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August 10, 2021 at 8:17 am #384440
AnonymousGuestDear Linarra:
A reminder to myself: I do not have to respond to every item in Linarra’s two posts that follow. I can reply only to what I feel like replying (and to anything that I feel is urgent and needs to be attended to). Keep myself spontaneous, free to just express, and hopefully Linarra is/ will be doing the same: be spontaneous, not be compelled to say the right thing and reply to every single thing.. and it is okay to neglect to say Thank You, no need to be perfectly polite… to be given the permission to .. not be cautious, alert, alarmed.
It just occurred to me that this may very well be what’s behind your social anxiety on the outside.. this fear of saying the wrong thing.. why you are quiet around people, being cautious, alert, alarmed (?)
“Maybe this abuse wasn’t entirely a bad thing. Maybe, if I was able to cope, my suffering doesn’t even deserve to be acknowledged.’ I am denying my own pain because I forced myself to be okay and I kind of managed to be? But not in a way that allows me to survive in any other situation… And that’s a problem“- this fits with what I referred to earlier as your excellence, that is, your excellent adaptation to your mother, an adaptation specific to just her. I did not adapt to my mother well.
“I have not been giving many thoughts about my mother for long (except for our talks of course). I live with her but she’s more of a ghost in my mind, I am not giving her my full attention“- this is your adaptation to her.. interesting, you see her as a ghost, while it is you who is the ghost in your own life- outside the home.
“they don’t know I am unable to survive outside, they don’t seem fully aware of the extent of my dysfunctionality. They see what they would do if they were me, but they don’t get the full picture“- isn’t the full picture expanding for you, as you understand more and more? As to your dysfunctionality- it may remain the same, but it may lessen and lessen.
“Therefore, when I chose to stay, it’s like saying the environment isn’t that bad and that I’m not suffering that much. Which is untrue (I think?)“- I think that it is true that you are suffering the least at home because of your excellent adaptation to your mother/ home.
“I am just unable to find functionality in the outside world, so I would break down there. I am ashamed about that“- I know shame too well, unfortunately, what a very, very unpleasant emotional experience!
“In the end, our mothers and our twisted relationship with them couldn’t give us the truth, it kept us in the dark. I understand how figuring out who we are (and who they are/aren’t) can only happen away from them“- because as children (and beyond) daughters and mothers are not equal parties to a relationship (daughters react to their mothers even when the mothers claims otherwise!), I would edit the sentence this way: our mothers and their twisted relating to us kept us in the dark.
“they never protected us the right way“- my mother did not protect me from my mother.
“the distance is there… she still loves the mother who hurt her… She never grew into an adult who knows better. But I still can“- this is a sentence that some would respond to with cheerleading, saying things like: yes, you can! How wonderful that you realize this! You are already growing into an adult who knows better! Etc. I do not like cheerleading in this context (it would be okay, I imagine, if I am an athlete runner who needs to be encouraged so to make it to the finish line: yes, you can! yes you can!). In this context cheerleading annoys the hell out of me because it minimizes the difficulty and complexity of what it takes to really heal and change from a devastating childhood, and it expresses arrogance on the part of the cheerleader.
‘’creating more long posts that take a lot of time and energy out of me. Maybe we can produce shorter posts. But I have no intent to no longer communicate with you. It’s the other way around, I hope to keep communicating with you for months.. or for as long as you want to. ‘’
“Sorry for the length of my posts. I will try to keep it in mind and keep things shorter. I like our communication, and I like the idea it could keep on for months, as long you also wish to“- as you can see my current post is long, but thing is, I am enjoying myself, and it is meaningful to me. Sometimes I may be exhausted by a post, not this time.. I suppose we should both keep in mind that we don’t have to read an entire post all at once, we can attend to a part of it, then hours later, to another part. So, just as I am permitting myself as I type this, to produce a long post, I hope you give yourself a similar permission when you feel like it.
“About that, when I observed my friends over years, I was amazed how they were so much about themselves. they were like my mother. Over the years, I discovered while it was right for a few, it was wrong for most of them“- at one point I realized that no one in my life ever hurt me to an extent that was even close to the extent that she hurt me, and yet- I thought of them all as being.. my mother.
