Dear Anita,

And yet, empathy for her was in my way of healing for decades: “My poor little mother, she suffered so much, too much”

I hear you, Anita. She was pitying herself and portraying herself as the victim her entire life, and for the longest time, you believed her. You believed, or a part of you believed, that she indeed was a victim.

But she wasn’t. She most likely was a victim as a child, but she chose to stay in the victim mentality in her adulthood too, and used her victimhood to abuse you. So as an adult – as your mother – she was the Perpetrator, not the Victim.

She played the victim so she wouldn’t need to look at herself and change. And she played the victim to manipulate and control others, primarily her children, who genuinely loved her and cared for her.

So no, she wasn’t the Victim, she was the Perpetrator.

I believe that my healing is about no longer having empathy/ love for her. Let others love her, not me, not her direct victim.

You don’t need to have empathy for her, especially if that would mean agreeing with her narrative that she was the victim her entire life and that everybody else was against her, including you, her daughter. You don’t need to have empathy for the person who was hitting you, shaming you, guilt-tripping you, and enjoyed when you suffered.

You don’t have to love that person either. You need to say No to that person. You need to stop believing her words, her lies, that she was repeating throughout the years: that she is your victim (and everybody else’s victim) and that it is you who is abusing her, not nice versa.

You need to stop believing her false narrative. And you need to stop wanting love from her, or validation, or change of heart. She isn’t able to give it to you.

It’s okay if you never ever want to speak to her again. Or see her in person. She doesn’t deserve it. This person doesn’t deserve your love and empathy. And you have no obligation towards her, since she’s hurt you immensely.

And so yes, you should have empathy for yourself, not the person who abused you. Your mother was telling you that you’re nobody, you need to tell yourself that you’re special and worthy. Your mother was telling you that you’re a bad person who wanted to harm her. You need to tell yourself that you’re a good person who sincerely wanted to help her and relieve her pain. You need to tell yourself that you’re a good person.

You need to counter every one of your mother’s lies, so that they don’t have power over you anymore. This I believe is a precondition for lasting healing.

And no, you don’t need to have empathy for her, but for yourself.

❤️ 🫶 ❤️

Dear Anita,

here’s a reply to your second post, as promised…

while talking with her I noticed that I was not afraid, not even close to how afraid I was before, and I had it in mind- while on the call- to tell you about it later.

I’m really happy to hear this, Anita. It probably means some shift has happened within you, and it’s wonderful news!

no, but sometime ago, I heard from someone else (and I shared about it in another thread) that she was doing poorly. And I know 2 of her older sisters died, and her older brother (uncle Morris) is doing poorly.

I’m sorry your good uncle is doing poorly… May I ask if you’ve kept in touch with him after you left? But please only answer if you feel comfortable, I don’t want to pry about your family relationships if it feels painful to you…

She didn’t want to face/ couldn’t face her pain, she didn’t own it, she rejected it, or defended herself from the pain by fighting, by attacking me as the alleged source of her pain, the alleged perpetrator? Staying angry, chronically angry (“strong”), she avoided feeling weak..? I need to better understand this. I hope you can help me understand this better.

Yes, I believe she had a lot of unresolved issues within her – having been abused and/or neglected as a child. She probably felt a lot of self-loathing (you said she’d cut out her head from all of her photos), worthlessness, feeling unlovable, but probably also a lot of anger due to her needs not having been met. Due to people abusing her and/or abandoning her. But she wasn’t aware of any of that.

So there was a lot of anger in her at other people, at life. And this anger and rage is what you’ve experienced – she was punishing you for not having been loved and cared for as a child, basically. For having been abused and abandoned.

It’s like when people vent out their rage not at the person who caused that rage (e.g. their boss) but at their loved ones, when they get home. Your mother was venting her anger and rage at you – because that was safe for her to do. She needed to vent it, and you were the perfect recipient, as children usually are: helpless, impressionable, trying to please the parent, easily taking on guilt, etc.

You couldn’t resist her, you couldn’t challenge her, and so she had free reign to dump her anger and rage at you.

I think it gave her two benefits: she felt relief (even for just a short while) from this internal pressure of anger (her being like a pressure cooker, releasing steam all the time). And she also felt good about herself, because she didn’t need to look at herself, but she could blame someone else for her misery.

I read you expressing this before, but I didn’t quite get it until just now. She used her unhappiness, her misery (and overly expressed it.. exaggerated it..?) as a weapon against me? Please help me understand this better..?

Yes, that’s how covert narcissists operate: they complain and pity themselves, and then people try to help them, but they can never be pleased. They keep complaining. They also create a feeling of guilt in people: they blame people for being happy, claiming that they themselves can never be happy because of this or that obstacle, and because life has been so unfair to them.

