Dear Linarra:

Regarding your post before last, the one from yesterday:

“I like sharing casual anecdotes of my mother’s hectic behavior with her because it makes her laugh“- this is a difference between our parallel individual experiences: no way in heaven or in hell would I have considered before or now anything my mother did as something funny, something that will make me- or anyone else- laugh. What she did was just too tragic, on so many levels, in so many ways: nothing that could be presented lightly or in a funny way.

I wrote to you: “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.”, and you answered:

“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”- no fear of your mother entering your room.. meaning you don’t feel she is a source of danger, or a possible source of danger.

How can this be, I ask myself.. I mean, you wrote “I don’t feel distress at being invaded by my family“- you didn’t mention the idea of being invaded by your mother, but by your family.. You placed your mother and your siblings together as “my family”, and indicated that you are not afraid of any of them..

How can this be. I don’t understand.. And I would like to understand. What makes your mother part of your family, why is she in that word (family), and together with your siblings?

anita

• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by .

Dear Linarra:

It is now 5:29 am my time and before I got up from bed I thought about the last post I sent you and thoughts came to my mind that I wanted to tell you. I did not read your recent post, not a word of it. I scrolled down to write you this message before reading any of your response to my prison analogy. After typing out my thoughts I will go up the page, copy your recent message and respond to it part by part.

My thoughts: at first, your mother was the prison official/ the Guard and you and your siblings were the Inmates. At one point, your mother told you to take her place with your siblings, to be in charge of them once she supposedly killed herself. Fast forward, you are now Guard, and your mother is more like an Inmate. You are in charge, you are in a position of power.

I don’t know a thing about the household dynamics in your home, who makes the rules regarding cleaning, preparing meals, etc., but I think/ have the feeling that somehow you are in charge/ in position of power, as the eldest sibling, the one handed the power by her mother long ago.

Your mother is a rebelling Inmate at this point: she behaves much of the time, but sometimes she acts out (as real inmates in real prisons do, verbally abusing the guards, even hitting the guards), becomes verbally abusive, she even hit you, but in the context of your home, you are Guard. Outside your home- in the outside world- your position of power is taken away from you.

Power is inside the home, No Power on the outside.

And now, I will go up and copy your message…

“I wonder if the sky got any clearer where you live since last time“- yes, last evening it was clear, the sky was blue, light blue, what a relief!

“I am anxious about having maybe upset you or made you uncomfortable. Because people are usually uncomfortable and dislike what they don’t understand“- yes, I was .. angry somewhat, nothing intense, when I sent you the last message, for the same reason you stated here: people dislike what they don’t understand. You are very perceptive, I am impressed, but not surprised.

“The pain and sadness were… meaningless, unbearable… So I had to get rid of the feeling of tragedy, I couldn’t bear it..  and feeling them I would feel too like her.. So from here came the laughs… Laughing at things.. participated in the numbing (which felt more peaceful), and eventually, it made me believe reality wasn’t awful enough for me to deserve help“- this makes sense. I remember having laughing fits as a teenager or in my 20s, a release. But never at or about my mother.

“Just in case you may have interpreted it that way, I will make it clear: I never found anything you told about your mother funny. It would be inappropriate. We’re not in that kind of dynamic here and I never made the mistake or confusion“- although I didn’t have the thoughts you pointed to right here in this paragraph, I was disappointed (and angry) at the thought that maybe your mother was not as scary or tragic as mine, maybe not even close, because I could find nothing funny about her behavior. It was as if, in my mind, you took away our commonality, our parallel experience!

“I do not think of family as a good thing anymore. My family also evoke to my mind the feelings/words ‘dead’, ‘rotten’, ‘mental illness’, ‘self-destruction’. In that aspect, she fits very much the definition of my family“- part of my disappointment/ anger was about your use of the word Family in a positive way when your mother is included in the word. It was just too different from my experience. Plus, it indicated something strange, as in, how can it be.. given our shared, parallel experiences of childhood..

