Dear Linarra:

I read your whole recent post thoroughly, one of your most insightful posts. I will respond to only a couple of items because the rest of what you wrote speaks too well for itself and I have nothing to add:

“I was too busy attacking myself“-

she attacked you=> you attacked you.

You+ Her= A Unit.

Part of the Unit attacks the other part.

“Learned helplessness, training/conditioning… A very powerful way to remove the power of someone“- a very powerful way to remove a person’s belief in her own power.

“A concept I’ve been taught again and again in my psychology classes and yet, strangely, knowing about it, seeing it… isn’t sufficient to fight back the phenomenon“-

– it takes experiencing it to make a difference. For the elephant that would be to actually move its body forward, beyond the distance allowed by the chain.

“It’s a bit ridiculous, but it is how powerful it can be sometimes“- it being one’s belief, what we believe to be true.

“I guess, for all the years I have been taught to feel helpless, it may take me a lifetime to heal myself from the consequences of this… training“-  if it is possible for you to break the chain, then it is possible for you earlier than you think. It could have happened to me way, way earlier if I had the help that I needed.

anita