Dear Murtaza:

It is 2 am your time now (4 pm my time), cool enough for you to be awake. I didn’t read all of your recent post because I am tired.. and maybe I will be back at the taproom in the next hour… but I did read “I might add more to that if you are interested”- please do.

“I said that I will be as short as possible and as direct to the point, but this seems impossible for me”- you can write however things come to your mind, that would be your first draft. Then later, you can re-read it and edit it to make a second/ final draft that is more clear and direct. That’s how I post more often than not. Clarity of writing is way more important to me than length.

anita

Dear Murtaza:

“I woke up at the middle of the night 00:00, and i sleep at the day time, because its too hot in the day time”- it says that right now in Baghdad, Sat 3:18 pm, it is 46 Degrees Celsius (115 F), it will go down to 29.44 (85 F) Sunday 4 am, then back up from then on. The Baghdad record high in July was 55 Degrees Celsius (131 F) in 2012… Global Warming worries me so much, it scares me.

When I quote you, I regularly edit the grammar because it helps me to absorb/ process what you are expressing.

“What I love about them is that they are compassionate and nice, and I imagine they would accept me for who I am, help me, maybe even hug me, feel my pain. What I don’t like is their ideas and beliefs and values, that were given to them by society… In Iraq what I have seen (is) that females tend to follow society’s ideas and beliefs more than males. The reason, I can think of, is that males have more testosterone (correct me if I’m wrong). in short, I love them emotionally, I dislike them intellectually”. You added that your intellectual dislike interferes with your emotional liking of women: “for me to value the emotional side, I first have to have the intellectual understanding, especially when I spent a lot of time to develop it”-

– My thoughts: traditionally everywhere, men (testosterone, 95% of which is produced by the testes, is the primary sex hormone in males) have been freer to venture outside societal norms without fear of punishment, while women (estrogen and progesterone, produced by the ovaries, are the main sex hormones in females) were more  likely to be punished for the same. Therefore, it makes sense that women  fear venturing outside societal norms more than men, and “tend to follow society’s ideas and beliefs more than males”, like you said.

Your explanation of loving women emotionally and disliking them intellectually explains the issue of complexity that I brought up.

“I remember that there was a voice inside my head that was influenced by society’s ideas. I imagined that I could separate this voice from mine, to this day I still do do… In birdman, there is a scene where the main character talks to his wife, he says ‘you know, there is a voice inside my head, he tells me what to do, it’s so comforting’,  he was schizophrenic. I was a bit jealous that he has this voice, but I remembered how my voice was back in 2018: shameful and guilty, teak call it the protector, I call it me, one thing about this voice, it really is comforting. Just imagine living in a country that values work over everything, that values being a man as the highest value, imagine how strong this voice was inside my head, and how it made me feel over the years. But this voice, beats it all, I just love it, how apathetic it is, especially right now, when I lost my passion for music, lost my desire to love. I think that this voice was going to take over sooner or later, and when it does, it wouldn’t let the other influences disturb him, it wouldn’t let other voices take his place”-

– My thoughts: (1) Birdman’s voice was society’s voice telling him what to do. Being obedient to this voice comforted him. He didn’t have to think for himself, (2) It is comforting to imagine that someone/ something greater than me knows best, has all the answers and I don’t have to bother myself with questions or answers. This is why so many people adhere to religion: the bible/ religious authorities tell the masses what to do, spelling out the questions and the answers, and all the followers have to do is to be obedient to the answers given, (3) You were jealous of the comfort Birdman felt hearing his societal voice, but you remember the shame and guilt that was attached to your societal voice back in 2018- it was not a comforting voice for you, (4) There is a New Voice in your head (“this voice”). It is the Voice of Apathy, and you are hoping that this voice will take over “all other voices”.

Notice that I started this post an hour and twenty minutes ago. I spent all this time doing nothing but reading your recent two posts and typing. I take a long time to absorb and process your thoughts best I can. When you read this post (and future posts), please don’t rush to argue against my understanding when it doesn’t feel exactly  right. If you get triggered this way, take a break and come back to my post later, and re-read it, part by part, give it time. I mention this because it has been very frustrating for me when you rushed in the past to.. negate the clarity I am working so hard to achieve, negating it in a rushed way that confused/ disturbed me.

