Dear Tee:

“But if so, a thought occurred to me: what if those symptoms have to do with your impulse to reach out, your entire being reaching out towards your mother… and then be met with rejection? And then your arms falling down, and the impulse being forced back to you, back into the center of your body… Perhaps those symptoms have to do with that impulse being stuck in a perpetual cycle of reaching out and turning back inwards (because it was rejected)?”-

Brilliant, Tee. I think it was a combination of reaching out to her, and pulling away from her, more of the latter in later years, like the NO tic (head jerking right to left). The tics, as I see them, are the flight/ Fight response to trauma. Needing to run away but having nowhere safe to run to (and feeling guilty about leaving her), and needing to Fight her.. but feeling too guilty to fight. All that Running/ Fighting trapped, no exit, vibrating inside, no exit= tics.

“I am sorry if this inappropriate and overly simplified. I don’t want to be insensitive and suggest anything that doesn’t feel true to you or that overly simplifies things. So I apologize in advance if this idea is off. But I just wanted to put it out there, just in case…”- you can’t go wrong by me, as far as I am concerned. I am eternally grateful to you.

“I would also like to acknowledge the fact that your father didn’t seem to have been a gentle man, since he hit you with a belt when you wouldn’t stop crying after their argument and your mother threatening to kill herself. Instead of soothing you, he hit you with a belt! He must have been a cruel man himself?”-

I wouldn’t know. I know he chained smoked, never calm, never peaceful. A troubled soul.

“Another thing I wanted to say is that in some ways your mother was a victim: she had a traumatic childhood, being an orphan and probably being exposed to abuse. Then being married to a potentially cruel and cheating husband (?), and then having been left to raise 2 small children all by herself. Those were all very difficult circumstances, and I’m sure her life wasn’t easy. But the problem is that she remained in that victim mentality for the rest of her life, and blamed you (and your sister) for her misery. And took her anger and rage at you, punishing you, guilt-tripping you, abusing you… instead of realizing that she has a problem and needs to change something about herself.”-

A balanced, nuanced understanding.

“You had empathy for her, you tried everything to help her… but she just didn’t want to be helped, but wanted to remain victim forever.”- And she didn’t think of me as something valuable enough to help her.

I wrote above “something”, not someone.. because to her, I was a Something, not a Someone.

“Dear Anita, I truly hope that working with your inner child will give you an opening and a shift from seeking validation from your mother to accepting your own worth. Because nothing would have ever been good enough for your mother, maybe even if you had become a rich and powerful person that she herself dreamed of becoming.”-

Dear Tee, I feel love for you. Little tears in my eyes.

“There was nothing you could do to make her happy, to be good enough for her – and that’s certainly not your fault, but a fault in her character.”-

Nothing I could have done..? Nothing I could have done.

“‘Today, I say.. what if I no longer perceive her as my lifetime H.O.P.E for self worth. Will I then feel that undying love for her?’ How are you feeling about it today?”-

Tonight (only 7:20 pm, but totally dark), no.. no more undying love for her. Didn’t feel it since yesterday. I am thinking of her right now.. I type as I think.. Let LGA speak:

Anita: Tell me, LGA, tell Tee.

LGA: (Nothing).

LGA: …I have to say goodbye to her, really say goodbye. A lost dream.. nothing real.

A: Nothing real?

LGA: No mother for me, No mother 4 me.. I never had a mother. I never had a parent, mother or father.

They are, “mother”, “father”… injured children.. hurt and then hurting me/ others.

Like I was hurt.. and then hurting others, hurting you (tears)

Tee: “BTW thank you for calling me the Inner Child Champion – it was nice to hear that 😊”- You are the Inner Child Champion, ICC Tee 😊 😊 😊 !!!

“And yes, the bully – the world-scale bully – is the one whom you were thinking about..”- yes, indeed, no doubt.

I think so highly of you, Tee… (I just wrote more.. but enough). Thank you, Tee.

Anita

Dear Tee:

“that was beautiful! ❤️ And so profound… your conversation with Little girl Anita. Wow!”- thank you!

Your Wow, the Inner Child Expert (that’s how I see you) means a lot to me!

“In your conversation with LGA, you’ve come to some incredible realizations: that your main fear in your childhood (and beyond) was that your mother would commit suicide, because that’s what she was threatening to do, on a regular basis. Up until the moment your sister told her “then do it!”. That’s when the threats stopped… because she was seen through, I think.”-

huh.. it never occurred to me.. So, I didn’t see through her. I didn’t see that she was bluffing.. All Those Years.. I didn’t see! (I am reading a part of your post, quoting it, responding, before I read the next part)

“I think she’d realized that she cannot manipulate and emotionally blackmail your sister anymore with a fake suicide threat – so she stopped. If I’m counting well, you weren’t living with her at that time anymore – you were already in the US, so it was only her and your sister. And she realized her tactic had turned against her… so she stopped.”-

Yes, you are counting well, thank you. You said it, “fake suicide threats”, I wasn’t sure. No one called them Fake before, not that I remember.

