Dear Tee:

As to your post from yesterday:

Thank you for the belated Happy Thanksgiving 🙏

“And what an amazing idea: to give yourself thanks for everything that you’ve done for your mother, for all the effort you’ve invested in trying to please her, make her happy, make her life less of a suffering.. it didn’t work, but not because of you, but because of her! However, you’ve tried, you did your best, you gave your all!

“And you completely deserve praise and acknowledgment for your sincere, heart-felt attempts… Thank you, Anita, for your many, many efforts and all your hard work invested in helping this woman!!!”-

🙏🙏🙏 No one has ever said this to me (other than myself in the post to you). Me thanking myself- a 1st. Another person (Tee) thanking me- a 1st.

“Amen to that! 🙏 ❤️ Very well said!”- 🙏 ❤️

“I hope you’re still feeling the enthusiasm and vigor of those words, and the acknowledgment, the self-validation, that you indeed did you best, while she was the ungrateful one. You were giving and giving, while she was rejecting, dismissing, criticizing… and remained bitter and unhappy throughout.”-

I didn’t read these parts of your message until just now, processing it for the first time this morning.

Seems like the messages I consistently received from her were a reversal of the truth, and reading what I just quoted you saying, is making it clear to me (another 1st) that I was the grateful one (for the food, toys, shelter, school supplies and anything else that was bought with her money), and it is SHE who WAS THE UNGATEFUL ONE: for the flowers I gave her, the little gifts prepared at school, real (failed) efforts to clean the apartment to her satisfaction, studying hard at school.. for listening to her endlessly venting.. for sharing with her what I read in psychology books, for giving her money.. for depriving myself of basics so to send her (or her way by sending it to my sister) as much money as possible, etc., etc.

And she did indeed reject, dismiss and criticize all my offerings (except that one time when she expressed that she enjoyed the NTC trip)..

* See above.. I am giving her credit for every little thing, like her one-time verbal appreciation, an acknowledgment that something I did made a positive difference for her, however temporarily.

If she accepted, acknowledged and let me know that I gave her something valuable that made a positive difference for her, her Poor Me Act would have been endangered, an act she needed to maintain so to have the moral superiority to keep me enslaved through guilt and shame.

I WAS GRATEFUL. SHE WAS UNGRATEFUL.

“It occurs to me that you were the people-pleaser, or better say, Mother-pleaser: you did things against your will, things that were hurting you – only to please her, to see that satisfied smile of approval on her face:… She approved of you when you diminished, or almost annulled yourself. When she could control you completely. You gave her that. But she wasn’t satisfied nevertheless. Maybe for a brief moment she was, but not beyond that.”-

And indeed this kind of people pleasing, diminishing and annulling myself became a way of life, an ingrained habit I carried with me. Another point.. I ask myself why she wasn’t satisfied with my self-annulment for long.. Because she needed to feel superior to me in terms of righteousness, which meant that she was invested in making me feel guilty and indebted to her. She didn’t want to reduce my debt to her (to make it up to her for all of my wrongs and failures, for being a “bad daughter”) in fear that the debt wouldn’t be as big as she wanted it to be.

“And she perpetuated the lie that you’re bad, that you’re hurting her, while she was the one who was hurting you all along. Yes, narcissistic people are People of the Lie..”-

I just asked Copilot about the book (I remember the title, not the content). Copilot: “Core themes- *Definition of Evil: Peck describes evil as the refusal to face one’s own moral failings. Instead of confronting their flaws, “people of the lie” project blame and attack others. * The Lie: The “lie” refers to self-deception and denial. Evil people construct false narratives to avoid responsibility… Peck’s central argument is that evil thrives in denial and dishonesty…

“People of the Lie avoid confronting their moral failings because doing so would shatter the false self-image of perfection and righteousness they cling to. Instead, they use denial, deception, and projection to protect their fragile egos and maintain control over others… They destroy or diminish others to preserve their own sense of superiority.”-

Fits perfectly.. and here’s the word “superiority” which I came up with above, before reading the input I just quoted.

Continued: “Confronting moral failings requires honesty, humility, and courage. People of the Lie reject these qualities because they threaten the false identity they depend on. In protecting their illusion of goodness, they perpetuate harm and chaos in the lives of others.”

Back to your words, Tee: “So, congratulations, Anita, for seeing through the Lie, for not believing her narrative anymore. Congratulations for seeing things clearly: who you are and who she is…”- thank you, dear Tee!!!

“I’d like to comment on something very important that you said about empathy:… That’s an important realization: that your empathy was mixed with guilt. Because she was 1) portraying herself as the victim and 2) blaming you (among other people) for her misery. She made you feel guilty for her misery.

“Plus, you wanted to free her from her misery even in instances in which she didn’t blame you, e.g. when you had guests and she would bitterly complain before and after their visit. She didn’t blame you for that, however you still wanted to help her, to ease her ‘suffering’.

“But then she forbid you to talk to the guests about it (‘I will murder you!’), because she of course wanted to maintain her ‘kind and generous’ persona – someone who gives big, expensive gifts, and prepares intricate, lavish meals (I suppose).”-

It never occurred to me, I don’t think, that her motivation was to maintain her persona, her ACT until just now.

“Anyway, you tried to free her from her ‘misery’, when in fact it was all a farce. It was a self-inflicted ‘misery’, because no one was forcing her to give those expensive gifts and prepare complicated meals. It was her choice, which she then presented as some big sacrifice. She portrayed herself as the victim, the martyr, when it was actually her choice, and it served to maintain a certain public image.

“You believed that she was indeed suffering, you believed that she was the victim – when in fact, it was an act. And then you blamed yourself for not being able to help her. When in fact she didn’t want to be helped – she enjoyed her martyr role.”-

She.. enjoyed it? What kind of joy was it, for her? The joy of moral superiority..?

“And it’s a great thing that you’re now freeing yourself from that guilt. And that you’re able to separate empathy for the person from feeling guilty for their suffering.

“A good example of that would be your mother’s baldness: you can be sorry for your mother having such a handicap, because it is really a handicap and very unpleasant. However, you don’t need (or didn’t need to) to feel guilty about it and obliged to compensate her for it, because it’s not your fault and there isn’t even much you can do about it. You can simply empathize, but without feeling guilty or obliged to help.”-

I do feel sorry for her being bald and for her childhood.. that’s empathy, yes. As long as I separate it from guilt, it’s okay to feel it. To feel it if I do, when I do.. but not to sink and drown in it. When I feel it, acknowledge it and exit it. Move on to something else. What do you think, Tee?

“So yeah, empathy without guilt is a great concept – thanks for mentioning it, Anita. ❤️ When we empathize like that, we can simply ‘sit with the person’ in their pain, without necessarily doing anything. We may help of course if needed, but sometimes it’s enough if we simply offer a listening ear and validate their emotions. If they feel heard and validated.”-

I’ll keep this in mind.

“Good to hear that you had a pleasant Thanksgiving, and that you met some nice, interesting people 😊”- Anita the psychologist gave me her email address so to continue a conversation we started about Tourette’s being a result of trauma in childhood during the first 7 years of life, she said.

I want to reread some of what I quoted you saying above and develop my thoughts further, later on. I want to respond to your most recent post next.

❤️ 🫶 ❤️ 🙏 Anita