Dear Anita,

I had a stressful day at work today, just getting home. It has been a long time since I have encountered this, due to a patient and the way that the staff acted, not uncommon in my field of course. I bring this up to you not to vent, but to journal here for a bit. I read your last post before my day officially started in this manner, and after, just now. It is interesting how you can read something at two different parts of your day, and two different mindsets, and take away two different values from it. That is the beauty of the work we are doing.

The topic of this post is about running from distress. As you have mentioned so aptly, my seeking is not actually to create productivity, it is in fact escaping, escaping from distress. This has become a coping mechanism of mine, which started early and childhood given that I had to escape from the distress that was going on in my household day in and day out. There was no space to openly talk about what I was feeling, the bad feelings, I was ridiculed for having these bad feelings, and had to immediately jump into next month. My mom would immediately come into the room and I would have to conquer the next conversation, so early on it was all about pushing through.  On my way home today on the subway, I observed a lot, my first tendency was to not go immediately home, text a friend and go grab a drink. Let off some steam so to speak. Now this is it wrong and it’s entirety. But the fact that I observed it as that was a knee-jerk reaction versus what I truly needed, that is the observation. Second, as soon as I entered the door, I noticed that I wanted to go straight to the snack drawer, I had not even put down my backpack or taking off my shoes. Once again, seeking to quell the distress, wanting to have the foods with my distress. Not taking the time to process what happened or to even sit for a moment. The next thing, I took off my work clothes and jumped into a warm shower, it was natural for me to take a quick shower, but I reminded myself there was no rush. I had to wash away the day, my husband was not yet home. We had no official dinner plans or need to cook tonight. So therefore, what was my excuse? What was my excuse for rushing? Nothing. After I got out of the shower, I wants again felt the need to do something. I started answering all these text messages in my phone, entirely irrelevant, and entirely not a priority or time sensitive. Once again, occupying my brain and doing something versus just sitting. My oh my Anita isn’t just sitting so much work? But here it is, my husband called about 20 minutes ago, and said that he is jumping on the subway to head home, he had some plans earlier. For the first time ever, Anita, I thought to myself, Let me for once prepare myself mentally for my husband’s arrival! I never felt that he was worthy of such, isn’t that so terrible. Not because he isn’t worthy of it, but I never gave anyone the respect, not even my own self! When in my life have I ever given my own self the respect of mentally preparing something or giving myself time. Clearly as I unravel my evening prior, it was rushing and escaping from the first moment.   Anyway, I made a nice large cup of tea for myself and sat down, I thought about many things. And over the next five minutes I let myself sit with many thoughts, I did some stretching and I found myself wanting to journal. I found myself wanting to journal here given that it has been a wonderful platform, and also because I wanted to share with you. I also wanted to share here because I noticed the dichotomy in the beginning of the hour when I arrived home to now, and I want to remind myself that sometimes it doesn’t even take hours to unwind so to speak, we just have to make the conscious decision to make something a priority. In this case my husband arriving home reminded me that escaping the distress wasn’t going to work, I needed to have for listening ears For when he arrived home as he has a few things going on his in his life as well as you know.  The funny thing is before, I would’ve found that this would be me putting myself second and him first. Doesn’t that sound like the mother voice? The mother voice would say, oh my dear you have had such a hard day, why are you even thinking about him, why do you even have to prioritize him, he should be walking in and thinking about you. So I would take that to mean that I don’t have to do any work in this relationship, I just have to be myself as it is. Well clearly that’s not the case, and also clearly this isn’t a competition or an antagonism. If I am a supportive and good listener to him I also feel good about myself, and I also get that love and respect in return, it is full circle. Like you said, in order for me to heal I have to believe I am a good person. I have to like myself. At the very least I do have to like myself.

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by Cali Chica.

Dear Anita,

1. He (your husband) should be walking in and thinking about you because:

if he doesn’t he is selfish, walking in only thinking about himself! how dare he! look see how men are, theyre good in the beginning and after a while they don’t even ask about you, see! look i told you so! he is not that great after all – seee don’t you feel foolish now! your mother is always right isn’t she

2. You shouldn’t think about him when you walk in from work because:

if you start doing that he will take advantage of you, pretty soon its going to be all about him and his family.  just watch he will call his mother every day and theyll start coming over- and slowly push us out.  you’re foolish to think this won’t happen – you don’t see anything. if you had experience like me you would know, but you are naive and foolish, and because of that your parents will suffer.  so start early and make him think about you and us- try to control from early on, be smart

