Dear Melinda:

Again, I am sorry that this tragedy happened and that the pain that goes with it is, as you said, “unbearable. It has definitely changed me“.

As I understand it, two months ago, your son was found dead following an apparent suicide. You suspected that it was a homicide staged as suicide, and said so to the police. The police informed you yesterday that they were turning the case to the homicide division.

Your best friend of 5 years was not at all supportive. She criticized you for “not grieving right” and for telling the police “to look at it any other way but suicide“. On the day of the funeral, she  told you to STFU and took a swing at you: “I was in a fist fight in  front of the funeral home 3 minutes after I walked my son to the oven to be cremated… I … sent her to the ER“, you shared.

Because you were too upset to arrange for the cremation, it was your adult niece who arranged for it. Without your knowledge or permission, she (together with her sister and mother) scattered a third of your son’s ashes somewhere in San Francisco. When you found out and brought it to their attention, “they turned it into a warzone with screaming and name calling“,  and if I understand correctly, they stole the rest of the ashes (..?)

“I not only lost my son, I lost 4 other people that I thought loved me and that I cared for deeply. I’m alone now. Everything has changed. I feel numb. I can’t feel happiness, or sadness. I don’t see the colors in the world, or hear the music, or feel anything at all. I don’t know exactly what to do to feel again and honestly I don’t know that I want to. I’m stuck. I don’t know what to do.  Therapy isn’t going to be an option because I have to work.“- it’s all a shock to your system/ brain, so it shuts down and you continue to live, but minimally: you do what needs to be done (work) and feel as little as possible.

Usually, there are feelings attached to seeing colors, and to hearing music, but because severe emotional pain is attached to your feelings, most or all of your feelings are greatly shut down. To awaken from numbness, if and when you can handle such awakening, it will need to be done gradually, slowly. Doing art, like drawing, painting, sewing etc., can be forms of expression and awakening. Journaling, privately, or here on your thread, can also be a way to awaken.

And there needs to be a reason for you to awaken, to live more than minimally. It may be helping (and being helped by) other mothers/ parents who lost their adult children to acts of violence (suicide or homicide). Maybe you can join a group that provides support to young people who are troubled, young people who are at risk of suicide or of being a victim of violent crime.

Your former best friend accused you of not grieving right, but it’s been her (if she grieved) who didn’t grieve right. Your nieces and sister didn’t grieve right either: they turned perhaps feelings of helplessness, maybe guilt => anger, and directed their anger at you. It was wrong to do, of course.

You need not be alone at this time. This space here can be a place where you are not alone, as there are real people, such as myself, behind these typed words.                                I am here.

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

“What comes to mind now, is that a majorly good person is one with good intentions but doesn’t always get that across,“- good people have good intentions, but good intentions not getting across can be a failure on the part of the receiver: misunderstanding, inaccurate projections, and such.

“or that they think their intentions are good, but are missing some information and their good intentions are misguided, causing bad outcomes“- this is why it is important to ask questions and to make educated decisions, decisions on what to say/ type/ do, not based on unchecked assumptions. When you try to help a person in a particular situation, and you feel that you understand the situation, ask yourself: is there a different angle to look at the situation? Is there a bigger picture that I am not yet seeing?

“Whereas a fully good person is completely in line with their third eye, and therefore their intentions are always pure, never contaminated with bias or selfish wants. A fully good person always effects the environment neutrally or positively“- I challenge this and say: there is no such person, a fully good person, not a single one. This is a description of a saint (a fictional character, including those labeled saints by the Catholic church), or of a god that’s made in the image of a perfect human (which doesn’t exist). No one is a fully good person.

“a majorly good person can sometimes have negative effects on others and the world“- all majorly good people have negative effects on others and the world, knowingly and not knowingly. Majorly good people use plastic and then placing it in the recycle bin, they believe that they are doing the right thing.. not knowing that plastic does not get recycled and so, they are adding waste and harm to the world.

