Dear Anita

Thank you for your message again. We will just communicate on this forum going forward as it does a great job and allows others to learn from your wisdom.

In my first post, I shared about being a voluntary, unpaid member of the Strata Committe (“SC”) where I live. Just last night, in the midst of some personal crisis, I had a knock on the door and had a neighbour asking me to help her with the security gate to the garage. It was urgent as she could not move her car out. This happens too frequently – and in the past, I would do everything to help – sacrificing my own time, sleep and commitments. And then work past midnight to finish my own things.

Their expectation is that because I have helped in the past and am a member of the SC, it is my duty to help everyone – regardless. The rest of the SC dont’ help or don’t do much (I think quite wisely!)  – therefore no one ever asks them. Instead, the neighbours come to me because they know that I will help them. Many of these people, I feel, are users. When I do need their help – usually to help someone else within the community – they are nowhere around or just refuse to assist.

I feel that their sense of entitlement – that I, DC, have to drop everything to help them whenever  – has started to irritate me, exacerbated by the inappropriate conduct of other SC members and also owners.

The sense I get from them is that it is all about them, and they don’t really care about the effects on me or the community.

I tend to continue helping because if I don’t, then they would be inconvenienced and also perhaps they will incurr huge costs for the SC by engaging inappropriate tradespeople to do it for them. So, I continue to help.

I have started to wonder if my motivation (attachment?) to help them is also largely driven by this wanton waste of money and resources – they will call random tradespeople to get things sorted out – and then pass the huge, ridiculous bill to the SC to pay (out of the community funds which every resident contributes to). This happens frequently and after-hours call outs are very expensive in my country.

I wonder – should I just refuse to help in future and point them to other SC members – whom I know, would not want to help them?  Should I just de-tach from this wanton use of community funds – and perhaps realise that my time is more valuable than the money I try to save for the community? And if yes to these questions, why am I so attached to all of that?

Thanks again.

rgds

DC

Dear Anita

Just did it. Thanks.  You will get a message from me. Thank you again.

Cheers

DC

Dear Anita – Thank you again for your beautiful response! You are indeed a gem!

I have learnt so much so THANK YOU. You have made such a positive difference.

I hope to meet you some day Anita. Such kindness!

Warmest rgds

DC

Dear Anita – please don’t feel any pressure to respond. Only respond when you feel you are able to or would like to. Please. You have already helped me out so much. Have a great evening!

Cheers

DC

Dear Anita

Thank you again – v v much – for your care and kind advice! You are a saint!

Yes, you are right about what you said about injustice – thank you for correcting me!

Also, thank you for sharing with me your own experience with your abusive mother.  I appreciate that v much!

I look forward to reading your thoughtful messages Anita despite how tough they are. They force me to reflect deeply while reliving my rocky experiences with my mother. You have really helped me probe into my childhood and its effects on the adult me. No one has ever cared so much! You are a truly kind and generous person!

Anita, what you have said is all so true. However I find it next to impossible to go no-contact with my mum. Sorry to disappoint. Instead, I think that I will write her messages to show that I still love her. She needs the assurances as she is now frail and elderly – and has health issues. She keeps wanting assurance from me that I still love her. She says that she prays for me every night and hopes that I return to being a Catholic – I was brought up as one but no longer believe.

Perhaps she does love me in her own selfish way. Or perhaps I really want to believe that. While there are tiny moments of love or kindness towards me, they are largely swamped by her abuse.

Each time she does the nasty on me, I would go no-contact and she would apologise. Although I realise that her apologies are her way of getting me back into her realm. And when I do, she starts being abusive again.

She is like that, perhaps because of her own childhood and biology. I don’t know that it is her fault. She is unaware and has this inflated and false sense of herself. Hence I want to be a little compassionate – while protecting myself from her abuse.

Given my now heightened sense of awareness (because of you!), I have my guard up and will be very calm and unemotional when I speak to her. Following on from what you wrote to me, I have been listening to a few videos/podcasts on narcs. They cannot change. They may not be bad people. They just can’t help being the way they are.

With gratitude,

DC

Dear Anita

Thank you again for caring via listening attentively and then responding thoughtfully.  Means a lot! Thank you!

For a long time, it has been very difficult to acknowledge that my own mother is a narc or is toxic. We grew up indoctrinated that she can do no wrong – and everything that she did was because of love, and I have to be grateful for her satisfying my physical needs for food and shelter.

A few years ago, she started to do a few things which were blatantly and incomprehensively unkind. I think she found it difficult to accept that I have become very independent of her.  And it is perhaps her perverse way of drawing me back to her. What she did plunged me into depression. The silver lining is that, in my attempt to understand her and her actions, I grew and pierced the original delusion I had about her.

Your insights have enabled me to again revisit my childhood, and realise that maybe my preoccupation with justice, albeit a little trivial,  stems from what happened during my childhood – and to put in your words, perhaps my attempt to right the “core injustice” that happened to me and my siblings all those years ago.

Perhaps within me is an anger – a burning flame – that has never been extinguished.

So, to heal and move forward, would the way be to accept that all of us are flawed (including my mother), and then let go? As you rightly said, injustice is everywhere.

Thanks again Anita for your invaluable insights!

Gratefully,

DC

Dear Peter –

No apologies needed! I do appreciate the kindness in your heart for assisting me – and you have, a lot more than you realise!

Both you and Anita have been fabulous in providing me with fruitful perspectives to help me grow. I am eager to learn and probe deeper into why I do certain things habitually. And yes, this police role is absolutely true – unsure why I continually go out of my way to see that perpetrators do not get away with misdeeds.  I have started to ponder why I am this way, why I am so attached to the outcome to the extent that I want to control it – rather than  detaching from the outcome.

I am very new to Buddhism so I have a lot to learn. Any guidance would again be gratefully received.

Thank you again Peter.

Cheers,

DC

Hi Peter

Thank you for your considered advice. I appreciate it very much. Problem is that I find it hard to be involved and not blow the whistle on such unethical behaviour. I understand you said to adopt the middle way. However I am unsure how I can see those wrongdoings (by being in the SC) and keep quiet. It is my calling out on such behaviours that has led to ridicule and abuse by other SC members. Hence I am thinking that I should bail out completely because I feel that under the circumstances, I cannot be an SC member and yet keep quiet.  I simply cannot “unsee” things that I see. What do you think?