“I’m amazed by this profound (and heart-breaking) realization of yours… So, your main motive in your childhood, starting from the age 5, was to keep your mother alive. You stayed home and didn’t socialize with other kids (unlike your sister) because you were afraid your mother would hurt herself when you’re not watching. And so you sacrificed yourself in a way, you let her use you as her punching bag – because you were afraid that if you don’t, she might kill herself.”-

Yes, true, just like you said it.

“You allowed very severe abuse, without defending yourself, because you thought that would keep your mother alive… That’s a very profound realization, Anita. It doesn’t mean that you didn’t have agency, but that you gave up that agency because of a higher goal: to keep your mother alive.”-

I had never thought that.. I had agency.. but sacrificed it for a (perceived) higher goal: keeping her alive..?

I definitely wanted to fight her, at least from one point on (teenage years, I remember).

“And beyond that, another goal of yours was to make her proud of you, to be her hero, to save her from the miserable life that she was complaining about all the time. I imagine she portrayed herself as the victim (not just yours, but of other people and life circumstances, right?)”-

Yes, BIG TIME! Always, 100%, no nuance, no shades of grey.

“And you were hoping you could do something to save her from that miserable life. And so you took upon yourself the role of her savior – both as in saving her from suicide, but also saving her from misery, unhappiness, sadness.. Little girl Anita expressed that sentiment here: ‘Yes, she needed a big-time hero, someone special, someone unlike any other, someone great enough to save her!'”- Yes. I had no greater hope, or aspiration.. desire, commitment.

“That’s a typical stance of covert narcissistic people: they portray themselves as perpetual victims, and there’s nothing one can do help them. They want to remain victims, because that’s how they manipulate those around them, specially people who love them and want to help them.”-

So, no way to help her.. because she’s been helping herself by being always-victim. That I figured out some time ago.. She’s been helping herself the only way she knew how.. How did I say it before, in one of my other threads: I tried so hard to help her, feeling so guilty that I failed.. while all along she was helping herself to me, at my expense. So, I helped her simply by being her victim.

“It seems your mother had covert narcissistic traits and she used her victim mentality to emotionally blackmail and guilt trip you and your sister. But you, the little girl Anita, didn’t know and couldn’t know that her mother is using suicide threats and constant complaints as a manipulation tactic. She thought her mother is in real danger, and that she would really do what she is threatening to do.”-

Yes, exactly! Again, I am having this strange feeling that you were there. Didn’t have this feeling with anyone before, not irl or online.

“Little girl Anita also believed her mother’s words that she is a victim who needs to be saved. LGA believed that she is bad and is making her mother unhappy. She also believed that other people are trying to make her mother unhappy.”- I hated everyone for trying to make her unhappy, including myself.. of course.

“LGA believed her mother’s narrative and wanted to rescue her – which is a normal reaction of a child who infinitely loves her mother.”- Yes.

“Little girl Anita suffered a lot and tried everything to make her mother happy – but nothing ever worked. And unfortunately, nothing ever works with covert narcissistic people, because they want to remain the victim. Pleasing them and making them happy is mission impossible.”- mission impossible, rogers that.

“I love the conversation between the adult Anita and LGA, where the adult Anita explained to LGA that her mother was actually lying when she threatened to kill herself. That she has been threatening since she was 25, and she’s now 85.”- L.Y.I.N.G. It makes me angry!

“LGA remembers your mother as being 25 years old, but now you reminded her that she is 85. I’ve been reading that our inner child often remembers our parent as young – because the inner child is still stuck in that same period, often in that same scene that traumatized us. And so it’s good that you gave her the reality check: that your mother is now old and that she never attempted to harm herself. That she’s still fine.”- if I only knew that when I was 5, 15, 25, etc.

“It is heart-breaking to read how on that fateful night, you were running to your mother, relieved and overjoyed that she is alive. You were running towards her with your outstretched hands… and she met you with anger and coldness… You say that’s about the time when your Tourette’s symptoms started. Now I can’t find it, but I think you said your tics are mostly in your shoulder area (not sure because I can’t find it now).”-

Now mostly in my shoulders, back then they were everywhere and more severe, every single voluntary muscle tic-ed. It was difficult to fall asleep, and the social embarrassment was acute. As a teenager, I clearly remember my head jerking from right to left, as in saying NO. That tic happened a lot when she was talking to me. I remember thinking: Doesn’t she see me “saying” no? Why wouldn’t she stop talking..???

.. Lost electricity some time ago. about to lose internet. I’ll try to send this and read and reply further later.

Anita