Dear Jennifer:

If you could extricate your childhood experience from your mother’s…, let me explain:

You wrote: “My mom and dad worked very long hours and overtime my entire life to barely make ends meet. I was never given spending money and we only went on one family vacation but I was far from deprived and got to enjoy many experiences because they invested in me”

Consider this: you wouldn’t have noticed that the family took only one vacation unless you heard your mother complaining about it, pointing it out. You felt connected to your mother, naturally, feeling great empathy for her, so you took her experience as your own. If you didn’t hear your mother complaining about barely making ends meet, you wouldn’t have noticed there was any financial problem because, after all, you were adequately fed and sheltered, clothed etc.

You wrote that you were “far from deprived and got to enjoy many experiences”- I assume you are referring to experiences possible by money. But notice this: you enjoyed maybe good food, clothes, etc.- but that enjoyment was of a sensual nature while at the time of enjoying those, or in between moments of enjoyment, was your suffering. You suffered because of what your mother told you.

She felt trapped and boxed in- you took in HER experience. She felt financial lack, you took in … her experience. She believed you were not deprived- but you were: you were deprived of a feeling of safety and well being so necessary for a child.

The “it” in your “harsh self criticism that I’m lacking ‘it’, that thing other people who work the same job until retirement while raising a family and going to the shore a few weekends a year have” – what do you think it is?

anita