“I relate to your pain a lot, as I’m still like that. Not feeling like a person“- for as long as I didn’t feel like a person, I wasn’t really able to perceive another as a person. Other people were .. Others, not people.
“she didn’t see your LOVE for her, she saw weakness that can be explored, or something else, but not love. If she saw your love for her, if she felt it, she would have stopped hurting you. (this is a projection I am making, which I feel quite certain to be true).”
“I have no idea what goes on in her twisted chaotic mind, what she does see or don’t see… My love… didn’t matter. It didn’t make a difference. It wasn’t in my power to stop or change who she is, to make her love and care for me. It never was in my power, never will be“- But you tried very, very hard, for a long, long time, to (1) see what “goes on in her mind, (2) “to stop or change who she is”, and (3) “to make her love and care” for you.
“I feel the burden of my own emotions, and am very worried it could contaminate others through uncontrollable little signals I wouldn’t be self-aware of” – reads like what I talked about in my previous post, being afraid that something will escape your guard and hurt/ anger your mother= other people.
“Too much empathy also lead me to sacrifice myself a lot in the past.. If it’s anything you could be also prone to, I just want to avoid that. I don’t want to take advantage of your kindness“- I’ll keep this in mind. Keep it in your mind as well, in regard to me.
“I hope it doesn’t come across like one of those misplaced caretaking behavior you mentioned in one of our previous conversation… it is very important for me that we do not ignore our own boundaries for the other“- what bothers me about “misplaced caretaking behavior” is the insincere, exaggerated, wishful/ baseless expressions one person uses so to make another person feel good. When I detect sincere empathy and a realistic, humble attitude, I am okay with it, at this point.
“I am okay with you not responding everything with me (or not responding fast) I won’t take it the wrong way. It is enough if you respond what you feel like responding the most“- thank you.
“if I tell her I appreciate her, if I show appreciation… would she feel offended or threatened? Would it be inappropriate? Is it crossing a line?“- I will not be offended. I will like it, as long as what fuels your expressions of appreciation is sincere and not exaggerated or overly positive (and for as long as you don’t second guess yourself much in regard to whether what you say is exaggerated etc., causing you too much distress).
And I appreciate you!
anita
August 10, 2021 at 12:41 pm #384467AnonymousInactiveDear Anita,
I am going to respond to the elements I felt inspired to respond to today among your two posts, and as I’m writing it I notice I’m going back and forth, answering in disorder to make links and just go with the flow. Hopefully, it should still make sense to you.
I am very happy. ‘’Keep myself spontaneous, free to just express, and hopefully Linarra is/ will be doing the same: be spontaneous, not be compelled to say the right thing and reply to every single thing.. and it is okay to neglect to say Thank You, no need to be perfectly polite… to be given the permission to .. not be cautious, alert, alarmed.’’ I think this way of communicating will allow us to be more comfortable and enjoy our communication more. I am glad you took the initiative to start this. And I will do my best to do the same and to remind me about it.
‘’ this may very well be what’s behind your social anxiety on the outside.. this fear of saying the wrong thing.. why you are quiet around people, being cautious, alert, alarmed ‘’ ‘’this is your adaptation to her.. interesting, you see her as a ghost, while it is you who is the ghost in your own life- outside the home. ‘’
It is interesting. She haunts me outside, in how she shaped my brain, making me cautious and unadapted. But inside my home where she really is, I am guarded and adapted against her.I think about a phrase you wrote in your first post (‘’I expected other people to be like my mother’’). It is the same for me, except I am adapted to my mother because I know her well, but for the other people I’m expecting to be like my mother, I do not know them enough. I cannot predict their triggers, I cannot protect myself.
‘’ isn’t the full picture expanding for you, as you understand more and more? As to your dysfunctionality- it may remain the same, but it may lessen and lessen. ‘’
I guess it is expanding, slowly and with some uncertainty. I really do hope my dysfunctionality will lessen over time.
