Dear Anita,

This isn’t a message written in urgence so you do not need to get out of your way to read or reply to this earlier than the other. Or at all, if you don’t feel like replying any of it.

At the moment I’m writing this it is 4am, and I’m having an an insomnia due to ingestion of alcohol. I knew it wasn’t a great idea and I didn’t really feel like it, but I let myself influenced and I now regret it. I hope writing it down will remind myself of being… less stupid, next time I have to make a decision about this.

I am though, tired of doing nothing of these hours of now unavoidable sleep deprivation. And I thought, since you like spontaneity, I might share with you that, as I am dealing with this insomnia and the stomach ache that goes with it… The ‘presence’ of our past and future conversations is helping me to cope, having something to think about and focus on is a nice distraction from pain.

Usually, I would have comforted myself with fictional characters, they make me less lonely during those times. But lately I am a bit cut off of my daydreaming with them, and your presence was more accessible to my brain, so… It went like that. I hope the idea I might think about our talks like this, in a comforting way isn’t something that would make you uncomfortable. If so, please tell me and I will make the necessary effort to have my fictional comfort more accessible for next times.

Keeping in mind I hope I’ll be strong enough for not having ‘that’ specific kind of next time.

Linarra

Dear Anita,

I am writing to you this morning because I want to share with you something. I have been entertaining the idea to tell you, but never found the right timing to do so. Today, after the previous messages we exchanged, it feels more right than it was before.

I found this forum (as a reader) in June 2020, because I was searching for people discussing the experience of loneliness (sometimes I just google up my thoughts and see if it leads me to people who feels the same, and see how they are processing that, how other people help them process that.) I was trying to find answers that would help me in my healing journey.

I found on this forum a lot of very emotional and personal experiences from strangers, some I could relate to. I was reading some of those forum threads during June and July 2020. Among them, I was exposed to a lot of your replies to the members of this forum, it got me curious about who was Anita, this kind person who was dedicating a lot of time talking with strangers. Your answers were intriguing, very thoughtful, not something I was used to experience or witness in actual conversations between people. I kept reading, wondering what I may find in these conversations, both because it helped me and because I tend to follow my curiosity.

At some point, I wondered “what does it feel like to talk with someone like Anita?” Reading your conversations with the members here was a nice experience for me, but it looked challenging for participants (which is understandable, there was a lot of struggle there), so I wondered how the members felt during these conversations. I couldn’t imagine since I wasn’t in touch with my emotions myself.

I wondered “how would it turn out if someone like me was to talk with someone like Anita?” I excluded this possibility quickly enough. I was very curious indeed, but I couldn’t entertain this thought. Something within me said I shouldn’t. You were attending to people a lot there, and while reading those threads was very nice, I felt like something was missing. That’s when I realized “Ah, she seems similar to me… She helps others, but it isn’t mutual.” I had my fair share of helping others without having reciprocation and without expecting it, being alright with it. But not entirely alright with it happening all the time. I wondered “Is it alright with her? Doesn’t she need someone to pay attention to her, too?” At that time, I knew already I needed someone to pay attention to me sometimes… Yet I wasn’t here, intending to post on this forum, where I could have got that. Why?

I realized it was because… It wouldn’t change anything for me. If I were to speak about my difficulties, I was probably going to be told to leave my family, and I wouldn’t do it because it isn’t so easy. I am not comfortable with people wanting to help me and burdening themselves with me, when they cannot actually help (only to an extent). I really wasn’t comfortable with it. I needed help, but I didn’t want someone to take care of me. I needed attention, but I didn’t want the emotional dependency and fear that goes with it.

I knew if I were to heal, it would come from myself and not anyone’s help. I didn’t want to involve anyone and risk to hurt or disappoint them. I needed to be in charge. And honestly, I wasn’t ready for this kind of conversation, I didn’t trust myself to talk with someone like you without making a mess. I needed to be stronger, I needed to be more mature. So I would just read some threads when I felt like it, and nothing more.

