Dear Tatjana:

You wrote: “I’m still a child within”- it is true: the brain you have this very moment is the same brain that developed and formed during your childhood. The multitudes of neuropathways formed in your brain during your childhood exist now. We shed our skin, not our brain, therefore we are still the children we were.

You wrote that you hurt yourself, that hurting yourself “is just mechanical”- when a parent hurts/ mistreats  us repeatedly, without correction, we proceed to hurt ourselves throughout life. it happens mechanically, without thought or intent. As a child, ready to be formed, we are not in the position to accept or reject our parents’ input. We accept it without question and perpetuate it.

You wrote: “The only way I’ve found of dealing with my parents is to be as far as possible from them”- that is definitely helpful, but you can never get far from your own brain that perpetuates mistreatment.

You asked: “Why do you assume my mother hurt me (and not my father)?”- I mentioned both your parents  (“Do you see, really see how you were hurt in your relationship with your mother? With your father?”), but I tend to look at the mother as the significant mistreating parent when there is mistreatment because in most families a child spends way more time (especially alone time) with the mother than with the father.

Also, you wrote yesterday: “My mother is too attached to my sister and I, whilst my dad has always seemed indifferent.”-

I believe that a mother who spends a lot of time alone with her child, and who is and acts “too attached” to the child,  is more harmful to a child than a father who spends way less time alone with the child and who is indifferent.

Would you  like to elaborate on the “too attached” and the “indifferent”?

anita