Dear Shookie, My Friend:

You are welcome. I understand your situation better, in regard to the stalking.

There is a special sentiment on my part, to refer to you as my friend in this post because you mentioned the war, and if you are indeed referring to the war in Israel, which started on Oct 7, it feels like the ending of the world to me.. and your mention of technology is something that’s been very much on my mind: the proud filming of acts  of extreme cruelty and spreading them online. It is devastating to think of the hostages and the injured and the traumatized.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.

anita

Dear Eva:

“I’ve been wondering how you dealt with the situation as a little girl“-I remember very little of my childhood. If a film was to be created by connecting the visuals that I do remember, the film would last a few minutes. I suppose this is an indication that I dealt with the situation by being as dissociated/ removed as my brain allowed me to be, my awareness was minimized. I remember feeling very scared during one night (at 5 or 6 years old, I think), and I remember often feeling very depressed and wishing to die (don’t remember when this started).

“I’ve been wondering… what kind of boundaries you had built up to protect yourself“- none. I mean, other than minimizing my awareness (which was not a thoughtful choice but a reaction determined by nature), there were no boundaries available to me when in her presence. Not any more than a thing would have in her presence, Ex., a sofa would have no say over her choice to sit on it or not, where to sit on it, who to invite to sit on it.. what kinds of pillows to place on it, etc.

“It must have been terrible to realize who she was. How old were you when you had figured it out?“- I am still figuring it out. For the longest time I thought that this entity in front of me (my mother) was good and I was bad, bad for making her angry, bad for causing her pain, bad for not rescuing her from pain.. bad for feeling angry at her. I was caught in an ongoing state of Conflict: feeling very sorry for her and wanting- more than anything in the world- to make her happy/ to compensate her for my alleged badness and defectiveness, AND, on the other hand, hating her. Another way to state my conflict would be to say: Who is good? Who is bad? Trying to be good, I failed every time (again and again, she expressed to me how bad I was).

“I probably cannot even imagine the pain somebody can have when s/he understands that s/he doesn’t exist for her/his mother. S/he is just a thing to feed. It must be terrifying“- she TOLD me that I existed as the center of her world, that everything she did, she had me in mind. So, I believed her, yet her behavior was nothing like what she said. When people were around, she treated them well and she treated me like I didn’t exist as a person, a person like the other persons. And when I was alone with me, when she was NOT angry with me, she’d talk at me, just a constant barrage of words and no matter how much I wanted her to stop talking, she wouldn’t stop. Also, it was a very, very small apartment, no place to hide.

My experience with her was like a 3-dimensional thing (a person, myself) trapped in 2 dimensions, can’t breathe in or out, detained, imprisoned, in desperate need of that 3rd dimension.

“I find it interesting that you think they manipulate out of habit. It means that they don’t even understand they hurt people. It means that we cannot even talk about it because they wouldn’t understand.  At least that’s how I feel with my friend. She’s always right, the whole world is wrong, she can explain everything. Nobody can argue with her. Her truth is universal. So I think it’s better to disappear and say nothing”- In this quote, boldfaced what’s true about my mother.

In regard to not understanding that they hurt people, my mother registered in her mind that she has hurt me, she understood. I know because as she delivered a particularly shaming message, there was a look of excited anticipation on her face, an ALIVE look, and when I blushed or looked down to the floor (and then up again), there was a smile on her face, a tiny smile… It makes me smile right this moment as I remember her smile.. it makes me happy right this moment to see her (in my mind’s eye) HAPPY. Oh, how MUCH I wanted her to be happy, MORE than anything in the whole wide world.

I am able to access the emotion right above (something that happened spontaneously and unexpectedly- but not surprisingly,  as I typed the above) because I have been in no contact with her for a decade and never will be, so I can.. breathe in and out that 3rd dimension and feel more than before, or better say, be aware of more.

As I look at what I just typed, seeing a girl (me) happy to see her mother happy while being shamed, what this means to me is that I loved her SO MUCH. Like I said earlier in this post: more than anything, I wanted her to be happy.

If only me being happy (vs me feeling ashamed) made her happy… How different my life would be.

