Dear Amrita:

For a young child, her mother is like a god: all-knowing, all-powerful. If mother/god is angry with the child, the child feels fear, because an angry god can kill a helpless child. Making an angry/ disapproving god happy is of outmost importance for the child, as important as physical survival.

When failing to make mother happy, the child grows up into an anxious, vigilant adult, watching to see who is angry, who can get angry, and rushing to make those people happy: “Make me d the same for most of the people I come across even it is on professional terms. I keep agreeing to all with the only one thought it is ‘OK’ if that is what makes them feel right or makes them feel happy”.

It has become a habit, a mental habit. Habits of any kind are hard to break, but it is possible.

anita

Dear Amrita:

“how did you break a habit especially when you have a person living in your mind more than actually living with you”-

– My mother used to talk to me from the time I was a few years old, venting and complaining on and on and on,  about how unjust everyone was to her, how they all used her, how they all had a better life than she had, and how I was one of those people. She went on and on, telling me that I hurt her, and how I hurt her, and how bad I was, on and on.. and on. I was tortured with shame and guilt of massive proportions. I suffered from much anxiety and depression, plus tics (Tourette Syndrome), obsessions and compulsions (OCD).

When I was 24, after watching an inspiring movie, feeling much hope and enthusiasm, I left her in the country where I was born, and on my own I crossed a sea and an ocean. I felt magically free, actually living, a New Beginning.

Three  months later, my mother joined me for a visit. My New Beginning was destroyed, and so was my hope and joy. But I survived her visit and stayed half the world away from her. Next time I saw her was 4 months later, then again  back to visit her more than a year later,  and so it went. Every progress I made when I was away from her was reversed when I spent time with her. I worked hard after each visit to recover, and I did, launching on a new beginning once again.. but after so many visits, so many new beginnings and reversals, there was no recovery at all. My life more than 20 years after I embarked on my freedom journey was dysfunctional and was getting worse.

At the age of 52 I finally decided to no longer have any contact with her: no phone calls, no letters, no visits, no contact.

For a few years, she still lived in my head (I “heard” her speak to me, I felt strong guilt and shame and even love for her), but my life was improving. A few years later, with a lot of work (psychotherapy and later my over five years of daily participation here), she no longer lives in my head.

I finally have my New Beginning. Strange to have a new beginning when getting closer to the end of my life. I wish I had my new beginning when I was 20, or 30. Looking around, with the pandemic still going on and expected to get worse this winter, and the fires, hurricanes, rising temperature of climate change, also expected to get worse.. it is strange to have my new beginning in the setting of what feels like the end of the world.

But a new beginning it is. My life makes sense now, even in the context of death. I am finally free of her. It feels as if it is all sudden, as if.. suddenly I am no longer ashamed, suddenly I am no longer guilty, suddenly I am not a bad person.. suddenly there is nothing wrong with me.. the voice in my head is no longer her voice. It is my voice and it says: no, no.. I had it wrong all along: I was not wrong, she was wrong. Oh.. I didn’t know.

anita