Then, I got busy with other things and I stopped reading here. I only came back reading a bit in October 2020, when the context was quite tough for me. I wondered, once more, if talking with you would teach me more than what I could learn by reading others’ threads. But I refused to fall for this temptation when I was feeling bad. It was too risky. I needed to find the information and help somewhere else, and keep coping/healing on my own. If I were to discuss with someone like you, it would be as a mature healed adult, out of curiosity, when being able to pay attention to you and be on equal grounds.

Though, honestly, even then I didn’t intend to start a thread there in the future. I thought that by the time I would be ready for this, this forum would be long gone, or maybe you wouldn’t be discussing with strangers there anymore. So I was mostly imagining getting myself worthy (healthy enough) and ready for something similar. For my idea of a satisfying discussion with someone like you, the way that felt right.

Fast forward, when I started this thread in July 2021… I figured it was worth the shot to face my fears and see if posting on this forum could provide information I wasn’t able to find on my own. I wasn’t entirely healed, but it could be a step in my healing, and I felt like I could act mature enough to make sure I didn’t burden anyone during the process.

I knew you might answer my thread, but I didn’t want to expect anything. I was just trying to focus on how I could take my healing further.

While I prepared myself to be emotionally responsible and not burdening anyone, I wasn’t prepared for the revelation you had a similar mother and similar trauma. When I noticed this discussion was likely to emotionally affect you, it was “uh-oh” situation, I was worried about how it would go. If I would have had know beforehand, probably I wouldn’t have felt ready for this… but once the talk was started it was clear to me I needed to face this fear, and I would only back off from this conversation if turned out more hurtful than beneficial. I was pleasantly surprised that despite the emotional turmoil, there were signs of… something good, for both of us.

I want you to know I will be patient. Even if you feel the need to postpone your answers to me. I understand this need very well, because… I guess I postponed this thread for an entire year. It is important for me to respect the pace you need to be comfortable and ready for our discussion.

Linarra

Dear Anita,

“The fear of expecting something from someone and then getting disappointed- there is anger involved in imagining this. Emotional  attachment is troublesome.”

I appreciate your honesty and transparency on this. I agree strongly… Emotional attachment is troublesome, it is why I avoided it so much! These feelings you are experiencing there, of anger and fear, expectations and disappointment, were a big part of the reason why I do not seek help… Why I feared the idea of talking with you first.

Because, I feel really bad about myself when people start to care about me and then… notice their care won’t save me. It is reliving what I felt about my parents, but seeing others going through this instead (or suffering by project, except for you, you have that exact wound so it isn’t just projection…)

Then in my mind, came the idea I am like my parents, unsavable, unlovable (expect by their dependant children), and not worthy of the attention of anyone unless I am able to save myself first, because the alternative is hurting those who care for me, forever. What an unpleasant thought, what a disappointment. I don’t like this idea.

Either way, it was very lonely for me, it made me hate dysfunctionality. Generally speaking, not at the moment. I am coming at peace with the fact I can’t heal too easily. But that still means loneliness if I want to not hurt anyone and not be hurt…

I was very withdrawn because of that. Now, in order to feel less dead, I cope by expressing my affection to the people I care about but… It makes them care too, so I have to be twice as strong. That’s why I am working so hard to be okay, despite my situation.

A part of me thinks I was selfish to open up enough, in a way that ended up… making you care. I wonder if you would have preferred if I have done things differently but… It couldn’t have been helped unless I just, didn’t open up and talk with you at all. I am sad to have triggered such distress in you, but it comes with the territory. Do you have rathered me to stay away?

I can’t undo what we shared, but I think I should offer you a way out if it gets too much for you. It’s only fair.

“Your stress in “so real” means to me that your shedding a lot of you, remaining your minimal self, was indeed the right solution at the time, made by Life itself. ‘’

This interpretation, and all the things you wrote regarding the overwhelming fear of death we were too young to process, makes sense to me. I liked the tree metaphor, I have a lot of affection for trees, I liked to imagine them as people when I was a child. I find them fascinating and beautiful.

“this is exciting, I am smiling with anticipation, now at 8:08 as I am about to read what  is next.

