Dear Girija:

Change of plans: I will  be back to the computer in a few hours or in about 15 hours from now. Feel free to add anything you’d like before I return.

anita

Dear Girija:

First a summary of what you shared recently: your mother never apologized to you. When you were upset with her and “simply tried to get her perspective”, she didn’t listen to what you said and gave you her honest answers. Instead she told you: “you are simply looking to fight”. She didn’t allow you to express to her your problems, but on a regular basis told you about her problems, using you (and your sister) as “a dustbin for all her issues”, as “her microphones for all her problems”.

When you asked her what will happen if your father lost his job, she told you that you will all have to kill yourselves. When you appeared shocked, she said (paraphrasing): you said before you want out of this house, well killing yourself will get you out of the house!

At the doctor’s office a few years ago, when you expressed to her a problem you had with the prospect of finding a job, she said: “don’t add to my problems, I even have to get your sister married once you are done”.

You are thankful to her for pushing you to see a therapist when you were especially depressed and waiting for you during two sessions “out in the open, in the dark, sitting silently by herself”.

My input for you today:

1. In cartoons and in some movies, there are good people and bad people; the bad people are all bad, all the time. In real life, a person is never all bad all the time.

Please pay attention to this truth: every cruel person is sometimes kind to somebody. Your mother (and mine) are no different: there are times that they are kind.

2. Your mother gave you a clear message: I have problems and you are one of my problems!

She then told you all her problems but did not want to listen to any of yours. She was very selfish that way. And she hurt you a whole lot, causing you that depression you mentioned and your depression ever since, still feeling no joy and sometimes wishing you were dead.

She didn’t mind scaring you and then, when you showed fear, she hurt you further.

… When she waited for you in the dark while you were in the session, what was she thinking… “I have to do this, I have to wait here! I hate my life!”, perhaps?

* If you agree that you were a Problem for her,  do you see that if you no longer live with your mother, or anywhere close to her, you will be removing a problem from her life?

If you feel that you owe her for waiting for you outside the therapist office, twice, in the dark, or for feeding you and so forth, you can leave her and keep her on that life insurance you took, as a beneficiary in case of your death before hers. You can also figure out how much you should pay her for those two times she waited for you out in the open, in the dark and give her that money before (or after) you leave her.

What do you think, I mean, why are you living with this woman?

anita

Dear Girija:

I understand the correction you made regarding the exchange at the doctor’s office about 4 years ago.

“I am a problem to  her at some times- when I disagree with her and not do what I ought to do by her definition. And at those time she holds up the distorted mirror”-

– so when you are not the same as her, you are distorted. If you don’t live by her definition, you are distorted.

“What if she was my roommate and not my mother… She is only able to hurt me since I let her right? I am an adult now… perhaps she could be an old friend or an ex-roommate”-

– no, when our mothers failed us, and most mothers do, we can never be her ex roommate or an old friend. We are always her child waiting and waiting… and waiting for her to love us. Like a bird in the nest, refusing to leave the nest until our mother gives us wings.

A young child is not and cannot be a mentally separate entity from her mother, the two are mentally joined, in the child’s forming brain.

Continuing with the bird analogy, you, Giriga, are a beautiful bird, your wings are exquisite and can take you to new heights, a different kind of living, away from that same-old-same-old nest that is too small for you, crowded. There is a sky above you, blue and clear.

If you stay where you are, mentally and physically, you will, I am thinking, keep working where you are at, no major advancements, but good salary, and you will do the arranged marriage. In such a marriage you will be quite miserable and forget how miserable you are at work, then having children you will be too occupied. You will keep looking for comfort with your mother who will let you know  once again that she doesn’t have the time or desire to listen to  your problems… and eventually, you will have your  own room, like your grandmother does, living with a caretaker and having this long, long ago memory of an image someone brought to you years before, of a bird with beautiful, powerful wings in an old nest, still waiting, not  knowing she can fly away.

Your love for your mother, I understand that. There is no deeper love. I love my mother too and always will.

It is very difficult for a child of any age to understand the concept of … not being loved back by the mother. See, I still love my mother but I know it is an unrequited love.