‘’In this context cheerleading annoys the hell out of me because it minimizes the difficulty and complexity of what it takes to really heal and change from a devastating childhood, and it expresses arrogance on the part of the cheerleader. ‘’
I understand. For me, with this kind of cheerleading… there are chances I could get sad or frustrated, especially during the times when I am feeling the struggle. I don’t get upset with the people who do that because it’s just impersonal of them. It can be ignorance, or they didn’t give a real thought about the extent of the struggle. Either way, it makes me feel alone in my struggle, disconnected from the world.‘’I suppose we should both keep in mind that we don’t have to read an entire post all at once, we can attend to a part of it, then hours later, to another part. So, just as I am permitting myself as I type this, to produce a long post, I hope you give yourself a similar permission when you feel like it. ‘’
I understand. As long we don’t have to force ourselves to answer everything it is less exhausting to receive a long post. So we can permit ourselves to make them long if we know the other won’t have to feel forced to answer everything.‘’I will not be offended. I will like it, as long as what fuels your expressions of appreciation is sincere and not exaggerated or overly positive (and for as long as you don’t second guess yourself much in regard to whether what you say is exaggerated etc., causing you too much distress).’’
I agree with your way of thinking, the lack of sincerity isn’t good for anyone, especially when it comes to affection, it is suffocating. My appreciation of you at the moment isn’t causing me second-guessing or distress. It is nice.
Oh, and at last, I wanted to address the experience you described in your first post, and share mine with hopes it will be clarifying, for the future. Personally, I like to know about the perspective of the people I’m talking to, knowing how they feel helps me feel reassured. In the long run, it helps me to know what to expect from them. It makes the closeness feel less threatening, so hopefully it might help with that for you too.
‘’A list of the recent mistakes that the child in me believed may cause you great emotional hurt and turn you against me: (1) typing bonne-nuit last evening, (2) replying to another member first this morning, (3) adding parenthesis to a ? this morning. ‘’
1) Really, I have no problem with it. It was nice. As long it is something you genuinely wanted to say and you weren’t forcing yourself, it is alright with me.
2) Also not a problem. Literally, it doesn’t hurt me how you chose to prioritize/organize those things. I do not feel entitled, especially as I like to have the right to organize my communication too. There’s no way I would let your personal freedom affect my opinion of you. Even if I ended up feeling anxious sometimes, I do not consider it as something you are causing to me, or something I should hold you responsible for. My anxiety is entirely due to my unhealed issues, and my current lack of functionality. My brain does that, not you. And talking with you in safety, figuring out a pace that is comfortable for both of us, figuring out we aren’t going to turn against each other, is already helping. It’s enough.
3) This one surprised me. I personally find your ‘’(?)’’ kind of cute… They aren’t something I ever saw anyone else use, so they feel very “Anita” for me, in a nice way. I never minded them in your messages, for sure. When I noticed them for the first time, I found them endearing. After that, I didn’t overthink the meaning behind their usage, to be honest. Though it is good to know now what you are meaning with them, there’s never too much clarity in communication.
Linarra
August 10, 2021 at 1:43 pm #384468AnonymousGuestDear Linarra:
I just came back from a walk outside and what a pleasant surprise, to read your 1,2, 3 above: I didn’t at all anticipate that you will attend to those, and it made me smile to read that you did, and the way that you did. I feel attended to, similar to how I attend to others, I am impressed. But still, I don’t expect it in the future- for you to attend to me like this. It is important to you to not burden or exhaust me, and it is equally important to me that you are not burdened or exhausted by me. I have such a good feeling about our communication!
I want to read the parts I didn’t yet read in your recent post and reply further later.
anita
August 10, 2021 at 3:59 pm #384479AnonymousGuestDear Linarra:
“Keep myself spontaneous…”‘ I think this way of communicating will allow us to be more comfortable and enjoy our communication more. I am glad you took the initiative to start this. And I will do my best to do the same and to remind me about it“- yes, I am making a commitment to be/ continue to be spontaneous with you, best I can at any moment in time.
“She haunts me outside, in how she shaped my brain, making me cautious and un-adapted. But inside my home where she really is, I am guarded and adapted against her“-our mothers become our brain neuroactivity and chemistry: our thoughts, our feelings, our actions and reactions. Until and if we separate from her, until we develop our own thoughts, feeling our own feelings, thoughtfully choosing our own actions and reactions as the individuals that we become.
