Dear Anita,

Good morning ! What a strange month January was.. I feel February has a different energy to it and good, important things are happening now. We started looking for rooms in shared flats and it feels hopeful and good. For a long time I felt like It will be an uncomfortable move. It’s funny how I was uncomfortable to move from an uncomfortable place… It’s almost like a self-torture I’ve been inflicting on myself by staying here.

I just realised, how much this topic has changed from its original title. The plot got indeed thicker 🙂

You know I’ve been asking myself why do I feel so bad around her mother ? It has to have something to do with my parents / childhood / that apartment where we lived. I don’t want to focus too much on getting an answer to this, I guess better to focus on what I want to do next but I do very often ask myself where some things come from. I believe this is for me at least, the way to dissolve these kind of things. Once I put light on them they start losing their power. It’s strange, because I feel like she triggers something in me. She triggers the f*ck out of me and I don’t quite know what it is. All I know is that I feel angry at her, like I want her to go away. I can’t even look at her, so 90% of the times I avoid any kind of eye contact. It’s ridiculous.. we have food together the 3 of us every day, and I don’t even look at her mother. We don’t really communicate because she only speaks very little English. Why didn’t I learn some Polish? Well, it’s very a very difficult language and it sounds like a construction site. Maybe the real reason is that I don’t care that much about communicating with her mother. I guess I can live with that. However not with her.

So I avoid her almost at all costs, I avoid eye contact, I keep conversations to a bare minimum both because she doesn’t speak English and because I don’t feel like I want to talk to her. The thing is, at first it wasn’t so bad.. we did make eye contact every now and then and I always felt tension coming from her ( or myself ? / both ).  So I would look at her and I would instantly feel tension. She immediately looked away, and so did I. She seemed and still seems nervous around me.

Then this question arises. Could it be that the language barrier is creating this uncomfortable situation where, trying to avoid spending time together without talking at all I decided to avoid being around her at all costs? I think there is more…

The worst is the way I react to this situation.  In time I started being irritated by the sound of her in general, walking, talking etc. so very often I would get angry inside, sometimes I would just say things. Bad things, like:  oh, she’s here again.. I would even insult her in all kinds of ways. It’s like I’m angry with her but.. I mean.. there is no reason to be angry with her. But I’ve felt like this before, for a long time during my childhood. I’ve said those kind of things in my mind and I acted in a similar manner. I think It was my mum I was always angry with.. and even today I find it hard to spend time next to each other.

Dammit !

I just don’t really know what to say. I paused for a while without words. I knew this is probably related to my mother and my childhood but often I didn’t think about it in more detail, I often avoided it. Now that I wrote it down and said it, I feel like I hit the nail in the head. So I’m basically experiencing a past experience that had a traumatic effect on me and caused me a lot of discomfort and anger. It made me feel trapped, constantly monitored, constantly seen but not really seen for real. I hated it and I’ve had no choice but to bottle up, get angry in my head, call her ( or them ) names, get angry at them. I suppressed my authenticity, my voice, myself in order to keep the relationship, the shelter. I’ve had no choice as a child and for months now, It felt like I’ve had no choice as an adult.

I’ll be honest, there is part of me which is still looking for an excuse. ( but I don’t make that much money and It would be difficult living somewhere else ). But again, I’m in the exact same situation. Before, my parents gave me shelter and later on, even though I lived in a different city as a student my parent’s paid for my accommodation and expenses. Later on, when I moved to Spain they again did the same thing. Gradually I managed to earn some money but It wasn’t enough for me to cover everything so they’ve been paying my rent.  Now I earn better money and since June I’ve been fully independent from them. They haven’t send me any money. Here, I’ve contributed to the expenses of the flat but they haven’t been that substantial. So, even though I feel very proud my of myself for finally managing to be fully independent from my parents, I still see a similar situation here.  I didn’t leave this place that causes me discomfort in order not to lose shelter ?

It is true that it would be more expensive to live somewhere else than living in this flat, sure. But.. Could it be that my past-programming / conditioning didn’t let me leave and kept me here?  I’ve said it at the beginning of this post.. self torture I’ve been inflicting on myself. My girlfriend kept asking me afte I recently told her that its very difficult for me to live here because I don’t like being around her mum and I don’t have my space/privacy etc. She kept asking me: Why did you stay for so long? Why would you live with someone who irritates you?

Well…

I do believe things happen for a reason. I know it sounds like a bumper sticker but there I believe is a lot of truth in it. Very often I’ve been amazed of the things that showed on my path when the time was right and I know that this particular situation is indeed extraordinary. I don’t know exactly right now, what did this really show me so far? What is this teaching me? All I know for now that this has the potential to put me on the right track, on my way to healing one more painful childhood experience.

Thank you!