u/AdieuPermi30

I dont even know if this fits here because i dont fear actually being on a plane, but i fear the before a lot and it´s been 3 years of desperation and frozen/unable to book a ticket.

3 years agora i tried to book a ticket. The card payment failed. It frustrated me so bad i had to waitabout 3 months to get courage to try again, i changed card limits to see if that was the problem. Payment failed again. I got stuck in learned helplessness. Couldnt even contact the bank till today.

It´s now been 3 years and i cant make myself book and im so sad. Every single week i think about booking the ticket and i cant, i keep looking for flights, search hotels, check prices over and over again and i cant make myself attempt again.

I fear the card will fail again. Then i fear the flight being canceled. Then delays complicating things with reservations. Then fear of getting stuck in a foreign country and losing my job. The spiral os catastrophization is terrible.

I have been wasting my vacation days over and over again, i was trying to book early June but its getting close and i cant make myself do it. I am thinking about just canceling my vacation days and move them to the end of the year but i fear the pattern will repeat itself.

I also fear that if i buy a ticket to close to departure there is a higher risk of cancelation, but if i buy too early there is also a chance of flight changes.

How can i exit this cursed loop?

My mother had this awful habit of saying "You dont do what i want just to hurt me." or "You dont like my food just to make me feel bad."

It´s awful in the sense that is searching for validation by putting all emotional pressure on the child, like i had to always say how everything she does is amazing and i should think about her first always. Also reveals zero caring for what the child really wants or things about something. It´s been decades of this.

So after yeas of repressing, one time i bursted in a scream, a scream i had never felt so intense. I said something like "stop saying i do things to hurt you" but in caps lock. You know how she reacted?

She went into a childish tantrum, she started to fake difficulty breathing, its scared me, but i could tell it was an act, she literally degenerated into an immature being confronted with real emotion. I said i was going to call the ambulance but she suddenly could speak and said she didnt want to go to the hospital.

In truth, she couldnt take it. She didnt cry. Instead of being a real mother and showing compassion and trying to comfort my distress, she took the opportunity to try and reverse things, as if she was the one in distress. This moment showed me how far narcisists can go.

I felt abandoned, in my most profound release once again there was no one there. Yet i felt so liberated by that scream, i had never felt such an emotional release. I think it was a moment where i was truly there for me.

Here is the funny outcome, that behaviour of victimizing herself "you dont wear this that i got you just to make me sad", this kind of things, i would said it was reduced by 95%. I barely hear it anymore and she changed it to something like "Ok, you dont want it i´ll give it away". Maybe in her still narcisitic head is like "your loss" but its actually more respectful and end the conversation. I think she was afraid, because for the first time i showed my limit and if she kept on going i could abandoned her.

It´s not a "win", we who were raised by narcissists already lost, it should never had to be like this, but i think its an interesting outcome i suppose.