Dear Girija:

“I feel I won’t live peacefully if I leave. Not because of closeness” -I know that you are not experiencing a close relationship with your mother because a close relationship takes two people.

In my previous post to you, I wrote: “the closeness you feel to your mother is a one-sided closeness” – notice, I wrote the closeness you feel to her, not the closeness you experience with her. By feeling close to her, I mean that there is, within your mind and heart, a desire for closeness with her. This is a tricky distinction to make, and I will try to explain it best I can:

When you were a baby and a young child, instinctually and naturally you desired closeness with her. You instinctually and naturally loved her and desired her love. You tried to get her to love you in many, many child-like ways. (There is no way that this was not the case, and that you were the exception to the rule that is true to all humans and all mammals).

Over the years of trying to get her to love you and be happy that you are in her life, you repeatedly failed, and experienced her detachment and lack of joy about you being in her life (“incredibly unhappy and sad… detached…I once asked her how she felt when she held me for the first time, she said she does not remember much“).

Having failed, you suppressed and repressed this desire for her love, but the desire did not die. You are still hoping, at 26, that she loves you somewhat, sometimes (“Despite being 26, I still don’t know if she loves me or not. Sometimes I feel like she cares for me and other times I don’t“).

I will develop the topic further: as a baby and a young child, you repeatedly tried and failed to make her love you. As a result, you believe that you won’t make it at anything, and your motivation therefore, suffered greatly when you were still very young: “My whole life has been a loop of believing I won’t make it… I am a bit concerned that motivation does not work for me… I actually think that part of me died when I was younger – the part that could go after things“.

In your most recent post, you wrote that you “have been putting aside” your hope and desire for a better life for yourself. Your natural desire for a better life for yourself (almost) died with the desire for her love.

You agreed with me that regarding emotional support, your parents neither give you that nor do they want it from you. You added that what scares you is that your mother will be sick again, and your father will not bother to take her to the hospital. You also expressed concern about your mother doing too much of the housework. Does this mean that if you were able to pay for an in-home care, someone to live with your mother, do all the housework and drive your mother to the hospital in case of emergency, etc., then you will no longer feel scared of causing her harm, and you will be able to live peacefully away from your mother and father?

anita