Dear Kibou:

The first part of your recent post is the exercise:

“I know that anger hurts people. I know that anger distances people. I remember how my mum cried when I was angry at her for not letting me play before completing my homework first in grade one. I remember how I felt bad for having hurt her. I was at first stubborn and isolated myself. Our family wanted me to apologize to my mum first before I go outside. It was unfair. I wanted to play and not do  the homework first, I could have done it afterward. Why would I have to apologize to such non sense. But I also was sad and angry at myself for making my mum cry. I apologized and cried when apologizing because I had hurt my mom”-

– the little first grade girl that you were, was filled with intense, youthful anticipation of joy, with the desire to play, filled with passion. That passion was who she was at the time, it was her essence.

But alas, her essence did not only inconvenience her mother, it hurt her mother and made her cry! Her family wanted the little girl to apologize to her mother, which meant, to agree that indeed, being who she was, her very essence, was wrong and requires an apology.

At first, the little girl refused to agree with such a devastating conclusion, and she stubbornly isolated herself from them. But not for long, because she was a little girl who needed family, so she gave in and gave up and abandoned herself.

You started this thread on April 17 with: “Hi, I have difficulties with the feelings of abandonment”. The example you gave today described one incident of abandonment, but there were many more times when the same message was repeated: who you are is Wrong and is not welcome!

In the second part of your post, you returned to generalities: “1. People want fairness but we are not fair”- your mother/ family were not fair to you when they insisted that you abandon yourself. “2. People want authenticity but only to their liking”- again, you generalize your mother and family into “People”,  “5. There are so many things that contradict each other”- perhaps your mother told you that she loved you while demanding that you abandon yourself, a contradiction.

“What I am most sad and angry about is that I want someone to make me their first priority”- when your family insisted that you abandon yourself, they made you their last priority. Understandably, you want to be someone’s first priority!

“But I would dislike myself if anyone were to lose themselves by putting me first”- you would dislike it if someone else was to abandon themselves so to put you first because you know how if feels: you abandoned yourself so to put your mother/ family first, and you paid a heavy price for it.

“when I was a teenager I asked my mom whether my mom only loves me because I am her child. If I had been swapped by birth, would she have not loved her swapped child…”-

This tells me that indeed, your mother told you that she loves you, and that you suspected that she didn’t, because of the glaring contradiction: if she loved you, why did she emotionally abandon you, insisting that you follow suit?

“These friends.. loved my smile. People called out on my radiant smile”- your abandoned self has not been completely abandoned, she still radiates life from time to time.

Back to your original post of April 17: “The wound of abandonment has not been fully healed and it might never will.. I know that I will always have my family, so that alone makes me feel that I’ve healed certain aspects of that wound”-

– when your family insisted that you abandon yourself emotionally, you paid a heavy price for the (not really) love that they offered you. As long as they are exacting this price and you keep paying it, the wound of abandonment can not heal.

It was mind boggling to me when I finally thoroughly understood that my mother did not love me even though she said many times that she did, and even though she meant it at times, and even though she cooked for me, etc. I figured it out when I understood that a person who loves another does not abandon or destroy the supposed loved-one, and then “loves” the shell that remains, or the appearance that remains after the essence of the person is evicted or destroyed.

anita