Dear Linarra:

When I wrote to you last, I didn’t know that your mother too threatened suicide, and as I read your recent post, I was amazed at the growing similarity between your mother and mine, it is unbelievable… you not caring at one point if she kills herself or not (“I ceased to care after too many times she played the same suicide threats game“)- I was 20 or so, walking with her on the street, in the city, she said she will be throwing herself under a truck.. I followed her, she walked fast, my heart beating fast, my brain frozen with the thought: so do it, do it already, just do it… (or is it my thought now, retroactive).

Unlike you, I never held her responsible for her suicidal talk, threats and behaviors. In early years, younger than 10, I walked at night looking up at the sky, full of stars, praying to the stars and to the absent god.. please keep my mother alive, please oh please…

“She made me feel bad and like a harmful person so many times“- she said she had to kill herself because of who I was, who she said I was.

“Do you think fighting the caring, fighting the the fear, is an hopeless fight? Once the “Caring = danger” formula has been feed by the parents to children, it seems like a tough belief to rewrite“- it was hopeless for me for many years, until my years (since 2011) of hard work paid off and (it feels like a miracle)  much of the fear is gone, much of that fear. And the depression too. The more I see the truth, the healthier I get. But.. nothing can undo those early years, nothing can undo the betrayal.

“Probably no love exist without some kind of fear, there’s always a risk. But there’s a difference with a healthy/regular amount of fear coming with interpersonal relationships, and the terror of being possibly sucked into a living hell every time someone wants to get too close“- it is about the amount of fear. There is always fear, always will be- but (again, it feels like a miracle), there is an amount of fear that I can endure and still be Alive= not shut down.

“And when the person is actually one it is dark and unhealthy to care for, like our mothers… We can only cope with it I guess? If caring wasn’t entirely killed by the repeated terror then probably nothing can get rid off this“- I am not clear about what you mean, but if you mean whether it’s too late to love-and-be-loved by our mothers, my answer is a definite-and-forevermore: No.

anita