Dear Joanna:

“she was doing something for you, to help I assume, but hated the fact that she had to do it because you were incapable, in her mind of doing it yourself“- yes, you see it so clearly, true. She felt that it was her job to make sure that I was clean, and she hated this.. cleaning job, so she got it over as quickly as she could by digging her fingers into my scalp and rubbing it like it was some object to be cleaned.

“I know it well – my mother being physically rough, having no boundaries. One time I had stomachache and she was so insensitive, rough, it was hell. I remember lying in bed praying for it to be gone, not because I felt sick but because I did not want to deal with her ‘treating me’ anymore’“- they were rough with what they perceived to be objects or things, things that don’t feel emotion or pain.

“When I first got my period I was so ashamed, I could not tell her. I remember sitting an hour or so in front of her and trying to tell her what happened, and I couldn’t, words could not come from my mouth. She was asking me: ‘did you steal something?…’ And I couldn’t say it. Might be the reason I struggled with identity, was never comfortable being ‘girly’“-

– Only a week ago, it happens that I told a young woman I know: “I was NEVER a girly girl“. From puberty  (which for me started a few years later than my peers) and for much of my life, I felt intense shame regarding secondary sex characteristics and great discomfort regarding the period thing. I never liked the idea- or experience- of being a woman. To this very day, I don’t dress like a woman: I wear jeans, no makeup, no going to the hairdresser, etc., and I keep myself as slender as I can be.. because it makes me look prepubescent.

“She always used to come into bathroom when I was taking bath“- reading this today, I again thought to myself: did I write this?

“I was not a separate person, I was her, she was me. We were one person“- in my perception growing up, I was Nothing, she was Everything. In her perception: she was nothing and I was everything. I will explain: she had an extreme case of what is called External Locus of Control, meaning, in her mental experience, whatever she felt and did was caused by someone else, in this case, by me. If she felt angry- I must have done something wrong to make her angry (or I must have thought or felt something wrong and she, having read my mind, got angry as a result). And whatever she said and did while angry, was my fault entirely.. because I made her angry.

In her mind, she reacted to me and nothing more: I was the Actor, she was the Reactor. So, in her mind, she did not exist as an independent agency (one who acts, one who initiates, one who chooses): whatever she thought, felt and did… was an automatic reaction to me.

If you look at the situation objectively, other people (including myself)- in her mental experience- did not have their own thoughts and feelings.. it was her thoughts and her feelings that she was inaccurately projecting into everyone. So, all that existed in her world was… her own thoughts and feelings. But subjectively, in her mind, other people loomed big, and it was their alleged (inaccurately projected) thoughts and feelings that dictated her thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

“I must admit I really enjoy being my own person right now. I was always defined by her, felt her emotions, felt her opinions about me, about other people. Now it’s fading… Feels good, thinking my own thoughts. I think they were there all this time“- it is a terrible existence to be trapped in another person’s sick brain, in the distorted upside-down reality that exists in their brain. It is refreshing to experience freedom from that trap!

“Amazing how we invented a second life for ourselves, amazing how brain works. When I look for memories I see trauma events and fantasy life.. and a little bit of reality“- fantasy was a refuge and a joy, imagining that there was love and positive excitement in my life.. but I knew it was fantasy. On the other hand, my mother’s fantasy (that I thought what she thought, that I felt what she felt), she didn’t know it was fantasy and there was no convincing her otherwise.

“I think being a child… we do not have much comprehension of death…  I remember one time when my mother crashed her car, came back home…  I saw her upset, distressed…  seeing her panicked – it scared me a lot….she chose to not protect me from this incident. She could calm me down, say: everything is fine, mommy just had an accident, but it’s okay“-this is helping me understand better what happened so many years ago: it was my mother’s PANIC that scared me the most. It was her uncontrolled and histrionically (exaggerated, showy) expressed upset, distress and panic that scared me so very much. It was the alarming tone and loudness of her voice, the extreme despair in her face, in her voice, in her words… she showed me the underside of her arms, showing me where she will cut her wrists and make herself bleed to death…  going on and on and on about how miserable her life was and how much better it would be for her if she didn’t live anymore. It was scary and heartbreaking.

“Takes me long time to write (I always change, delete some, write again)“- this is how I used to write (and talk and think). I kept going over what I said and correcting myself, or I’d say things in a very cautious way, so to avoid being misunderstood or misinterpreted, covering all possible misinterpretations and addressing them before being misunderstood.

I kept feeling that I was making mistakes and that the consequences will be terrible. I felt that there was something very wrong with me, and therefore, whatever comes out of me spontaneously, will bring disaster. It wasn’t that long ago, that I said to myself: it is okay to just type away/ talk/ think because there is nothing wrong with me (not more than with any other person), so there is no danger of something terrible being revealed if I am spontaneous/ not careful.

anita