Dear Javairia:

You are welcome and thank you for wishing me well.

“I have seen and lived closely with those people who attempted to take away their own lives (my mom and brother); there must have been someone else’s words or actions powerful enough to destruct so much of these people’s lives”-

– in a child’s emotional experience, her parents’ words- and actions- are very powerful. When a parent says to the child: you are a bad little person! – these words hit the child hard and they hurt. When the parent makes a threat, a gesture or an attempt to kill herself, those words and actions scare the child terribly.

Your mother heard her own parents’ words and those words hit her hard; you and your brother heard your parents’ words and those hit each one of you hard. But your words did not hit or hurt your mother, your words had no power over her. You said it yourself: when she was about to drink that poison, you begged  her not to, and she didn’t  listen to you and drank it anyway: your words had no power over her.

When and if you become a mother, make sure that you don’t say to your child: you are a bad child! Make sure you will not tell your child that you will kill yourself, or make such gesture or attempt. Don’t say and do what your mother said and did to you, or in your presence. But you will not have to be careful about every single word you will say to your child, not every word has power. Same goes to actions.

Extreme words and extreme actions (such as your parents said and did) have great power over a child, but not every word and every action has that potential. I bet there is a lot that your parents said and did that you don’t remember, words and actions that did not have power over you.

Avoid extreme words and actions with your future child, avoid such with people in general, but no need to be so terribly careful anymore. Learn to relax, learn to live with yourself knowing you don’t have the power you used to believe that you did.

anita