Dear gj:

“My mom was incredibly unhappy and sad”- this is a devastating experience for a child, to watch her mother being incredibly unhappy and sad. Naturally, the child tries to make her mother happy in the little ways she can. A child cannot get a paying job, cannot earn money, can not buy her mother what she wants, so a child, in practical terms, is limited to what she can do.

So what does she do, that young child wanting nothing more intensely than to make her mother happy? She may pick up a flower and give it to her mother, draw on a paper and give that creation to her mother, she may clean her room, or part of the home, to please her mother. The child does what she can do.

“I don’t think I was trying to make her happy”- you did try to make her happy, early on, you did. Maybe you stopped when you gave up, when you found out that all your efforts failed.

“I think I was trying to survive”- a child needs her care taker, her parent, to look happy enough. in control. For a child, to have a parent that may.. die at anytime because of intense misery, that is a danger to the child’s survival.

“I convinced myself I was useless… I am powerless”- unfortunately for you, in the quest of making your mother happy, you were useless, and you were indeed powerless.

Not your fault, it is just that no child has the power to make a miserable parent happy.

I see your hope as understanding this very concept, that you did fail in an impossible task. And then seeing that you can succeed in tasks that are possible.

Your interest, curiosity, passion, knowing what to do, all these will return over time, little by little if you understand better and change your core belief that you are useless and powerless.

anita