Dear Janet:

I will then retell your story in my own way, best I can, putting together the information you shared in all your posts, with quotes, and then ask you a question:

Your father is and has been “a people pleaser” who was quiet and did not start arguments with neighbors, people at his workplace and others, but he was not a people pleaser when it came to his wife and daughter.

When other people in his life expressed that they had a problem with him, or with anyone else, he didn’t accuse them of being overly sensitive. He didn’t argue and didn’t stand up for himself. But whenever his wife or his daughter expressed a problem, he accused both of being too sensitive (“my dad would blame me and my mom and accuse us of being too sensitive”).

He told you “to be quiet and to not start any arguments”, but he was not quiet when it came to asserting his power and dominion over his wife and child (“My dad is a very strict man and we were not allowed to make mistakes”). Other people were not afraid of your father, but you were afraid of him (“I was afraid of him for most of my childhood and teenage years”), and so was your mother.

Your mother was  too anxious to assert herself; you did not have a strong mother to protect you or show you assertive behavior in real-life practice. As a result of having these two parents, you adjusted best you could: you repressed your anger and became a shy, tamed, and a goodie-goody, overly-responsible child (“I was always the responsible child.. never had a ‘wild phase,’ I never dated, I got good grades, I also never expressed my anger… I was shy and a goody-goody”).

In first grade and onward, you were bullied by a group of girls, particularly by a girl who was your neighbor: “Whenever I tried to stand up to her, all hell broke loose. She was very spiteful… she manipulated me… She was so nice to everyone else that no one would think twice about her being manipulative… either extremely sweet or the complete opposite”-

– was she a bit like your father: nice and lenient with everyone else, but rude and strict with his wife and child, sometimes very sweet, at other times the complete opposite?

anita