In short, they always find an excuse to complain, and they use this to guilt-trip people, to wear people down, to keep the attention on themselves and their “woes” and keep people (usually their loved ones) focused on them and having their life revolve around them. So it’s a trap.

But also, if you’re a child to such a parent, it causes you to feel never good enough, to feel worthless, because whatever you try to help your parent, nothing works. Nothing can make your mother happy. So the child feels like a failure.

Her inner child couldn’t help but be there, locked in, trapped. I could see her, but could never reach her. The protector/ attacker was at the gate, allowing no vulnerability/ no access to her inner child.

But I assure you, I saw her trapped in there.

No, I have never seen her open to me, as in close, or intimate. I saw her inner child from behind a locked door. Heard the tone of voice of a girl, the way she drew birds, her handwriting was round, like a child’s.

Right… parts of her personality never matured, and so this was visible in the tone of her voice, her hand-writing, her drawing… but also I guess in her inability to regulate her emotions. She was like a toddler who was screaming all the time, or most of the time, expressing anger at not having things go her way…

I remembered the name of the movie after I told you about it, “Pet Cemetery”. The defensive part of her is the same as the attacking part..?

Yes, I guess her angry protector part – which was spewing anger at you (and others, but less openly) all the time – was trying to protect her inner child from getting hurt again. She saw almost everything as a threat. Everything coming from the outside of her.

Whereas the real threat was inside: those voices that she internalized (e.g. that she is worth loathing), or the false belief that everybody is out to get her – that everybody is trying to hurt her. She was “defending” herself against the imagined threat from the outside, while refusing to deal with the issues on the inside, i.e. with her own psyche.

Her innermost part: a vulnerable, innocent, beautiful little girl; the outer layer.. a demon?

Yes… I believe so. As I said above, her angry protector part saw others as a threat, while the real threat, the real cause of her angst was inside of her…

“There’s no deficiency in me”- can you elaborate on that?

She didn’t want to admit that there’s anything wrong with her. She claimed she was a good, caring mother, who sacrificed herself for her children. And that it is you who are not good enough, who are bad, who are making her life miserable.

My goodness, Tee: you said it, “locked away”, just what I said above.

The protector/ attacker was at the gate, allowing no vulnerability/ no access to her inner child.

Yes, her angry protector part was like a rabid dog at the gate (the gate keeper), barking and threatening (and biting) anyone who would want to get closer.

How did it feel to her…to what was left of her, when her inner child was locked away??? Should I even entertain this thought..?

Well, I guess if felt horrible, because she never experienced true intimacy. But it was still not so horrible that she would want to question her narrative: that she is the victim and others want to destroy her. I guess it was still easier for her to blame others rather than face herself…

I hope this answers your questions, Anita ❤️

And hope you have a nice Saturday! 😊

Dear Anita,

First, yes, I do want you to offer me advice in regard to my knees, thank you!

Okay.. well I guess the first would be to know what’s causing you knee pain? Because it can be a number of issues, and cartilage thinning and deterioration (i.e. osteoarthritis) is just one of them. Have you been diagnosed with anything?

Regarding food supplements, actually I wasn’t very precise – I haven’t mentioned another important one: hyaluronic acid. There are food supplements that combine glucosamine, chondroitin, hyaluronic acid, turmeric and some other ingredients, and I personally know people who said that if they use these food supplements, they don’t have knee pain, but if they stop, the pain returns.

Maybe it’s a placebo effect, but I think it’s also possible that for mild cartilage deficiencies, it does the work.

As for herniated disc, Copilot gives very good advice. And I’m pleased with myself because I follow many of those 😊, including eating fish (not sardines, but other types of sea fish 🙂 ), sleeping with a pillow between my knees (which I actually started due to my knee pain and continued to this day), and using lumbar support.

I find swimming really beneficial, but for several reasons, I don’t like to go to swimming pools. But it’s probably something I should consider doing more of, in spite of not being a fan.

What I notice is that Copilot assumed that herniation always involves leaking of the disc inner material (nucleus pulposus, or “gel”) out from the disc into the spinal canal. According to some literature, herniation is a broader term and can also mean that the disc loses its round shape and deforms (so-called protrusion), but the outer ring/band (annulus fibrosus) doesn’t get punctured. And so the gel stays within the disc, however the entire disc is deformed and can still press on the nerves.

That’s the type of herniation I’ve got: not extrusion or sequestration, where the gel leaks into the spinal canal, but protrusion, where the gel is contained within the disc.