“I think about a phrase you wrote in your first post (‘I expected other people to be like my mother’’). It is the same for me, except I am adapted to my mother because I know her well”– The shocking part for me was that I thought I knew my mother well, but.. I didn’t.
We believe she is this and that because we need her to be this and that. I imagined she loved me because I needed her to love me. I imagined that she could not live without me because I felt that I couldn’t live without her.
“I really do hope my dysfunctionality will lessen over time“- me too, but no pressure. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. Hopefully it will be interesting either way. When you become interested in the life that is available to you right now, it gets to be an interesting process of learning vs. life being a good or bad final product.
“As long we don’t have to force ourselves to answer everything it is less exhausting to receive a long post. So we can permit ourselves to make them long if we know the other won’t have to feel forced to answer everything“- yes, agreed.
“the lack of sincerity isn’t good for anyone, especially when it comes to affection, it is suffocating. My appreciation of you at the moment isn’t causing me second-guessing or distress. It is nice“- It feels nice to me right now, very nice!
“As long it is something you genuinely wanted to say and you weren’t forcing yourself, it is alright with me“- same from me to you!
“There’s no way I would let your personal freedom affect my opinion of you“- I respect and honor your personal freedom too.
“My anxiety is entirely due to my unhealed issues, and my current lack of functionality. My brain does that, not you”– you are personally and socially responsible, the opposite of your mother/ my mother. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it!
“And talking with you in safety, figuring out a pace that is comfortable for both of us, figuring out we aren’t going to turn against each other, is already helping. It’s enough“- I will not turn against you. If I did, I would lose my most important value: to be worthy of sincere, innocent trust. Losing that, I would be losing everything.
“they feel very “Anita” for me, in a nice way.. endearing“- that’s a different reaction from my mother’s reactions to my many trivial, random expressions, as small and unharmful as”(?)”s: … accusations, condemnation, and termination of all that’s good. Nice is .. so much, very much nicer!!!
anita
August 11, 2021 at 1:24 am #384495AnonymousInactiveDear Anita,
“our mothers become our brain neuroactivity and chemistry: our thoughts, our feelings, our actions and reactions. Until and if we separate from her, until we develop our own thoughts, feeling our own feelings, thoughtfully choosing our own actions and reactions as the individuals that we become.”
The separation is an interesting subject, the way we chose to do it has a lot of impact on who we become.
My mother has tried to build as the opposite of her mother (or so she says), but she wasn’t really successful. She kept the humiliations patterns, materialistic patterns. The main difference would be she shows us affection, unlike her mother did to her, and didn’t throw us out (even if there were threats for the sake of manipulation, so… it was just different. Her mother used her while she had to keep her then threw her away when she didn’t have to keep her anymore, my mother used me and tried to keep me around so she could keep using me.)
Personally, I believe purposefully trying to become the opposite isn’t necessarily the best choice, not for me at least. It wouldn’t be a choice at all, it would just being built in comparison to her, it isn’t thoughtful enough. I need other people to understand the extent of possibilities this world has to offer. I like to have others, healthier references to think about.
I like to observe, in healthier people, traits my mother has used in a harmful way, and see how these traits can exist in a positive form. Like being dramatic, she’s using it in a serious inappropriate way to the point it becomes harmful. While it can be used as humor, in a way that actually dedramatizes things we want to be light-hearted about. It’s all about the context and the intent. I do not dislike all real-life actors, I can appreciate those who are doing it self-awarely, for entertainment, to bring joy and fun, unlike those who dramatize in a harmful way. It is part of my process of growing my own thoughts, figuring out what is harmful and what isn’t.
“me too, but no pressure. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. Hopefully it will be interesting either way. When you become interested in the life that is available to you right now, it gets to be an interesting process of learning vs. life being a good or bad final product.”
Thank you for not adding pressure. I have been pressuring myself enough during the past years, and even if it didn’t turn out all bad, I would be more peaceful if my healing came with less pressure.
