Dear Anita,

“when you wrote this you knew just what I need (and what I needed and did not receive from my mother: a consistency or fondness, or affection or.. maybe even neutrality, regardless of my little choices, or a word I happened to say, etc.) Thank you!”

You’re welcome! Of course I knew, as I need it too, and I’m happy to provide. After I wrote this note and posted the message yesterday, I felt good. I felt good because I didn’t do it out of fear (since we already worked around that a bit), only out of care. And it feels really nice to do the things not because I fear a repercussion, but because I really to make them so you can have a good time as we discuss. Unconditional affection feels really nice to give.

When I think of it, not so long ago I still felt that unconditional affection wasn’t a thing. Because I wasn’t able to give genuine unconditional affection to my abusers (despite my unavoidable love for them I guess?), and therefore genuine affection could only happen at the condition the other person didn’t hurt me so bad I couldn’t feel safe enough to care about them.  So, in literal terms, it was conditional? But I think it is a pretty reasonable prerequisite for unconditional love to happen in a healthy way.

When I am anxious, the things I give cannot feel genuine and willing, because it feels like what I’m giving is the prerequisite for my safety. It isn’t enjoyable, it is distressing and it makes me lose myself in the process, because I cannot know for sure what I would genuinely feel like doing if I did have the choice, if I didn’t have to do things a certain way to be safe.

This is why, I really like to provide this unconditional safety to people who also make me feel safe. Then the affection and good feelings flourish naturally.

Oh, I did ramble quite a bit there, didn’t I?

“I think the fear/ anxiety behind this is not your perception that you are being “given anything” but that something is being taken away from you.”

It is very likely. I didn’t want genuinely to be there and do this, I didn’t even want to earn money. I did it because I was pressured to do it by my family. I knew I wouldn’t know what to do with the money for myself except to keep it safe for the time of urgency, so for my family most likely. The motivation, the means and the context weren’t right for me, so even if I was given something, I guess it didn’t compensate for how much was taken away from me…

“What about real freedom, not the illusional freedom, as you put it, but real freedom from her– wasn’t it a meaning, for you?”

I guess I never considered myself free. I just wanted to see what life was like away from my toxic environment. I did, and I liked it, but it wasn’t enough. I cannot describe the awful feeling it was when I realized I didn’t have what it takes to achieve real freedom from her back then. My self-esteem took a big hit around that time. I escaped the prison I wanted to escape for so long and I found out… I didn’t really wanted freedom, I didn’t know what to make of my freedom. It was overwhelming, scary.

I had been nothing most of my life, I was just a thing adapting to chaos, a thing that had somehow learnt to not want anything, to not need, to not expect anything for my future, to not be a person… And I genuinely didn’t know what to do with myself, even for the little things. I let my friend who was also my roommate and classmate make the decisions because she was thoughtful, reasonable (everything my mother was not) so I trusted her, and I didn’t mind… I actually was quite comforted by the fact I didn’t have to face the dreadful fact I was just an empty shell who genuinely didn’t care about most things. Oh I was aware of that, but I let it be… since I didn’t know what to do about that.

I searched for solutions though. I considered the “fake it until you make it”, but I didn’t know what I wanted to fake so it was a bit complicated around that time. I didn’t have many models around to influence me positively.  Fast forward now, it is a bit easier, I have a better idea of what I could possibly be as a person, but… I still have built my life around my own little prison. I wasn’t able to build myself as a person in the outside world.

I cannot feel the meaning in real freedom yet. I think it is the consequence of the learned helplessness from my childhood that is still preventing me to feel much about it. I have been conscious of this for a while, and I have been trying to fight it on a small scale, but on the large scale it makes it impossible yet to yearn for real freedom like you or my siblings seem to feel/need strongly.  It is a bit disheartening. But I think, eventually, I might be able to change that. I wonder if it’s alright to keep doing baby steps around that or if I should do a big jump. I just can’t visualize the big jump yet though.

Alright, that was a lot of interesting development for me. Without rereading because I’m late on making lunch.

I wanted to add, this sentence yesterday “I hope you sleep well-enough tonight, precious Linarra.” made me feel really warm. I felt indescribable positive feelings when I saw you put the word “precious” in relation to me. I slept quite well, and I hope you are sleeping well tonight too, Anita. I will keep thinking of you after I send this message.

Linarra