I guess it’s a matter of nomenclature. Actually, the radiologist who looked at my scans calls my condition herniation, while the orthopedic doctor whom I’ve visited recently said it was protrusion. So even the doctors can’t agree…

Anyway, Copilot did very well and gave good advice 🙂 As for giving me encouragement, thanks, but to be honest, I’m not too keen on getting emotional/psychological support from AI, since it’s a machine and doesn’t have real empathy (even if it might sound like that). I’ve read examples of AI misleading people who were seeking psychological help, and so perhaps that too makes me not too keen on receiving pep talk from AI… (even though I can imagine it might be helpful to someone else, so this is just my personal preference).

However, I am very grateful to you, Anita, for your support and empathy, and for being there for me in this challenging episode. You’re a person of flesh and blood, and you showed real empathy, for which I am very grateful. So please know that I appreciate your efforts to help me and relieve my pain and suffering ❤️

Thankfully, I’m feeling a bit better at the moment, the pain has subsided a little, so I’m hoping this episode won’t last for too long 🤞

I’ll reply to your other post a little later…

❤️ 🫶 ❤️

Dear Anita,

thank you for your care and kindness and for saying that you would even climb a mountain if it would take away my pain. That was so kind of you to say – thank you! ❤️ And also for visualizing me as pain free ❤️

Yes, I’ve been to the doctor (not my standard one but someone who was readily available), and she said that no surgery was needed, and that physical therapy is recommended (both of which I suspected). What calmed me down a bit is that if my pain gets stronger, I can get an injection to my spine, or an intravenous administering of pain killers, which she says is very effective.

So there are ways to deal with pain if it would become unbearable. But at the moment, it’s still bearable and I’m using some adhesive pads to my back that have a pain & inflammation reducing effect, which helps a little.

I’m still waiting to be checked by my old orthopedic doctor, who I hope will give instructions for physical therapy (because I suspect the exercises will be a bit different than last time).

But anyway, I’m feeling a little better, a little more optimistic at this point, hoping that I’ll be able to help myself and get relief, and that the recovery won’t last forever…

And it’s amazing how caring, thoughtful and kind you are in spite of high anxiety, this is a testimony to your character

Thank you, Anita. Well, I’m trying to be mindful and remain in the observer self (and not get completely sucked into the hopeless, scared child self). It very much depends on what story I’m telling myself: if I start telling myself that I’m doomed, then it gets unbearable to cope. If I tell myself that it’s manageable, that it doesn’t mean anything catastrophic, then it’s easier to cope and accept.

I’ve realized that it’s all about how I interpret it, what meaning I give to it. And I’m trying to give it a positive meaning.

It’s like what Peter said on his thread:

The body suffers, yes but you are not the ache. You are the breath that holds it.

Yes, if we can see beyond the pain, sit with the pain and breathe through it (being the observer, not only the sufferer), it does get easier. If we don’t rush to interpret it as something bad, and if we even try to see the “good” in it, i.e. the lesson, then it tends to get more bearable, at least for me it does.

Of course, if the physical pain is unbearable, there’s no way not to focus on it. Sometimes the pain signals an acute health problem that needs to be taken care of instantly. But in chronic pain, the intensity of pain often depends on how we look at it and what meaning we give to it. The more we can sit with it and breathe through it – feeling safe in our body rather than panicking – the easier it gets.

Well, at least that’s what happened the last time I had a herniated disc. I hope it will be similar this time around too, and perhaps that it won’t even last as long as last time 🙏

Back to you, Anita…

Tears in my eyes right now. Can you see them on your computer screen..? (a smile)

I do hear your pain of holding on to hope for so long – holding on to that rope for so long and receiving only pain and rejection. But it is wonderful to witness these corrective exercises, where you let go of that rope – the rope that connected to pain and misery – and land on a soft, welcoming ground…

I really love your newest exercise: landing softly in an apple orchard, being met by a friendly orange cat Gordon, whom you pet, and then heading towards the nearby pavilion, where you meet nice, friendly people, whom you can talk to, connect to, exchange smiles and good vibes… ✨💫🌟

It sounds wonderful, Anita. It really feels like gentle landing but also gentle arriving… to yourself, your connected self, who loves others and is loved by others ❤️

And I hope you can feel more and more of those gentle butterflies of love in your everyday life 🦋 🦋 🦋

❤️ 🫶 ❤️

Dear Anita,

sorry for not replying. I was very happy to read your corrective exercise (letting go of the rope) and your posts, but as you suspected, I’m in quite a bit of pain and arranging an earlier doctor’s appointment, so don’t really have the capacity to focus on much more at the moment. And my anxiety is pretty high too, so yeah, not a good place to be in.. I hope to get answers from the doctor ASAP and know where I stand and what to do next…