Dear Anita,

• no teamwork in life
• win at all costs
• always win/lose

I can physically and mentally feel that I am in the process of resurrecting her voice.  It is palpable.  To the point that like yesterday evening, I noticed I was able to have a palpable shift in attention.  And it worked! When my husband did arrive home, he was in a great mood.  I learned about his day and didn’t consistently interject (mentally or verbally) with my own mind chatter/personal chatter/nonsense chatter.  As you say, it is this practice, and seeing results, and so forth over and over – changing patterns, and in time : neuropathways

Dear Anita,

This is what it means being good, being a loving person. Once again something that it was read at any other point in my life would have been easily glazed over passed over over, seemingly obvious but not understood it all by myself.

Every single time I see my dog his entire body shakes from wagging his tail so much, because his loving nature overcome the time. This is very similar to infants or toddlers, children. Sometimes we are conditioned to feel that those that are not grown-up, intelligent, or aware are able to be so loving, but when we become sense ENT, sensible, and aware of the reality of the world, we lose this innocence.  In a way, this to me sounds like I am saying, that to be loving is to be naïve, and perhaps foolish. As I spoke about in one of my previous posts, the mother of boys would want us to avoid teamwork at all costs, it was always a win-win situation. And in fact, to be loving without getting anything in return, and her eyes would be foolish and a loser situation. Perhaps through all these years of seeing this behavior and being taught such, I have learned that to be loving for just the sake of being loving, to be a good person, isn’t actually good, it is foolish.

Those of us that are intelligent, and aware of the realities of the world are foolish to have such puppy love. As I think about this right now, and throughout the day, somethings come to mind intuitively. Here they are:

What’s the point of being loving? What do you get out of being loving? If people are smart and see what the reality of others are, and they have been hurt many times, maybe they are loving because they are being fake. Those that are loving without issue probably haven’t really experienced much in life, they are naïve, or haven’t really had much bad happen to them. Perhaps they are not very emotionally intelligent and so the world is a happy go lucky face, perhaps developmentally like a child. Of course it is easy for them to be loving, why wouldn’t it be? It is much harder to be loving when you know the truth about people And the world and become disappointed.

Dear Anita,

Thank you I look forward to speaking with you further tomorrow in the morning as well. In fact, tomorrow around 9 AM is one of the first times that I don’t have any plans to be away, and so I look forward to sipping my tea and reading your response and writing back to you in real time, those moments when we are able to do that are very precious. Of course no pressure as always.

The more I write to you as always the more I think. I submitted my last post and laid on the couch thinking about what I wanted to watch on television. I scrolled through some titles and of course – There are an array of different genres, heartbreak, grief, murder mystery, silly comedy at Cetera. But so much of TV is based on the concept of love. So much of Hollywood is based on this concept, so much of our radio songs are, in fact almost everything in the entertainment world does revolve around the concept of romantic love to a certain point. It is the strongest driving factor for a human being to do many things so it seems based on what we watch and hear. There is also the love between a mother and child, which is not always portrayed as dramatically on the television, as it is always understood. It is simply understood often, of course the love between a mother and child is amazing and wonderful and a bond that cannot be broken, and of course it is not taking advantage of as often romantic love is. This is quite common, and the case for most human beings.

As I was browsing through some channels mindlessly, not really focused are committed to March, I realize something, if all of this is focused on adult love, romantic relationships, it is based on the premise that the person learn to love already based on the interaction with their first love, the love with their mother.

Of course I am on able to love as an adult appropriately as the love with my mother was way beyond screwed up, as an understatement!

Sometimes when I humble myself by realizing things like this, and saying them out loud, I am more gentle with myself. And my work with you over the last few months has taught me that no progress comes from self cruelty or self hatred, and being gentle with yourself is not the same as being to wax or having a weakness. It is actually quite the contrary it is actually loving. To be gentle with myself doesn’t mean that I am giving myself a pass. In the world of my mother where everything is win win or lose lose it may seem this way, to be gentle means that you didn’t learn the lesson, or you didn’t receive your punishment. But back to what I said, I am on able to love appropriately now as an adult given so many of these factors, so if I allow myself to learn it as a student from fresh- if I allow myself that time and respect – I can begin somewhere.

