Dear Anita,

“Extreme childhood experiences can create extreme pathology.”

They really do. My mother experience’s with an abusive foster family was from early childhood, then she was taken back by her mother, who didn’t like her (and probably didn’t want her back but was pressured to).  My mother’s greatest pain was the absence of love and support from her mother. She was thrown out on her 18th birthday and had to deal with it. Yet, she kept loving her mother, she kept in touch and kept sending her gift. Her mother was rejecting her love and her desire to keep in touch. At some point, my mother gave up, but she wasn’t over it.

A year ago, after 15 years of silence with her mother, she had news of her : she committed suicide and was successful. We learned a lot about her when cleaning up and emptying her apartment after her death. She was alone (avoiding people just like she avoided my mother, probably shameful or anxious), sick physically and mentally, turned to alcohol and to a lot of medication… We learned every single person we know about from my grandmother’s family turned to alcohol and had severe psychological issues, among those a lot of them were depressive and suicidal. My mother thinks there were big family secrets that were taken to the grave. My mother had quite a pathological heritage.

“One time when she hit me with her arm, she said: you are hurting my arms, look what you did to me!”

So typical, abusing you then making a role reversal…

Mine was more active on verbal abuse than physical, but her speech and attacks were interestingly reflections of what she feared to be attacked upon. She would verbally attack us, we would be upset, and without even having to throw anything back at her she would react just as if the insults she threw at us were insults we threw at her.

It looked like she wanted to be abused, sometimes. Honestly, she gave us all the information, she showed all her weaknesses, we could have destroyed her psychologically by aiming at her fears. But, why for? Children need and want a functional healthy mother, not an abused one that would have to deal with her suffering before being able to take care of them…

When we were young, we did throw back at her some of the unfair verbal abuse, with the hope it would make her understand she was being hurtful. Ignorant thinking, of course, it wasn’t a lesson she could learn from. We noticed so we stopped. We weren’t all in the same stage of maturity, or same emotional state, so there was always some to play along with her little game, unfortunately.

Trying to solve that, make everyone more sensible, and having less of everyone hurting each other, was upon me because I was the first to realize it was messed up. Even after we stopped playing along, she didn’t need us to hurt herself by hurting us. And she was very paranoid at us, she didn’t understand we just wanted her healthy, and non-abusive.

” At that time, where I was, parents owned their children. What a parent did to her/ his child was the parent’s business. No child protective services existed, and no police involvement.”

I think that time and way of thinking is responsible for a lot of pathologies, unfortunately.

“After she did NOT jump under a truck, I had to hear her talk and talk emotionally for hours until she was tired. Then at night and  next few days she was eerily quiet.”

My mother did that too. Emotional talks for way too long, very incoherent, jumping to every misery she can think of. Repeating herself. Or, the extreme quietness, absence of response, silent treatment. Sometimes I had to check if she wasn’t dead.

“she gave you a job then, she .. sort of trusted you to do an important job, which fits with what I said before: that your sense of meaning and personal power is (still) in the household where you live with your mother and siblings, and not outside of it.”

Indeed, she did so. I refused it officially, yet I eventually integrated it despite not feeling ready. And well, I wasn’t very successful. Mostly, I failed. It was a mission I couldn’t succeed in.

You are right though, despite the failure there was some trust, even if it was misplaced it was there. She sometimes complimented me, even if it was on aspects she could make use of. She needed me to have power if she wanted to use me as a tool or a weapon. This power went right back at her when I decided I knew better than her and wouldn’t let her use me for unhealthy things anymore.

If my sense of meaning and my personal power is still in the household after all this time though… I don’t know how healthy it is supposed to be for me at this age and for my future.

“My mother was not… generous enough to entrust me with any job, to give me a meaning and a sense of personal power. She said that I can’t do anything, that I am a “Nothing”, and a “Big Zero”.”

How did you find your meaning and personal power? If you’re willing to share with me, of course. No obligation.

“and the part of you that is your mother’s little girl, who for a long time early on looked up to her mother, worshipping her.. what does that part feel for your mother (?)”

This was so long ago… I wonder. I think… I think the little girl is afraid. I find it scary how a person I needed to rely upon could behave like that. I feel betrayed by the parent I thought she could be reliable.

I am sad her good intentions were so messed up. Because my mother’s narrative was “You should be grateful, unlike my mother I didn’t abandon you, unlike my mother I loved you.” Indeed, my mother did the reverse, she possessed me like an object, refused me to grow as a person, wanted to keep me in her loving-yet-abusive prison so she wouldn’t be alone. She loved me as she would love a possession. I didn’t want this kind of love.

If she can’t love me the healthy way then I just need space from her. She’s sucking my oxygen and my ability to grow. Unless drastic changes happen, which I cannot hope for anymore, she’ll never love me the right way. So I don’t want her love and don’t feel comfortable loving her.

And I feel cruel for that, because she wants to love and be loved so bad. But she’s so sick in her way to do it, so destructive. While I do not agree with the abandonment my grandmother did to my mother, I understand how someone could reject love. I felt like abandoning my mother so many times, I gave up on helping her.

I do not want to reject the world and shutting myself down in isolation like my grandmother. But… better no love than messed up love. I am not one for abusive love, I am not one for codependency.

“fear and joy are both forms of neural/ chemical excitation. For the longest time I was very uncomfortable with both, and calm was my only objective.”

I might have been in this phase for the last few years. Might still be. I think I have mixed feelings between my need for love and my need for peace and calm. I used to reject love very strongly. Now I am mostly avoiding it very quietly.

Sometimes, I am secretly needing for love and comfort, but I keep it to myself, quiet it down. I don’t want to repeat my mother’s mistake. Until I learn how to love and be loved the right way I’m afraid to burden another human with my needs. I can’t afford to be needy. But at least I can give love and support to those I care about (and who I trust enough) without expecting anything in return. By doing that, I can at least feel some love without too many risks.

“Recently I am able to endure and enjoy… some joy here and there, like right now. It is a quiet, pleasant joy.”

I am glad you are able to feel more comfortable with those emotions. It is a sign of healthiness.

By right now, did you mean, while writing this message to me? Was it our discussion that made you feel pleasant joy, or am I interpreting it wrong? Either way, I am pleased you were able to feel a positive emotion while responding to me, as it probably means you aren’t uncomfortable with our talks.

Linarra