Thank you all for your comments. Anyone reading this and would like to comment, please do!

Dear pomplemous:

When I was a child victim my mother did blame me, a lot. Most often children are blamed for being victimized, most common. It was not a comfortable place to be. Not at all. My view of blaming: all in… moderation. I am still dealing with injuries done to me in my formative years and always will to some extent and so I am always a victim. And (not OR) I am taking my life into my own hands as much as realistically possible. Both in moderation, both at the same time.

Dear Moon:

You view yourself as a survivor, not a victim and indeed it reads to me that you have done very well in your healing process, moving from helpless, powerless to feeling and exercising as much self empowerment as possible. The term “survivor” though, aren’t we all surviving until we die? I have a thing for words. I like “thriving” instead of surviving. Nature takes care of surviving, that is its primary concern (we evolved as the human animals that we are to survive at any cost. We did not evolve to be happy), YOU took the reins and are thriving. It is uplifting to me, thank you!

Dear jack:

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it fall, does it make a sound?

If you didn’t feel loved by your mother then did she love you?

If I send someone an email but the person does not receive the email due to technical problems, well, do you see my point: problems in transmission.

If love is blocked in transmission, well- if it didn’t reach you, then

you were not loved.

Ah… ‘but my mother loved me’- not if it didn’t reach me and get absorbed in me and filled me with that comforting warmth and that all-is-okay feeling.

If I was alone as a child, alone with “bad” feelings, that indeed felt badly, day in and day out, a lot in each day and night, well, then I was not loved.

Can you have a low self esteem and love yourself? No, is my answer. You have to be okay in your own mind to love yourself. What kind of message would it be for a father, let’s say, to say to his son: I don’t like you. I don’t like who you are but I love you.” wait, how often this is stated! When you say it to yourself, well…

When your parents neglected their duties as your parents, your guides, your teachers, and above all, the ones to LOVE you, and instead delegated that responsibility to those who did not bring you into the world and were minors themselves, then they failed as parents. It was their job, not your older brothers’ for crying out loud.

What you described, your meekness in relation to your older brothers, your discomfort with mechanical things etc. is a result of the animal dynamics like in dogs, when one dog submits to the others, rolling on its back with belly exposed. They were older, stronger and no parents to referee. Understandable reaction, natural in those circumstances. How could it have been otherwise. If you were the older and they were the younger, then they would be the ones rolling on their backs.

Then there is the Learned Helplessness thing- getting used to that position of submission: what is the point of trying thing.

anita