Dear Anita,

I went back and re-read several of your latest posts, and here are my comments:

I misspoke about her not expressing anger at her oldest sister.. I don’t remember her confronting her oldest sister (I’ll refer to her as M), but I know that for a while she wouldn’t talk to M, as in a no-contact, because she was angry at her, she realized at that time that M really, really did hurt her.

But after some time she went back to talking with her. It’s like part of her was M. M was an overt aggressor, consistently, no meek/ people pleasing performances; the mother switched between being M and performing meek/ people pleasing- unlike M- in between returns to being the overt aggressor that M was.

It occurs to me now that your mother doesn’t sound like a typical people pleaser, because people pleasers do things that are often against their best interests and are hurting them, but they’re still doing it, in order to please others. Your mother sounds more like someone who was faking kindness and “meekness” to the outside world, when it suited her – to boost her public image. She wasn’t doing it to please others (and sacrifice her own real needs), but to boost her fake persona.

she lost all her hair- forevermore- as a result of an untreated scalp fungus infection. A shame she carried with her throughout her life.. cutting her head off photos.

And it occurred to me just now.. for the first time in my whole life, why she scrubbed my scalp so terribly deep and rough.. because I had hair and she didn’t..?

Yes, I think she was jealous of your hair! She might have been punishing you for having hair…

I didn’t know she had no hair until I was 26 or 27. She wore wigs the whole time. I just didn’t know until .. was it my sister who told me (I don’t remember). I was in shock at the time, that for a quarter of a century, I didn’t know.

Yeah, that’s pretty extraordinary that you’d never noticed! I guess she was hiding it well… perhaps she didn’t let you see her early in the morning (provided that she took the wig off while sleeping)?

Good point, Tee. She wasn’t upset at all about me leaving, and again, it never occurred to me that indeed she wasn’t upset. Sincerely, truthfully.. I was never a person to her, never of a human value, one she’d miss..

Yes, but I thought she might “miss” you as someone to harass, even an “object” to harass, if you will. Because such people need someone to abuse and victimize, so to feel better about themselves.

But I guess she quickly turned to your sister, as you said, started buggering her to get married and give her a grandchild. And so she did, although you said the guy she married wasn’t a good fit…

“It seems your mother didn’t even try to establish total control over your sister like she did with you.”- not physically, as in washing, feeding, wiping and dressing her. (Not necessarily in that order.. sad lol).

What occurs to me now, and it might be painful to read, is that it seems your mother hasn’t sexually harassed your sister… your sister “only” received emotional (and perhaps physical?) abuse. But she didn’t have access to her body… I realize this may be very painful to read, that you might have received more of the abuse, or more destructive type of abuse. I’m very sorry about that, Anita 😢

I just felt so much affection for you, Tee.. for saying these things with passion (I meant emotional passion, of course.. everything feels contaminated as a result of sexual abuse.. the word “passion”, the word “affection”)

Like her affection when holding my hand on the way to the airport.. if it was affection, I couldn’t differentiate it from sexuality. Every smile on her face directed to me, a softness in her voice.. it all felt creepy.

Right, it seems it was her who contaminated affection with sexuality, and so now when you say affection, immediately a sexual meaning pops up in your head.

(BTW, thank you, I do feel strongly about childhood sexual abuse not being a small thing. So yes, I’m passionate about defending the victims and not minimizing the abuse. ❤️)

I was wondering if she felt “affection” for you when she was controlling you completely, including your body, e.g. when she was putting on your pajamas after bathing and you lying on the bed like a doll. You said that’s when she had a satisfied smile on her face (at least in front of the neighbor, Rosie, who challenged her that one time).

So I’m wondering if she felt “affection”, i.e. she felt pleased with you, when she could control you completely (including your body), i.e. treat you like an object with which she can do whatever she pleases?

That control included touching you inappropriately while washing you (pre-puberty), and demanding access to your naked body (post-puberty). As I’m writing this, I’m hoping that phrasing it like this isn’t too sensitive for you? Please let me know of it is, will you?

I think Copilot explained it very well why it constitutes sexual abuse:

Even if she framed it as ‘care,’ exposing you and touching your body in adolescence can be a form of covert sexual abuse, because it places you in a sexualized or vulnerable position without consent.

