Dear Anita

I feel more free, I know it looks like I feel worse but I’m overwhelmed with everything. Just like you said, distress and anxiety come back and it’s an opportunity to take a step forward. It’s one of the best things I learned from you, to keep going and know that everything passes, I just have to handle it better and better with everytime. That’s all I have to do, and it’s good enough.

What exactly are you learning though conversation with me? I get the feeling it’s not pleasant to you, not because you made me think so, but my own assumptions. I also wanted to ask you if this story I shared with you seems insane and exaggerated.

My other question was: I know you suggested that your mother wouldn’t go to psychotherapy or wouldn’t want to self improve. What would she say to you if you told her all this? I think my mother would say I’m ungrateful, phrase she likes to say to me , it doesn’t translate but it means something like ” I knew you would say something like this, it’s so your kind of behavior “, and that I disappointed her and she feels hurt. Once I told her I was afraid of her and she said: ” thank you, that’s how grateful you are, saying those things to hurt me, thank you so much, that’s so your style.. ”

Yes I would like to end contact with her. For past month she is spending almost whole week in the other place. Visiting on Fridays for couple of hours, cleaning and complaining and gets back. I don’t leave my room sometimes or I “on purpose” come home late. It was like that since I was 19 or 20, she moved out but visited, later she visited less and less often. And last year she came back around the time I started posting here.

There are moments I feel more cheerful and carefree, in a good way. When she is not around for long time (I forgot how it feels because she lived here for past 5 months) I start to feel.. I remember this feeling, it’s weird, like I do something and I don’t judge myself or feel ashamed. Yes I think it’s a lack of feeling of shame. I’m not sure if it translates well. Even when I  dated Tom and I knew it was wrong, I felt it was even more wrong because I knew how she would criticize it. Once I was worried I might be pregnant (my anxiety mostly, and overreacting) the worst thing about it was her judging voice in my head, and shame in front of her. Of course that would be unfortunate, because we weren’t a loving couple, and I know he is not a good man but surprisingly it wasn’t the worst. He told me this many times he would even want to have a child. He never freaked out, he used to call me everyday and tried to calm me there’s nothing to worry about and even if, it’s fine, he’s 30 years old and he’s got money, house, and a child doesn’t scare him. So my anxiety wasn’t from the fact that I was afraid he would run away and pretend he doesn’t know me. My anxiety which caused me to go crazy at one particular time was mostly, if not only, because of her. It scared me to death. Her voice in my head, her judging me, making me feel ashamed, and bullying me. Sometimes I was thinking about it, what is it I am so afraid of that I cant sleep or eat, I literally couldn’t eat for 2 or 3 days sometimes, couldn’t function normally. I realized I’m not afraid of having a child. And I imagined what it would be like if she didn’t exist, and for a short moment I felt relief.

If I had this child, and she wouldn’t be there I would forgive myself.

So when she’s not around I feel free. I don’t judge myself for my own mistakes, small or big mistakes, I am forgiving to myself. I let myself live. I don’t feel shame. Do you feel similar?