Dear Helcat:

“So far I have managed to heal up to a certain point. But healing will always be to a certain point, while I allow abuse to a certain point” – well said, I couldn’t have said it better.

“Last night I thought about what it would be like if I was wholly loved and respected by everyone I let into my life. I wondered how that might change me and how I would heal” – this reads to me like an unrealistic expectation: to be wholly loved by anyone, let alone by everyone that you let into your life. The reason: people are too busy with their own distress, anxiety, worries to wholly love anyone; no one always says and does what’s right for another person, far from it. But never abusing is possible (never yelling at another, never arguing with another, never insulting another with words like you are ugly, you are stupid, etc.). I am fine with being Never Abused and Sometimes Loved (NASL, I just came up with this acronym, lol) by the people in my life.

“You mentioned that cessation of abuse was only the first step. I’m curious about what other steps there are?” –  the cessation of real-life people’s abuse of you is the first step, the second step is the cessation of those people’s mental representatives’ abuse. Like I shared with you not long ago, I still hear my mother screaming at me when I drop a dish in the sink: it is not the real-life mother who is screaming at me, but her mental rep.

anita