Dear Farnaz:

As you can see, I have the internet back, yeah! “north is the only region which is green all the time“- I live in the north too, in a state that’s called the Evergreen state. You and I have rain and green in common, where we live.

 “hell no. She was so creepy, she was her own lawyer, as most narcs choose to do..“- are you familiar with the very infamous Charles Manson (now dead)? He wanted to be his own lawyer in the courtroom, back in 1970, but was denied. Four of his so called “Family” members are still in prison and have been in prison for over 53 years. Can you imagine being incarcerated for over half a century?

“Happy people … approach their problems differently, which usually don’t get them more miserable than necessary“- very good point. Some people “solve” their problems by making their problems bigger, and then even BIGGER.

“You can face a problem blaming everyone, god and your perceived misfortune in life, or you can skip that part and instead.. (look) for ways to control the damage, and be your best friend. That all happens in the mind“- instead of making the problems and the damage smaller, if possible, they make them BIGGER, starting in their mind and then, spreading the drama/ misery to others. My mother was an expert in doing that: big time drama, histrionics, lots of woe-me, my-life-is-so-miserable, etc., etc.

“In childhood, we were blissfully naive, we didn’t see the ugly side of the world or we couldn’t recognize it as wrong and ugly, so we were happier“- not in my case: my mother was right there at the start of my life, to tell me and show me how ugly the world is. I have no memory whatsoever of ever being blissfully naive.

“I’m curious what was her reaction when you stopped contacting her? I can imagine that can`t be good“- no, to my surprise, she did not protest or chase me for contact, not in any way, shape or form. It reminds me of the last time she ran toward me, wailing and intending to hit me. I was 20 or so. I held my arms out and took her hands in mine, exerting just enough power so that she couldn’t move any closer toward me. Her reaction: instant withdrawal. She did not fight back at all and never tried to hit me again.

I used to think, as a child, that she couldn’t live without me, that I was the center of her life. I was very wrong. Truth is.. she was my Everything, and I was Nothing much to her. After all, she told me when angry, her words: “You are Nothing, a big Zero!“. Looking back at all of the situations that I remember, situations that included me, her and other people (and she was not at all angry): she treated the other people as Somebodies and me.. as a Nobody.

You wrote in regard to working as a physician in the U.S. “I should take a million exams though“- I wonder if, for now, it’d significantly easier and faster for you to get certified to work in the U.S. as a Registered Nurse (RN) or better, as a Nurse Practitioner (NP)– they make so much money and there is a great shortage of nurses here.

anita