Dear GonzalezM:

You shared that when you were 2, your father passed away, and your mother moved you back to Mexico to live with your grandparents, while she returned to Texas to work. Separated from your mother, you needed her, but all your memories from the times she was with you “are bad memories. Moments where she would beat me to the point I would urinate myself”. Once she “tried killing us both in her car”, saying “how God had punished her by having me as a child, and how much she regret having me”.

My input: a young child automatically believes what her mother says, especially if the mother says something with great emotion in her voice and face. When you heard your mother say with great emotion,  that God punished her for having you as a child- you believed her.

It means that you believed that you are a punishment: something bad, hurtful (causing pain to others), undesirable.

Fast forward, you were in some sort of a relationship with this man, he treated you badly.. but you believe that you deserve being treated badly. When you expressed your anger and frustration just a bit (the text), you felt that you are a horrible person, as if you did something terrible.

I am guessing that if you express anything less than positive to a person- you feel like you hurt that person terribly, and that when you make a mistake, you think that the mistake is proof of what a terrible person you are, and a punishment to those who allegedly get hurt from your.. alleged badness.

“I have forgave my mother, but I can’t forget”- you can’t forget yet what she taught you at that traumatic event, and at other times: that you are a punishment, something bad, something deserving of being beaten, someone unforgivable.

Reality is that your mother was disturbed and severely irresponsible. Her disturbance and irresponsibility was not about of who you were, but about who she was. She did you a terrible wrong, a wrong that you did not deserve. You were an innocent, good little girl.

Fast forward- the good little girl is still in you, wanting to be seen as the good girl that she was from the beginning. It will be painful for you to see her, but she needs you to see her, to see that she was never a punishment, that she did not deserve to be beaten and scared.

I experienced a childhood similar enough to yours. My healing process began with my first quality psychotherapy in 2011. Did you ever attend any psychotherapy/ counseling?

anita