I want to generalize when I make the following comments so bear with me. Most people by the time they reach teenage years or adulthood, entering their first romantic relationships in high school, college, and beyond, already have a strong foundation of what it means to love someone. It is not because they have studied this actively, but they have possibly and subconsciously been taught these things by what may seem is appropriate parenting. And these don’t have to be amazing parents, parents of the year, parents who will do anything and everything. They simply have to be non-abusive. It really is that simple and away. I didn’t think of this before I thought that my parents were amazing because they sacrificed their life for us so to speak. Oh my. But all it takes to have a healthy understanding of love, is a parent that is simply not abusive. A gross over simplification I know.

The exercises that we have done over the last month or so have shown the both of us that all I heard as a young girl was my mothers roaring voice, her lion roar constantly day in and day out, if she made me upset I may run off, she may run to me, out of her own guild, to get her own needs met. She never asked me how I felt, she never cared about how I felt, how she made me feel was never of concern to her, but only if it made her feel bad inside about herself, everything she did was to escape any distress in her own self, whether that meant to lash out at myself or my father or whether it meant To lay screaming on the floor acting like a victim from an earthquake.

To be good as to be loving. Where did I see anyone who is truly loving? Let’s fast-forward from my childhood to my adulthood. If they were so loving when they were young, when I was young, turn off or what, to create a bank? We spent 30 years of being loving towards you so now it’s time to pay up. You have a crude a lot of interest with our actions, so how dare you not do as we say. Pay up, do you think this is all for free? You foolish stupid girl, look at you how useless you are you deserve a slap in the face with how ungrateful you are, pay up.  Look at you, just taking from us your whole life, and now this amazing wedding and all of that, you just want to drain our bank dry don’t you putting us in the negatives, we paid so to speak our whole life to you, and now you just want to suck us dry leave us poor and homeless out on the street don’t you. Look at you you have nothing to pay us do you?!??

So Nyra, no I do not know what it means to be good – if to be good is to be loving. In the most simple way.

I know everything in the more complex way, I know how to do -I know how to seek to run and lash out

But to be good is to be loving, and listening, and supportive. Nope that is what needs to be worked on

Dear Anita,

I love your analogy about the cake and the slap. This pretty much sums up the last year that I spent speaking with my mother. Actually much longer than that, but as you know in the last year I was more aware of this reality or analogy.

I remember two years ago being at my aunts house, my mother had flooded there, and wouldn’t pick up the phone, this is aunt of mine lives locally next to my parents. We had gotten into some huge fight, and I was heading home close to my parents for an engagement party for my friend, the plan was for me to come to my parents house before the party to get ready although it was majorly inconvenienced for myself. Of course, everything was always on based on how much time I could spend with my parents because of course my sweet dear parents want to see their daughter, how could you not make that a priority.  Well long story short, we had gotten into a terrible fight and this was around the time where my mother was going to extremes this was no longer screaming matches but extremes and extremes. So like a mature adult, when I called her all morning she wouldn’t pick up. My father, no better, said to me he’s not sure where my mother is, but just keep trying. Idiots. Knowing that my mother cannot outsmart me and she has the emotional capacity of a two-year-old, I drove home to my parents house, the house was empty, my dad was at work, my mother was in Asylum so to speak giving me the silent treatment. I drive a few minutes away to my aunts house. Lo and behold my mother is there seeking asylum, healing and licking her wounds. I walk in, my aunts mother-in-law’s there, an elderly lady of course in her 80s, and my mother. Everyone else is at work. My mother is there sitting there looking like she had just gone through labor or something, distraught, dark circles under her eyes, hardly able to walk. Putting on this big show of her suffering. She looks at the old lady in a way saying, look at my daughter and what she did to me, I had to run away here to you, who else will take care of me.  Elderly lady looks at me with concern, and says something along the lines of, be good to your mother.

The whole thing is a circus. It was one of those moments where I looked at it and said wow is this literally real life, am I the only sane one here? And I realize the answer was yes. But I wasn’t there yet where I was unwilling to reason with this insane person, I was still at that point where I was giving it a few of my last shots.  I recall reasoning her to the point that I began to feel as crazy as her. As a victim mise does hurt. As frail and tortured as her. Pretty soon I too felt like I wanted to crawl into this couch, and lay there under a blanket waiting for my Savior as well.

Interesting isn’t it? When we spend time with these kinds of people, they can bring us down to their level. Not just in the obvious way of a motional vampirism. But in the way that they can bring you down to their mental level, infecting your brain, brainwashing you to a primitive way of thinking to an evil way of being even.  I look back at this now and I have a visual, my mother sitting on one couch with a blanket meekly over her body staring out into the world looking like she was hit by a tornado. Myself and another couch, and slightly better condition, but terrible nonetheless. My husband walks in and first looks at my mother and then at me. And he sees that it is one and in the same.

and it is.