It is okay with me that you disagree with me, or point to this or that which you believe to be my misunderstanding of you- but do it clearly, patiently, not in a rushed way- so that I can clearly understand what it is that you are saying.

anita

Dear Murtaza:

You are correct, I misunderstood the voice inside his head (I read some, including Wikipedia’s entry on the movie, and indeed, like you said, I was wrong).

“I was jealous of how the voice comforted him, in one scene of the movie.. the voice tells him ‘So you’re not a great actor! Who cares?” the way he says this, I remembered my voice, the same kins of  apathy, lost love and all life passion, and it say ‘Who Cares?’ Its undefeatable”-

– My thoughts/ my experience: I tried so hard to not care, for so long, I stayed angry, resisting the feeling of empathy for other people… I really tried hard, and I succeeded.. only I was so very unhappy, alone and lonely. However lonely you are, Murtaza- I can’t imagine a greater feeling of loneliness than I have felt year after year, for so long, so long that it felt like eternity.

Fast forward to now, it seems like getting back to feeling empathy for other people makes me feel a  togetherness, not alone/ lonely anymore. Empathy is like magic, in this context. It makes a big difference.

Notice I shared about my thoughts/  my experience- I realized only a short while ago, that this is the only way I want to write to you. In other words, I want to shift from telling you how your life is for you, to telling you how my  life is for me. The advantages in this shift is (1) It is far less arrogant of me- a good enough reason, I don’t need a second, (2) But here it is anyway: you can argue with me about what I tell you about how life is for you. You can’t argue with me about what I tell you about how my life is for me.

“the voice.. comforting (about)  everything I lose and lost.. it..  tells me ‘So what?’, when I compare it to a norime mind, I feel so much peace”- at peace is all I ever wanted to feel.

“In your first post to me, you said ‘Murtaza vs society’, I already won, thank to the help of medication, I now no longer need society nor want nor desire anything from it, both my desire of love and motivation to do things has been lost, and I do miss them sometimes but when I remember the GAD, and how I was living everyday, I say its worth it, it wasn’t needed anyway”-

– I am all for Murtaza being at peace. I hope the GAD lessens and lessens. It has taken forever for my anxiety to lessen little by little. It’s still there but less. I remember an experience I had, it now comes to mind: it so happened that I had an unexpected access to a particular drug (I was never into street drugs and the illegal drug trade), but I had access to this particular drug, I took it, and the most unbelievable thing happened: I felt perfectly good, and I mean perfectly good- not a single bad thought, not a single bad feeling (it never happened before).. and it kept going and going hour after hour and into the night. Of course, I had no desire to fall asleep, it simply felt too good to be awake.

Eventually I slept, and in the morning it felt almost as good, and the next day.. pretty good, and when the good wasn’t good-enough, I wanted more of that drug and took more, and the same happened. So, I took it again.. but then, at one time and the next, all that happened was that I threw up, no good feeling. What a disappointment. I took it again.. threw up, no good feeling. That was the end of it. But I remember how good I felt, never did I consider that it was possible to feel that good (in any circumstance) until that experience.

I didn’t watch Birdman, am not in the habit of watching movies anymore. But I bet the acting by Michael Keaton was good. At the time I very much enjoyed Pacific Heights (1990), and of course, the legendary movie Beetlejuice.

anita

Dear Murtaza:

I read through your recent post and I am looking forward to reply when I am rested, Sunday morning my time(about Sunday 5 pm your time).

anita

Dear Murtaza:

“My big brother is autistic and he kind of uses my mother to get her attention and to hear him out, she doesn’t mind since she feel like she is giving something (a sense of worth)… If this is what’s happening here, please let’s end it because I won’t like myself”-

– No, this is not at all what is happening, and I am glad to be able to say this confidently, without any hesitation. It is only yesterday that I thought about how much you are teaching me: you are teaching me to not be arrogant, to not assuming that because something is possible for person X, it is also possible for person Y. You are teaching me that it is forgivable for me to have the feeling of love for you, and then to lose it.. and have it again. You are teaching me to be less academic and no longer authoritarian in my replies to members. You are teaching me the importance of sharing about my experience of life instead of arguing with others about their experience of life.

“I do value not hurting people and just leave them be, to live in peace with them, so from now on, I won’t answer another member that I don’t see a point of our conversation, and I won’t answer him unless I have something nice to say, I think that its better to not say anything than to lie”- I am pleased to read that you value not hurting, and living in peace with other people. I value the same. I believe that you value very highly being true to yourself. I say to you and me: in all circumstances where and when it is possible to practice both values, practice both: be true to yourself and don’t hurt/live in peace with others.