Everyone who votes in elections, adds support to politicians who have positive, but also negative effects on the world. This is why many vote for the “lesser of two evils”: they knowingly vote for a candidate who adds harm to the world.

Being a majorly good person is about minimizing harm whenever, wherever possible (not avoiding or preventing it all together, which is an impossibility).

“my dad did not treat me as if I was a good person, he was skeptic of me and I was disciplined and criticized all the time. But for K, he seems to have the same overlying issue as me, doubting his goodness, but he didn’t have a critical parent, his mom over gave praise to him to an extent to where he now wonders ‘what is real praise and what is exaggerated’“- his mother praised him, he believed her but found out- through interactions with peers/ other people- that her praise was exaggerated or untrue altogether. Examples, if she told him something like: you are the most intelligent boy in the world! Or you are the most handsome boy in the world! And then a teacher gave him a C while a dozen peers received Bs and As, or when a girl he was interested in rejected his advances and chose another boy.. then there’s dissonance in his brain, thinking something like: if I really am the most intelligent, why didn’t I get a B or an A?

“How can two different types of parents, both result in a hard time receiving praise or seeing yourself as good?“- your father criticized you, his mother built him up so that (unintentionally) he would be taken down by society.

“What is the balance of praise and constructive criticism that leads to a healthy self esteem (seeing self as good). I ask because I want to balance myself out, and I also want to raise a balanced child one day“- for example, instead of telling a child generalities like: you are the most intelligent person in the world, or the most handsome, say something specific, like: I like how you figured out this math problem, good job! Or I like your posture, how you stand with your back straight and shoulders back!

“This is where I can be thankful, and one of the ways my experience breaks away from yours… My way of life doesn’t make sense to him and he still laughs at me… ‘why would you work at a cafe you are way too over qualified’… But then he says he is glad I am happy.. which I think I believe… It’s like he doesn’t see me as bad anymore, but he sees me as something else now… not intelligent, lazy (since I am not resume building/ climbing a corporate ladder)…“- I am glad that your father no longer conducts house-cleaning-sessions or the likes of it and that he mellowed down, good thing. But his earlier messages, the you-are-a-bad-person message has not been removed from your brain just because he doesn’t repeat that message anymore. No longer hearing that message is a great relief though, and it is helpful.

“when you say the majority of your life, how long ago did you begin peeling this label off? is it off?“- it was a long process. I’d say the process began in 2011 when I attended my first quality psychotherapy. The label is off and has been off on a regular, reliable basis in the last few months. It doesn’t mean that I don’t question my words and actions in regard to the Helpful vs Harmful factor.

Dear Seaturtle: I read parts and will attentively read, re-read and reply Sun morning.

anita

Dear Karen:

Thank you for Keep the Heid. Here’s another Scottish saying: “Be sure to taste your words afore you spit them” – Meaning: Be careful to think about what you are saying before you say it. Often we can’t take back what we say in haste or spite, so take a moment to think before you speak.

anita

Dear Clara:

You are welcome! “I often treasures honesty and directness, I do not like to guess or beat around the bush. I often think this causes more harm. It is often because the person delivering the message does not have enough mental strength/ courage to deliver the message, at the cost of the peace of the recipient. I guess this is also how she draws farther, as I often challenge her to talk/ face directly with the situations“- very well said. She lacks the mental strength and courage required to be honest and direct with people in complicated matters, matters that involve conflict or some unpleasantness. (I assume she is honest and direct when it comes to simple matters like letting the employee at the ice-cream shop know the particular ice-cream flavors she wants).

A few months after you met her for the first time, on Oct 7, 2018, you shared: “I recently got quite close with a person, we have been talking mainly on texts for a few months… she had never disclosed that she had a girlfriend”. You were very distressed at the time about her not disclosing this to you. Now I understand why she didn’t: it was a complicated matter for her, she was conflicted about it.. so she was not honest about it. She hid this major part of her personal life.

This lack of honesty and directness has been part of her before the beginning of the relationship with you. It is how she operates.

anita