Ooops, I didn’t notice but I read the rest of your post all together, having arrived to the end of it before I noticed that I did not read and respond to it part by part. It is now 8:27. And, by the way, I am okay that I forgot to read and answer part by part, it is not really a mistake, just a spontaneous change (the “ooops above was a very weak ooops).’’

I like your description of your morning during your message, it feels like hanging with you. And your spontaneity makes me smile.

‘’I know better now and am more humble.. I like myself way better this way! It sure feels better to .. feel Equal vs Inferior or Superior. Yet, I have to remind myself of this principle once in a while. ‘’

I think everyone gets through this ignorance and arrogance stage at some point, and it is definitely a principle that is easy to forget. This kind of reminder is good.

“The reason why I did not post a request for help here in these forums is that I didn’t come across any member whose help I would like to get. I knew that if I posted a request for help I would get a mix of some good input (nothing new, as I read plenty of self help books and resources before I started to post on this website, plus had over two years of quality psychotherapy) and some bad input that would infuriate me. “

I laughed when I first read that part. I think because I related to this.

‘’As crazy as it sounds, what if I posted on the forums and someone insisted on .. violating me this way, or some other way. When help becomes synonymous with violation, you don’t want it.’’

I entirely agree.

‘’ because being helped on an unequal ground, like a child being helped by her mother, brings more harm that good, so you needed to be strong enough to sustain the harm that comes with help (?) ‘’

I think you are right. Despite there was a fear to harm/disappoint others, there was a fear of being harmed. Maybe, in the case of help with my adult self right now (on this forum or in psychotherapy), it would take the shape of ‘’You don’t really want to heal, if you wanted to heal you would leave your mother.’’ ‘’You seem to prefer abuse over being a responsible/function adult in the real world’’ ‘’If you tried harder you could get out of this’’… or I don’t know. Things that would make me feel powerless and broken, like trying my own way isn’t enough… Like I am weird and alien for having other priorities than not getting abused at all cost. Like I am not human anymore and will never get understood and never get connections.

Of course, that is the most extreme risk. People wouldn’t say it so harshly, but overall there is a feeling of “you are beyond help”, unless I help myself first and make it clear I got it all together… but then if it’s like this, there’s no point looking for help anymore.

“Emotional turmoil as expressed by our histrionic mothers, minor things blown out of proportion,  means that any emotional movement within us or around us/ any emotional exchange feels dangerous, doesn’t it.. So, we stay away from emotional exchanges with others, best we can, fearing an escalation into histrionics, being attacked, violated (?) “

Exactly… the haunting is going on.

“It is now 9:18 am, my coffee is cold, it’s very smoky outside, all the windows are closed, I will be walking on the treadmill indoors today, so to not breathe the outside air.  I am not editing anything I typed above as I submit this post next.”

I do understand better why global warming is causing you such distress, you’re going through the concrete evidence of it. I hope your day will go alright despite the current heatwave and the smoke.

I wasn’t able to get as spontaneous as you in my message. Since I live with my family (3 members at home at the moment), I got interrupted quite often, and had to adapt around that for this one. But I really appreciated your spontaneity in this message.

Linarra

Dear Anita,

I will try to be more spontaneous this morning, like you did yesterday.  It is 07:43 as I am typing. When I woke up this morning, the first I did was to read your reply over my phone, then I had my breakfast quietly while thinking about the things I might reply to you later. Then when I was done with my breakfast I got on my computer. Maybe that does remove some of the spontaneity to pre-think about things… I have a hard time refraining from reading when I get your messages when I see it’s there. My curiosity gets the best of me.

 ” are you afraid that their caring is not rewarded by the hoped-for prize: you being saved? As all their efforts are for nothing, that you are wasting their time” 

I am afraid of that… I am afraid they realize they’d be better away from me, just like I’d be better away from my mother. That’s why in most of my friendships, I’m giving of myself without asking or expecting anything in return. That way I make sure I am not a waste of time.