“There are times it gets very scary. But at the moment, if my actions and emotions are under control, this environment is… manageable. My mother leaves me alone most of the time because I behave right enough. And I appear to have no life, so I am of no interest to her. And when she acts up I know what to do to be less affected“- going back to my prison analogy, here it reads that you are a smart Inmate, careful to not get any attention from your mother, the Guard.

“My mother is a danger, and she is scary. I know that. But I fear not for me, I fear for others, those who have no self-defense and immunity from her and this family environment and who will hurt more“- your mother is Guard then, dangerous and scary, but you don’t fear for yourself because you have “self-defense and immunity from her”, while others don’t. I’ll keep this point in mind as I continue.

“When I was at university and came back home during the short vacations, I would always suffer from my mother’s presence more, fear more, and regret coming back home, because being out there makes me lose my adaptation to the harm and chaos… how impossible it is for me to be adapted to both the outside world and my home without having a mental breakdown“- being away from her for good (no visits) was and is the right thing for you, if you had the irl social support that you would need outside.

“The ‘prisonization’ comparison you made seems to fit my experience of it. Even this part: ‘the official authority is.. perhaps an inmate herself, a combination of authority and inmate. Maybe there is some solidarity and an inmate code that you experience with her as well.’ I would add, maybe, the outside world was an authority that we would hide from and protect against. Those would be these times when my mother was also an inmate instead of the main authority. She would incite fear of the outside world to make us build solidarity with her“- I missed this part in my analogy/ comparison, your mother, the abusive authority in the home presented herself as the victim, the one abused by the outside world.

“The remains of the person inside me don’t feel good about being an object… Emotions lead to actions. And I am lacking in my emotions… The first time I found the tiny buddha forum, I was already exploring that issue. The difficulty of feeling (or recognize?) emotions. I knew my absence of motivation was related to it… within my current situation there will be no change if I do not initiate it, and I have difficulties feeling motivated to initiate. So it seems I’ll have to force my way through it“-

– But how will you force your way through it when you are not motivated to do so… something about you will need to start to care, to get un-numbed. The object (“being an object”) will need to come to life again (like it did when you were at university and had the social support/ help of a friend).

No doubt that leaving your mother and never living with her or visiting with her again is what is right for you, but you need irl social support/ help to make it happen.

I wonder if living with your mother.. if you feel that you are protecting her from the outside world, and I wonder if you would feel guilty if you leave her (I am exploring ideas, if this is too much and too fast, let me know and take your time).

I do hope you are less or not anxious like you were earlier, are you?

anita

Dear Linarra:

I am glad to have received your recent reply. You had your share of random anxiety scattered throughout the day, you say. My energy is low and has been low most of the day, except during one phone call that I made earlier.

It is not surprising really that two people who had such similar experiences- do not have identical experiences (no such thing, really, two people with identical experiences), and it is something to always keep in mind, so to not misunderstand each other’s experience by assuming it’s the same!

I am looking forward to understand my individual experience better because of our communication, and I want nothing less for you: that you will understand your individual experience better because of our communication.

I need to take a break and be back to your thread, to reply to the rest of your post when I am back in a few hours, I am guessing.

anita

Dear Linarra:

I will read part by part and respond to each before reading the next. I was up again at 3am (this is becoming a pattern, not good). And I have plenty of time this morning, no one to reply to other than you, so I’ll take my time and elaborate. It will be another long post, maybe very long:

“The anxiety came back today. I think I’ve been worried at what it would mean that you considered I might have overpowered my mother enough to have more authority than her“- something similar crossed my mind and disturbed me recently, but I am now relieved from that disturbance.

“Overpowering my mother to me, would mean being a bigger monster. Which isn’t good. My mother is pretty destructive and ruthless“- you are not like her, not at all. What I understand now is that you are a perfect adaptation/ reaction to her, and therefore, outside your daydreaming, creative writing and drawing, this monster, this destructive and ruthless woman owns you.

