away… at the moment I just have an air of glossing over everything and being busy… so no advice but a similar boat.

Very good post, as is @Lottapianos — this resonates very strongly either way me, @Craftycorvid. I recently found out something appalling that has made me see my elderly parents entirely differently. It turns out they knew that something terrible had happened to me when I was ten, and chose to do nothing about it, whereas for years I’d been blaming myself for not telling them (because, even at that age I knew they were unlikely to act and would have just worried and done nothing). But they knew all along. And I became someone who felt invisible and learned to contain my anxieties, ignore my body, and to parent my parents.

OP, like you I’ve gone much lower contact with my parents, who are puzzled and hurt but ignoring it, characteristically, while pressuring me to fall back into former patterns of contact, and I’m torn between thinking they’re old and frail and it’s easier to never say anything, and thinking I can’t go on like this.

I agree with the others that you need more therapy with someone good. Sympathy and fellow-feeling.💐

I had this exact issue. I didn’t really speak to my mum for a couple of months and then gradually built it back up. Look into parts work, that will really help you

Of course it's a MH issue.

The mind has pain from memories and anxiety through imagination. Recognise this and watch the mind as an experiencer of life. it is happening but it doesn't have to be taken personally.

Hi OP,

As I read your post, I thought your parents treated you as a precious first born and that has affected you. You are now able to look at the effects of that, because even 'too much love' can have a shadow side, right?

In your shoes, I would take this period of time, maybe the next two years, as a transition time, and go through the therapy and resulting changes, and let them settle.

In my view therapy is really good at helping us rearrange tectonic plates and it is tempting to bash everyone over the head with it. I did it, I thought everyone needed therapy, I was constantly pointing it out, until I realized I was like a newly converted religious person. But it calmed down. And when it calmed down, my emotions were calmer, my tolerance increased etc.

Have the therapy for yourself and resolve what was wrong and harmful. Be light on your feet with seeing your parents. In time I think their approach will become something you can see for what it is.