Dear Linarra:

At 7:43 am, Saturday, I was asleep, it being Friday 10:43 pm my time. It is now Sat 6:41 am my time, and Sat 2:41 pm your time. I wonder what you are doing now. I wanted to tell you: the other day I was at the dentist and thought about you- it made my time there better!

“I am afraid they realize they’d be better away from me, just like I’d be better away from my mother“- the yet inadequate mental separation from your mother is evident in this thinking.

“in most of my friendships, I’m giving of myself without asking or expecting anything in return. That way I make sure I am not a waste of time“- your mother repeated to you how indebted you are to her, how you owe her.  My mother repeated to me how indebted I was to her. Whenever she was angry at me, she listed all the items she bought for me, how much they cost, how hard she worked for the money, and .. of course, how undeserving and ungrateful I was of the money she spent on me.

In my mind, sometime in childhood and on, every thing she bought for me had a price tag. I didn’t see the item for its use or beauty, I saw a price tag that was added to how much I already owed her.  When I visited her as an adult, I used to calculate how much money she would spend on feeding me, and gave her the cash to cover the food and more. I always wanted to pay her enough money to buy my freedom from debt. I never did, no matter how much money I gave her.

The idea behind the indebtedness is that whatever she did for me or gave me- she didn’t really want to, and she didn’t think I deserved it, she gave because she was “so good” to her “so bad” daughter. The more she gave, the .. more badness was added to me.

“I feel similarly. I am able to feel more alive when caring, but too much distress takes it away… Sometimes I am relaxed enough to enjoy the caring, sometimes I am very anxious about it. I still have to learn how to appease/comfort myself properly in those later times“- I wonder if you have your own room and if you lock it when you are in it, so that no one can get in without you letting them in? A lock could comfort you (?)

“Some of the people who would tell you things like “if you wanted to heal you would leave your mother“, I have learned through my years of participation in the forums, are people who don’t dare leaving their own mothers, people who are still trying to change their mothers into loving mothers.”

“I myself was telling my mother she should leave my father… He was abusive“- sometimes the abuse in a relationship is one-sided, usually the man abuses the woman. Often the abuse is mutual: man and woman abuse each other. I am guessing in your mother’s case, it was mutual (?)

“The inner death we talked about, some kind of peace.. in a drastic environment… And people won’t waste their time telling you to get away from the fire if the fire already destroyed your nervous system to the point you don’t feel the hurt anymore… The objectively best alternative would be to get away and be adapted to the outside world… But there’s no map that leads to this place and no certainty I’ll survive there. And no one giving me this advice can provide the map or the certainty. So, staying and figuring out my healing there, with the hope I will build a path out of this mess someday in the future, is my safest bet“-

– I boldfaced “there” because you meant here, here being the home you share with your mother and siblings. But why did you choose “there”, I wonder… maybe healing is really there, outside the home (?)

I mean, “if the fire already destroyed your nervous system“, there is no healing, not here, nor there.

I understand that you are using figurative language, that your nervous system was not completely destroyed. But if it was destroyed enough so that “you don’t feel the hurt anymore“- how can you heal from a hurt you no longer feel… Can emotional healing really be an intellectual activity with a touch of emotion… (?)

“The objectively best alternative would be to get away and be adapted to the outside world..”- no, not to adapt to the outside world, but to create your life in the outside world, being one who creates, not one who adapts.

“Yesterday, I was talking to my young brother, mentioning briefly our discussion on this thread. He asked me ‘If she has such similarities with you and our situation with our mother, and if she is older than you, how has she survived until now?’“- When I left my mother and country on my own, at 24, I didn’t have a plan, nor did I need a plan, or money (beyond the airline ticket and some extra). I didn’t care. The idea of being away from my mother was intoxicating. I proceeded to live mostly like a leaf in the wind, going any which way the wind took me. I was not the Creator of my life, far from it. I was a passive passenger. (Unfortunately, I kept regular telephone communication with my mother throughout, and returned to her for visits many times. Each time any and all progress I made away from her- was reversed).

“He’s younger, yet I think he’ll make it out of this situation earlier than me, because his fear of the outside world doesn’t stop him, it is less important than his fear of this household“- I wanted to be free, that’s why I left at 24, and again and again, after every visit. I wanted to be free from her.

“For my young sister.. her fear of the outside world is making it hard for her to leave“- all the bad things that happened to me in the outside world: none of it compared so far, to how badly I felt in the inside world. Living with her felt like her giant hand was inserted into my head, grabbing my brain and twisting it any which way. It’s been difficult for the outside world to match this torture.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to be really efficient as the eldest… I am 2 years older than my sister, 6 years older than my brother“- I am the eldest too, 6 years older than my sister. I wasn’t able to help her. When I left at 24, my mother focused on her and proceeded to damage to her more.

“I wonder how early you were able to escape your mother?“- I first left her and the country at 24, but then returned for visits that set me back each time. I finally ended all contact with her more than 7 years ago, but mentally I left her/ separated from her.. recently.

At 10:35 am when you closed your post, it was 1:35 am my time, and I was asleep for less than 3 hours after that. Today is a second smoky day. I am glad that you exercised spontaneity in your recent post: you can experiment with different ways of posting.

anita