Dear Linarra:

“I hope you’re sleeping well tonight“, you posted at 1:06 am, my time. I was awake last night, maybe at about 1 am,  and your words crossed my mind: “I am glad that insomnia didn’t win” (quote from my memory, not sure these are the exact words), and I thought: maybe I can make it so that insomnia doesn’t win again, and..  I fell asleep again. I woke up at 5 am. Not too bad. How is your sleep these days?

Yesterday, you wrote to me: “Your comfort is important“- I want to reciprocate this: your comfort is important too!

“Often, well-intended words come with pressure and unfortunately, I don’t do well under pressure“- when it comes to improving one’s mental health, no one works well under pressure. Cheer leading/ pressure can work for a runner in a race- that’s because running is a short-term, physical task, but emotional healing is always a long, long-term mental task. Gentleness and patience is always the key to emotional healing/ improving one’s mental health, not pressure.

“I am grateful you are willing to talk with me no matter the outcome, it is a relief from my usual worries“- I imagine the pressure you’d feel to reach the outcome by a certain date.. and to show that you are making progress on your way to the outcome (so to make the Exchange worthy for me). Emotional healing is a Process that needs to be taken with no consideration of the Outcome. For a long time, I fell in love with the process itself, curious and interested, engaged.. with no consideration of any outcome, none at all.

“I am far from feeling like from feeling disgusts for those who fall into that, it is a very understandable.. it makes it hard to believe people who do anything for you if you’re not paying the price… I used to think it was just how the world worked (and still struggling with that belief because, for some, the world does work that way…) But in the end, the only disgust there should be is the one aimed toward those who take advantage. They aren’t good people”-

– this is very important for me to read. I never discussed this issue before, not even in my over two years of therapy, not with anyone before here, with you. To read your words above is like taking in a cold, clean air for the first time, to read “very understandable” and “far from.. disgust”, and more.

I feel that there is something more to develop from what I quoted right above: first, true; “for some, the world does work that way”. I would say that for many, it does. There are many people who “aren’t good people”. Coming to think about it,  my own mother was not “good people” to me! Your mother was not/ is not good-people to you!

My mother did not perceive me as a person of value, but as a Thing that belongs to her. No wonder I continued, outside her physical presence, to perceive myself to be a Thing that.. does not belong to me. In those humiliating situations- I wanted to get away, and my body said NO! in so many ways, I mumbled no, no, no, but I just didn’t feel that I had the right to say out loud: NO!, or to stop what was happening, or to leave. I didn’t perceive that I had that right or option. It was a relief when it was over. Before and after that terrible part, it was nice, primarily because I was not with my mother, and I got to be in a restaurant and riding in a car, etc.

My body did not belong to me, I didn’t like it, just carried it around, like it was really a thing that does not belong to  me, a thing I was uncomfortable with. I was almost trying to get rid of it because it was trouble, shameful.

“Shame is a very difficult feeling to live with, and it makes me happy if our exchanges help you to alleviate some of it”- I thought yesterday: I can’t un-feel the shame if I only think about myself, but I can un-feel it when I think of how you wouldn’t deserve to feel that shame if you experienced what I did, and how so many women who did experience what I did, or similar to it- they don’t deserve to feel that shame. Therefore, I don’t.

“I am not sure I fear your betrayal the most. I fear making mistakes, not ill-intentioned, but due to ignorance and lack of awareness”- I know this fear oh so well.

“I also fear the intensity of my feelings. Usually it isn’t a problem because I am taming them, over time it became a second nature to temperate myself. But… how to put it, I feel like our connection is challenging me and will keep challenging me emotionally”- this is why being gentle and patient with yourself is so important: you treating yourself this way and me treating you this way too: gentle, patient, no pressure, no Outcome in mind, only Process.

“it makes me anxious because compared to my usual state of regulation, my un-tempered feelings are quite… intense”- It will take getting used to what is now unusual. With time, and with the right attitude (gentleness, patience) you will become comfortable with what now is unusual and uncomfortable.

“And it is both embarrassing and intimidating. And it makes me feel vulnerable. And it also worries because I have to be able to deal with these emotions in a responsible way, one that wouldn’t possibly bring you discomfort”-

(1) you have a wiggle room  with me, some room for “making mistakes, not ill-intentioned, but due to ignorance and lack of awareness” without being judged or punished for those, no punishment, no withdrawal, (2) it is very important that you grow to understand that if you bring me discomfort- it is not going to be a devastating discomfort that I can’t handle, but a small discomfort that will help me learn something new as a result. In this Process of emotional healing, it is moments of discomfort that move us toward more learning= healing.

So you see, your “mistakes” are opportunities for me to learn= heal. Same with my mistakes: they are opportunities for you to learn= heal. We should both relax further: give ourselves the right to be spontaneous, trusting ourselves and each other to not make devastating mistakes.. because we are good people, so devastating mistakes are really not possible for us to make.

anita