Dear Robi:

Thank you! I hope you sleep well 🌙😴💤

Anita

Hello Mollie:

I misunderstood then: your mother/ parents sidn’t send you the message that your performance is not good enough, but that it can always get better. And generally, they’re right: there’s always room for improvement.

Why do you “latch onto it”?

The image of climbing a mountain comes to mind. You can’t be at peace as long as you’re climbing, can’t relax until there’s no more climbing?

I must say I didn’t at all have your experience. My mother’s message was never: you’re doing great, let’s look at how you can do better. It was: you can’t do ANYTHING right.

So, I wasn’t climbing a mountain. I lay down at the bottom of the mountain, helpless and desperate.

I have to run for a beagle play date. Talk 2 U a bit later

Anita

Dear Robi:

I spent some time trying to respond to your recent message, but I find myself overwhelmed again and again. The commonality I feel between your experience growing up and mine is just too much. I find myself emotional and not clear. Hoping not to confuse my experience with yours. (Calm, breathe..)

I wrote: ”she (my mother) didn’t view me as a separate person with my own thoughts, feelings, preferences, etc., that were different from hers, such that were given space to be, a right to exist.“,

and you wrote: “I couldn’t have described it better than you did right here.”-

I never had this commonality affirmed so clearly with anyone, in real life or online.

I wrote: “For someone who grew up entrapped, the attraction to other people, to other places.. to possibilities of freedom gains flavor and intensity.”,

and you wrote: “And this one.. this one hits really, really deep. I’ve been thinking about it since I was very young… Exactly! God damn! This reminds me of something.

“I remember being a kid and sometimes, someone would visit my parents… I think I was feeling like a trapped animal at the zoo would feel. It felt like I wished someone took me with them… I remember thinking I didn’t want my parents to come back..”-

When parents execute the psychological annihilation of their human child.

They could raise a healthy turtle, not a human being.

“I realise now, again, how much I didn’t want to be living with my parents and how much I was hoping for other people’s company. This sounds pretty crazy but back then I felt I needed to be saved.. “-

Save Me was middle name, ha-ha (sad).

We had the misfortune of being born to parents who were closed circuits.

Closed.

I am reading your message part by part, stopping before I read what’s next.

“To be saved”- YES, my Longing. 2 B SAVED.

To be saved from being completely taken over, annihilated, as in nothing left that’s me, nothing left that’s mine.

When the parent’s ongoing mental-emotional state (not just having one bad day), has no room for.. me.

The threat is being swallowed whole. Nothing left that’s me or mine.

“and that feeling came out every time someone would come over (and I felt like I didn’t want them to leave/felt like I wanted them to take me away from there).”-

You wanted them to take you away because alone with your parents, there was no you.

“I’m guessing it must’ve felt like any place, or anyone is automatically better than where I’m at.”- A turtle would be okay living with your parents; a human child suffocates.

“I do often feel like anything is better than where I’m at right now.. “-

Anything, anywhere is better than psychological annihilation.

I better stop here. I am not very focused. Close to midnight. Yet..

“I wonder if my romantic relationships are gradually taking a similar form in me (as the way I feel about them) to my relationship with my parents. Perhaps the closer someone gets to me, the closer it gets to.. well.. me! – me from years ago.. who is still around in some capacity. And me from years ago feels scared of being trapped, wants to escape and doesn’t know how to hold space in his heart for both his parents and his partner. That space feels polluted.. and dirty.. and whoever enters that space gets mixed up with all that…”-

I will need to process this Wed morning.

“My nervous system feels overloaded and my brain feels pretty fried. I know this feeling well. It’s the feeling of being on to something deep and true.”- yes, Wed morning..

“I wonder what you think of all this.. I know its a lot to digest.. so please take your time.”-

You got it! I read this part just now for the first time.. yes. a lot to digest.

“I’ll be crashing now, it’s 40 past midnight here…”- and guess what, it’s 25 minutes before midnight here. B back 2 U in the morning.

Anita
Robi

I am literally laughing, reading about Gunner’s behavior at the dog park, the dead stare.. huh. All kinds of characters at our dog park, dogs and humans. I’m building a name for myself as the park’s “Poop Ferry”- I pick up poop every day. I hope to at least get a free T-shirt with the words.

Good Tues night, Nea:

I might as well elaborate on the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil monkeys, covering their eyes and ears.

For decades, I remembered my mother saying to me (repeatedly):

“You are one big zero”.

I remember her saying those words, troubled by the memory, but it was only a few days ago, late at night, in front of the computer (journaling/ writing-therapy) that I FELT hurt, very hurt at the sound of those words.

I felt hurt but also peaceful. It was the undoing of half a century of dissociation (disconnecting, or separating memory from how it truly felt).

Suddenly, in my mind, she really did say those words, and those words really did hurt. I was really there. It really happened.

And when the feeling came back, I realized that it hurts so much not because I was a big zero, but because I wasn’t.

And it was clear to me that she meant to hurt me by saying those words. That’s why she said them.

That gave me some clarity, such that’s possible only when old feelings are re-attached to almost emotion-less, dry memories.

When I read and re-read that your father called you a bi*** and used the word f*** talking to you, I got angry every time. I felt heat in my face.

But I wonder: have you felt genuine anger, or did you too separate memory from emotion..?

Tonight, I see 🙈 🙉 as dissociation, as separating memory from emotion- a natural psychological defense.

For as long as dissociation has been ongoing, I couldn’t adequately process what happened, nor could zi see my mother clearly,the good, the bad and.. the very ugly.

If this resonates to one extent or another, amd if it’s not too heavy, I would love to talk more about it with you.

Anita

Oh, I didn’t even notice your dog in the background. Can’t see clearly. I see a black tail..? How’s Gunner?

Dear Robi: I’m excited to read part of your message and will get back to it tonight. Yes, Autumn is here big time and it’s been raining all night long and all day long (I got to get out of the house anyway!). I hope you sleep well, Robi!

Anita