“My distress used to be about as intense as yours, but it is now far less intense. I think that you perceive my distress at the present time as more intense than it is. It is not “such distress”- it is a relatively light, a very manageable distress.”

That’s good to know, then. I probably really perceive it stronger than it is. Probably because I’m still exposed to the intensity of my mother’s emotions. She’s still stealing the spotlight from people who feel and express manageable emotions, making herself a (bad) reference for me of what an emotion looks like.

It’s 08:21, I had to take a short break to gather my thoughts. I didn’t gather much, it was more… inner rambling as I walked around my room.

I think my own distress is also manageable, but I don’t have a clear description of my emotions. Just fear, a manageable fear, that grows when I worry about having done something wrong, like trigger negative feelings in someone I appreciate. But it’s still mostly manageable. I keep it under control, I just don’t know yet if there’s a better way to appease this fear than just being aware it won’t change anything to feel it.

” caring for you, even though there is some, manageable distress, makes me feel better: like a tree with leaves and  blossoms, as opposed to a bare trunk of a tree, no leaves, no blossoms. But it’s not possible when fear/ distress is too intense. Fear has to lessen and become manageable first, before we can relax into and enjoy caring for another person.”

I feel similarly. I am able to feel more alive when caring, but too much distress takes it away. It comes and goes… Sometimes I am relaxed enough to enjoy the caring, sometimes I am very anxious about it. I still have to learn how to appease/comfort myself properly in those later times.

“Some of the people who would tell you things like “if you wanted to heal you would leave your mother“, I have learned through my years of participation in the forums, are people who don’t dare leaving their own mothers, people who are still trying to change their mothers into loving mothers.”

It is projection then? I can imagine it… I myself was telling my mother she should leave my father if staying with him was hurting her that much,  when I was young.  He was abusive, it made sense to me at that time she should either get away or bear with it well, not stay and bear with it badly… I was young and ignorant, I wanted her to protect herself and us. Instead, she made me protect her, and get my father angry with me. It was too complicated for her to leave, understandable, but when I noticed her own kind of abuse it was… more than too complicated. It wasn’t just she was powerless facing abuse, she was also a whole other… problem.

My own answer/protection to the “if you wanted to heal you would leave” observation, in relation to my own relationship with my mother, was to chose to stop being too hurt/affected emotionally by my mother when I am still living with her. The inner death we talked about, some kind of peace, or illusional peace in a drastic environment.  Efficient for me who doesn’t know how long such an environment will last. And people won’t waste their time telling you to get away from the fire if the fire already destroyed your nervous system to the point you don’t feel the hurt anymore. They consider you out of their understanding, unrelatable, and they leave you alone. It’s… safe.

That rationally doesn’t seem like a good alternative. The objectively best alternative would be to get away and be adapted to the outside world alternative. But there’s no map that leads to this place and no certainty I’ll survive there. And no one giving me this advice can provide the map or the certainty. So, staying and figuring out my healing there, with the hope I will build a path out of this mess someday in the future, is my safest bet.

Oh. Yesterday, I was talking to my young brother, mentioning briefly our discussion on this thread. He asked me “If she has such similarities with you and our situation with our mother, and if she is older than you, how has she survived until now?” I was dumbfounded by that, because by now I am not surprised by any kind of survival. But then I understood where this question came from. We are still uncertain of our own survival. I personally don’t overthink anymore about whether I’ll survive or die, in this environment or from the consequence of this environment. But, not so long ago, I was overworking myself because I thought it was my only chance of survival… I felt that very strongly, that if I slacked off, if I wasn’t pressuring myself to work and to heal so I could get out of this house, I would die from an eventual, long and agonizing death.

And my brother sees it that way too. So he tries to get functional a lot too, to get out of there. He’s younger, yet I think he’ll make it out of this situation earlier than me, because his fear of the outside world doesn’t stop him, it is less important than his fear of this household.