Doesn’t matter who got their first does it? It doesn’t matter that this was not my condition before I arrived at that house – and was beaten down to this level.

I’ve seen many times in my life where the only way I know how to cope with some thing is to fight and be angry, and then with her away into a meek damaged being. Not unlike the scenario above, but hardly ever this dramatic. I see myself now, and talking about the idea of being good and loving, and how in so many ways it seems so simple. But look above, how much more effort and how much more difficult does it seem to outside or to act like the way it is above. Doesn’t it seem so much more simple to be loving. But of course life doesn’t work like that. I have only seen dysfunction. I have only seen a human adult, a mother nonetheless, Cope in the way as seen above.

On another note but related as well. Yesterday I was at a get together, we threw a going away party for my good friend who is moving. It was a very pleasant day, with many different friends from different parts of life. I woke up today thinking about how I was so relaxed at the entire event. I was there, it was mostly my friends, my husband arrive later, it was good in all aspects. I thought about how I didn’t have anyone there that was extremely close to me, not my sister, no best girlfriend, nothing of that sort. I had two very close colleagues of mine, and besides that many of the people were more like acquaintances. I thought about how This was relaxing to me. I am easily distracted when someone close to me somewhere, quite fixated on what they are doing or what they want. Especially if it is my sister. But this wasn’t the case. Oh by the way the friend that is moving is the one that is moving to Florida, I have brought up this couple before. He is an amazing person and and I was glad to be able to celebrate one of his last days in NYC. I was there for many hours, and I began to observe at some point, I thought about the concept of glitter. I also thought about the concept of everything that is good is over there, if it is here it is by nature not good. The Disney world example. I thought about how slowly I am learning to undo that. I observed some people who were there, and I noticed positive things about their life whatever they were. But I also noticed things about their life that were different than mine. I wasn’t doing this to compare I was simply observing. I didn’t find it any point that I was seeing anyone of their lives are circumstances asBetter or more positive. On the other hand I didn’t observe as anyone circumstances her life as inferior or more negative. I just let it be. I noticed that my mothers entire life was to observe and judge other people. If she was at this party her entire goal would be to sit there and judge and make it known how everyone there was a worse than her and she was better. Or if anyone of them had eight an objectively betterI’m stance, she would make it a point to talk all night how their life is not as good as it seemed. I noticed how exhausting this is, and how it has been very difficult for me to enjoy so many events as this mother voice carries with me. Instead of enjoying the company of others or being in the moment, his mother voice does not allow me to stop seeing things beyond the surface.  I didn’t think that this was something that was controllable, and of course I didn’t realize that the mother voice is not actually my voice per se.  So yesterday was one of the first times at a public event that I was able to engage with other people without getting sucked in. I was able to engage with other people without being out ward the whole night. This is important. I will also say that it was nice that I was not really there with anyone that close to me outside of my husband. This helped, my energy was not distracted and focused on everyone else but me, or my bhsband,it was just a simple good time.

Another thing that I noticed which I have known in my head for a very long time, but have not really acted on it in real life is that  I am very sensitive to the energy of other people. I know this, and it is obvious. I can be like a sponge for the energy around me, making it difficult to protect my own spirit. But I noticed a few different examples yesterday in which a simple conversation would say one or another person left me feeling a little strange for a microsecond. I remembered to check in with myself and I ask myself why. One of the examples is that I was talking to a girl that was dating our friend, she is at least 10 years younger than him, so the conversation was a bit odd. I reminded myself that I am not talking to a peer, I’m talking to almost an adolescent, and so what I am sensing has nothing to do with me.

I observed this again today. The wife of one of my husbands friends, who I am pretty friendly with over the years, sent me a text message to ask me a question. She’s not someone I conversed with regularly, only at events or get-togethers. But she asked me a question about a wedding that is coming up in our front circle. I found myself wanting to extend the conversation more, out of the normal habit of mine. But I didn’t, I answered your question I asked her how she was and back-and-forth. And that was it. I didn’t have to become something it wasn’t. It is OK to just keep things as they are, I don’t know if I want to use the term on the surface, but this is the term that is working for me right now so I will say it. I know it doesn’t actually mean the surface but you get my gist. It is OK to keep things on the surface, to go with the flow, to let it be easy. Everything doesn’t have to be a deep diving emotional journey, doesn’t have to be deeply engaged always, it could just be whatever it is. My mother always explain to us that those people who keep things at the service, are often fake. They don’t actually care about your life and so they don’t get deeper into questioning. I now see as an adult with more social tact that this is untrue. There is a time and place for deep conversations with certain people but you don’t have to extend a friendly ear an open heart to those who haven’t even asked for it!

