Dear Ravi:

Your appreciation has touched my heart and I am grateful for it, thankful to you for expressing it the way you did.

As to what you wrote in your last paragraph: I agree that you are responsible to how you treat Jerry and others in your life at this point, being the adult that you are. It is correctable though. And I will do my best to help you in correcting this. I will come back to you and Jerry soon.

As to your grandmother: I know this emphasis on food, nutrition by a mother or mother figure. She cares so much that you eat well and yet she hurts your admission to college, and she is causing you anxiety and depression. So.. see the absurdity of it? Would you rather eat something less wonderful, and have mental health? Have peace of mind over the best food? Be content with who you are and comfortable, not anxious and not angry around people?

You love her a lot. I understand. Children love their parents and parents-like no matter what, no matter who they are and what they do. It is the way it is, we are born to love our caretakers.

You have way more information about how you feel in different circumstances than I do. Listen to the messages behind your feelings. If you listen to the valid message behind a feeling/ emotion, you will find out that the feeling makes sense and the message makes sense, always. Don’t assume you are a despicable person for feeling this or that. Trust that there is a valid message which means you are a worthy, reasonable person with a message to hear.

Love your grandmother as you will, but please love yourself more. Side with yourself, not with her and not with your parents. Your grandmother is not acting lovingly toward you and neither are your parents. It is not loving to manipulate through guilt and unreasonable control (grandmother) and it is not loving to tell you to “just be quiet and accept everything” (arents). These things they do to you and teach you are harmful to you and therefore, by definition of being harmful, these are not loving acts.

Unfortunately the loving acts they do- in between the harmful acts and teachings- do not neutralize or make up for the harmful things said and done to you.

Back to you and Jerry, the online/ texting relationship you have with her: As you ponder these things, here in our correspondence, you will be able to sincerely apologize to her- not the same way as before, but coming from a deeper understanding. That kind of apology, different from any in the past, can make a difference.

All this is heavy duty stuff, and I am here to continue our communication for as long as you need and want it to be. Always be sincere and honest with me: no manipulation on my part and my message to you is: do not be quiet and do not accept everything.

anita