Dear Healing Bear:

Good morning, and thank you again for sharing. I re-read your post and thoughtfully formed my questions below. I am hoping to learn MORE from you and will very much appreciate your thoughtful replies:
1) Are you a man or woman?
2) What form of sexual abuse did you suffer by your mother? (I don’t need details necessarily but some idea of what it means, how it affected you, length of time it happened…)
3) Do you have currently contact with your mother? Your father?
4) Did you consider ending contact with your mother? Your father? What were your thoughts (pros and cons perhaps) about it?
5) Given your mother sexually abused you, was there any “working through it” with her, confrontation of the issue, resolution, restitution?
6) You wrote that at 12 step meetings and on you learned, for the first time, how to have relationships based on honesty (not based on lies and manipulation) and integrity. If you still have a relationship with your mother, is she honest with you- did she change from the way she was? Did you change together? What is the nature of your relationship with her: is it based on honesty and integrity?
7) At this stage of your healing (you are 55 I figure, about my age), what are the “leftovers” of your troubled childhood and life still in operation in your mind? Do you get easily agitated, anxious, troubled, depressed… ? Or is it a “happily ever after” kind of existence at this point? I healing ongoing or are you in a maintenance stage?

anita

Dear Healing Bear:
No, I do not work in the field. Actually I do not work at all, not since 2010. I am in the process of healing myself from severe abuse and ended my contact with my mother two years ago. There is a lot more I want or wanted to know then what is in your share. It is an amazing story that you share, yet there is so little that I have learned from your story. One of the things I am very curious about is how adults who have been abused maintain a relationship with the abuser, a parent, often. You wrote that you ended contact with your mother at times and I would have wanted to know more… how were you able to have contact with her when you did, as an adult, was there any resolution with her before she died… Share if you would like, otherwise, best to you.
anita

Thank you, Healing Bear: I will look at your blog and will look forward to your next post. I hope you share what you feel comfortable sharing in this forum. There are things I am uncomfortable sharing, absolutely. I think that if I am asked and if I believe I can be helpful by sharing such, I will. But it is a risk. Even writing you the above, asking you the questions and telling you I cannot learn without more- that was risky and I was afraid of a hostile reaction from you. I often am afraid of hostile reactions from others. Risking is scary for me. I hope sharing more here will be even more healing for you… I can’t perceive healing of severe abuse or life without love can be a final destiny of living “happily ever after.” I see healing as an ongoing journey. In this mindset, I hope that sharing here and that everything you do is part of your own journey.
anita