For my young sister (who’s older than my brother), she’s not adapted to the household (like my brother and unlike me) but her fear of the outside world is making it hard for her to leave (unlike my brother, and like me). I hope she’ll get better help than what I can provide, but she’s very against psychotherapy and isn’t into self-help either… I’m slowly trying to get her warmer to this concept, but I do not expect much success.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to be really efficient as the eldest. Ideally, I would have been functional and got us another, healthier place to grow in. But I wasn’t able to. The consequences from my childhood were too big for me to be able to replace my mother. I am 2 years older than my sister, 6 years older than my brother. It was a bit short-timed to become a functional adult enough to replace my parents with absolutely no outside help. I failed that. Now the next best thing I can do is pursue my healing and be an emotional and practical support for my siblings for as long as they are still in this household.

I wonder how early you were able to escape your mother?

It is now 10:35, I did reread a bit of my message and edited it before I send it. I have still some things to learn about spontaneity, I guess. For now, I don’t mind. I believe it is 01:37 where you live now. I hope you’re sleeping well tonight.

Linarra.

Dear Anita,

Just a warning note: I started to reply around the time you posted (5:00 pm my time) and I finished now (7:28 pm my time) and I figure this message is quite long because I tried the “no edit” way this time. So, I thought it would be better for me to make a reminder of the “don’t feel pressured to reply to everything”, just in case you need it. If it’s too much you can skip parts, while keeping in mind I’ll keep thinking of you with fondness either way!

” It is now Sat 6:41 am my time, and Sat 2:41 pm your time. I wonder what you are doing now.”

At Sat 2:41 I was texting with an old internet friend. She also has a mother who seems histrionic, or another similar extreme mental illness, though she thankfully wasn’t raised with her. We were talking about that at this moment. I like sharing casual anecdotes of my mother’s hectic behavior with her because it makes her laugh (not without compassion, but the absurdity and extremeness make her laugh). It is nice to be able to share stuff about my life and have positive reactions instead of negative ones, there’s not a lot of my friends who would dare to laugh with me about that so I rarely share with the others.

“I wanted to tell you: the other day I was at the dentist and thought about you- it made my time there better!” 

I am glad it did! Dentists aren’t exactly the best experience, I also like thinking about better things when I go there.

“the yet inadequate mental separation from your mother is evident in this thinking.”

Well, you got me there, I’m guilty as charged.

“In my mind, sometime in childhood and on, every thing she bought for me had a price tag. I didn’t see the item for its use or beauty, I saw a price tag that was added to how much I already owed her. When I visited her as an adult, I used to calculate how much money she would spend on feeding me, and gave her the cash to cover the food and more. I always wanted to pay her enough money to buy my freedom from debt. I never did, no matter how much money I gave her.”

It is interesting. I didn’t think about that one similarity. I mean, there’s some differences for me. I never tried to repay the debt for her, and I didn’t keep a check on numbers, but… My mother was complaining about her money issues and our living costs during most of my teenagehood. And at some point, when she wasn’t able to keep up with the money, she asked me for it. And I let her take it, because I owed her and because both I and my siblings also depended on the household finances.

My mother “borrowing” my money became recurrent. I got often angry at her every time she made careless expenses for ‘her children’, expenses that were useless, that we didn’t ask for… And after that she would yell at us because she was paying the bills of the house we were living in and considered we costed too much. It was very upsetting to witness her being careless with her money and then being angry at us for the lack of money… indebting us with things we didn’t even want.

She considered herself indebted in me, though, or so she was saying. She was giving it back sometimes, I don’t know if it was always because I didn’t care for keeping track. I owed my family. And it wasn’t exactly money I earned from hard work, it was money I got as a child as a legal financial compensation for being molested (I think it’s a “sorry for the offense” kind of logic?). Still was angry about her irresponsibility with money.

Fast-forward to now… Still kind of let her borrow from time to time but I try to make sure she actually reimburses because I don’t want her to actually waste it. And my actual relationship with money is messed up. By messed up, I mean I feel very negative at both the idea to spend or earn any money. So, for the not ‘spending money on myself’, it’s not that much of a problem. But the extreme feelings of guilt at the idea of earning any money through any kind of means is… part of my dysfunctionality. And this one is purely irrational, like… even I cannot find a good way to rationalize. It is purely non-sense, I know the logic behind financial transactions and everything, it shouldn’t be a problem. Yet, even for the short time, I worked in a factory I was worried about not being worthy of the money I earned. I just don’t process well being given anything, even when I do the thing I’m supposed to do for it I will seek for the many reasons I am not worthy of it.

