Dear farnaz:

This will be a long reply. First, I will respond to the content of what you shared like I usually do (quoting you and commenting), and I will share parallel personal experiences from my growing up years. Later, I will respond in regard to the anger exercise goal.

“I’m so, so sorry for misunderstanding“- it’s okay to misunderstand. I misunderstood many, many times and I will still misunderstand, maybe even in this post (please correct me if and where it happens). You apologized for misunderstanding “so, so sorry”)  because, as a child, you were criticized and maybe even punished for misunderstanding.. or the consequences for misunderstanding were not proportional?

“You know my style is different“- I respect and welcome your style!!

About the scene you described: “something happened. I don’t remember exactly, but I know the reaction of my family was not proportional to the situation, that was awful“- this immediately brought a memory to my mind: I was in elementary school, something happened in school, but I have no memory of what happened. What I do remember is my mother’s disproportional reaction: she showed up to the school and made a very big scene (she screamed and almost beat up a teacher and all the students were watching, it was awful).

“I remember my mom was so angry and my brother told her why you bring her (me) in this world after all!!!“- again, I can’t help but compare this to my memories: my ANGRY mother, SO ANGRY (at me and at others at different times). I didn’t grow up with older siblings, nor did I have a brother, but my mother herself expressed, in many ways and many times, that it was not a good thing that I was brought into .. her world, her bad luck, she said.

“They were brutal, I remember my dad was not exactly defending me, but was not as aggressive as them“- by “they” I figure you are referring to your mother and brother. It is my experience too, growing up, that the source of aggression in my personal life were woman (my mother and an aunt), and not a man (my father who lived away as they divorced, but visited and uncles).

“I cried for hours“- I remember one time crying so much that looking in the mirror, my brown eyes turned blue. It doesn’t seem possible, right? But I looked carefully at the time, in the mirror, and I was certain my eyes were blue. It made me stop crying and feel full of wonder because I always wanted blue eyes.

“I had a puffy face next morning when I went to school, and my friend noticed and asked me about that. I didn’t say anything to her. Now that I look back, I think I believed them and that situation made me so miserable, I felt worthless“- my crying for hours and the puffy face were about… finding out that I was worthless. It’s a devastating discovery. It is an emotional dagger to the heart.

“I felt worthless, but not completely. I think even at that time, I realized something is not right about the reaction“- I can easily relate. I found out that I was worthless, but not completely. I knew something was wrong about my mother’s behavior.. her disproportional over-reactions and other behaviors.

“I could forgive my mom more easily but my brother was so cruel“- you shared earlier: “my mom.. put all of us down, she turned me and my siblings against each other“. Seems like your brother reacted to her doing that by joining her when she turned against you, so to be on her side, to please her and gain her approval.

“my brother was so cruel, actually he has not changed that much“- this is telling me that your mother quite consistently and repeatedly turned her children against each other, so much so that (in his 40s, I figure and with his mother no longer alive), your brother is still trying to gain her approval by… being cruel.

“I think seeing that kind of cold behavior from my mother  made myself insensitive  and cold to others too. I realized a lot of stuff I say to people is too direct and hurtful“-

– you asked and shared earlier in regard to other people in your life: “I encounter too many bad people in my life… Have you ever thought: if I can’t trust my family, who I can trust then?… my inner thoughts were confirmed, PEOPLE ARE OUT TO GET ME , NOBODY IS TRUSTWORTHY“- like you, I projected my experience with my family (the social group I was born into) to ===> society at large. My mother was not trustworthy, she was out to  get me===> people out there were not trustworthy and out to get me. You used BIG PRINT in this quote because the lesson (that your family members were out to get you and were not trustworthy) was indeed printed big in your brain.

* I learned over many years, that although there are lots of people who are bad and not trustworthy, all the people that I personally encountered in my life, were not as bad and untrustworthy as my mother has been to me. My chances of encountering people who are significantly better than my mother are much higher than my chances of encountering people who are as bad or worse than her. In other words, the greater society in my personal life has been so far, way, WAY better to me than my mother has been.

“Now that I look back, if I could talk to my mom, I would say you F up , what kind of mother would say that, do you think blaming me and somehow separating yourself from me because of  my imperfections makes you a superior person and good mother????“- I am guessing that she saw in you things she didn’t want to see in herself and that enraged her. Maybe (this is just a guess) she saw in you a weak part of herself that she hated, so she tried to … eradicate that part in her by proxy, meaning, she tried to eradicate you (in some ways), so to eradicate that part in her.

And now, in regard to the anger-exercise: when you typed the above paragraph, were you sitting down? Perhaps you want to stand up straight with your head held high and repeat the above out loud, with a strong, confident voice, and add to it, if more occurs to you…?

anita