Dear noname:

I will share with you my experience then and I will do it as simply and shortly as I can so to not complicate my explanation with unnecessary details. I can elaborate on any one part if you ask me to.

My mother expressed her misery to me very vividly, generously and repeatedly. I felt and believed that her misery was a reaction to me being bad, that I cause her misery, that I brought it about. I felt and believed that she was an innocent child, a victim of my badness.

Throughout my life, her voice, the sight of her, was enough to trigger this core belief. This core belief ruled my life and brought about great misery and dysfunction into my life.

My first quality therapy took place in 2011-2013. In 2013 I cut contact with my mother. I struggled with guilt for a long time after cutting contact with her, feeling guilty for abandoning the innocent child I believed she was, causing her more misery, and being a bad person for having done so. Yet, I persisted.

Eventually my thinking and believing settled, after a few years of going back and forth from the old belief to the new belief. This is what settled:

1. When I came into my mother’s life she was not the child. I was the child.

2. In the context of my relationship with her, she was guilty (bad) and I was innocent (good).

3. Her misery was a reaction of having been victimized, but not by me. She was victimized in her own childhood, but that happened before I came into her life.

4. My misery has been a reaction to having been victimized by her. It was her in my life the moment I was born.

anita