“Though, I wonder what makes you sure now that “she did not lose her authority. She is very much in authority”-

– I am indeed sure that she did not lose her authority over you because your life (outside your daydreaming and creative writing/drawing) is about her. She is the center, the actor; you are in the periphery, the reactor.

“After all I do stand up to her”- you stand up, but you don’t walk away.

“and… I’d say her authority has always been flawed”- she owns 3 people, that’s a pretty impressive authority.

“We didn’t obey her, a lot”- the fact that you don’t obey her means that she does not have complete authority over you. She has enough authority  to keep the three of you living with her. She is not keeping the doors locked or pointing a weapon at the three of you, making escape impossible. The three of you are three adults choosing to live with a monster. It doesn’t FEEL to you like it is a choice (or you feel like you are choosing to live with her for practical reasons) because of her authority, because she owns you.

Three adults don’t choose to live with a monster unless the monster owns them, unless the monster has authority over the three.

“We would fear her, not when she ordered us, but when she would put us and herself in danger. We weren’t/aren’t very respectful with her, but we are fearful. Is it still enough of an authority?”-

– yes. I wrote to you yesterday that my understanding is open to change- well, not what I wrote to you so  far in this post. It is not open to change. It is just .. so basic, there is nothing here to doubt. Not more than I can doubt gravity. Based on the information you provided- I am sure.

“Your new analysis in this post is interesting, it is… Hum I am not sure. “A perfect adaptation of a daughter to a histrionic mother“. The prognosis I infer from this isn’t very good“- about the following I am not sure (I can’t predict the future), but I think that the prognosis is that you will live with your mother until one of you dies. Evidence for my prognosis is what you wrote Aug 16 regarding leaving her: “I was kind of hoping she would be dead before it would become a thing I’d have to worry about (if I ever find a way to get out of here)”.

“What good is it to have strong analysis and make damage control if I couldn’t heal/eradicate the source of the perpetual fire? In the end, it wasn’t very smart of me to stay in “fire hazard” house. People told me to get away. I knew they were right. I knew the best option would be to get away“-

– good point, what good is strong analysis/ understanding if you don’t have the courage to do what’s right for you to do?

“That’s partly why I went to university too. But… I failed. I couldn’t focus on outside world survival. I was still… trying to figure out how to help my family at the core, without extraction“-

– I understand. We all fail to do a lot of things. I failed a whole lot.

“‘this is your Job: to stay in the household and protect your mother, your siblings and yourself from your mother’s fire’. But it isn’t a good job, isn’t it?“-

– my answer is twofold: (1) No, it is not a good job to protect a monster. (2) Yes, it is a good job to protect the victims of a monster.

“It would make sense to resign for something more efficient, but I do not have the qualifications for the other possibilities“- If living with your mother distressed you enough, if it was too difficult for you emotionally, the only qualification it would take for you to leave her would be to pack one backpack or suitcase with your stuff, open the door and step out. But you are not distressed-enough, you have adapted too well to the situation.

“I did think things like ‘I will never leave before both of my siblings are already out, because I could never leave them alone with my mother without help“- will there be something new that she will be doing to your siblings if you weren’t there.. is there something you are now preventing her from doing to your siblings?

“I also thought ‘I am so unfunctional, anyway, I’ll be the last to leave. Especially if I’m aiming at an art career, not enough money means no way out’“- I am not sure about this, but I think that it’s very possible that if you did have enough money, you would still live with your mother.

Think of this, if you will: your mother was her mother’s Victim, and her mother was the Victimizer. That happened in another house, long ago. Fast forward, in the house where you are living now, there are three victims and one Victimizer. Stated again: in the context of the house/s where your mother lived before you were born, she was Victim. In the context of the house/s you lived all of your life, you and your siblings have been Victims and your mother has been the Victimizer. There is no complexity in this regard when the contexts are considered.

“after I left university and didn’t have a plan for the future, my mother was telling people: ‘She is stopping her studying to take care of me and her brother (15 year old at the time), because I’m ill and will need to be hospitalized’“-

– she was “telling people”.. sounds to me that she was telling  one person: you, Linarra, that she wants you to take care of her and of your brother, which is what she told you many times, didn’t she? I mean, you knew what she was telling people because you heard what she said either from the people she was telling or from her.. words that were meant for you.

