Dear Sann:

I still can’t read about your mother, it being so close to my story. But from my one and only reading a couple of days ago, I understand something now more completely:

When I was a very young child there was no ME, there was only WE, as one entity, my mother and I. (I believe this is how it is for everyone). When she acted crazy (wailing, gesturing suicide, threatening homicide, breaking, tearing, screaming, hitting, etc. etc. blaming me for all of it, for hours at a time, into the darkness of the night, until she was too tired to go on), in my young brain it was not a separate person that was going crazy, it was me and the whole world. It was the end of the world and it was me that caused it. I caused me, this unit of mother-self to explode and for the world to end.

As an adult, all those years, I was afraid to cause the same thing to happen anywhere I go, I was afraid that a word I said, an expression on my face, something I forgot to mention, something I didn’t do but should have, even a thought I had that someone could read, a feeling I had that someone could tell, anything could bring about the world to end. And so I was afraid of thinking what I was supposed to think at any one moment, of feeling or not feeling what I was supposed to.., of doing or not doing…

This is what I learned. You wanted to ask me questions about my life, maybe you wanted me to share, and so I have.

anita