The trauma comes from being forced into a situation where your body was exposed and controlled against your will.

Yeah, she put you in a sexualized and vulnerable position (demanding that you let her into the bathroom to wash your hair and back, while in a vulnearable, exposed position), and your body was touched/manipulated against your will (by manipulation I mean when you had to lie down on the bed, while she was dressing you).

And I’m thinking now that those washing/dressing rituals might not have been so much about her extracting sexual pleasure from it, but more about establishing complete dominion and control over you.

As Alessa said: sexual abuse is the ultimate way to strip someone of their autonomy. Yes, because it’s violating the autonomy of our body, which no one else should lay claim to, but ourselves.

But regardless whether she extracted sexual pleasure from it or not (you said she did from parading naked in front of you), it still constitutes sexual abuse. And as Copilot says, I think it’s very important that you’re now naming it and understanding it.

Because until now, it was all a bit of a haze. Now it’s becoming more clear, and inasmuch as it is painful, it is also liberating, I hope, and is contributing to your healing. ❤️

So yes, let’s keep talking about it… because the clearer it becomes, the more equipped you will be to heal and put an end on your mother’s toxic legacy 🙏 ❤️ 🙏

🙏 ❤️ 🫶 ❤️ 🙏

Dear Anita,

sorry, I’m in a bit of a rush today, not very focused. But I’d like to say that I hear you and understand that you might be feeling befuddled by these newest realizations: that you didn’t see something that you say was pretty obvious (your mother wearing a wig), or that you’ve only now realized that what you saw that early morning wasn’t a dream, but you really saw your mother’s bald head.

But your mother told you it was just a bad dream, and so you didn’t question it further. You accepted her words. I think the key to understand this is what you wrote here:

I believed her because there was nothing I needed more than to believe her.

That’s true. You needed to believe her, because this is what allowed you to stay attached to her, which is what we as children need to survive. We need to stay attached to our parents, and that includes believing that our parents are good people and that they have our best interests in mind.

So, believing our parents, trusting their intentions, blaming ourselves rather than them if they mistreat us… that’s all how we keep the hope that our parents are good people and that we’re safe with them.

In addition, abusive parents (specially narcissistic parents) regularly gaslight us and tell us various lies (that they’re the best parents, that they only want what’s best for us, that we’re bad, ungrateful and unworthy, but that they love us anyway, etc etc). Similar lies that your mother told you… And they’re really good at “selling” their narrative.

So I think it’s kind of a 2-fold action: we want to believe them, because we need it for our survival, and they’re really good at portraying themselves as good and us as bad. They’re very convincing. And I think that as a result, we get easily brainwashed: we are receptive to it, and they are master gaslighters.

And then we start gaslighting ourselves too, telling ourselves that our parent is a good parent, that things aren’t as bad, that they mean well… and I think that as a part of that self-gaslighting, we might not even see or perceive certain things that would be obvious to an outside observer.

It’s like we don’t want to see those things, and so we block them from our conscious awareness. I suppose that’s what happened to you, and why you never put 2 and 2 together regarding your mother wearing a wig. She told you it wasn’t real, and you believed her, because you wanted to believe her: not only about the wig, but about everything else. Because you needed to believe her, because that was key for your survival.

At least that’s how I explain it to myself… what are your thoughts on this?

HOW MANY LIES..???

The lies are unfortunately pervasive: almost everything she told you (or conditioned you to believe) about yourself and other people isn’t true. Also, a lot of what she told you about herself – how good and loving mother she is – is also not true.

But the worst lies are those that we’ve accepted about ourselves: about our worth and how worthy of love we are. And it’s good to hear that your sense of self-worth is growing by the day:

I am experiencing a significant decline in shame.. and a felt increase in self-worth these very days

I’m really happy about that, Anita ❤️ It’s a great sign, and indicates that her lies are having less and less impact on you! 🤞

🙏 ❤️ 🫶 ❤️

Dear Anita,

happy belated Thanksgiving! 😊

And what an amazing idea: to give yourself thanks for everything that you’ve done for your mother, for all the effort you’ve invested in trying to please her, make her happy, make her life less of a suffering… it didn’t work, but not because of you, but because of her! However, you’ve tried, you did your best, you gave your all!