It is one of the many reasons why imagining a future where I could survive was challenging. I figured either I’ll end up earning a living anyway despite the very negative feelings… or I’ll start fetching savage fruits and gardening with the hope of reaching any kind of self-sufficiency and figure my way out on the other needs. A few years ago the later options seemed more probable because the money anxiety was vivid. Now, the former option is gaining a bit of space. But I know I’ll have to do something about the negative feelings if I want to not be depressed all the time I’m making a living.

“I wonder if you have your own room and if you lock it when you are in it, so that no one can get in without you letting them in? A lock could comfort you.”

I don’t but I don’t feel the need for it, I don’t feel distress at being invaded by my family usually. The anxiety mentioned previously was the one of caring about people of the outside world and the risks that go with it.”

“sometimes the abuse in a relationship is one-sided, usually the man abuses the woman. Often the abuse is mutual: man and woman abuse each other. I am guessing in your mother’s case, it was mutual”

I have no idea. I don’t remember obvious abuse from her to him… Except for maybe making his own children chose her side. They were a strange couple. She married him out of pity, she said, and she had 3 children with him because she wasn’t able to say no to his pleading. She said he manipulated her. We don’t have his version of the story, we witnessed the physical and verbal abuse he did to her, and to us personally sometimes. So it wasn’t hard to believe her. But we’ll never know what she might or not have done to him.

” I boldfaced “there” because you meant here, here being the home you share with your mother and siblings. But why did you choose “there”, I wonder… maybe healing is really there, outside the home ”  

Yes, I could see how the healing would probably happen more easily out there. I can see but I feel… too weak and alone when I imagine being out there.

“how can you heal from a hurt you no longer feel… Can emotional healing really be an intellectual activity with a touch of emotion…” 

Probably not. I mean, the emotions should be there if I am healed and feel alive. I think it could be a possibility I get there someday, not just intellectualize, but feel too. All my nervous system doesn’t feel dead all the time.

“no, not to adapt to the outside world, but to create your life in the outside world, being one who creates, not one who adapts.”

I like this idea way better, thank you.

“When I left my mother and country on my own, at 24, I didn’t have a plan, nor did I need a plan, or money (beyond the airline ticket and some extra). I didn’t care. The idea of being away from my mother was intoxicating. I proceeded to live mostly like a leaf in the wind, going any which way the wind took me. ” ” I wanted to be free, that’s why I left at 24, and again and again, after every visit. I wanted to be free from her.”

Your need for freedom was really strong, it seems nice. It seems right. You wanted it and even if it wasn’t easy you took it.

“Unfortunately, I kept regular telephone communication with my mother throughout, and returned to her for visits many times. Each time any and all progress I made away from her- was reversed”

Oh, this gave me flash-back from my university time. I lived 24 months away from her (minus scholar vacations), it almost made me see the world under another light. I was still anxious (but I wasn’t alone, I had a trusted friend living with me), but the world felt so much safer, peaceful happier without her around. My eyes are watering at the memories. The first 12 months were magical, then reality checked… I had no plans for the future and my friend would soon go somewhere else, somewhere it didn’t make any sense for me to follow. I realized this freedom was illusional, I was only able to do it because I had someone around I trusted and her presence was sufficient to help me not being too anxious about the world and every little thing. Alone, without a plan, without even a meaning, I couldn’t do it. So I came back home. And that was it, that was gone. And I felt awful for not being strong enough for the outside world alone.

” I am the eldest too, 6 years older than my sister. I wasn’t able to help her. When I left at 24, my mother focused on her and proceeded to damage to her more.”

Did you keep in touch with your sister? Was she able to get her freedom too, eventually?

Linarra