Dear Murtaza:

“How did you spend your day if I may ask?”- I remember starting a fantasy story in the morning, setting the characters and the beginning plot, and developing the story throughout the day, as I walked to school, as I walked back from school, and when alone in the apartment, I used every moment of that alone-time to keep the fantasy story going uninterrupted, helped by the music from the radio. Two themes I remember were (1) love stories, and (2) being famous: dancing or singing in front of huge audiences, being a famous movie star, celebrated and worshipped by millions. I remember fantasizing about starting a religion and being a world leader.

“I think that for some birds, just forget flying, and forget that they have wings. I think that the first is better, but it will involves much more strength, to be trapped for so long, yet still wanting to fly”- I never got to fly by making my childhood fantasies come true, but in my communication with you, I am somewhat flying (!)

“I think that there is a lot of reasons why people help others, and it often doesn’t feel like the other person thinks he is superior”- you will see as I proceed, that you are helping me. I am motivated to be helped by you because of what you expressed in your most recent post:

“I’m impressed by your detailed and great reply” (a compliment), “thank you for telling me” (grace), “you’re good at it” (another compliment.. and you are good at complimenting, by the way), “I think I understand” (rapport), “correct me.. if the subject is personal.. disregard this section and I will understand to not ask such stuff in the future”, (sensitive, considerate, accommodating, respectful), “I feel like I’m anita now lol, feels good actually” (another compliment with a touch of humor), “I wish that you had someone hearing you… would’ve loved to hear you, to do exactly what you do to other members and me, understand you and make you feel heard, and important” (empathy, kindness), “I don’t like when someone makes fun of my belief, so I won’t do that to people” (empathy, decency)

All the above impressive sentiments  make me want to share with you more and be helped by doing so (a compliment to you before I proceed: I think that you are brilliant!).

“She (your mother) said stuff that isn’t true, though you felt they are, even when you know they aren’t, so you felt that you are the problem, that your understanding/logic is flawed, so you dislike argument because its unconsciously tells you that you are the problem, that your understanding is flawed, is this correct?”- yes. I will elaborate in effort to helping myself understand better:

She indeed “said stuff that isn’t true”. She repeatedly told me, in great length, with many (made up) details, how I was a bad girl who was purposefully and in a planned way- hurting “the best mother in the world”, so she said. She also told me while hitting my face back and forth with her big hand: you are a Nobody, you are a Big Zero. She elaborated on that too, in great length.

Like you suggested, I thought that I was the problem, but I also thought that she was the problem. The conflict has been the mental torture all along: the back and forth internal fight between contradictory evaluations of myself and of her. When I believed that I was a big zero- I felt terribly ashamed. When I believed that I was bad- I felt terribly guilty, when I believed that she was bad- I felt a mixture of intense anger at her and intense guilt for thinking badly of her.

My mother talked a lot, gossiped a lot, expressed her misery a lot, was often angry at me, often disapproving, often annoyed with me. She repeatedly threatened to kill herself (I remember her showing me her wrists, showing me where she would make the cuts), she said she had to do it because of me, because of something I said, or should have said but didn’t, because of something I should have done but didn’t, and because of what I was thinking. I didn’t tell her what I was thinking. She told me. I argued: no, I wasn’t thinking that (and I didn’t)! But those denials made her more angry, accusing me of lying.

Following 15 years of hearing her threats of suicide, I was 20 maybe, following her walking on the sidewalk after she said that she was going to throw herself under a moving truck (because of what I said or didn’t, etc.)- I remember no longer really believing that she will do what she said she will, wishing that she did, feeling somewhat bored, distressed but detached at the same time, and knowing what was to follow: hearing her talk for hours until she got too exhausted to talk any more, then she would go to bed, then there will be a few days of eerie silence.

This torture harmed my brain: I developed severe OCD with elaborate compulsions and severe tics (Tourette Syndrome) starting at about 5 or 6 that further tortured me as I experienced social ridicule and rejection. (I no longer suffer from OCD and my tics are limited to only a few and are less severe). I developed the habit of spacing out/ being “gone”, shutting down my brain as she talked by hearing the sounds she made, but not deciphering the words and sentences. This led to my great difficulty in processing information, making academic studies very difficult, involving hours of work to process information that others took fifteen minutes to process, maybe less. This shut-down led me to not be aware of what was happening around me, not seeing where I was going (I remember hearing a vehicle just missing hitting me, not having noticed that I walked into traffic). In social situations, I didn’t understand what people said, what they meant, what they wanted, and that led to finding myself in situations that further harmed me.

One of my severe tics as a teenager (maybe before as well) was my head moving right and left in quick succession, as in saying No. Sometimes I was thinking: doesn’t she (my mother) see, why doesn’t she stop talking to me. Doesn’t she see that I am saying NO!?

One time she said: I know that what I am doing is not right, but what are you going to do? You have nowhere to go.

My mother, my own mother who had a hard life, divorced early, no one to help her financially, working hard cleaning rich people’s homes and offices, scrubbing bathtubs so hard that her hands were raw and bleeding. My poor mother, buying me the best foods, toys, new school supplies and new clothes, my “best mother in the world”.. I wanted to be rich and famous,  and give her a life of luxury. I wanted to be a movie star (a movie star..  with severe tics).

I stopped all contact with her in May of 2013, then in January 2014, I sent her a message through a third party, and nothing since. But the mental torture was not over: who is good, who is bad….???

Did I resolve it by now? Can I say: yes, in my life, she was a bad person? Yes, I can say that. That in itself doesn’t make me a good person, but it makes it possible for me to be a good person. And so, I’ve been working toward becoming a good person. The more of a good person I am becoming, the less mental torture/ the more peace of mind (the bird flying in the sky experience). It is very important to me to not be a good person the way my mother was to other people: falsely complimenting them (profuse flattery), being generous with them, giving them things she bought with her work scrubbing with raw hands, and then complaining that they are taking advantage of her, etc.

Well, I said that you are helping me. This post is my effort to help myself further because of you, because you were kind to me. I will see with some time, what difference, if any, this post makes in my mind and heart. I want to fly a bit more.. although sadly, the sky is hazy with smoke because of wild fires/ global warming.

anita