Dear Ed:

You are welcome.

Ed, Oct 17, 2022: “I am so horribly afraid of me getting it wrong from the start. What if these people were right. What if I was and still am indeed living ‘in my own little world.’ … What if me even posting this is just some way of me keeping up my own delusions. What if I was the one ‘gaslighting’ my ex and everything was actually alright… What if I told my other friends and family and my last therapist things that would support my version of the truth. What if I am doing the same here with you and not even knowing that I do. I don’t even know if I should post this or if there is any use to me posting this but I am pretty desperate right now for anything as my anxiety is killing me. I just don’t know how I will ever know what is true“.

Ed, June 28: “my father screaming at me for hours for not being ‘good enough’, my mother supporting this by not intervening and making me feel like he was right”.

Ed, June 29: “June 29: “I am desperate for a judgement about my past, in the sense that I am desperate to know if I did wrong and deserved what I experienced or if I am allowed to free myself and move on”-

This is my understanding today: you are obsessed with the topic of what is true and what is not true, whose version is true, whose version is false-  in regard to your ex/ her friends/ the past relationship with her-  because growing up, when your father was screaming at you for hours, saying terrible things about you, your mother made you feel like he was right, that is, she made you feel that the terrible things he said about you were true.

You are currently stuck in this old childhood conflict: what is the true version; what is the false version? Who is right; who is wrong? This conflict causes you a lot of anxiety and it makes you very desperate for AN ANSWER to this very painful question: who is right, who is wrong; what is true, what is untrue?

Ed, June 25: “I don’t want to need people… I have been hurt and disappointed so much that I realised that needing people can kill you“- when it came to your abuse, your father was primarily the aggressive one and your mother was primarily the passive one. You desperately needed her to defend you: to stop your father from saying terrible things about you, and to tell you that what he said was not true… and she failed you on both accounts. It is not only your father who “killed” you with his words, your mother did too, by figuratively stamping his words with her silent approval.

The result: “I have been diagnosed with ptsd and i have been suffering from diagnosed dissociations and depersonalisation for years as part of the ptsd complex of symptoms“, and you are obsessed with the questions in the heart of your childhood and ongoing conflict.

Answer only if and when you feel calm and comfortable enough answering these two question: (1) What were those terrible things that your father said to you/ about you when he was screaming at you for hours? (2) What exactly did your mother say or do while he was screaming at you for hours?

anita