I can’t agree more on everything you wrote in this post Anita.

You know, it’s been a few days I’m analyzing how I felt along this summer and every time I went back to my mother’s place for the last 7 years.

I’m realizing how wrong were a lot of her behaviors towards me. For instance, I have a cousin who is 2 years younger than me, she’s a jurist working in Asia now. Since we are kids, my mother always compared us “look at her, she’s beautiful, she successes her studies, she has never failed” and such. I’m not jealous of my cousin, actually I’m extremely proud of her because I know through what she went to be where she’s now and I did everything I could to help her and she did the same for me, honestly she has always been the sister I never had.

What’s really hurtful is the fact that my OWN mother NEVER acknowledges what I did/do, how I feel or even worst, who I am.

=> I feel stressed/anxious/sad? “then rest”, “oh c’mon, shake yourself and go, you have everything to success, you can’t fail”, “you feel that way towards someone? Move on”. Never she tried to understand WHAT brought me into that state of minds.

=> I got a grade below B or C? “.. oh.. ok.. I thought you were going to do better.. is this not what you said? That you were going to get a good grade?”. I failed an exam? “ah.. ok.. I thought you worked enough/I thought you had the capacities for/does that mean you waisted money?”, “ah.. ok.. so now.. what are your plans?”

=> Since I’m a child, when something isn’t going well in my life, instead of helping me to find a solution, she points out WHAT’s wrong. “What if?”, “Yes, but..”, “Have you considered that this could happen instead of that?”. Also, she tends to see me as emotional support, she talks about his issues with an aunt, my grand-mother and because I never reacted she once told me “yes but I told you that because you seemed not to care”. After that I became extremely angry and I told her “YES, I say NOTHING, because you OVERWHELM me with your issues and all your negativity so just STOP it”. And instead of saying sorry she spent the next week walking around the house like she was the victim here (eg: her voice changed, it became extremely acute and I could barely hear her).

=> I’m 5″1 for 114,9 lbs (I’m not sure about this, I’m not used to that system, otherwise I’m 158cm for 52kg). Technically I’m FAR to be fat. However due to my studies, I can’t do sport as much as I would like to. So yes, I’m not really muscular. Thing is, until my 18/19 I was extremely skinny naturally, I ate a lot, I did sport and I didn’t thicken at all. When I was a kid I was also enrolled into an extremely famous global modeling agency (not for a long time hopefully but still). Well, we all know that our bodies change when we old up so after my 20 I started to get some shapes. I was very happy because being skinny and shapeless has always been a sort of complex for me. But this is when my dear mother started to criticize my weight. “You become fatter, you should do sport”, “look at you, you’re fat”, “I say this for you, for your health, I don’t want you to become obese” etc.. And that reached a pic a few years ago.

A few years ago I was in a prep class in a different town, at the same time I was pursuing my first bachelor and I worked 10h per week. I was in a terrible state. I was under a pressure and I really don’t know how I managed to stay alive. I slept 2/3h per night, I ate what I could find (so basically a lot of junk food). I didn’t have a social life outsides of my classmates. I remember calling my mother because that was too much for me, I told her I felt extremely bad, I couldn’t afford more efforts. What she said? “Ok but.. you took weight” and nothing more. I didn’t know what to say but I stopped talking to her for weeks after that.

When she asked me why I did that to her I exploded and told her that she acted like a “old frustrated bitch” and while I needed the most an emotional support she talked about my weight, my apparence. “Yeah but this is important because if you don’t eat correctly you won’t be able to focus and shapes aren’t pretties on you”. So basically after that I told her that unlike her and her shitty worldly society, I had more to offer than my ass. What her shitty friends thought about me I didn’t care at all, that their competition between their children was as mature as their IQs were low. And I ended up telling her that the fact that she was complexed by her apparence didn’t mean that I was supposed to have the same complex so thank you very much but no, she better had to stop doing that to me because again, she looked like a skeleton and if it suited to her to look like that it wasn’t my case. Also I was extremely upset so I added that if she thought that being pretty was the only way to please to someone then she should rethink about her achievements because if she was someone good and worthy then she would have known that we have more to offer than a pretty ass.

After that we didn’t talk for a few weeks. Then she came back and didn’t even apologize but like usual, she did like nothing happened. So for my own sake I decided to move on. She also knew I never bow down when I’m personally attacked so that was better for everyone to never talk about that again. On a positive note she became more “encouraging” about my studies.

I tried so many times to explain why her attitude was so negative to me, she always refused to listen to me. After a suicide attempt when I was 16, we had to go to a therapy together. The therapists were by my side, they tried to explain to my mother the same things I tried to explain but still, she refused to admit that something was wrong with her.

On a positive note, overall I had a nice childhood, I never missed of anything, I had plenty of friends, a loving family and my relation with my mother hasn’t always been like that. I think everything started to be extremely complicated the day I realized I was able to take my own decisions and that her decisions weren’t those which were better for me. So basically, everything has changed when she lost “control”, because I think she refused to accept that I’m a grow-up person, capable and living my life by my own. Technically, I don’t “need” her, in the sens that I can do everything myself, I think I’m smart and wise enough to distinguish what’s good or bad for me. She is the kind of person who needs people to need her. She admires people for what they represent (perfection reached according to her criterias and she seeks that for herself and for her closest ones). She wants me to be perfect but she also wants me to need her. But if I become perfect, then I won’t need her anymore.

=> “* You need to no longer stay in your mother’s home for days or weeks, because any recovery and progress you make away from her (as far as getting to a calmer, more confident state of mind), will be undone when you live with her again.” => For a longtime I wondered why I felt so.. out of energy every times I went back to my hometown, why I never had the energy to realize all my plans. I understood that SHE drained everything from me, she needs my energy for herself, because she felt extremely low, stressed about her life which doesn’t correspond to what she wants, because my step-father isn’t as perfect as she would like. She can’t recharge her batteries by herself, she needs to find the energy into someone else.. My mental profil is also defined as highly sensitive/empathetic. I don’t only feel when someone doesn’t feel well, I feel what someone feels. The closest I’m with the person, the more sensitive I’m with her/his emotions. This is extremely exhausting when I have to deal with the kind of my mother. She doesn’t understand why I often need to stay away from her of from people in general. Feeling what other feel isn’t a gift.

=> “when you went back to your apartment far away from her, and then saw Him, it was like being outdoors in a cool, breezy evening, able to breathe again.” => I realized something recently. I knew since day 1 he was special for me, he was different and that was why I felt/feel strongly for him. He doesn’t take. He gives. This is the main difference between him and the others guys from my past and from many people I used to know actually. They took from me but they never gave. It’s not the case with him and this is why he’s my choice, because he gives as much as I do. He never takes advantages of me, he never tried to fool me, to use me as diary or so.