“I will not turn against you. If I did, I would lose my most important value: to be worthy of sincere, innocent trust. Losing that, I would be losing everything.”
It is a good, reassuring value. I trust you. I am not exactly clear on my own personal values, but I know one things : as much as I can, I like to avoid unnecessary harm/hurt for both others and myself.
Unnecessary hurt is: attacking someone on something that is just part of their individuality and isn’t objectively harmful to anyone, etc.
Necessary hurt: requiring our boundaries to be respected, and respecting others’ even when we are going through difficulties, being able to listen and consider unpleasant truths, being able to stand up against harm… etc
Noting that the necessary hurt is the one that is unavoidable, and is usually the one that allows healthy, safe, and sincere relationships, while the unnecessary hurt is just destructive. Unfortunately, things I consider like unnecessary hurt are deemed necessary for some people who find nuisance in a lot of things I judge unharmful… There would be less pain in this world if people weren’t turning against each other for so many things.
I think for us, either way, even if we came across some kind of disagreement with each other, we wouldn’t do it the harmful way, because we care about communicating in a peaceful way and not causing harm to each other.
” But still, I don’t expect it in the future- for you to attend to me like this. It is important to you to not burden or exhaust me, and it is equally important to me that you are not burdened or exhausted by me. I have such a good feeling about our communication!”
I didn’t feel burdened or exhausted as I attended to these 3 points, I did it because I felt like doing it. I appreciate your wish of not burdening me, and for your peace of mind, I will be careful to pay attention to my own emotions so I don’t exhaust myself during our conversation. Because I also have a lot of good feelings about our communication and I want to preserve them for both of us.
Some attending from my part is likely to happen again in the future though, I really like to attend to people I care about when I don’t feel burdened about it. It just makes sense to do it when I feel like it.
Linarra
August 11, 2021 at 7:35 am #384509AnonymousGuestDear Linarra:
“My mother has tried to… (or so she says)“- I am glad that you doubt what she says, and I hope you doubt everything she ever said.
“I believe purposefully trying to become the opposite isn’t necessarily the best… it isn’t a thoughtful choice“- I agree.
“It’s all about the context and the intent“- your behavior toward your mother never followed an intent to hurt her, while her behavior repeatedly followed her intent to hurt you. When you love a person, you don’t harbor an intent to hurt them (not beyond a momentary instinct that lasts only a second or two, not long enough to carry an elaborate hurtful action).
When person A repeatedly, over a significant amount of time, intends to hurt person B and follows the intent with elaborate hurtful actions (such as histrionic displays), person A does not love person B.
If said person A, in between hurtful actions, displays affection toward person B (“she shows us affection“)- person A still, does not love person B.
“Thank you for not adding pressure. I have been pressuring myself enough during the past years, and even if it didn’t turn out all bad, I would be more peaceful if my healing came with less pressure“- you are welcome. Pressure is counterproductive to healing, it causes us to contract. Calm that comes from accepting our lives as it is now makes it possible for us to expand, and become more of who we are.
“I trust you. I am not exactly clear on my own personal values, but I know one thing : as much as I can, I like to avoid unnecessary harm/hurt for both others and myself“- I share this value with you, and I trust you too.
“Necessary hurt: requiring our boundaries to be respected“- when she touches you were you don’t want to be touched, your breasts, let’s say.. seemingly affectionately, and you remove her hand from your breasts- you are not hurting her, even if there seems to be hurt on her face.
Notice: you are not removing her hands from her breasts, you are removing her hands from your breasts.
“Unfortunately, things I consider like unnecessary hurt are deemed necessary for some people who find nuisance in a lot of things I judge unharmful… There would be less pain in this world if people weren’t turning against each other for so many things“- very well said. I want to make more of a distinction between harmful vs nuisance. I wish more people made this distinction.
“I think for us, either way, even if we came across some kind of disagreement with each other, we wouldn’t do it the harmful way, because we care about communicating in a peaceful way and not causing harm to each other“- yes, I agree and I am motivated to make it so.
“I didn’t feel burdened or exhausted as I attended to these 3 points, I did it because I felt like doing it“- my mother repeatedly and endlessly expressed how much I burdened her, how much my existence added to her burden. When I read your sentence here it was like a breath of fresh air.