“just to be sure that this conversation isn’t just about me”- it isn’t. “I want you to be as comfortable as you can be”- thank you!

From your previous post: “I don’t even feel lonely anymore, I don’t feel anything, I just exist, which is better then feeling lonely and (not being able to) change it. If the cure requires to drop all life passion, then it’s worth it, because I suffered from that passion”- there is no arguing with what you wrote here. Your life experience provides the evidence that this is true. I believe that what you wrote here is indeed true.

I wrote to you: “Fast forward to now, it seems like getting back to feeling empathy for other people makes me feel a  togetherness, not alone/ lonely anymore. Empathy is like magic, in this context. It makes a big difference”, and you wrote: “I don’t understand exactly what you mean, could  you elaborate? How did you feel empathy? I feel sympathy.. but empathy I only feel when I like the person, I don’t let anyone get my empathy, it’s a feeling I appreciate and won’t spend it on people that aren’t worth it”-

– I don’t feel empathy for everyone. I definitely don’t feel empathy for people who are hurting other people, for people in great positions of power who have the opportunities to help thousands and millions of people, yet they are choosing to not help, and/or harm instead. I don’t feel empathy for a cruel, inhumane person- whether he/she intentionally and severely harms one other individual, or a whole nation.

To elaborate further about empathy: as I am typing this post to you, I am one person talking to another person of equal human value, as well as a person (in my mind) with equal/ comparable intelligence, a person like me: not more than me, not less than me. Empathy is in equality, and in equality, I am no longer alone and lonely.

The way I used to live, in social isolation and alienation, I was either inferior (the great majority of the time) or superior, never an equal.

“‘External validation never works for me, it always has to come from me’, this may sound like a small thing, but it isn’t, I always asked for people’s validation online in the past, never happening again”- It is a big thing to me: when I asked for others’ validation in the past, I did it under the assumption that they are superior to me. I had no evidence to make such an assumption. Members in these forums often ask just anyone who may be reading (people they know nothing about, people they never communicated with before): am I a bad person for thinking/ feeling/ doing this or that? My question to the person asking this question is: who are you asking?

“I believe that everything has a price, and this feeling good may has unknown price (such as addiction or some hidden long term effects)”- yes, unfortunately. Yet, I didn’t know until then that it was possible to feel like that for any length of time, for even a minute. It was a very new emotional experience for me.

“how would you describe feeling good under that drug? Of course you can just skip this if you don’t want to answer, and I won’t mind it”- thank you,  I don’t mind: it felt like all the fear, all the shame and all the guilt were squeezed out of my brain and body and were gone. So, I was happy, heavenly happy and I waited (not anxiously, just waiting) for the next thought that will cross my mind and take away this happening, and to my surprise, whatever thought entered my mind was .. devoid of any fear, shame or guilt.

“I wonder if you have seen Mary and Max?”- no, I just googled it, it’s an animated comedy-drama, it says.

It is good talking to you this Sunday morning!

anita

Dear Murtaza:

I ended my last post to you with “It is good talking to you this Sunday morning!”, and you asked: “What about other days”? Well, since you asked, I will tell you how I felt since I posted to you Sunday morning, July 11, all the way to now (And by the way, I didn’t read all of your recent post, at this point):

After posting to you yesterday I felt very good, just like I told you. Then I took a walk in nature and I replayed what I wrote to you in my mind, as I walked. I remembered that I wrote to you that I believe that it is important to you to be true to yourself. Next, I thought that maybe you will argue with me on that point, saying that I misunderstood. Next, I felt angry and frustrated, wondering if I should not say anything at all to you about you, no matter what. Fast forward to this morning, I saw that you posted, but I did not want to read what you posted until after I reply to everyone else because I suspected that you will be arguing with me, and I didn’t want to feel the frustration I expected to feel.

At this point, I will read the rest of your recent post to see if my suspicion came true… I just read it all, and no! You did not argue with me. What a relief. I think that I am argument-phobic, at this point, and that it has to do with growing up with a mother who often argued with me, repeating her message to me that my thinking/ my understanding is wrong (while promoting her unintelligent and/ or insane, and constantly shifting thinking as the correct thinking and understanding).

So, now I feel relieved and I  just noticed that I also feel tired.

