Dear Lily:

You and I and lots and lots of adults share this experience of being significantly or severely harmed by our parents as children, and then as we become teenagers and adults, we don’t function well in life (the consequence of the said harm) and there are people in our adult life who will harm us more, and unable to protect ourselves, or being confused, not understanding what is going on, feeling guilty etc., more and more painful experiences take place in our lives. It is like a ball of mud going down a hill gathering more and more mud.

Healing is about understanding the nature of the harm done to us, understanding who caused it and how, seeing that we were innocent as children, undeserving of the disrespect and abuse, feeling the hurt of betrayal by the parents we loved so much and still do, and proceeding to function better in life because our childhood hurt and fear and anger are all concentrated where they belong in time and place- there and then, no longer here and now, a constant in our lives.

anita