You haven’t said anything wrong, Anita, I’m happy to read about your progress and having the courage to cut that rope which only you were holding onto, and land softly, gently, quietly on a solid ground…

That’s a beautiful scene – in my mind I imagine it (probably quite differently than in your vision) as you landing softly on a peaceful spot somewhere on your favorite walking trail, in the forest, surrounded by beautiful mother nature, where you (hopefully) feel at home… I hope your landing feels good and welcoming and nurturing to you ❤️

Regarding never having been a child, perhaps as you walk through nature (or at other moments during the day), try to connect with playful aspects of being a child: curiosity, playfulness, joy, chasing butterflies and running in the fields type of attitude… doing things just for the sake of joy, enjoying the present moment, not having an obligation to help anyone, to be a good person, to be useful, or whatever expectation you might be putting on yourself. Just play and enjoy the present moment, as a carefree child would!

I wonder how that sounds?

I hope to write more soon, and till then, take care and try play! 👶🧒👧😊

❤️ 🫶 ❤️

Dear Anita,

thank you for the Copilot notes: I feel like microtrauma or cumulative stress could be a possible explanation for me (prolonged sitting and lack of movement due to my knee problems). It’s like two conditions impacting each other and making things worse 🙁

Healing isn’t linear. It’s cyclical, relational, and sometimes mysterious.

Yes, it very much seems so, there are many factors involved 😕

Well, I hope this won’t require months and months (and beyond) of recovery, like the first time around… but we’ll see. I might look for another doctor, who could see me earlier, to at least start doing something…

As for your process, I’d like to comment on what you said at the end of the 2nd correction exercise:

Adult Anita to Tee:

What to say, Tee..? She wants HER MOTHER to say it, and no one’s word is good enough. I FEEL her passion, her desire for just that one voice, that one look in those eyes, Ima’s eyes.

LGA hears no one else.. What to do, Tee? Where to go from here?

There might be some resistance to healing, a part of you might be resistant. Perhaps you can ask yourself: if I never get my mother’s love and she never tells me she loves me – what will that mean for me?

What I am noticing is that in your post on October 26, 7:58 pm, your inner child had some realizations about your mother’s inability to love. It seemed LGA was starting to accept that her mother didn’t have the capacity to love her:

LGA: I think I grew up. I mean I am not reaching out to her (mother) anymore.

No longer reaching out to Mother, I am no longer Little Girl reaching out to Big Mother.

A: any sadness?

Little Big Girl Anita (LBGA): No, it’s the release of sadness. All these DECADES, more than half a century (a freaking long time .. angry) I took her behavior personally, as if it meant I was Shameful, I was Guilty, I was Worthless, I was Bad… While All Along, her words, her behavior.. had NOTHING AT ALL to do with me, with who I was.

But now, it seems that LGA forgot that and wants her mother’s love again.

So perhaps you – the adult Anita – would need to explain to LGA again that her mother is unable to love – not only her, but anybody else really. That her personality doesn’t allow it. And since your mother believes that there is nothing wrong with her personality and that she was/is a good mother – she is still the same person, unable to give love to LGA.

I think the next step would be not only to explain to LGA that her (your) mother isn’t able to love her, but when LGA demands her mother’s love (like she did in the last exercise), to take her into your arms and tell her “sh Sh… sh”, gently hugging her and comforting her. Soothing her anxiety and restlessness, and telling her that you’ll be there for her (your version of “Darling, I’m there for you”). Basically, becoming that mother to her that you as a child never had…

Do you think you would be able to do that?

I notice that in the previous corrective exercise, you imagined that I would say this:

Tee: Sweet little girl.. you wanted so much to take care of her, but you can’t, not because you’re not enough.. but because you’re a little girl who needs a mother still. Let me be your mother.

Dear Anita, I do care about you and your healing, but I can’t take on the role of the mother to your inner child – only you can do that. True healing happens when our adult self gives our inner child what we haven’t received in childhood.

As children, we were unable to meet our emotional needs, but now, as adults, we’re able to do that. And so we become that loving, caring parent to our inner child. That’s the concept of self-parenting or re-parenting. That’s how we heal those core emotional wounds.

And so, I see myself as someone who is there to support and encourage your adult self – the adult Anita – to become a good, loving parent to LGA. I am not in the mother role, but I serve (or would like to serve) as a support to you to be in the mother role to your inner child.

How does this sound? Does it sound acceptable to you?

