Dear Linarra:

“she was asking me to kiss her on the cheek or taking the hugs from me and I was doing it/accepting it but I took no pleasure. I let her because she was the one feeding me and driving me to school so I owed her“-

– The Exchange Principle was formed. I think that a girl giving her mother hugs and kisses in exchange for food and transportation .. is more likely to become a woman giving men the use of her body in exchange for … food and transportation (being driven to a restaurant and fed there, aka a date).

“When my mother stole hugs from me or asked me to kiss her on the cheek..  I was an object or a pet to her. Damn, when we were kids and teens she was calling us using the same orders dogs are called to make them come back to their owner, ‘Au pied!‘”-

– The relationship between you and your mother was that of ownership: she was the owner, you were the object or pet that was owned.

“we managed to make her stop when we noticed how insulting it was and it started to be uncomfortable, but before that, we didn’t question it… When we made her stop, we were aware she was treating us like dogs when she ordered us like that, but I never thought far enough to think it would make her our owner. It’s… disgusting“-

– I was thinking about our communication yesterday, before reading your recent post, I thought to myself: As I continue to communicate with Linarra, she will see her mother more and more as she is, and as that  happens, Linarra will feel more and more uncomfortable living with her mother, seeing her everyday. Being so uncomfortable, Linarra is likely to end our communication so to regain her previous comfort in her home When I read above: “It’s… disgusting”, I was reminded of my thought yesterday.

“My mother wasn’t in power with her mother, she wasn’t much in power with her abusive husbands too… but in the end she liked her role as the mother because of the power it gave her“-

– this is the story behind abusive mothers, just what you indicated: a woman feeling powerless in her life finds her Power in motherhood: she gives birth to babies who are 100% dependent on her, looking up to her as goddess (the all powerful)- bingo, she has power for the first time in her life and it intoxicates her!

* Regarding her “abusive husbands”-unless you have evidence that any of her husbands abused her (other than what she tells you, which I wouldn’t count as evidence), there is no reason for me to believe that indeed she was abused, and/ or that abuse was not mutual.

“She couldn’t manipulate her mother.. but her children… She could have power and use them because they needed her to survive. I guess I’m starting to visualize a bit more the difference between affection and love“-

– She needs you and your siblings because without you living with her, whom is she going to have power over? She will lose her intoxicating feeling of power! Remember the story I told you about the Nazi guards running from the Soviets, taking thousands of prisoners with them? There was no benefit to the Nazi guards in taking the prisoners with them while escaping other than that they took the intoxicating feeling of power with them: they loved shooting the prisoners, loved seeing them dying from starvation and exhaustion: it made them feel good.

Now, I am thinking: Linarra may not like me comparing her mother to a Nazi guard, but think of this: when your mother touched your private body parts, she knew it made you feel uncomfortable.. just as she knew other things that she did and said made you feel uncomfortable.. but she enjoyed seeing your discomfort because it meant that she had power over you (power to make you feel badly with no consequence to her, she gets away with it).. similar to the Nazi guards enjoying getting away with shooting prisoners whenever they felt like it.

If they lost all of the prisoners and found themselves marching alone toward freedom from the Soviets- I am sure that they would have missed the prisoners, they would have felt sad, thinking about the prisoners affectionately, wishing they were still there.

“I wasn’t able to appreciate the affection of my mother anymore“, you wrote earlier in your recent post- we need affection from people who see us as people with basic human rights, don’t we. Not from people who see us as objects to have power over. But a child receiving affection from a power hungry mother does not question that affection (“before that, we didn’t question it“) because the child’s brain is not developed enough and capable enough to question it.

anita