Dear Juanita:

“You are helping me to dare to trust again”- according to the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson (Wikipedia, “Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development”), the development of basic trust is the first stage of the  psychosocial development of a human being. “The child’s number one needs are to feel safe, comforted, and well cared for. If the child learns that her primary caregiver/s are consistent sources of food, comfort, and affection, the child learns to trust. If the caregivers are neglectful.. or abusive, the child learns to distrust-  that the world is an undependable, unpredictable, and dangerous”. (Even if the parent/s are consistent in their care of the child, but they talk a lot about how dangerous the world is- that’s enough to scare a child into mistrust of the world and anxiety results).

Fast forward, here I am communicating with you, and trust is the most important element in relationships, including between you and I. But as adults, we may need to redefine what trust is, because it is not the same in every way as it is for a child.

“I always think of (that precise quote from Khalil Gibran) when I think of you! .. is this more than a coincidence?”- mothers are crucial in our early development, so no wonder that an excellent quote about mothers speaks to the two of us.

“maybe even I bound myself to (mother), due to my desperate desire to receive love”- in the beginning of life a child is naturally and thoroughly bound to her mother, so freedom is a matter of separating from her. Many adults don’t accomplish this mental separation, and therefore are chained, “imprisoned in the cage”.

“I have decided to speak my mind from now on, to not .. accept or tolerate any kind of behaviour .. for the sake of ‘peace’- because it wasn’t giving me peace anyway.. I see that the needy child within believed in other strategies”- by strategies I think that you include the strategy of tolerating/ not resisting a little abuse so to prevent bigger abuse, as in, metaphorically: if I don’t resist this person slapping me on the face, she/he will be satisfied and may not break my bones (?)

anita