“When I think about your life, I see a young girl, suffering from loneliness, alone.. When I try to visualize this, I put myself inside that girl mind, I can see why you wanted to help people online. From my pov, its because you don’t want for people to suffer like you did, you didn’t had internet back then (I suppose?) And you were all alone, so you didn’t want this to happen to all people”-

– I read this part before I started my reply to you, and I felt very good about it, the thought of you .. retroactively caring to think what’s inside the girl-anita’s mind-  makes me feel affection for you, and it brings this small smile to my face right now.

Your POV is correct: I am attentive to what people share on these forums, often repeating to them what they shared, not only because it helps me processing information, but also  for the purpose of letting people know that they are heard, that someone is hearing them, and so, they are not terribly alone. This is also the reason behind me answering everyone as soon as I can (exceptions exist), so that they don’t feel unheard. It all stems from my experience as a child and a teenager: unheard. It was as if I screamed but no one heard.. as if my screams, literal or figurative (my intense fear and anger and excruciating frustration, shame and guilt) were silent, no one saw me, no one heard me, no one.. no one there.

And no, there was no internet back then.

“In here, I am truly inferior in other people eyes.. when I tell people about my life, they immediately see me inferior (because I don’t work, no social life, etc.)”- and within the people who do work and have social lives, those who make more money and/or have prestigious jobs, etc.,  are considered superior to the others, aren’t they. The Superior category is not homogenous: many within it are considered inferior and/ or feel inferior.

“What it comes to my mind is that, anyone who feel he can help you  that he can advice/ teach you (mostly)feel a bit superior”- yes, mostly. And on the topics for which original posters in these forums ask advice for, when members replying allege to have a superior mental health- that allegation should never be accepted without question, no matter how.. impressively healthy a member replying sounds on a particular reply, or on a series of replies on a particular day. It takes reading a replying member’s replies over a long time to get a feel for that member’s mental health status.

“So its more like having no bad feelings then actually having good feelings? I wonder how would you define happy”- I think that it was something like this: a bird is caught in seaweed that is wrapped around her wings and body, she can’t move, she can’t fly. The drug I took did something similar to dissolving all that seaweed and the bird found herself free for the first time in the longest time, so she soars up into the sky and flies, nothing is hindering her, nothing is in her way.. happy.

“I wonder if you ever felt like that again?”- no, but sometimes I felt close to it, not very close, but closer.

“Makes me feel bit sad for that young female”- thank you. This is your empathy for me= it is you hearing my past suffering.

anita

Dear Murtaza:

“How did you spend your day if I may ask?”- I remember starting a fantasy story in the morning, setting the characters and the beginning plot, and developing the story throughout the day, as I walked to school, as I walked back from school, and when alone in the apartment, I used every moment of that alone-time to keep the fantasy story going uninterrupted, helped by the music from the radio. Two themes I remember were (1) love stories, and (2) being famous: dancing or singing in front of huge audiences, being a famous movie star, celebrated and worshipped by millions. I remember fantasizing about starting a religion and being a world leader.

“I think that for some birds, just forget flying, and forget that they have wings. I think that the first is better, but it will involves much more strength, to be trapped for so long, yet still wanting to fly”- I never got to fly by making my childhood fantasies come true, but in my communication with you, I am somewhat flying (!)

“I think that there is a lot of reasons why people help others, and it often doesn’t feel like the other person thinks he is superior”- you will see as I proceed, that you are helping me. I am motivated to be helped by you because of what you expressed in your most recent post:

“I’m impressed by your detailed and great reply” (a compliment), “thank you for telling me” (grace), “you’re good at it” (another compliment.. and you are good at complimenting, by the way), “I think I understand” (rapport), “correct me.. if the subject is personal.. disregard this section and I will understand to not ask such stuff in the future”, (sensitive, considerate, accommodating, respectful), “I feel like I’m anita now lol, feels good actually” (another compliment with a touch of humor), “I wish that you had someone hearing you… would’ve loved to hear you, to do exactly what you do to other members and me, understand you and make you feel heard, and important” (empathy, kindness), “I don’t like when someone makes fun of my belief, so I won’t do that to people” (empathy, decency)

All the above impressive sentiments  make me want to share with you more and be helped by doing so (a compliment to you before I proceed: I think that you are brilliant!).

