Dear Anita,

This is my reply in response to your earlier message.

I agree – the sense of comfort she feels is short-term indeed. I think its because its a different voice than her wife’s. And this is something that she needs to recognise. That the comfort that she is finding in my voice, is because of her unhealthy limitations/isolations with just her wife. I think this is due to a lack of trust/ faith in people as a whole, so she doesn’t bother to try and formulate positive healthy working relationships – and so I don’t think she talks to that many people, or has any other relationships besides the one that she has with her wife…. I wonder if this is something she will begin to recognise by not talking to me on the phone.

I know that she has the attitude of “why is it always me”, “my life’s been rubbish, i deserve better” etc. And she feels like she is owed something because of what she went through, rather than work on herself to get where she wants. This is extremely hard for me to hear and try and work with, when I’m the opposite. She lacks patience, and is quick to jump in to victim mode. I can imagine her jumping in to victim mode about my email, and thinking that I’m “having a go” or “telling her what to do”. When the reality is, I am just providing her with solutions to fix the problems, to stop her complaining, but when I do that, it’s like she doesn’t want to hear. And I a suddenly the bad guy, and she get’s angry on the phone.

It is always a short term comfort, in the cycle of abuse. The abuse continues. My sister gets distraught and calls me. She takes my advice when she is feeling distraught. Then 2 days later, she says that things are “fine” etc. I ask her about the advice I gave, and she doesn’t want to talk about it/ gets funny with me. Then a few more days later, and she phones me up distraught again… For me, it’s quite frustrating, hard to hear, upsetting, etc. I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere by giving her advice – so yes, maybe not talking to her will help her – I hope.

I have said this before – but you have helped me ALOT. I have always needed advice from someone who can relate to my position, and advice me with how I should handle things. I’ve never met anyone who has said a yes or a no, to how I should interact with my parents or sister, because they haven’t been through the same thing. Someone who understands how emotionally affecting it is, or having these relationships can be, even when others can’t see it. If that makes sense? I’ve always been looking to talk to someone about stuff who could relate/ had similar experiences so they understood how tearing it feels, to try and put yourself and your life first, whilst at the same time needing to remove yourself from close family members who are hurting you emotionally, psychologically and spiritually and not allowing you to grow. And also having to process your entire life to date in order to understand your own position etc.

In terms of balancing your life – do you schedule in times to come on to Tiny Buddha in your day? Because I always see that you are the one of the people who reply to people on here – I presume you’re an admin?? Even if you’re not, I see you an as admin, and when I talk to people about Tiny Buddha, I do say “yes there’s an admin on there called Anita who replies to so many people’s messages and really helps them out. I hope that one day I can be in a place where I have so much time to help people in that way”. 🙂 It’s true.

I can see how you are helping yourself by doing this. I also feel the same too. Which is what I like about Tiny Buddha. Especially because there’s no last names or profile pictures. It’s almost like the ego dissolves, and people allow themselves to put themselves in each others position, and to find solutions to problems by doing so. If only the outer world was like this too!!

It’s sad to come to terms with thats how my parents saw me 🙁 Especially when I held them with such high regard and love. To think that they just saw me as a thing :'( And didn’t love me with the same velocity as I did them. It’s really hard. They told me they always loved me, and that they tried their best….But did they? OR is that another lie to make the abuse seem less than it was? I don’t know if that’s what they thought life and love was.

I’m glad you understand the time thing. By the time I was 17/18 I already felt like I had lived a full life!!!! Literally, because time went so slow growing up, and I feel like I took on alot of hard life lessons from a young age. I’m 25 now, and feel like I have the wisdom of a 60 year old already (!!) In a way, sometimes I feel liberated or enlightened, because I feel like I have so much time left!! lol. It’s weird, I feel like I’ve learnt the lessons I should learn on my death bed – such as the value of life, value of love etc. So every moment to me now, is just pure gold.

I also continue to learn in our posts too.

Cat