Hi Lori

Thank you for taking the time to handle this situation. I know you’re a busy woman, you have a family and a business to run. Your feedback and openness to feedback is much appreciated.

Wishing you all the best 🙏

I cannot even fathom a positive reason why anyone would say something like this.

In your Buddhism Journal thread, you shared: “My mother was fond of suffocation and drowning. I practiced free diving breathing techniques to survive this. I was scared of dying in this violent way“- when I read these two sentences  yesterday morning, it was news to me and I was very surprised that I failed to read it earlier. At first, when I read this, I  “heard” myself  asking you incredulously: did it REALLY happen? I was surprised that you didn’t share such a severe traumatic detail in an original post on your first or second thread.

Not that it doesn’t happen that mothers drown their children. Very recent news, 5 minutes ago, Friday Sept 16, 2022, abc 7, ny. com: “The mother accused of drowning her three children off a Coney Island beach was arraigned on murder charges Friday from her hospital bed at NYU Langone, where she is receiving psychiatric attention. Erin Merdy, 30, is charged with one count of first-degree murder and three counts each of second-degree murder, both with depraved indifference to human life and murder with victim under 11 years old, in connection with the deaths of 7-year-old Zachery Merdy, 4-year-old Liliana Stephens-Merdy, and 3-month-old Oliver Bondarev. According to the criminal complaint, Merdy was caught on surveillance camera walking toward the ocean with the children just before 1 a.m. Monday. About two hours later, police observed a ‘barefoot and wet’ Merdy on the boardwalk by the beach. At about 4:20 a.m., police found Zachary Merdy and Liliana Stephens-Merdy ‘lying on the shoreline unresponsive, wet and with sand on their bodies’”.

From the news yesterday “Merdy had at least two reports of neglect filed against her with the city Administration for Children’s Services for failing to bring the kids to school… (one of the children’s fathers) told the New York Times his son was often dirty and hungry when he showed up for mandated custody visits. He told the outlet he reported the mom to ‘child protective services’ and attempted to get full custody of their son, to no avail. It’s not clear to which agency the father reported the mother.”

And of course, there is the infamous Andrea Yates from Huston, Texas who drowned her five children in the bathtub of their home back in June 2001.

Hi Dave

I’m glad to hear that your couples counselling session went well and that your wife wanted to cuddle as a result of it. That is a very positive sign!

I hope further progress is made in the following sessions. I look forward to hearing how things go.

Wishing you both good luck!

Hi Tee

So there’s some previous history that you might have missed.

Anita was very brave and opened a thread encouraging people to talk to her on it. I included the feedback that it sounds like she was having difficulty with anxiety. She decided to ignore me and became verbally abusive. I apologised, she forgave me and continued to ignore me.

This was the frame for how she came onto my personal thread. There was no trust because of her behaviour towards me. She asked if my experience of drowning really happened and provided a quote of a reported experience of drowning without further context.

To me this was questioning the validity of what I experienced.

She later added context and denied that she was accusing me of lying. But why include the quote of a different drowning experience?

The experience of drowning is incidently a major trigger for me which didn’t help at all. I also have a learning difficulty which causes me to interpret things literally.

I agree, Anita’s difficulties are sporadic. In fact, since I left she worked on her behaviour towards other members a lot. I returned only because she managed to go for a whole month without incident (it may have been longer but I didn’t check past the most recent month). I tried to reassure anita and communicate this when she expressed distress about being reported but this was promptly deleted.

My understanding is that my return was a trigger for anita that caused a couple of minor stumbles. I had faith that she would adjust and return to her previously sensitive behaviour.

Whilst she wasn’t comfortable discussing feedback she did very well with taking it on board. I was very proud of anita’s growth while I was away.

I think the difficulty with ignoring people is that issues cannot be resolved when someone chooses to do that. I’m someone who discusses and resolves problems.

Is peace, really peace when people are left to hurt in silence?

Hi Whitfield

Welcome!

Twenty years is a long time to be married. I’m sorry to hear all of the difficulties you experienced throughout marriage. It sounds like you’ve been through a lot together.

I’m sorry to hear that you feel lonely and a lack of connection with your wife. I can understand why that would cause you to question the relationship.

I’m curious, when things were at their worst during the major crisis. What kept you together?

I’m asking because I would like to understand what was important to you enough to go through all of that?

Wishing you all the best 🙏

Hi Lori

I don’t think anyone wants to see her leave. She has had an overwhelmingly positive influence on the community.

If you would like to mediate and if that is something Anita wants, I would be happy for you to do that. Please feel free to email me in regards to that.

To be clear, I’m not asking for her to be removed from the forum.