Dear Cali Chica:

What a powerful writing. I will quote part and then comment:

“I die inside everyday but I rise above because I am super. More super than anyone… I don’t know any other way- I don’t know how to be u-super… It’s because I have had to- I had no choice….Save us. Save us. We are drowning save us. Of course I always have an answer. If not me, then who had it for you?

Well, you never learned to swim…And now I’m the lifeguard. I’m your lifeguard”

My comment: the child that you were did not have the education you now have, no point of reference, no  way to consider and evaluate what you were told by your parents. You automatically and immediately believed what you were told. You still do although you are starting to doubt it.

Here is what you were told by your parents in so many ways: we need you to  survive, without you we will drown. Be super, be our lifeguard, or else we will die.

And so, this core belief was formed in your brain: my parents need me to survive, without me they will drown. I must be super, be their lifeguard, or else they will die.

What they told you was not true. What you believe is not true. It is a delusion, a false belief.

Ever since you came into your parents’ lives, them being adults, they never needed you to survive. They were never drowning and you never saved them. They still don’t need you. They are still not drowning (not beyond aging and being vulnerable to illness as all people are).

They don’t need you. They never needed you.

It only feels this way to you, that they needed you and need you.

The truth is that you needed them, this is why you bend backward to save them, in your mind. It is because you needed them, and desperately needed them.

You wrote: “I want to emancipate. I want to fly. I want to feel light….It’s a burden. Yes, you’re a burden”- to free yourself from this burden, you will have to correct your core belief, your delusion.

And you will have to give up the benefit you experienced, that feeling of value based on that delusion, that indeed you are super, a superhuman. There is a benefit to it, a feeling of… well, power. Correcting your delusion would require humility, stepping off the assumed position of power that you don’t have.

You wrote: “if I just stop. You won’t die.”- I agree.

You also wrote: “if I just stop… You’ll be angry and more ‘alone’ in your head.”- I disagree. They will tell you that, but it will not be the truth. They will not be more alone.

It is you who will be more alone, that is, feeling not needed by them, not of value. It is you who will be sad for having invested so much in helping the people who never needed your help.

There is a great benefit to you in correcting your delusion, but there is also a price to pay: the loss of perceived power, the power you never had over their lives, and still don’t.

With you and without you in their lives, they will be just the same.

anita