“for your peace of mind, I will be careful to pay attention to my own emotions so I don’t exhaust myself during our conversation“- I will do the same!
“Because I also have a lot of good feelings about our communication and I want to preserve them for both of us“- I feel the same and I want the same.
“Some attending from my part is likely to happen again in the future though, I really like to attend to people I care about“- “people I care about”, as in: I care about you… another feeling of breathing fresh air!
anita
August 11, 2021 at 8:37 am #384515AnonymousInactiveDear Anita,
” your behavior toward your mother never followed an intent to hurt her, while her behavior repeatedly followed her intent to hurt you. When you love a person, you don’t harbor an intent to hurt them (not beyond a momentary instinct that lasts only a second or two, not long enough to carry an elaborate hurtful action). […] If said person A, in between hurtful actions, displays affection toward person B (“she shows us affection“)- person A still, does not love person B.”
I agree, it makes sense. No matter what she says she doesn’t love me (enough or at all). During all my teenage years I tried many many ways to help her go beyond her abusive tendencies, to make her understand she was repeating the abuse that was done to her and that it wasn’t the way to heal, that she should get professional help because I couldn’t do more… I gave her a lot of time to pick up things, a lot of patience and energy. If really she wanted to change, certainly it would have gone differently. If she really loved me, I wouldn’t have had to try that hard.
“when she touches you were you don’t want to be touched, your breasts, let’s say.. seemingly affectionately, and you remove her hand from your breasts- you are not hurting her, even if there seems to be hurt on her face.”
Protecting myself isn’t hurting her. Even if it was, she would be the one interpreting wrong and causing her own hurt. If she was able to think healthily, she would understand I may not want to be touched in a certain way by her and she wouldn’t be hurt that I do not allow that.
” as in: I care about you… another feeling of breathing fresh air”
Yes, I do care about you, Anita. And I am more than happy to give you breaths of fresh air.
Linarra
August 11, 2021 at 9:02 am #384516AnonymousGuestDear Linarra:
“If she really loved me, I wouldn’t have had to try that hard“- if she loved you, your love for her would feel- to her- like a breath of fresh air. All you would have to do would be to smile at her, and she’d smile back, her smile saying: I like you, Linarra, I am so happy that you are my daughter! You don’t have to work to make me happy: you make me happy just because you are in my life!
“Protecting myself isn’t hurting her. Even if it was, she would be the one interpreting wrong“- healing is about re-interpreting. She is the one thinking wrong. And she is not willing to re-interpret her wrong thinking. You can’t change her thinking, but you can continue to gradually evict all of her wrong thinking from your head.
“If she was able to think healthily, she would understand I may not want to be touched in a certain way by her and she wouldn’t be hurt that I do not allow that“- she understood before and she still understands that you don’t want to be touched in a certain way.
“Yes, I do care about you, Anita. And I am more than happy to give you breaths of fresh air“- and you don’t have to work hard to give me breaths of fresh air!
anita
August 11, 2021 at 11:32 am #384519AnonymousInactiveDear Anita,
“if she loved you, your love for her would feel- to her- like a breath of fresh air. All you would have to do would be to smile at her, and she’d smile back, her smile saying: I like you, Linarra, I am so happy that you are my daughter! You don’t have to work to make me happy: you make me happy just because you are in my life!”
Oh, yeah… So it is what love actually looks like. It is so… simple. Unlike the twisted unrequited love I had for my mother (I still feel weird at the idea I loved my mother, but I acknowledge it). I am glad, I think I may have people in my life who love me.
These hints of love… When I first received them from someone outside I doubted them. They made me feel good, so I wouldn’t entirely reject them (and also to not hurt anyone’s feelings) but I kept a safe distance. It is really over time I was able to… understand some people would really stay with me for other reasons than the wish to hurt me. It was weird, but I still doubted it was love, wouldn’t have dared to use this word about a relationship. It was “mutually beneficial and respectful relationships”, something like that.
In these good friendships, we don’t have to try hard to be respectful and say nice things, to enjoy having another person in our life. It comes naturally. It is more than what my mother ever gave me.