But her Happy didn’t last long, so she had to shame me again and again, feeding or feasting on my shame. Looking back, I understand that during those shaming sessions, she projected her shame unto me, and while she observed her success, she was temporarily free from her shame, and that was exhilarating for her, a wonderful feeling. This is the story of how I did, after all, make her happy for short lengths of time, with an immense cost to myself.

anita

Dear Shookie: I feel sad to read that your day hasn’t been a pleasant one. I read only a part of your post (I am just about to go to bed, and still listening to disturbing news about our troubled world), but will read and reply further Tues morning.

anita

Your short note and emoji brought the first smile to my face, first in two days, thank you, Eva!

anita

Dear Caroline:

I think that there are two issues/ problems here: (1) the nature of the relationship with your female coworker and (2) obsessing about it. These two different issues require different sets of management/ solutions. I wish you attend to the second issue in the next few days and “chill a bit” just like you wrote 40 minutes ago. Redirect your attention elsewhere: a mindfulness meditation online, physical exercise, a hot bath.. a movie..?

anita

Dear Shookie:

Thank you for your empathy, My Friend. I extend the same to you: empathy for the pain you suffer every day about your parents not being alive. And for your fear of losing Stash, particularly if it happens when he is not in your arms, or not at peace. I know that you are the best pet mom there is, so Stash, all your fur babies are fortunate.

The weather here has been quite hot and sunny,  after being colder and grey for a while. Humid or not, I wear my hair in a ponytail and keep it orderly using hair gel.

“I went out today running some errands & people are getting so mean.  I was in the grocery store & 2 women fighting over a can of fruit“- I think that the world overall is getting meaner. There is a recent study done somewhere, finding (what I suspected before) that there is a connection between the weather and how mean people are: the hotter the world, the meaner/ more violent people become.

“I am so torn about a situation & maybe you can share your wisdom on the subject.  Here goes,  My girlfriend which I would give my life for  if needed & both of us mirror one another with the exception of religion.  She keeps telling me if I don’t start going to Church & believing in God I will go to hell. I believe in a higher power except not the same beliefs as her…”-

– my input: there’s nothing you can do about it: she believes that it is her job/ her calling as a Christian to help you end up in heaven with her, in her Christian brand of heaven. She will not be satisfied with your belief or brand of a higher power unless it is equal to hers. She’ll keep hoping that you become a Christian like her, and you can’t make her stop hoping. She means well.

“We have already made plans on spending Thanksgiving together…When she comes to my home she tells me I need to remove all my Buddhas… I am not going to put them away for anyone.  My house“- it is of course, your house= your choice how to decorate it. I was thinking that if I was in your shoes, and let’s say she was my guest for Thanksgiving, I would take the Buddha decorations down just for that one evening, out of respect for her. But I imagine that doing this would encourage her to try even harder to turn you into a Christian…?

anita

Dear EvFran:

Thank you! “Yes, she probably loved her mother, although she says no“- I got caught up in so much anger at my mother that I .. forgot that I ever loved her. I remembered only recently, after years of no-contact with her when I felt relatively safe from her.

When in contact with her all those years, I was in a war-mode state of mind in which anger was a needed emotion, serving to protect myself from her, to  fight back, to survive the war. Love was dangerous because it is a motivator for the prey (me) to get closer to the predator (my mother). And so, love was pushed down, buried under my awareness while anger filled my awareness.  After years of no-contact, after being sure (I promised myself this)  that I will never be in contact with her again, no matter what, the anger dissipated just enough for some of the  early-life, buried (immense) love for her to partly seep back to my awareness.

“It’s just difficult to understand that someone tells you she loves and trusts you and when you are not around she forgets about you, you don’t exist anymore“- imagine that you didn’t exist (in her mind) while you were around her. For years, I thought that I very much existed for my mother, that I was the center of her world. I believed that because she told me so (that everything she does, she does for me, etc.) But in her mind, there was no sight of me other than a thing to feed, clothe, treat when sick, etc.

“I am  wondering whether she does it on purpose. Is she able to calculate how to use people ahead for months? Or is it spontaneous, she cannot help it“- I find that most often, outside the context of planned and executed financial schemes and such, people dishonestly manipulate others not in a calculated way, with a clear intent, and a laid out plan, carefully executed. Most often, people dishonestly manipulate others out of habit. Similarly to you tying your shoes out of habit.

anita