You love your mother so much that you  are considering living by her definition of life (ex., arranged marriage) even though you can see that it didn’t work for her it doesn’t make sense. You are willing to reject yourself so to be accepted by her

-but she is not considering- and has never considered your definition of life. She has always rejected you unless you … rejected yourself: “I am a problem to her.. when I disagree with her and not do what I ought to do by her definition..”.

anita

Dear Girija:

Of course I don’t mind you taking your time. I was hoping that you will. As highly intelligent and insightful as you are, and you are, the emotions involved in seeing reality for what it is, the fear… these have their own power. So, do  take your time and post again.. anytime.

anita

Dear Girija:

Your new experience at work, let it sink in, remember it, relive it, replay it in your mind, this is how you form new neuropathways and encourage these pathways to expand by having more of these new experiences.

Savor this new experience at work and repeat it at work and elsewhere in your life, in other contexts.

Regarding your mother, what you told her regarding that US man, ending with “I will actually say no when I want to”, is excellent. But here is the problem: you live with your mother every day, some days you are tired and discouraged and then you are likely to get tired asserting yourself and you are likely to give in to  her. Similar to what happened with the life insurance, you went ahead with it because she wanted you to, even though you didn’t at the time.

Your mother persists, you were born with the innate desire to please her, so when you are tired, maybe very discouraged by some event of the day or week, all your logic and courage from before is… not there on a particular day, you say Yes, to her, she acts on your Yes, things start rolling, you feel  uncomfortable disappointing your eager mother, feeling it is wrong for you to break your word to her, that Yes you  gave her…and before you know it, you are married to a stranger.

Your mother has a mission in mind, to marry you to a stranger. She will persist, most likely and “the lost and weary”, see the title of your thread, is likely to succumb.

I am concerned for you, don’t want those wings of yours cut off.

anita

Dear Girija:

You are welcome. I will take a short break, no longer than an hour or an hour and a half (maybe much sooner than that) and will be back.

anita

Dear Girija:

“That fear that I may lose everything”- it is not that you “may lose everything”- you will lose everything, your sight, your hearing, your touch, your taste and smell, your thoughts and all your emotions, all will be lost when dead, and some die sooner than others. I will die too. Every person who ever lived died and if he/she didn’t die yet, well… it is just a matter of time.

Better that you voluntarily lose your belief that your mother knows best (“what if she knows best”). Look at her life, the life about which she has complained to you and to your sister repeatedly for years-  is her life evidence of her knowing best at any point in her life?

She now wants to export The Problem aka her older daughter to the U.S., to marry a stranger. If this plan of hers involves a hefty payment she was to receive, then however evil her plan, it makes some logical sense. But if she is not to be paid for this export, what logic is there to her suggested plan?

A young child believes her mother knows best, all knowing, like a god. Better lose this belief.

If you are to save yourself, if you are to make a better life for yourself, then you will have to endure the intense pain of leaving your mother behind, and moving away from her. The reason you have to leave her behind is that as much as you want to help her, she will not accept your help. A person is willing to accept help only from a person they value. She doesn’t see you as a person who will pick her up from where she is, because she looks down at you, not up to you.

When she rushes to clean her home before strangers/ guests arrive is that she values them. She looks up to them. She values the opinions of strangers. She wants to marry her two daughters so that the strangers she values will be pleased.

On the other hand, you being pleased or not doesn’t matter to her.

“I have surpassed the point in my life where I believed that my emotions and fears hold any weight with my mom”- you said it yourself.

In the interactions between you and your mother, it will not happen that you will pick her up. Instead, she will drag you down with her, but as you live a life as miserable as hers, she will still not be there with you, instead she will tell you yet again about her sad life. You will still be alone.

If you see this reality, if you form a loyalty to living life according to reality, and dissolve your loyalty to the delusion of motherly love, then without that unjustified guilt, you will be able to leave your home and make your own choices according to logic and correct understanding.

Fear is the most powerful of all emotions and I did not find a way to live without it, outside a moment here and there, maybe a whole afternoon, I think I had two days free of fear in my life. I wish it was possible to live without fear.

But fear itself will not kill you. People experience great fear, for long periods of time, years of anxiety, and they remain alive. Endure the unpleasant feeling, take breaks, walks, listen to music then proceed. Endure all feelings, the sadness, the despair, the guilt, don’t resist these emotions, let them be and they will weaken soon by themselves. Then proceed, logically.

anita