Now I think about it, I don’t remember the last time I genuinely was able to smile at my mother. I barely look at her. And the rare times I do, I don’t smile. Even when she’s doing something nice for me, I’m just polite with her. I am not happy to have her in my life. Does that mean I really don’t love her anymore?
“she understood before and she still understands that you don’t want to be touched in a certain way.”
Yeah, she just doesn’t care about my feelings.
I guess it is an appropriate time to say that our conversations make me smile, especially when I see you enjoy them too.
Linarra
August 11, 2021 at 12:03 pm #384523AnonymousGuestDear Linarra:
“So it is what love actually looks like. It is so… simple. Unlike the twisted unrequited love I had for my mother“- Your love for her was so simple. That simple Love was who you were. When she twisted your love for her, she twisted you.
“over time I was able to… understand some people would really stay with me for other reasons than the wish to hurt me“- you acknowledge here, perhaps without awareness, that you know that your mother wished/ intended to hurt you, and that she is still wishing/ intending to hurt you when she goes about hurting you.
“It comes naturally“- love is simple, love is natural.
“I barely look at her. And the rare times I do, I don’t smile. Even when she’s doing something nice for me, I’m just polite with her. I am not happy to have her in my life. Does that mean I really don’t love her anymore?“- unfortunately, you still love her, but like you wrote above, your love for her is twisted. It twisted because it’s been unrequited for too long, and because the one you love has been wishing to hurt you, and going about hurting you- too many time, for too long.
“Yeah, she just doesn’t care about my feelings“- it gets worse than that. It was a shock to me when I realized that my mother felt a relief when she was hurting me, and sometimes she enjoyed it, sometimes it excited her seeing me in pain (looking back I remember the excitement on her face, in her breathing, as she anticipated to see the hurt on my face after saying something hurtful).
Before I realized that, I thought wrongly that .. she just didn’t understand, that she hurt me out of ignorance.
“I guess it is an appropriate time to say that our conversations make me smile, especially when I see you enjoy them too“- it is appropriate to say that you smile, when you were smile. I am smiling now!
But I also worry about having presented you the concept above, the joy of hurting: there is nothing smile-worthy about that.
anita
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This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by .
August 11, 2021 at 1:25 pm #384529AnonymousInactiveDear Anita,
“it gets worse than that. It was a shock to me when I realized that my mother felt a relief when she was hurting me, and sometimes she enjoyed it, sometimes it excited her seeing me in pain”
I think I remember similar feelings. I don’t remember anything visual, because I have a bad memory and I am not a visual person, but I remember thinking she must take pleasure in her acting, even the one that hurt me. (She was shameless when she was expressing joy of hurting others, like men. She didn’t directly express her joy of hurting me, but sometimes it felt like she hoped for me to be hurt and was unsatisfied when I wasn’t.) But I excused her because she was mentally ill. Now I don’t anymore. I shouldn’t have to bear with it and accept it just because she can’t change it.
You don’t have to worry about presenting me the concept of joy/satisfaction of hurting. Technically my mother presented it to me first when I experienced it with her. It isn’t.. bad to be able to talk about those things with you, without sugarcoating them like it goes with most people.
Linarra
August 11, 2021 at 2:00 pm #384532AnonymousGuestDear Linarra:
“It isn’t.. bad to be able to talk about those things with you, without sugarcoating them like it goes with most people“- simple honesty like simple love is .. beautifully simple. Simple and rare.
“She was shameless when she was expressing joy of hurting others, like men. She didn’t directly express her joy of hurting me“- your mother didn’t make an exception for you in regard to hurting others and enjoying it.
My mother didn’t express joy, or pleasure for hurting me . But I saw it. I pushed what I saw down, below my awareness best my brain was able to, in its instinctual/ automatic way. But what we know, even if it’s pushed down, does not stay quiet: it creates a lot of noise that shows up in our dysfunction. We just can’t function well before we bring up to the surface the terrible truth that we placed under.
As children, we can’t … stomach the idea that our mothers are enjoying hurting us.. unbelievable, isn’t it.
anita
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This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by .
