Starting E2 again

[JCasterlin]

Hey man! Glad to see that you are going down the E2 journey. I have some thoughts on stuff you can do to make your journey a bit more easier:

1) Your mother sounds like a real pain in the ass. And if you are in a weak-spot, that kind of person can truly be detrimental to your well-being and mental health. They can even make you feel like you are mentally ill, by manipulating you. You can google on "gaslighting" to read some about that kind of behavior. Good thing you have ended the relationship.

2) Read some books on difficult parents to better understand the situation. Even though that she is out of your life, doesn't remove the possible imprint that she has created on you during your upbrining. I'm reading a book called "difficult mothers" right now on that subject.

3) Try working with becoming more grounded. That have really helped me in my general well-being, setting boundaries, and also working with difficult emotions, and made me more clear headed. I'm doing a guided meditation 1 or 2 times a day directed to help with grounding, you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTqktSAmG30
If you decide for it, give it some time and patience. You will get more grounded, but you need to put effort into it for at least 1-2 months and keep doing it, you will be rewarded. You can also google on "trauma releasing exercisese" to release excessive stress from your body, which also can keep you from being more grounded.

Best of luck! You are in the right place

And one last advice - try not to overanalyze stuff, try to focus your time on actions that bring you forward and away from where you don't want to be. Overanalyzing seldom give you anything of value. If you want to analyze stuff, try talking to a friend about it, so you have someone who can keep stuff real

Thanks for the suggestions & advice. I'm curious as to how long I should run E2? Being patient is not something I am good at & obviously need to work on. I'm trying not to think about what results I'm getting or not in whatever span of time. I would rather let E2 do what it needs to do & go from there. I know it's doing something because last night I had a dream with my father in it & the end result was me telling him I'm not going to tolerate the way he is & me leaving where he was. The dream also involved my step mother & it made me realize how having any sense of personal responsibility was not something I was taught growing up. That apparently it's far easier to blame your personal failures on other people or situations. That said I know get why although I've spoken about personal responsibility in the past on an intellectual level , emotionally I have not embraced it the way I want & need to