Dear joanna:

I asked you yesterday: “In the context  of the  early  relationship with (your mother), one of you was innocent and the other was guilty. Who was innocent, who was guilty?”

Your answer: “how can I explain that I’m not guilty.. I am.., I believe  I am.”

Your answer is that in the context of the early relationship with your mother, you were guilty and she was innocent.

Your explanation:”when  I was born she was so happy to have me… So happy to have me, loved  me  so  much..And then I started to disappoint her… those  hair, me being  skinny, my defects in speech, not standing  straight. So she  was angry at me for that flaws”

Paraphrasing your explanation of your guilt and her innocence: she  was a good, loving  mother. But then she got  to know the baby she  loved and  found  out she was unlovable. So she stopped loving that child and was angry at that unlovable child.

I’ll take a break from your story and share a bit about mine, then return to yours. My mother told me that my birth was very difficult for her. I didn’t  turn around, as  babies do, and  stuck a leg out of her during  birth. The  doctors  gathered around as  she  was  screaming with pain and  shame, for having  all those people watch her.  And then, to make my birth possible and to prevent my leg from being broken, the doctors cut her there so to allow all of me to be taken out, legs first.

I felt  guilty for having done  that. For causing  her all that pain and shame before and  during my very birth.

All through my  childhood I was very skinny. I was shorter, skinnier and developed much  later than  my  peers at school, through high school.

Years later I found out something  curious: my  mother was bulimic, and  was very thin when pregnant with me, so skinny that her pregnancy didn’t show. It is possible that the reason the  baby I  was didn’t  turn around before birth was her low  weight throughout the pregnancy, a consequence of her behavior during her pregnancy with  me.

Back to your story: did it cross your mind that it  is possible that your hair was  thin as a child (if it was), that  your speech was imperfect and that you didn’t stand  straight as a consequence  of  her behavior: maybe she didn’t feed you well. Maybe  her stress affected your speech and posture?

In other words, if she  was a loving, adequate mother, your hair would have  been thicker, your speech and posture fine?

anita