Dear calisister:

About me a bit: I suffered throughout my life from a lot of anxiety and symptoms. My life was hellish with occasional heavenly breaks as in daydreaming. I first landed in the USA when I was close to 25, on my own. Lived in many places throughout Los Angeles County for close to twenty six years, a dysfunctional life, working mostly on a day to day contract, and using my money not for my advantage. I couldn’t stomach spending money on quality psychotherapy, believing I owed my money to my mother (and to my sister) and felt guilty spending it on myself. My health insurance was generous regarding psychiatry, so I took advantage of that and was on heavy psychiatric drugs for 18 years. Was single all through until I met and married my husband 8 years ago and moved north five years ago.

It was only after marrying my husband (I have no children, he has three adult children from a previous marriage), that I attended quality psychotherapy for the first time in my life. That was in 2011, the beginning of my healing path, ongoing since. Two years later I successfully got off all psychiatric drugs and haven’t been on any since Oct 2013.

For almost five years I live in a rural area, outside the city limit, off private roads, wooded area, in a house with a huge amount of land. I am not employed and haven’t been employed for seven years. I do not read books or articles online or otherwise (except here and there looking things up in Wikipedia or the like). No TV service, no movies, nothing like that. I start my day on the computer, then I work outside, working the land. I bring wood from the sheds to the inside of the house (heated by wood), and do a lot of other chores, a country living. I also walk 3.5 mile per day along the loop.

I see myself continuing to heal/ learn, a process that fascinates me. This is my life work, this healing, this learning. This is what I do. I take nothing for granted, do not know my life circumstances an hour from now, a day from now.

Glad the presentation went well. Regarding your mother’s emphasis on having friends, this is interesting: your mother is not capable of intimacy, not with a friend, not with any of her daughters, not with anyone, is my understanding. For her it is all about Appearance, how it appears to others.

She has emphasized to you and to your sister not the value of friendships but the appearance of friendships.

Just like when she told Cali Chica recently, if I remember right, that she cried after a visit, missing her- that was not a result of a relationship intimacy experienced with her daughter, not a result of closeness. But of something else. If you agree, what is it that made your mother cry, do you think, what is the nature of her feelings for you and your sister?

anita