Dear Anita,

The way you deconstruct my text is very unbelievable, thank you for taking such in time reading and replying to my every thought!

In your adult life circumstances, there is no danger in what she said, no danger to you, no danger to her (she survived that silence wall for many years). But in the child’s mind, in a child’s world, that silence wall was danger because you didn’t know what will happen next, and what you feared will happen next was something as final and catastrophic as death. She is still living at home with her parents and she still gets scared for the same reasons she was scared back then. – exactly, I am as scared, wit fear and in danger as a little child, who’s life is parent’s responsibility. It is not anymore, byt sadly I feel the same and I let those thoughts and emotions control me the exact same way that it did when I was a child- keeping mom’s company, cheering her up, comforting her and doing everything I can to fix the situation and how mom is feeling.

her duty to take care (to parent) her adult mother. The daughter took on that role because… no one else did. Someone had to be the adult, solve problems, create and maintain peace/ safety in the home! Of course, it is mission impossible for a child to be an adult, but the child tries her best. – you are very right. Actually another problem there is that I have an older sister, which is very very egocentric, used my care-giving to help her with her children, to also cheer her up, never asked me how do I feel, do I need any help etc. So I decided not to talk with her and just delete her from my life as she was giving only negative emotions to me. During one conflict in our family, my sister got very angry and left the home, said to mom that she will never talk to her again and from that moment my mother was crushed (father is just never talking about this as it never happened), but mother used to say to me, that I have to talk to sister, I have to fix this, I never understood why. I never understood why do I have to fix deep family problems, because none of the parents were/are in adult role, they always step back and do nothing, waiting for me to fix family problems. I feel a huge guilt inside of me that I am not trying to fix anything, because living without my sister in my life is all good to me, I never miss her, but seeing that my mother is devastated because of that makes me want to comfort her and get back with my sister JUST BECAUSE OF HER, not because I WANT IT. This constant feeling that I have to  shape my life somehow in order for my mother to feel good is exhausting me. I do not want to feel the guilt. I try to understand that family problems are not for me to fix, and because I was doing that for so long from a very young age (comforting everyone in the family), my parents got used to that and they are always waiting for me to care for them and help them. I feel so sad for that, always scared when I see my mother calling me (because it is equal to me that my help and support will be needed as for a child) and just want to be in peace. But I do not feel the peace as I never felt it in my childhood. What are your thoughts on that? What is the deeper work you think I should do on myself? I see myself as a highly sensitive, emphatic person, being in a reverse role in my family and it is draining me completely. Is there an way of changing this role reverse? Do I have a chance of living my life as a child and not as parents’ (more mother’s) emotional support? Thank you!!

Milda