Dear Kkasxo:

I never know if a member will return to a thread or reply to me, so I will offer you my thoughts from yesterday, so to complete all the input I have for you at this point. What I will do is share with you my experience as I think it may be relevant to yours, plus some other thoughts:

1. You wrote, “My mum is very very loving and compassionate”- my mother too was very loving and compassionate to others, but not to me. She suffered a terrible childhood, and poverty at some point. So  she was very compassionate to anyone who was hungry, or may be hungry, animals, strangers, and me, if she thought I was hungry. But she was severely lacking empathy for me for feeling emotional pain of any kind. I was very scared and sad for so many years and she didn’t see it.

And then, on one occasion, when I shared with her how a certain individual who was a drug addict harmed me terribly, her empathy, for some reason, was with him for being a drug addict, not for me for having been harmed by him.

2. “I honestly wouldn’t know as I haven’t had that conversation with her nor do I wish to so I can only assume”- I didn’t have conversations with my mother either. When I suggested something she didn’t like, she killed it, immediately and swiftly, killed the topic, that is.

3. When we live with a parent who has no empathy for us as children, doesn’t see or hear us, doesn’t see we are scared or sad, some of us go silent, others get very loud, trying to be heard. It is like a person living with a person hard of hearing, raising one’s voice so to  be heard, and then getting into the habit of speaking louder with everyone. Some of us adjust then by overstating our pain, expressing it louder or in the most dramatic ways possible, so to be heard. Maybe we do both: sometimes we go silent and at other times get very loud so to be heard after all.

4. You wrote: “I feel I don’t have a safe and comfortable place to be right now and instead I am looking for ways out or to run away by staying with friends or going away so I think a flat right now is the ideal time so that I can be on my own and comfortable”- it doesn’t take war or hunger to feel unsafe and uncomfortable. When we are not seen or heard, when we live without empathy for us, that feels unsafe and uncomfortable.

5. Healing is about seeing Reality for what it is. It does feel like the carpet is being pulled from underneath us, but if you persist and keep your eyes and ears  open and see reality for what it is, your mind and your life will be so much better for it.

anita

Dear Kkasxo:

“I wonder if I will ever find a way”- I think you will. I am quite confident that you will. You know people who say positive things just because it may help another, or just in case it does, not having anything to back it up, sort of cheering you along but no substance in the cheering?

This is not what I do here. I stick to Reality best I can because reality is my substance and fitting our thinking and feeling to reality is the essence of mental health. So when I write that I feel  confident that you will find a way, that is, mental health and a good life, I write it because you express insight, the willingness to learn: to look into your inner workings, into the past/ your childhood, to question the quality of the parenting you received, etc.. Lots of people are not willing to do these things but you are, therefore there is hope for you.

Here is a very significant insight on your part: “I felt that always as a child. I was extremely unhappy there… as an adult I completely understand and appreciate that they left and gave us a good life in the U.K…. but perhaps it affected my emotional/mental state..”-

you understand what many people don’t understand: that our current understanding did not exist back when we were young children. People retroactively incorporate current adult understanding, education, articles read etc., into the childhood experience. This prevents insight into what really happened then, so may years before.

So let’s look at what happened then: you were six or seven and your mother and step father left, gone .. forever. I write forever because now you know, retroactively that it was a year or a year and a half. But back then you didn’t know for how long the separation will last. And for a young child, time has a different feel to  it than it  does to an adult. When unhappy, a day feels like eternity, and a year, well.. that is truly eternity, a never ending experience.

For the child that you were at six or seven, you were left behind by your parents. Alone, with someone who didn’t really want you. I would say this has been your trauma, your childhood trauma, being left or abandoned by your mother/ parents.

Again, the fact that you were left for reasons you understand now does not change the reality of the child, being abandoned, left behind to live forever where you were unhappy, unsafe and unloved (“I was also unhappy because I didn’t feel ‘safe’… I wasn’t wanted there or loved”)-

– there is more to your recent post but the trauma you experienced as a child at about six or seven for the forever time of a year or a year and a half,  is so significant to my understanding, and I hope to yours, that I need to take a break. I will patiently wait for your reply before proceeding.

anita

Dear Kkasxo:

“one time when she did come to visit a few days early and surprised me at school, I wasn’t expecting her… seeing her face, it was  one of the happiest moments in my life”- in stark contrast to being “extremely unhappy” without her.

There is no stronger attachment than a young child’s attachment to her mother. There is no safety for a child away from her mother and the feeling of safety is with her mother.

“Perhaps at that point I felt abandoned by my mum? I felt like she had left me knowing I was unhappy?”- I think so. Of course she left you the first time she left to the U.K knowing you were unhappy to be left behind, and she knew you were unhappy every time she left you back to the U.K following visiting you.

Did you ever talk with your mother about your experience in that year or year and a half.  I am thinking not much because you don’t even know if it was a year or a year and a half. I imagine your mother knows exactly how long it was but that time was never discussed?

anita

Dear Kkasxo:

“I only recall happy memories from my childhood”- no one more than a child is more motivated to be aware of and recall happy experiences and memory. A child desperately needs to feel safe so she looks for any sign of safety and closes her eyes to anything and everything that doesn’t feel safe, best she/ he can.

Problem is that what we close  our eyes to as children comes back to haunt us as adults. We can ignore reality, but reality will not be ignored, it will keep trying to get  our attention.

I understand that your mother and step father will be returning to their country of origin in a few months, by summer of this year. It is my understanding that you were and may still be in some sort of a situationship, as you referred to  it, with your ex boyfriend, that he offered to you not long ago to rent a place with you after all, when your parents leave the U.K. I read most recently that you are thinking about moving out of your parents before summer and living on your own, that is without the young man (boyfriend/ partner, ex or current, I don’t know). Also, you attend some kind of therapy.

I think you need a clear plan. I think you have it in you to make a good life for yourself, you are intelligent, courageous, creative, lots of life in you. It is time to make a plan. What do you think?

anita

Dear Kkasxo:

“I have completely lost myself”, no you didn’t. You didn’t completely lost yourself. You are afraid, yes, and some things that comforted you before, don’t comfort you anymore, but you didn’t lose yourself.

The 6 or 7 year old girl who carried on a “strike.. falling asleep on the floor to prove a point”, she is alive and well in you today. She is courageous and full of life, strong willed, a fighter. She is willing to do what it takes, she just needs some help.

Your plan will have to include quality guidance and help. Question: whose guidance will you be looking for:

The person or people to guide you need to be someone who is not lost herself, who is not clueless about her own way-

It has to be a person who can and will listen to you and understand you-

And it has to be a person interested in your well being, not seeking their well being at your expense-

-do you agree?

I figure the first item in your plan should be to locate the appropriate help for yourself.

I need to get away from the computer for about fifteen hours and will be glad to read from you and reply when I am back.

anita

Dear Kkasxo:

“What else would you suggest in terms of helping myself?”-

1. Producing income, being financially independent, that is able to pay for your basic needs and comfortable enough living.

2. Place to live. You currently live with your parents and they will be moving out of the country in a few months, where will you be living, in what geographic location, alone or with others…?

3. Evaluate all your existing personal relationships, keep those that encourage you to be more of yourself and lose those that carry the price tag of you being less.

Be honest with yourself and with others, see to it that those in your personal life are also honest with themselves and with you, ask questions, gather information, evaluate information, make informed choices.

4. Figure out what you value most, one or a few items that you value most. Be guided not by what you fear most, but by you value most. Keep that value in the forefront of your mind every day, let it guide you in every choice you make.

anita