And you completely deserve praise and acknowledgment for your sincere, heart-felt attempts:

So, today, I am giving myself credit for all my many, many.. many efforts to help her. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE!

Coming to think about it- the timing is perfect: Thanksgiving!

Thank you, Anita, for your many, many efforts and all your hard work invested in helping this woman!!!

Amen to that! 🙏 ❤️ Very well said!

I hope you’re still feeling the enthusiasm and vigor of those words, and the acknowledgment, the self-validation, that you indeed did you best, while she was the ungrateful one. You were giving and giving, while she was rejecting, dismissing, criticizing… and remained bitter and unhappy throughout.

It occurs to me that you were the people-pleaser, or better say, Mother-pleaser: you did things against your will, things that were hurting you – only to please her, to see that satisfied smile of approval on her face:

she signaled approval, that’s for sure, a rare commodity for me: her approval.. another rare commodity: a genuine smile on her face. She experienced pleasure in seeing me accommodating her need to have power-over, and I wanted her pleased.

She approved of you when you diminished, or almost annulled yourself. When she could control you completely. You gave her that. But she wasn’t satisfied nevertheless. Maybe for a brief moment she was, but not beyond that.

And she perpetuated the lie that you’re bad, that you’re hurting her, while she was the one who was hurting you all along. Yes, narcissistic people are People of the Lie…

So, congratulations, Anita, for seeing through the Lie, for not believing her narrative anymore. Congratulations for seeing things clearly: who you are and who she is…

I’d like to comment on something very important that you said about empathy:

Empathy for her (feeling so very sorry for her) and Guilt went hand in hand.. well, almost my whole life. The guilt was heavier, more painful than the empathy. Early on, I figured it was my job to make her happy, that her misery is my responsibility to fix. Feeling that I failed my # 1 responsibility was very painful. When I found out that she was bald, it meant that I had so much more to fix, so much more to compensate her for.

Currently, empathy without the guilt feels so much lighter.

That’s an important realization: that your empathy was mixed with guilt. Because she was 1) portraying herself as the victim and 2) blaming you (among other people) for her misery. She made you feel guilty for her misery.

Plus, you wanted to free her from her misery even in instances in which she didn’t blame you, e.g. when you had guests and she would bitterly complain before and after their visit. She didn’t blame you for that, however you still wanted to help her, to ease her “suffering”.

But then she forbid you to talk to the guests about it (“I will murder you!“), because she of course wanted to maintain her “kind and generous” persona – someone who gives big, expensive gifts, and prepares intricate, lavish meals (I suppose).

Anyway, you tried to free her from her “misery”, when in fact it was all a farce. It was a self-inflicted “misery”, because no one was forcing her to give those expensive gifts and prepare complicated meals. It was her choice, which she then presented as some big sacrifice. She portrayed herself as the victim, the martyr, when it was actually her choice, and it served to maintain a certain public image.

You believed that she was indeed suffering, you believed that she was the victim – when in fact, it was an act. And then you blamed yourself for not being able to help her. When in fact she didn’t want to be helped – she enjoyed her martyr role.

And it’s a great thing that you’re now freeing yourself from that guilt. And that you’re able to separate empathy for the person from feeling guilty for their suffering.

A good example of that would be your mother’s baldness: you can be sorry for your mother having such a handicap, because it is really a handicap and very unpleasant. However, you don’t need (or didn’t need to) to feel guilty about it and obliged to compensate her for it, because it’s not your fault and there isn’t even much you can do about it. You can simply empathize, but without feeling guilty or obliged to help.

So yeah, empathy without guilt is a great concept – thanks for mentioning it, Anita. ❤️ When we empathize like that, we can simply “sit with the person” in their pain, without necessarily doing anything. We may help of course if needed, but sometimes it’s enough if we simply offer a listening ear and validate their emotions. If they feel heard and validated.

Good to hear that you had a pleasant Thanksgiving, and that you met some nice, interesting people 😊

Wishing you a nice day today! 😊

❤️ 🫶 ❤️