August 11, 2021 at 2:29 pm #384534AnonymousGuestDear Linarra:
I wanted to share with you: recently I submit my posts to you without re-reading them so to check for grammatical mistakes and such. I write them quite spontaneously and then submit. I then read what I wrote, notice a mistake, or an opportunity to clarify. In the above editing I added one word to the post, that’s all (“others” after “hurting” in 2nd paragraph) and submitted again.
And then I thought: oh, oh, Linarra will think that I am not spontaneous with her, that I said I will be but I lied/ I betrayed her.
I was scared that you will not like me anymore, say that I lied, that I promised something and broke my promise—–> this is all a reactivation of what happened with my mother: any THING, any random thing, anything… could have meant hell for me.. I never knew what it will be, so I guessed: oh, it could be this that I did wrong, it could be that.. it could be (here, reactivated) that I edited my post and I shouldn’t have!
anita
August 11, 2021 at 4:04 pm #384541AnonymousInactiveDear Anita,
“simple honesty like simple love is .. beautifully simple. Simple and rare.”
While I find fascination in complexity, I really enjoy the peacefulness and the beauty in simplicity. This world is so complex, simple and easy things are precious.
“But what we know, even if it’s pushed down, does not stay quiet: it creates a lot of noise that shows up in our dysfunction. We just can’t function well before we bring up to the surface the terrible truth that we placed under.”
There it is.. the haunting truth we must face. If only knowing about it, seeing it was sufficient to “stomach the idea“. But it so much more complex. Once it is surfacing, what to do… The classical guidance of accepting what can’t be change and learning to change what can be may be wise, but it is such a general advice, the actual journey is undescribable. Figuring how to make this advice praticable is quite something…
“recently I submit my posts to you without re-reading them so to check for grammatical mistakes and such. I write them quite spontaneously and then submit. I then read what I wrote, notice a mistake, or an opportunity to clarify.”
I did so to for some posts I think (and/or wanted to but the editing option isn’t always showing, so I let it go then). I didn’t worry much about the fact you would turn it against me, because I don’t consider that correcting mistakes/clarifying is a betrayal and made a bet on my hope you’d be able to understand. Spontaneity is good, but mistakes happens during it, it isn’t a lie to want to correct those mistakes (or add clarification) when having a different look at them later. It isn’t wrong, it isn’t lies or betrayal. Please do what would suits you the most, editing or no editing, both are fine with me. Both are you, with or without mistakes/clarification, I’m fine and won’t get bothered.
“I was scared that you will not like me anymore”
It would takes me so much more to stop liking someone (in this case, you). Those little mistakes, those little worries, they are part of your humanity. I have mine to. If I wasn’t able to love you and accept you just because of your little decisions, I wouldn’t be able to do the same for mine either (I have/had difficulties accepting mine, but moreso when I am with someone who would judge harshly. I chose to not be that person, both for you and for me, so the change can start somewhere.) I don’t want to suffer from this anymore, not with people who seem like they really could accept me with my “little things”, and benefit of being accepted with theirs.
I’m taking the risk of not worrying about editing and the risk of being surprised if you turn it against me. Even if you did so, I would discuss it with you and see how it turns out, if you’d be able to accept my (hopefully) unhurtful flaws once I clarified the details. And depending on the outcome of this discussion, if you decided to dislike me very much and shame me for that, I would feel a bit less safe of course. But I don’t think it is a likely outcome, because our previous discussions didn’t make me think you’d react so extremely over something like this. So I would be very confused… I hope I won’t cause you such confusion in the future. If I do, please tell me so we can discuss it.
I do hope at some point you’ll be able to be confident on the fact I will not stop liking you over small things like this. (No pressure, of course, I also do not dislike you for worrying, I just hope this for your own comfort.) And thus, you’d feel free to edit/not edit as much as you feel like. And it’d be indirectly a confirmation that you’re alright with me doing it and not doing it as I please.
Linarra
August 11, 2021 at 7:08 pm #384547AnonymousGuestDear Linarra:
I will read your recent post and reply when I am back to the computer Thursday morning my time (in about 11 hours from now). I hope you have a pleasant enough day!
anita
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This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by
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