Dear Noah Kreiss:

Your post above makes me think of my mother. She made a point to buy me the most expensive clothes, toys, school supplies, foods, using her hard earned money, as a single parent. She worked so hard for her money… and made it clear to me that it was hard earned. That didn’t make me happy. Like you I wanted to not be in her company, I was relieved when she was not around. Because what I needed was not expensive things. Basic things would have been enough if only I got acceptance, if only I got visibility, being seen at all as anything more than something that needs to be fed and clothed. More than a … something. A somebody would have been… something!

Reading your posts, it is clear to me that you did not get as a child something that was necessary for your mental well being, for you growing up to have a healthy state of mind, and that is attention to you as a growing person, attention to your thoughts and feelings, validating those, mirroring those. If you got that, you would have grown up to feel connected to them and to others.

The proof is in the pudding: an adult does not end up so consistently disconnected if he or she received what was needed, what was necessary in childhood.

Children conclude it was their fault, that it is their job to understand the parents… but it is a child natural faulty thinking in such circumstance. It was their job to understand you and they failed at it. It was not your job and you didn’t fail at it.

Can you imagine yourself having a young child and expecting that young child, with no experience in life, to understand you. it is the other way around that is reasonable.

The healing path is where you learn to see yourself, to understand yourself, to accept yourself. You can not do this alone, it is impossible. Only within a healing relationship with another can you heal yourself from injuries caused to you in the relationships with your parents.

I think it will be a great idea for you to go to a quality psychotherapy. In the relationship with a good enough, qualified, empathetic (one to see you, accept you….), you can heal.

Since your patents have the money, I understand, and because indeed they were significantly inadequate in their parenting of you, I think they more than owe you to pay for such therapy.

What do you think of what I wrote here?

anita