# Symbiosis. Symbiotic relationship



## juliajulia

i was searching the internet for a long time for people that share my problem with no luck. i've decided to write about it here so that maybe somebody that has the same problem will write back to me because right now i feel like i'm the only one in the world with this awful problem. 

I had a symbiotic relationship with my mother. She did not exist as a separate human being and fully pulled me into her chaotic inner world. As a result of this symbiosis I didn't develop as a separate person as well. I always felt like I don't exist. Empty. Hollow. That my body has nothing to do with my soul. When I look at myself in the mirror I don't know who I am. I know it in my head but not in my soul. I feel like everybody around me exist but I don't. and it makes it even more difficult. 

I'm in psychological therapy but really want to know that there are other people somewhere in this world that share my problem. That i'm not the only one.


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## David Baxter PhD

Can you provide a little more information, Julia? How or why did you feel like your mother did not exist as a separate human being? When you say she pulled you "into her chaotic inner world", what does that mean? Did your mother have a mental illness of some sort?


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## juliajulia

She wasn't mentally ill but my psychologist calls it "psychotic organization" (I'm translating it to English from a different language so I hope I'm using  the right term). She was neglected by her mother since she was a baby so her personality didn't develop, and she was reliving the nightmare of that neglect daily.  and since I was born I was living her nightmare as well and she didn't let me live my own life (she didn't mean to do it, but she did).


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## David Baxter PhD

All right, but how did that play out for you in terms of your typical experiences growing up and living in her home?


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## juliajulia

i barley remember any experiences growing up because emotionally i wasn't there. i wasn't anywhere else also. i didn't exist emotionally. and my only purpose in writing here is to find other people like me to talk to about that. i hope those people will relate to what i wrote if they read this and will PM me so we can communicate.


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## Bibi

Hi Julia!

Thank you for posting! How wonderful that you've come so far to find out what actually happened and put a name on it! Although it's hard, it's very possible to break out of symbiotic relationships  I had a friend who had a symbiotic relationship with her mother. My friend ended it while she was studying psychology and learning about it. I found your post now through google because I have a friend who has just found out that he might have grown up in a symbiotic relationship with his mother.

I don't think I myself have had a symbiotic relationship, but I adored my father too much - so much that I find it useful to read about symbiotic relationships as an adult. I always wanted to please him, and some of his insecurities are still ingrained in me. I don't have just emotional marks; I also messed up my feet because I wanted to walk like him. And of course I majored in something that I thought he was proud of.

I was also phobic of the dark and being alone, so I thought I would die several times a day; this made me withdrawn and depressed (because my mother denied my reality, she didn't "see" me, I was left alone in this world of mine). Thank you for your words, I feel they suit me as well, although in a different way; "emotionally I wasn't there". I barely remember anything of my childhood and teenage years, because I spent my time and energy worrying about going to bed (dark), worrying about having to go downstairs alone during the day (my room was there), worrying about walking home alone (in the winter it got dark at 4 p.m.), worrying about being home alone, worrying about pretending that I wasn't afraid, etc.

Anyway, I hope you get to talk with other people who have had symbiotic relationships! Good luck and all the best


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