Dear Farnaz:

As I was sitting here, after lunch, relaxing before my walk, looking at the quote in boldface, it occurred to me why she was very wise professionally and financially but foolish when it came to her family: her profession didn’t make her angry. Money didn’t make her angry. People made her angry, particularly her family members ANGERED her. Like my therapist of 2011-13 used to say: when our anger is up, our IQ is down.

anita

Reposted:

Dear Farnaz:

“I wonder, does your sister have a relationship with you mom now?“- yes, my sister lives close to my mother and I imagine that she has a relationship with her mother. I haven’t asked her about it (not since May of 2013), nor did she share, and I would like to keep it this way.

“do you feel free, or constantly reliving the situation?“- can you tell me, in detail, what you mean by “constantly reliving the situation”, and who in your life (sister, someone else as well?) did you witness doing that?

“I was always an anxious child, looked always worried about something. After my mom’s death, at 58, when I was 19, I was always worried about my dad. When I lost him exactly 19 years after, I can say, I don’t have any major worries in my life… I know it’s awful, but it’s liberating… I can live for myself“- it’s not awful to be liberated, if I may say so. It’s wonderful!

“I hope you feel free now. I know you are far from her…  How (do you) feel about your life and your feeling right now? Tell me if you wish“- freedom was not easy for me to experience: after no longer having my mother in my life, I kept projecting her into other people. When a person looked at me in a particular way, in my mind’s eye, I saw my mother looking at me critically and I experienced the same anxiety, shame, guilt and discomfort in my own skin that I felt before. I had to not only peel off my mother from my life, but I had to peel off her legacy as well.

Our childhood years are called our Formative Years because our brain is literally being formed when we are children, and the most powerful person in our lives, our primary caretaker (usually the mother), is formed into our brains. My emotional freedom is still a process: I am freer today than I was yesterday, I will be freer tomorrow than I am today, for as long as I am committed to this process.

anita

Thank you for the note, Farnaz! Take your time, no rush (in a couple of hours I will be going out anyway and wouldn’t be near the computer for hours).

anita

Dear Farnaz:

Congratulations on your move!!!

“About reliving the situation, I feel like my sister is constantly thinking about what happened between her and my mom, and she would react to everything even slightly (similar) to the situation back then. She was very upset once (when) we visited her abroad to the point my dad and I (thought we) should reschedule our flight because we couldn’t handle her temper. She brought up the past every chance she got during a 10 days visit, and although I was upset, I was wondering how she is living with herself if she keeps remembering all those bad memories. I know our presence was triggering for her“-

-this is my best understanding of the above (based on my own experience): your sister remembers but she is not sure about what really happened to her. She is conflicted and she needs you and your father to help her understand. She sounds confident (doesn’t she?) when she angrily declares that your mother was wrong having said this and done that to her… She sounds confident because she is trying to convince you and herself that she was indeed wronged by her mother. She does not feel confident that indeed it happened.

She thinks that because you and your father know her mother, since you lived with her, you’d know the truth and you’d confirm to her the truth she suspects. Her memories themselves do not convince her. She needs your confirmation.

When she tells you about her experience with her mother, she is asking for your help. But you and your father do not understand that she is asking for your help. You probably respond with neutrality, which is driving her crazy.

If she stopped doubting her experience, she would stop reliving it in the effort of trying to figure it out.

“One of my strategies is when I try to distinguish between my own voices and my mother’s in difficult situation, I mean is it my own feeling or something that my mom would say, which was demeaning most of the times, and choosing my own“- your mother has a mental representative residing in your brain, talking to you. Much like your mother has a mental rep residing in your sister’s brain, telling your sister that she (your sister) is Wrong, that she is thinking Wrong, understanding Wrong. So, she keeps doubting herself still, in her 50s.

As you further develop your own strong, confident voice, the mental rep’s voice will weaken and weaken.

anita

Dear Farnaz:

You are welcome. I thoroughly read your recent post (I am impressed by your understanding!) and thought that I will be able to reply this afternoon, but once again, there is so much to our conversation that I need Tues morning to re-read and reply. Take care of yourself!

anita

Dear Farnaz:

“when I realized that my mom was wrong…  believing it, I took my power back on a very deep level… she (sister) thinks she was wrong, she was a bad daughter“- believing that one is fundamentally wrong when one is not, takes one’s power away. Your sister is still seeking to reunite with her lost power, the power that was robbed from her.

“I believe my sister still sees her mother as a perfect person“- she still sees her (deceased) mother as perfectly powerful.

“screw her, I need to live as MYSELF… I deserve to be happy and do what makes ME happy, not anybody else“- you felt powerful enough to mentally separate yourself from your mother. Your sister cannot yet make this separation.

“About my brother, I believe he does not even think what happened to him was unfair, he never talked about it. I believe he totally blocked it because it`s too painful for him“- maybe he observed that when your sister confronted his mother with the truth about her hurt, his mother hurt his sister even more. So, he learned to not confront anyone with the truth of his hurt.

“I’m like ok that was your childhood but you were over 30 years far from your family, how you can be so affected by that“- in 30 years, your sister shed her skin cells many times over; she replaced her red blood cells with new cells.. but she did not shed any of her brain cells. Same brain cells and same connections between brain cells (without significant and long-term therapy, in her case)= same core beliefs, same thought patterns, same emotions.

All of us adults are boys and girls in adult bodies, even when we are old… boys and girls running around or shuffling in aging bodies. Your sister, in her 50s, is still the girl that she was before you (Farnaz) were born.

“She could just cut all the ties, she didn’t need us, but that wasn’t what she wanted, she wanted proofs that we are all the bad guys and she is not worthless“- She can’t cut ties when her basic power is with her mother. She needs her lost power back. You became one of “the bad guys” in her mind because you supported the bad guy in her life: her mother.

But her pain, her loss of power, her loss of quality of life… these are none of your fault.

* I  just read your short post of six minutes ago.

anita