Dear Mary:

Thank you for your good wishes for me.

In your original post, you wrote regarding that former friend: “I simply do not know why I can’t let go.. I never grew to like her much”- a girl needs her mother desperately even when she realizes she doesn’t even like her mother.

“She’s standing somewhere and I approach to talk to her”- if a girl’s mother is not there, distant in spirit, if not physically, the girl will reach out to the mother, again and again and yet again.

“She gives me this contemptuous, disdainful look” (end of quote regarding your former friend)- contemptuous, disdainful- similar to what you wrote regarding your mother in your recent post: “she greets me with a bunch of sarcastic comments, accusing me of disturbing her sleep, of being selfish and ungrateful… insinuating that she wants me to leave as soon as possible”.

The girl in your dream is your mother, isn’t she.

You wrote that your mother suffers from mental illnesses, but here is something to consider: it is possible for a mother who suffers from mental illnesses to love her daughter. I would have forgiven a whole lot about my mother’s inadequacies, weaknesses, ignorance, false beliefs and so forth if only she loved me.

You wrote: “My father keeps telling me she loves me, but it’s been a long time since I stopped believing that”- so you know that she doesn’t love you.

“Now what is left of those days is a hole which is getting bigger… a hollow which no degree of losing myself in my studies.. can fill. Deep in my heart I know me and my mom’s relationship is never going to get better. Expecting any kind of improvement is just a false hope that I cling to simply because i’m too afraid of sinking”-

A deer baby, or young deer, a fawn, follows her mother wherever the mother goes. It is born with an intense emotional attachment, an intense need for its mother. The purpose of that attachment is to motivate the fawn to follow her mother, and so to be fed and protected from predators. We humans are born with the same attachment, same intense need for our mothers.

When we realize that our mother doesn’t love us, it is danger; for the fawn it would mean the mother will not turn around once in a while to see that the fawn is still following, or she will not care when she hears her fawn in distress, behind her, and she will not turn around to help.

For a fawn and for a child, a distant mother, an unloving mother feels like death, feels like sinking into an abyss and dying.

When we, unloved children, grow up we are still attached to our mothers, still reaching out, still trying, as if we will die without her. It is not true, we no longer need her physically, but we didn’t  separate enough, not having felt safe enough  to separate and feel confident being away from her.

I have no doubt that I did the right thing to cut all contact with my mother. I just wish I did it decades before I did. There really is no hope for a grown deer to follow its unloving mother, better venture on its own, away from her. But because that emotional separation did not happen yet, it feels dangerous and it will continue to feel dangerous for a while.

I hope to read more of your thoughts and feelings, and so, please do post as many times as you would like, anytime you would like to.

anita