Dear Anita,

I had to read your post several times (and reread my post of 2 a.m. too) to process. I tried to think a lot, even if I cannot think too far. Just like you, “I don’t know where to go from here”... But I’ll try to give you my thoughts and feelings as clearly as possible.

First, I am relieved we’ll keep communicating, and that you feel closer to me again. I understand the… distance you take when the situation gets too close to home. And since it is so close to you, I understand why you would feel anger towards me for not leaving. I remember I felt such anger toward myself before I was more adapted, less numb. The self-hatred didn’t help though… It turned into shame and more inaction. I hate my mother, I hated myself, I thought if fate made any sense it should kill us both. I thought if my family disappeared the world would be better. So I understand and agree when you said : “I am feeling anger right now, a valid anger, I am okay with this anger: anger at the Monster, anger at the Wrong passed on from one generation to the next”. I felt a lot of pain and anger contemplating helplessly the inter-generational mental illnesses, the fifty shades of trauma…

My siblings and I, we were so alone in this, shamed, tied to secrecy, truly believing if we were to speak about our reality the blame would fall on us. Nobody would believe us about what kind of monster our mother was, everybody would believe her because her speech is more intense. I always thought if I was to speak about this, even if the difficulty of the situation was acknowledged I would be considered as responsible for not being strong enough, for not being close to save myself, and therefore I would deserve/receive no help or sympathy.

So I had… to fake being strong until I was. It didn’t heal me, it turned me into something… something so numb that it brings even less empathy to people. I am crying again. Maybe the loss you asked me about yesterday was… the loss of my connection to humanity. The loss you get when you have been scarred by your life so deeply you can’t feel emotions, can’t feel human, cannot hope to be healed/fixed… And yet, yet… I just have enough emotion left to suffer from… this loss. The loss of not being able to have human connections. My greatest pain.

My mother’s yelling, threats, shaming, mind games… I was able to get used to it. What I never was able to get used to, even though I actively tried, was… the pain of not being able to connect, of having to live with the thought I would be forever alone. Being so broken that I would never be able to get any good human connection at all, not without risking being abandoned when people would realize… where I came from, and how far from being a person I came to be… Worse. If they were to bear with that, what if I was broken enough that my issues could… spread? Just like my mother did to me. So I resigned myself to survive alone. And I couldn’t really do it honestly. I was missing everything I would need, the strength, the experience, the motivation. How to be motivated when you have no hope you’ll ever be an entire enough person, when you are convinced the only people who would want anything with you will be those who intend to use you as an object. Because those who want a human would notice something’s missing… And I didn’t have the energy. My mother doing her mind tricks and feeding upon me… How could I have it?

I’ve been crying from the moment I mentioned it until now. Now I am not crying anymore but my eyes are irrated. I was trembling as I wrote, I hope I didn’t make too many mistakes because I won’t have the courage to reread this post. I hope it’ll be readable.

I have to tell you… My brain fails. My memory isn’t good. Unlike you (from what I gather from your posts) I am not very visual in my memories, and not very auditive either I guess, except for a few exceptions. But I have some memories of feelings, from some moments I wasn’t numb. I remember the distress… I was alone with my siblings, nobody to confirm we were suffering, nobody to tell us what was going on wasn’t normal, that maybe we weren’t to blame. I remember, in this distress, asking myself often “It has to be abuse, it can’t be normal… She cannot have the right to do that?”, “She shouldn’t be allowed to hurt us even if she is our mother”, “Why nobody is noticing? Do we really have to tell about it? Then… maybe it’s normal, maybe we aren’t suffering enough to deserve help.” And… I became adult, we became adults, and then I thought “Now it is too late, maybe people would believe children are defenseless and deserve help, but adults? It doesn’t matter how messed we are now, we’re alone. People won’t understand someone supposed to be old enough to defend themselves yet being as powerless as we are.”

From all the people I mentioned my mother’s behavior, you were the only one I remember who got so angry (most don’t even show any anger). This makes sense, I gave you more details and you are able to feel it at a personal level due to your own experience. You are the only ones who allow me to feel like what has been going on is really abuse, and very wrong. I’m grateful for that, it allows me to remember the feelings I’ve been burying for so long.

I have been, very disturbed the first time I read your post… disturbed by so much strong emotion, so much anger. And some even aimed at me (which echoes my self-hatred and my past inner belief maybe I am bad/broken enough to deserve… more hurt). But in the end, I understand. Thank you for reminding me of my anger… and I’m sorry. I’m afraid you’ll have to be more patient with me, I wish I could do as you say easily but… it is unlikely to happen so fast.

I do value our connection a lot, so it would take a lot to break it but if there’s more pressure than my mind can bear without breaking I will have to slow down… I don’t want to lose our connection over making not enough efforts, but I wouldn’t feel great to lose it over feeling I’m too broken to meet your expectation and to succeed in my healing either… I will keep trying to heal, and help my siblings but… It’ll be difficult. You don’t have to pressure yourself by coming up with a plan either… Maybe we’ll get somewhere eventually, see how I can stop feeding the beast eventually, but I cannot process everything at once.

Thank you for sharing your feelings with me Anita. I really like you, even when your intensity gets challenging for me.

Linarra