Dear Linarra:

I will be reading and responding to one part of your recent post before reading the next, and no going back to edit:

“Oh, I did ramble quite a bit there, didn’t I?“- I don’t know if it was rambling, but sometimes something important comes out of rambling.. and if nothing does, it’s okay. You are welcome to ramble here!

“I didn’t even want to earn money. I did it because I was pressured to do it by my family. I knew I wouldn’t know what to do with the money for myself except to keep it safe..  for my family most likely“- (1) like I suggested before, pressure does not work, pressure an anxious person and it backfires, (2) even though you feel comfortable in your jail/ home, part of you wants out, and that part doesn’t want to hand money to the jailer so that she can make your jail even harder to escape.. when and if you will.. Maybe.

“I escaped the prison I wanted to escape for so long and I found out… I didn’t really want freedom, I didn’t know what to make of my freedom. It was overwhelming, scary“-

– There is a term,  prisonization: “the fact or process of becoming unduly accustomed to prison culture, resulting in difficulty adjusting to life in the outside world… the social system of the prison community is mainly concentrated in organizing a barrier against official authority, while maintaining inmate unity….  In an inmate society, solidarity is often found to be highly significant… Prisonization involves the formation of an informal inmate code” (online).

Based on the above, I am thinking out loud: you are an inmate, one who lives in prison. Your prison is made of the building where you live with the Authority (your mother) and other inmates (your siblings). You are well adapted/ adjusted/ accustomed to your prison, having gone through the process of prisonization. This adjustment makes it difficult for you to adjust to life in the outside world. You (an inmate) and your siblings (other inmates) organized a barrier against your mother (the official authority), maintaining solidarity against your mother, having formed an informal sibling code consisting of informal rules in regard to how best protect yourselves from abuses by the official authority.

Here are inmate code rules listed by Wikipedia: 1. “Never rat on an inmate, don’t be nosy, don’t have loose lips, and never put an inmate on the spot. 2. Don’t fight with other inmates… 3. Don’t ..whine.. Be a man and be tough. 4. Don’t trust guards..”.

I am thinking of a further complication regarding your prison: the official authority is.. perhaps an inmate herself, a combination of authority and inmate. Maybe there is some solidarity and an inmate code that you experience with her as well.

“I had been nothing most of my life, I was just a thing adapting to chaos, a thing that had somehow learnt to..  not be a person… I let my friend who was also my roommate and classmate make the decisions… I actually was quite comforted by the fact I didn’t have to face the dreadful fact I was just an empty shell… I still have built my life around my own little prison. I wasn’t able to build myself as a person in the outside world“-

– still thinking out loud: becoming “nothing.. a thing” was your adaptation to your prison: a thing does not get too disturbed when thrown around by the official authority, as compared to a person who feels and thinks and needs things, like safety and love. To hurt less, you became a thing. And a thing in the outside world needs a person to do the things people do to make it on the outside world.

“I cannot feel the meaning in real freedom yet. I think it is the consequence of the learned helplessness from my childhood that is still preventing me to feel much about it…  it impossible yet to yearn for real freedom like you or my siblings seem to feel/need strongly“-

– I think I understand now.. you are not motivated to exit your prison because you.. don’t feel like it. Without a feeling/ emotion there is no motivation. For me, the word feeling is the same as the word emotion. The word emotion can be seen as e-motion, or energy-in-motion. It is the energy that makes motion (such as leaving your mother) possible. No energy=> No motion.

It made me smile to read that you slept well and that the word precious made you feel really warm. I am still smiling at the thought!

anita