Dear Ed:

I am impressed but not surprised that you are helping a friend to move on from an abusive situation, you are a good man, Ed!

“I hope you are healthy and doing well. I guess apple season is over, so I hope you won’t catch a cold during your walks when it gets colder“- thank you. There is frost outside, this morning,  for the first time since last winter. I am healing from an inflammation of a muscle that has been pressing on my sciatica nerve, so no walking or physical working for 5 days so far, but ibuprofen is helping a lot. Maybe I will walk a bit or work today.

“I was speechless by your therapist’s reaction concerning the decision you made“- until I read this sentence, I was alone in my displeasure regarding his lack of support to my ending contact with my mother.

“I am also struggling with intense anger and feelings of helplessness, although I suspect that these feelings stem from me (being) triggered“- I went over some of our communication, looking for something. I came across some of your words that made me smile. I will quote them and comment just a bit:

“You used words to give my struggle and pain a form that finally makes sense: “anita: Not Guilty” is so f******  powerful. I am truly happy for you to be able to live these words” (June 29)-

– I want you, Ed, to live by these words: Ed: Not Guilty!

“I am desperate for a judgement about my past, in the sense that I am desperate to know if I did wrong and deserved what I experienced or if I am allowed to free myself and move on” (June 29)-

-You did no wrong whatsoever to your father or to your mother. They did wrong to you and you didn’t deserve it.  You were a good boy then and you are a good man now. You are allowed to free yourself and to move on!

“I am so horribly afraid of me getting it wrong…  What if me even posting this is just some way of me keeping up my own delusions… I just don’t know how I will ever know what is true“ (Oct 17)-

-8 pages and five months into your thread, I am confident that you are getting it right, and that you perceive and understand reality as it truly is.

Oct 17: “he used to call me stupid, lazy and a loser”- you are smart, hardworking and a winner!

“You have no right to be so proud of yourself”- you have the right to be proud of yourself: I am proud of you!

“Sometimes he would accuse me of lying, ‘conspiring’ against him”- you are a very honest man, remarkably honest!

“Calling me things like ‘ungrateful/ insolent/ disrespectful'”- you are remarkably grateful, polite and respectful!

anita