“My real reason for coming home was my absence of aspiration/motivation for any typical job. You can infer that it was because I already had a job… I don’t know“-

– I think I know: the job you already had is spelled out in the paragraph right above: “to take care of me and her brother”. Your mother said so.

“I just assumed I was a coward with too much mental illness and dysfunctionality which isn’t false either. My adaptation caused that. I couldn’t have aspirations or motivations for anything when I didn’t consider myself as a person and had diminished emotions/motivations“-

– this is where I am not sure at all, and I have no way of knowing if you are and will continue to be a coward (lacking courage, as I mentioned in the beginning of this post), or if you have “too much mental illness and dysfunctionality” to make your life more than a Reaction to your mother (if you Create your life beyond daydreaming and creative writing and drawing).

“I want to tell you I am impressed by your patience, I didn’t expect you would go back to reading the beginning. It was interesting to read your analysis, and I’m curious to see if it’ll change later on“- thank you. I specified above what I am sure about and what I don’t know. The items I am sure about are not open to change.

“I wonder if you are feeling well right now or if it’s another low-energy day for you (especially with the sleep deprivation)”- it’s been a few days that I’ve been waking up too early. I don’t like the feeling, but I am glad that I can still make sense here, on your thread. It is afternoon your time, I have an image of you in the house,  I can see the clutter, almost hear the voices of your brother, your sister and the monster.

anita

Dear Linarra:

“I like them, these little bits of spontaneity when you share your time and what’s going on next for you“- then I will share more. The sun just came out, it is very sunny for the first time today. I hear the neighbors chicken making their noises from the outside and the air purifier in the inside (had been on since the wildfires smoke, no more smoke.. maybe I should turn it off).

“I really hope you’ll be able to have better sleep soon!“- thank you. And when I do sleep better, you will be the first to know!

“I try to guide her to better choices but she is still in power“- if you were in power, you wouldn’t be living with her or communicating with her, and you wouldn’t be trying to guide her.

“Strangely enough, she does listen sometimes! She considers my opinion on certain things. Often when I was a teen she would ask for my advice and not listen (it was annoying)“- reads like you feel a sense of accomplishment, a pride for what you believe is progress.

“Really, educating her is a full-time job“- I told you that you have a Job and it’s inside the house. I said the job was to prevent fires or put out fires that already started. Education is mostly about preventing fires.

“Because sometimes she sees the benefits of being reasonable.. some other times the drama what pleases her the most“- so there is an element of choice to her behavior.

“Educating her is still important because she has no idea how to behave well“- you underestimate her. It’s easier to think of one’s mother as one who doesn’t know better than it is to think of her as one who chooses to not do better.

“even when she wants to win over someone… I help her with that. It does not strengthen her power because at this point she’s very much disliked by all of us“- Maybe she pretends to listen to you, winning you over that way, just a bit, getting you excited over the perceived progress (“Strangely enough, she does listen sometimes!”)

But in the end, it doesn’t even matter now, because first I would need enough motivation to leave first for it to be a real worry.

“I am trying to figure out who I wanna become… and how to leave without ending up alone, or in another bad situation… I also don’t trust people”–

– to use Kahlil Gibran’s words in his poem On Children, words he addressed to mothers,  I would like you to become the daughter of life’s longing for itself, no longer owned by your mother.

From his poem: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

“You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams”.

“Now it is 8:13 pm here… I hope you’ll be able to get some rest today, and a better sleep tonight. I will think of you before I sleep.  I tend to, lately, since it’s been a while I’ve been deprived from my usual sources of daydreaming“- It is now 1:35 pm here, 10:35 pm your time. The sun is still shining, the sky is light blue, the chickens are quiet right now, inside I can hear the refrigerator motor.. the chicken sounds are back. I am hungry and tired. And I am smiling, feeling nice and warm inside with the thought of you.

anita

• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by .