Dear Sann/ Reader:

“I was already taking on the responsibility to comfort her, and to tell her that everything was ok… I was trying to support my mother, listening to her, trying to show understanding, trying to encourage her…there was always a kind of thread (in my feeling) that it would be my fault, that I would be responsible in case she died, I wouldn’t have done enough to help her” –

– Your focus was your mother. You feared that she will die because she talked about dying (“she would be complaining to me about how bad her life is, and what the point would be to keep living”). Her rage directed at you (“big rage-outbursts, shouting and shaking me around… she burst out in anger, out of proportion”) convinced you that she viewed you as a threat. And so, you pushed yourself away: “I had to put up a huge facade and faking, in order to be accepted… Pushing myself further away”.

To be accepted, that is, to no longer be a threat to your mother, you pushed yourself away from your own awareness; you thought and felt and acted as if you did not exist.

“I have learned since I was a child that other people are so important, that they are the ones that matter, and that I don’t…  I… keep everybody happy, for way too long and until I totally fall apart, because that is what I have learned…  I am always worrying about the others and never look at myself, and of course I have all these needs and feelings in me, because I am actually a human being as well… hey I am here too, pay attention to me…  I actually also exist, and I also breathe”.

“I’ve spent the main part of my life trying to understand and excuse my mother. But… I think it is also time that I give myself some recognition… I am starting to look at myself as a person that also had/has certain needs…  I find it sometimes irritating when people say that I have to understand parents, that is all good and well, but who is there to understand me, to give me some space in here?”

-More in a moment.

anita