Dear limbikanimaria:

My mother lied to me too, selfishly. Like you, my empathy was with her, not with me. Like you I focused on her, on her reasons, her life experience, not mine. Like you I was invested in seeing the best in her, to explain away her selfish behavior  (ex.: “maybe it’s a subconscious defense mechanism”, makes her selfishness unconscious, and therefore denies the reality that she was .. consciously selfish)

What I am trying to bring to your attention is the following: a child has to believe that her mother loves her and will never selfishly and intentionally lie and hurt her. So the child closes her eyes to that, when it happens.

Fast forward, as adults, we have to open our eyes because keeping them closed leads us to walk in the dark and stumble, so to speak,  that is, to live dysfunctional lives in the context of relationships and otherwise.

As an adult, to heal, I had to shift my empathy from empathy for her—> to empathy for me;

from my focus being on her (her reasons, her motivations, her childhood)–> focusing on me (my reasons, my motivations, my childhood).

You wrote then that she didn’t lie to you to protect you but “to protect her self image rather than acknowledge my feelings”-

– does this mean that what was important to her was not that you will get better, that you will heal from what hurts you, but that she will looks good in the minds of others, like your father’s?

* Please take your time answering, this is not easy to process.

anita