❤️ 🫶 ❤️

Dear Anita,

thank you for your kindness and understanding regarding my hernia. ❤️

You’re right, I haven’t done anything wrong, I took all the precautions and was doing daily exercises (although not so vigorously as in the beginning), and I’ve been feeling better for more than a year now. So yeah, I don’t feel responsible for it coming back – I took good care of myself.

On Oct 26, I had a long conversation with AI on herniated discs and reasons for unprovoked flareups, and I copied it for my records.
If you would like, and only if (!) you’d tell me it’s okay, I will share my little research on the matter..?

Yes, please! It’s a clever question, and I’m curious to hear what Copilot has to say 🙂

I realized I’m still afraid.. so, yes, I’ll do the exercise.

When I considered it a couple of days ago, I thought of the image of you as the kind teacher or principle taking little girl Anita under her wing 😊(but I don’t know how you look like/ what to visualize).

Oh okay… I thought there was such an adult in real life, but I guess there wasn’t…

No problem, you can imagine it’s me: just visualize a mild-age woman with glasses – I could fit a profile of a teacher, actually 🙂

Wishing you luck with the exercise! Let me know how it went, if you decide to do it (no pressure, of course) ❤️❤️

Dear Anita,

thank you for inquiring… well, the scans shows that my hernia is back with a vengeance, so it’s more severe than the last time around. And I’m at a loss to understand how it could have happened, since I had no symptoms previously, it all happened out of the blue. Maybe bad posture and prolonged sitting in front of the computer contributed to it, although I was trying to rectify my spine and have my back supported as much as possible.

So now I’m feeling disappointed, angry, feeling like this is too much of a bad luck, because I’m just getting these blows again and again. And it’s hard to try to find a silver lining, a “lesson” (something I’m normally always trying to do, which helps me cope). But now, it just feels too much and pointless, and I really have a hard time accepting it.

And I can only get to the doctor in a 2-week time, so that too is frustrating, because he needs to examine me and determine what kind of therapy to prescribe. So I’m in a limbo, experiencing quite a bit of pain, and all these negative thoughts. So it’s hard, I’m not going to lie…

I know I sound like a victim at the moment, i.e. stuck in the victim mindset. And it’s true that that’s how I’m feeling at the moment. But perhaps things will shift in the future and I’ll be able to look at it differently and find some sort of consolation. I hope so.

I’m glad that you liked the Thich Nath Hanh meditation, and that’ll you incorporate the “Darling, I’m there for you” in your everyday practice. And yes, I felt like transcribing it because it felt important, and so I wanted to make that effort ❤️ I’m really glad you liked it and were touched by it 🫶 ❤️

Actually I’ve just done this same exercise myself, and I’ve processed some stuff. I’m feeling a bit better now, a bit less like a victim…. I hope it will last 🤞

Back to you 😊 I’m glad you liked the half-hug exercise:

For some reason I like the half hug, the hand below the armpit. The full hug feels awkward. I definitely need a calmer body, no doubt. Right now I am unusually calm and it’s very, very nice. I wish I experienced more of it.

I wish the same for you, and hope that the self-hug exercise will help you, at least a little ❤️

So, going back, a corrective exercise: there will be a follow up. A kind teacher or the principal (or my adult-self?) will take me to his office, talk to me, call child protective services, or the like, who will arrange for a home for me.. and therapy. I can imagine/ visualize how it’d be living in a new home, a quiet, calm home with what you said: “Unconditional love, acceptance, appreciation, compassion, a loving, nurturing presence: we can give all that to our inner child.”

* The great distance in the scene, that I was not in the same room, 1 to 1 kind of proximity is important,

That was a good idea for a corrective exercise: you staying at a safe distance from your mother, her not being able to harm you. And then a kind adult (a teacher or the principal) taking you under their wing, so to speak, talking to you, understanding you, seeing the damage your mother is doing, and then arranging for you to be taken somewhere safe, to a new, safe home.

Sounds like a good exercise…. but it seems you’ve changed your mind about it in the meanwhile:

Strange, I don’t feel like it. … I feel that I am over my mother. … I am already safe from her. … She’s no danger to me.

That’s interesting. It might be a real inner change, but I think it also might be a part of you resisting doing this type corrective work and so making you feel like you’re already free from your mother.

May I ask how a thought of talking to your sister (knowing that she might mention your mother) feels to you now? Because in the past it gave you a lot of anxiety… but perhaps something has shifted now?

The grieving is about her not loving me.

But it doesn’t mean I was not/ am not lovable.

It means that, this one wave didn’t meet me with love.

But.. And there are many waves in the sea, old waves (like me), young waves (younger people)-

And we can meet each other with love.

Beautifully said, Anita! ❤️ 🫶 ❤️