Dear anita:

Thank you for offering new perspectives on things.

Regarding my parents vs me, I don’t really see how they could have reacted otherwise to a child. Parents are supposed to present a united front when dealing with a child, that is there shouldn’t be such a thing as one parent says no to something, but the other one says yes – at least, that is what I have read. Yet, there were cases when my mother would say no and then add, “Go ask your father, what he will say”, and my father would say yes. Or he might say no, but explain why so that I could understand and agree.

Maybe you are right, this is exactly how they behaved – the two of them vs one (me). I also recall what the relationship between my maternal grandparents and me was like (I would spend the three-month long summer vacation with my grandmother and grandfather in the country and, if it is possible to say whom I love most, I would say my grandmother), and yes, I think that if I were to draw lines, I would draw all the three of us with arrows pointing both ways (all-inclusive – my grandmother, my grandfather and I) whereas if I were to draw my relationship with my parents, it would be an arrow pointing both ways between them, them as a separate unit, an arrow much shorter than the ones between my mother and me and my father and me (two long ones).

But I truly can’t think of other examples when I would feel as “an additional alien element” besides that. Even at the dinner table, with the extended family present or when there were the three of us, I can’t remember ever hearing something like, “This conversation is for the grown-ups, go play.” I would leave myself because I would be bored with what they had to discuss whereas I had an interesting book to read, homework to do or friends to play with (in the summer, in the country).

I do need to add one more thing. I may be the one who also sort of started (or deepened) the problem. I started to read very early, at the age of four. And I enjoyed fairy tales. And in fairy tales, the most usual plot line is that of an orphan who through hard work, patience, certain adventures and help from others (who show him or her how important it is to be polite) succeeds in life to become a prince or princess (or to find out that s/he is a lost prince or princess). Later on, lots of books for schoolchildren and teenagers (think Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte and lots of others) would also feature an orphan as the protagonist. When I read those books, I would identify myself with the protagonist, see everything through their eyes, think their thoughts. And so I started to distance myself from my parents to the point that my mother still sometimes raises the issue of me treating them as if they were not the closest people that I have on this planet, but somebody else, just regular people, anybody.

As for the details, again, I don’t know when or where it started. It may be how my brain has always functioned. For instance, I remember that when I wanted to paint landscapes (I paint a little bit), I would find myself powerless to render on paper with the brush all those tiny leaves, all those changes in colour, all the details that I could see with my eyes. When I talked to a colleague of mine who is a painter and sells works of art, she said that this was okay, “This is how your brain works.”

It may also be (in addition) that way too often I would read recommendations to pay attention to the little things that people do or say. Must have taken (and still be taking) that advice a little too far with the men that I come to care about. Maybe again that Jane Eyre thing – the love story develops in such a way that the reader is kept guessing what is going on, what this or that thing said or done by Mr Rochester means, only to discover that in fact, he is in love with Jane. Oh, how sweet…

You know, my feeling right now is that I haven’t simply dug a hole (hopefully, have already stopped digging by now), but a whole elaborate underground cave system and don’t know how to get to the surface.

What I have read might be enough to determine what the problem is, but I sure lack all the competence and knowledge of the professionals to be able to resolve it.

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