“She (your mother) said stuff that isn’t true, though you felt they are, even when you know they aren’t, so you felt that you are the problem, that your understanding/logic is flawed, so you dislike argument because its unconsciously tells you that you are the problem, that your understanding is flawed, is this correct?”- yes. I will elaborate in effort to helping myself understand better:

She indeed “said stuff that isn’t true”. She repeatedly told me, in great length, with many (made up) details, how I was a bad girl who was purposefully and in a planned way- hurting “the best mother in the world”, so she said. She also told me while hitting my face back and forth with her big hand: you are a Nobody, you are a Big Zero. She elaborated on that too, in great length.

Like you suggested, I thought that I was the problem, but I also thought that she was the problem. The conflict has been the mental torture all along: the back and forth internal fight between contradictory evaluations of myself and of her. When I believed that I was a big zero- I felt terribly ashamed. When I believed that I was bad- I felt terribly guilty, when I believed that she was bad- I felt a mixture of intense anger at her and intense guilt for thinking badly of her.

My mother talked a lot, gossiped a lot, expressed her misery a lot, was often angry at me, often disapproving, often annoyed with me. She repeatedly threatened to kill herself (I remember her showing me her wrists, showing me where she would make the cuts), she said she had to do it because of me, because of something I said, or should have said but didn’t, because of something I should have done but didn’t, and because of what I was thinking. I didn’t tell her what I was thinking. She told me. I argued: no, I wasn’t thinking that (and I didn’t)! But those denials made her more angry, accusing me of lying.

Following 15 years of hearing her threats of suicide, I was 20 maybe, following her walking on the sidewalk after she said that she was going to throw herself under a moving truck (because of what I said or didn’t, etc.)- I remember no longer really believing that she will do what she said she will, wishing that she did, feeling somewhat bored, distressed but detached at the same time, and knowing what was to follow: hearing her talk for hours until she got too exhausted to talk any more, then she would go to bed, then there will be a few days of eerie silence.

This torture harmed my brain: I developed severe OCD with elaborate compulsions and severe tics (Tourette Syndrome) starting at about 5 or 6 that further tortured me as I experienced social ridicule and rejection. (I no longer suffer from OCD and my tics are limited to only a few and are less severe). I developed the habit of spacing out/ being “gone”, shutting down my brain as she talked by hearing the sounds she made, but not deciphering the words and sentences. This led to my great difficulty in processing information, making academic studies very difficult, involving hours of work to process information that others took fifteen minutes to process, maybe less. This shut-down led me to not be aware of what was happening around me, not seeing where I was going (I remember hearing a vehicle just missing hitting me, not having noticed that I walked into traffic). In social situations, I didn’t understand what people said, what they meant, what they wanted, and that led to finding myself in situations that further harmed me.

One of my severe tics as a teenager (maybe before as well) was my head moving right and left in quick succession, as in saying No. Sometimes I was thinking: doesn’t she (my mother) see, why doesn’t she stop talking to me. Doesn’t she see that I am saying NO!?

One time she said: I know that what I am doing is not right, but what are you going to do? You have nowhere to go.

My mother, my own mother who had a hard life, divorced early, no one to help her financially, working hard cleaning rich people’s homes and offices, scrubbing bathtubs so hard that her hands were raw and bleeding. My poor mother, buying me the best foods, toys, new school supplies and new clothes, my “best mother in the world”.. I wanted to be rich and famous,  and give her a life of luxury. I wanted to be a movie star (a movie star..  with severe tics).

I stopped all contact with her in May of 2013, then in January 2014, I sent her a message through a third party, and nothing since. But the mental torture was not over: who is good, who is bad….???

Did I resolve it by now? Can I say: yes, in my life, she was a bad person? Yes, I can say that. That in itself doesn’t make me a good person, but it makes it possible for me to be a good person. And so, I’ve been working toward becoming a good person. The more of a good person I am becoming, the less mental torture/ the more peace of mind (the bird flying in the sky experience). It is very important to me to not be a good person the way my mother was to other people: falsely complimenting them (profuse flattery), being generous with them, giving them things she bought with her work scrubbing with raw hands, and then complaining that they are taking advantage of her, etc.

Well, I said that you are helping me. This post is my effort to help myself further because of you, because you were kind to me. I will see with some time, what difference, if any, this post makes in my mind and heart. I want to fly a bit more.. although sadly, the sky is hazy with smoke because of wild fires/ global warming.

anita