Dear Elise:

You read the stuff you feel guilty about when you were 16- 19. When you were 13 or 14 you told your mother that you suffered from intrusive thoughts, later to be diagnosed (?) with OCD. This to me means that you suffered from significant anxiety (anxiety is what fuels OCD) way before you read what you read.

From what you shared about your parents: reads like your father was overall not supportive of you, and your mother was particularly harsh with you, insensitive to you, accusing you… Reads like she was focused on how her parents mistreated her, but mistreated her own daughter. Maybe not in the same ways her parents mistreated her, but in her own ways.

Like any child, you felt small and helpless  in comparison to your big and powerful mother, and feeling guilty.. you felt that you deserved to be punished.

How did your mother’s parents punish her, and how did your mother punish  you?

anita