Anyway, all in all I noticed that first of all, it is not necessary to get too involved with people. It is not necessary to get to involved with people. There may be times in which we are asked to go out and golf with people when there are specific scenarios. But on a regular basis, it is a nice way to be. This leaves much more energy to be involved with your own self and your own family.

Dear Anita,

Thank you for navigating my verbose and confused post.  You are right in that it must have been distressing to write this, as my frenzied nature was reflected in the grammar of the post.  Thank you for your patience.  You have many key points that I will highlight here and comment on.

The result was your genuine weakness.

Yes, my GENUINE weakness, brought out by her FAKE weakness.  Like a talented actress/manipulator evoking the true emotions of a sweet innocent being, using her acting technique to purge this authentic quality.

 the role of being the strong one is connected to that outward focus and it drains you. Worse of all, it is based on a lie, a pretense of weakness.

The role of being the strong one is draining, yes it is.  And yes, worst of all, it is all in vain.  Just as you used to use this term, all in vain – in regards to all my efforts to reason with my mother 2 years ago.  You used to say it is “all in vain” and it stuck with me, and truly helped.  Well this is the second portion of the “all in vain.” My taking on the strong role is quite foolish as it is all based on a lie.  It is not truly necessary to take on that role, and it was not appointed to me by any sane person for a true reason! Its not like the classic example of the eldest child having to take on the “strong role” because one parent passed away, creating more of a parenting role for that child.  It is not like the example in which a teenage pregnant girl had to take on the strong role as she was now a young mother.  It wasn’t that my mother was “mentally ill” and hospitalized often and so I had to take on this strong role to help with the household.

No, Anita! my “strong” role was BULLS*** !! strong for what? what is this socalled “strength” – it is just frenzied and draining behavior.  No productive strength, just torture, pain, and drain.

Dear Anita,

I mentioned to you a few months back, feeling extra distressed – being aware that the week before that “time of the month” I felt especially emotionally up and down and suffered.

Well that time has arrived again. And this time around, as much as it is not pleasant – I found something.

I felt a lot yesterday. Sure, some of it is the “hormones” feeling extra emotional – but I felt it – didn’t I? It was me who felt it, not someone else.

I felt a tenderness for my husband yesterday – let me tell you the story:

My friend S,  a very good friend, I have mentioned her before.  Sweet, kind, straightforward.  Not very emotionally “deep” in the sense of she hasn’t experienced much in her life to bring her there – nor does she approach life this way.  Regardless – great friend from college, and an optimist.

She is dating someone seriously now after a very long time, and as such, really really appreciates it, and him.  It is nice to see this. And I often think about how I never felt this way when first meeting my husband.  Happy yes, but not the sense of respect, admiration and appreciation – because of course the mother voice.

Well they are going on a vacation to Italy this week, and I was asking her if she is excited.  She mentioned she is, but she may have to do some of the activities alone. I asked why? As this was odd to me, their first big vacation together!

She said, “he’s the type to need his rest, and so maybe won’t be up to so much back to back.”

I thought to myself – interesting.  I would never be okay with that.  I would have pushed my poor husband out of bed and said, here drink some coffee time to go! But he also baseline isn’t the type to sit back and not engage or do just like me – when it comes to travel etc.

I mention to my friend that it is good of her to be so understanding.

To which she replies: Yeah, well I do prefer him to be happy and well rested.  What’s the point of pushing and creating a fight anyway.

I was taken aback.  I was surprised at this: she prefers him to be in the baseline state that is comfortable for him.  She accepts him, she doesn’t push and prod.

Of course I am taking this small conversation to a larger extent

but I felt tenderness for my dear husband.  never allowing him to rest and be, always pulling and pushing,  a visual of poking him over and over when he’s resting, a visual of pulling his hair and slapping hima round.  and when he rests yelling and saying get up.  if he tries to do his best to go up the mountain, my screaming faster! don’t you know what I like!!

This visual of me as a NOT understanding person, unlike the example above.  This understanding that I am not understanding.  And that mother voice or not, I did treat him this way. I thought about how much suffering and trauma that makes a person go through.  And I felt the first glimpse of it.  Not much Anita, but something.

I felt tenderness, that wow, how and why would I do such a thing to him.  And also – that I do hope I never do anymore.