Dear Rachel:

Putting together what you shared in your current thread, and in previous threads, as well as what I read in a Wikipedia entry on Western Africa, this is my input today:

Your parents grew up in Western Africa. (Wikipedia:) The “scramble for Africa”, also called the Conquest of Africa, was the invasion, occupation, division and colonization of African territory by European powers during the “New Imperialism”, 1881-1914. In 1870, only 10% of Africa was under formal European control. By 1914 90% of the continent was under European control.

The European colonialists were motivated by a desire for valuable natural resources, religious missionary zeal, and a quest for national prestige among the European nations, competing with who gets more of Africa. Great Britain and France got most of Africa.

Following World War 2, nationalist movements across West Africa rose up. In 1957, Ghana became the first sub-Saharan colony to achieve independence. By 1974, West Africa’s nations were entirely autonomous, but many Western African nations have been submerged under political instability, with notable civil wars in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Ivory Cost, and a succession of military coups in Ghana and Burkina Faso.

Your parents’ motivations, particularly your mother’s, has been similar to the Europeans who invaded Africa to take personal, selfish advantage of Africa’s  natural resources. Your mother invade your mind, robbing you of your valuable, natural mental resources, so to have power over you.

Invaded and robbed of your valuable mental resources, you feel that you “serve a function but I am not a human being.. I feel I am essentially a robot”.

A human being robbed of her valuable mental resources is a robot that serves a function.

What is the function you serve for your mother: “Growing up, they always stressed how important it was to have a real career and make a lot of money.. so I can support them and the rest of my family”. Your mother lives “lives in an expensive house and spends so much money on material things”.

She “screamed, shamed and criticized” you, “always hated and belittled” you, claimed that you were worthless (“I am not as worthless as she always claimed me to be”)- she did that so that you will be forever chasing her for a sense of worth, chasing her to give you back what she robbed from you: a right to your own mind, your own heart, your own person, your own life.

“She always would .. talk about how hard her life was, how hard she works and how my dad treated her so badly”- her purpose has been to make you feel sorry for her, misusing your empathy, so that you will be motivated to  treat her “right”, which means to do what she wants you to do, and to forever owe her. She wants your money, she wants your empathy and attention when she rants to you, she wants to remain in power over you.

“I have never been in a relationship with someone who actually genuinely cared about me. It’s always been people draining my energy. Maybe that’s why I am so tired all the time”-

– like the Africans who rebelled against the colonists, tired and drained, fighting for their independence, it is time for you too, to rebel against your mother, to claim your independence, to free your natural resources (your mind, your mental health) from your mother’s power and control.

You wrote: “My happiest and calmest of times was when I was in college building a life away from them, when I did not speak to my parents”-

– that happiest and calmest time was temporary because you did speak to your parents again, and to your siblings, and you got back to being colonized, so to speak. Just like the Africans freedom fighters went through (and still are going through) political and economical instability, so will you have to go through some instability as you proceed to free yourself.

But you will need some support to do that. I hope you make it.

Do you think I am being too dramatic here, Rachel?

anita