Dear Linarra:

I didn’t yet read or re-read your recent post, but I thought of something before getting up this morning and that is my need and assertion that I will no longer refer to that woman as your- or anyone’s mother. The word Mother has a positive connotation and therefore that woman does not deserve the title. She as well as the woman who gave birth to me were mothers sometime after having had sex and that motherhood ended sometime before or after giving birth, when they became something else to us: Monsters or Beasts. I will never, ever again refer to any one of these women as Mothers, but as Monsters. If you prefer that I use another word that has a definite negative connotation (in English or in French), let me know what it is.  I am open to suggestions.

And now to your most recent post: “The self-hatred didn’t help though“- the victim joins the victimizer in.. hating the victim, two against one.

“I hate my mother, I hated myself, I thought if fate made any sense it should kill us both“- I read and reply to part by part. This part elaborates on what I wrote right above. The victim-child is not capable of understanding that she is not the Monster. In the victim-child’s mind, she and the Monster are ..pretty much the same, a single entity. To get rid of the shame, she thinks that both (one entity) must die.

“My siblings and I, we were so alone in this, shamed, tied to secrecy… Nobody would believe us about what kind of monster our mother was, everybody would believe her because her speech is more intense“- her speech is more intense, plus most of your life she was bigger and stronger and the one who was capable. You were small and helpless, unable to sit, then unable to walk, unable to shop and prepare food, etc., and you looked up at that big, strong and capable woman who was able to do all the things you were unable to do.

Fast forward, you are an adult, you can see that she is maybe smaller than you are, weaker, frail.. maybe, but you are still under her power because you feel sorry for her, you feel empathy and sympathy for her. The Monster knew instinctively that she will not forever be bigger and stronger than her children, and therefore, she will not be able to overpower them physically, so she made them feel sorry for her, demand more of their empathy, make them scared for her life, make them feel shame and guilt.. so that when they are bigger and capable to leave her, they won’t.

And she doesn’t want her children to leave her because they are her only source of Power. And Power feels good!

“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“-she weakened you with her triple weapon of Fear-Shame-Guilt, profiting from your history of being small and helpless as babies and young children, and keeping you that way.

“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“-

– at one time I gave you the image of a tree shedding its branches and leaves and blossoms and remaining just a trunk, a bare trunk, because there is not enough water and nutrients in the ground. When the tree’s branches die and drop to the ground, it can’t reach up toward the sun and connect with the sun. Without its leaves it cannot connect further with the sun and absorb its light. Without blossoms it cannot connect with bees. Without fruit it cannot connect with birds and bears. Just a trunk it is almost dead, having lost connection with life. Almost dead but not dead yet, alive enough to suffer, not alive enough to connect with life= to LIVE.

“My mother’s yelling, threats, shaming, mind games… I was able to get used to it“- by shedding your branches and leaves and blossoms. The logic behind it: less connection with her= less pain.

“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.“-

– the lonely tree trunk with no branches, no leaves, no blossoms to connect with LIFE. It is afraid of forevermore.. being just a trunk.

“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“-

– you made a good human connection with me, a former tree trunk, like you, and so, I do know where you come from. I am more than a trunk now, I have some branches and leaves and a couple of blossoms.

“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“-

– this is about the lack of separation I mentioned earlier. You don’t know yet that you and the monster are not the same person. Intellectually (and therefore, superficially) you understand this, but not emotionally, deep inside. You don’t understand that- going back to the tree imagery- that you are not the kind of person who will grab an ax and cut off my branches! (She is the Monster. You are not).

“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“-

– You can’t know how it is to be connected to others as a person when you didn’t yet adequately experience it long enough to trust that it exists and can be trusted to continue. This is why for as long as you allow it, I must stay connected with you, so that maybe.. just maybe you will trust me and our connection.

“Because those who want a human would notice something’s missing”- back to the tree image, I said I have a couple of blossoms, guess what- I have a third, because I connected with you, and there are more blossoms to have because as long as we are alive there is always something missing/ something to yet have.

“I’ve been crying from the moment I mentioned it until now. Now I am not crying anymore but my eyes are irritated. 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“-

-Very readable, can’t be  clearer. And..  back to the tree imagery.. I think that this crying experience, the irritation.. that may be what a tree trunk .. feels when a new branch is starting to grow just a bit.

“I have to tell you… My brain fails. My memory isn’t good. Unlike you“- you don’t know because I didn’t tell you and because my brain’s function has greatly improved: my brain failed me for decades in ways that could have easily killed me. My brain was severely inattentive, severely numb, severely dissociated, I was spaced out.. couldn’t focus, couldn’t process information. And my memories from childhood: it will take no more than 5 minutes to verbalize ALL of them.

“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?..'”-

– Similar thoughts on my part. She was so loud when she screamed at me and yet no one interfered. When I was a child, where I was- there was no such thing as the police in connection to parents and children, nor was there anything like a child protection agency, or children rights.. . Children belonged to their parents and it was up to the parents alone as to how to treat what belonged to them. To interfere with a parent’s mistreatment of their child (except when a parent literally breaks the child’s bones or the likes) was considered minding someone else’s business, interfering with the parent’s business.

Plus, adults witnessing another adult’s violence toward a child, be it verbal or physical, are afraid to receive a similar violence themselves if they interfere.

“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.‘”-

– when I got angry at you recently for feeding the beast, as I put it, for allowing the abuse, I forgot how I was as an adult, quite incapable. I mentioned above how my brain failed me too. Yes, it is true as I look back: as an adult, I wasn’t able to stop her any more than I did.

I remember I was 20, maybe a bit older than 20, in the apartment where I lived with her, such a small apartment and yet she RAN toward me. I don’t think that she ever walked toward me so to hit me, she RAN. So at 20 or so, there  she is RUNNING toward me, like a wounded animal.. so I did something I never did before, I stretched out my arms and with my hands I closed in on her hands and pushed toward her just enough, with just enough force to stop her running. I stayed like that for a while until she simply withdrew and moved away. It was so pathetic, in my mind. I thought to myself: THIS IS ALL IT TOOK???? This is all I had to do in the past to make her stop???? And I felt sorry for her, oh.. poor monster lost her courage.

That was the last time she attempted to physically hit me. So you see.. the monster is not out of control when she abuses us, it’s simply a power strategy on her part.

“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)… 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.. 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”-

-You are welcome. I think that you don’t have to worry about me not being patient with you because I am here with you helping myself, wanting to understand myself better, to.. grow longer branches reaching to the sun, more leaves, more blossoms.. for my own sake, for me. You are helping me to do so because of our very special, unique connection, as I perceive it.

“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… Maybe we’ll get somewhere eventually, see how I can stop feeding the beast eventually, but I cannot process everything at once“-

– I can’t process everything at once either, was never able to do that. I expected myself to process everything quickly and become a.. functional member of society, put a lot of pressure on myself. I failed every time I tried to meet my own unrealistic expectations.

“I really like you, even when your intensity gets challenging for me“- I really like you too. When I feel distant from you again, maybe even angry… I will take a break, a walk outside.. and I will like you again afterwards. Anger doesn’t have to be catastrophic and lead to a disaster.. if you are not a monster.

anita