Dear Anita,

I have made myself a copy of the text I originally wrote to another participant about the caged animal.  Here are the images which arose after reading your text regarding

cage / wild animal / power symbolism

The first thing which came to mind was the black panther: I was visiting a friend and was taken to a small, local circus when I was about 13.  It was a small tent with three big cats on high stools.  I only remember the black panther with blue eyes.  Its presence was so immense, its dignity, beauty, power, perfection, and I believe also a high conscious awareness, at least I felt I could sense this – it was in total contrast to the whole human show around it and revealed it in all its pathetic ridiculousness.  It was so humiliating to those animals and I swore I would never go to a circus or zoo again.  I have never forgotten it.

Dolphins in a disco: on the same visit to my friend, I was also taken to a disco bar where the back wall of the dance floor was a high glass wall looking into a dolphinarium.  I was so distressed as I could feel how terrible it was for the dolphins to have that music reverberating through the water all the time.  The pool was also far too small.  I felt again that the dolphins had a higher consciousness than the people.

Circuses generally: I was first taken to a circus when I was four and I hated it and cried all the way through and never wanted to see another one

I love watching youtube videos of animal communicators helping horses out of their anger or apathy.  It makes me happy and sad at once.

In the film “The Girl and the Fox” (which is very beautiful to watch) the little girl befriends a wild fox and takes it to see her bedroom.  When the fox realises it is trapped in a room, it jumps through the window and nearly dies of its injuries.  That moment in the film resonated deeply with me and has never left me.

At a time in my life when I was most balanced, I regularly experienced that wild animals and birds would come right up to me in nature or continued w. their business although I was very close

I have taken soooo…. many photos of gardens and orchards (the life I wanted) behind gates & fences

I always felt unbearably “closed in” when working in offices and “artificial” spaces and had to continually suppress the urge to run

A past partner actually put bars on all the doors & windows of the house & I literally felt in prison

I felt very oppressed in my parent’s home, my bedroom window was very close to a high wall, I could only see a sliver of sky

I felt very trapped in the home I had with my husband because of carrying the financial burden alone, & also being surrounded by vindictive neighbours on all sides.

–  I have been amazed by the continuous repeat of motif throughout my life.  Goodness me!  This is really something!

Juanita

Dear Anita,

I am fine that we cannot tackle all the aspects mentioned in one go.  I can feel how important this wild power imagery is for me so I am happy to be simply beginning to address it in any way, and it is interesting for me to see what you see as worthy of focussing upon from your stance as a more neutral observer.

When you say I shouldn’t underestimate the power of fear itself, I am not sure how to interpret your tone in this.  I find you are making a very valid point which I must remain aware of if I am to realistically make my escape, but I am not sure if you are telling me it is virtually impossible and I shouldn’t get my hopes up?

I am very sad about my sister still being so extremely enmeshed with my parents but I could never break through the stronghold my mother has over her although I always tried since being very small (making me even more unpopular).  I had more contact with my sister during the years she was living alone but I believe my mother discouraged this once she returned to live with them because the contact stopped very suddenly and I am hardly ever able to speak to my father or sister without my mother listening in the background.  Though they all monitor and control one another really.  I could always see that my sister was not free to be herself but I didn’t realise how my physical distance was still not enough for me to be free myself.  I am becoming very aware of that now.

Being all alone in the world is a fear I have felt, and which has often been associated with sticking with bad relationships in my past, rather than being alone.  But I am willing to learn how to move beyond this because I can see that it is all part of my old childhood experience of the world, and only assures more bad associations and pain.  I feel motivated by imagining that I can make new friendships with positive people as I move away from my old mindset – I think this is what would happen anyway!  Or is this too unrealistic to hope for?  Did I get my hopes up too soon?

I have to mow my lawn now before the mosquitoes start coming out in force, I will answer your three questions when I get back in the house.

Juanita

Dear Anita,

I understand now, and I thank you for caring!  I really appreciate you looking out for me, and also teaching me how to be more careful and caring of myself on my journey.  It feels really good to learn to be attentive to myself.  I am noticing that my hyper-focus upon others seems to be balancing out with more focus upon myself, which is also calming.

You need not worry that I would stay down though, even if I fall.  I wish I could upload a picture I have: it is of a frog which has been caught by a heron, but the heron can’t swallow the frog because the frog is squeezing his “hands” around the bird’s neck – and the motto is “Never give up!”  That’s me.

Since you gave me the poem “Hokusai says”, I have felt a lot more content because I realised I had forgotten to be appreciative of all that I already have.  I also don’t feel as strongly driven to find a vocation because I realised that “vocation” bordered on being a concept which was partly due to feeling a failure, which I also no longer feel in such intensity.  I am enjoying that my life has meaning to me in the little moments, which makes my life feel much more valuable, even though I still don’t have anything more to demonstrate this to others than last week, but I feel much more peaceful within me.

Therefore, I am also both eager to learn more about living my creativity /wild power and freedom, but at the same time I am happy to include this as part of my journey now, however long that may take.  As long as it is possible and I’m not being unrealistic then I’ll begin taking steps in that direction.

I do naturally find this whole theme of wild power and freedom very exciting and motivating, but although I feel the need to quickly come to an understanding and overview in my mind, I’m not generally so speedy when it comes to taking action.  I find there are very complex and multi-faceted themes here which I have barely scratched the surface of, so I will need time to go into greater depth before I consider which kind of action I want to take.

The one thing which really appealed to me immediately is “simply” to work with the image (literally, through art) of the apathetic caged wild animal as a metaphor for my “caged” creativity.  I can feel how this touches something deep within, but too deep or as yet distant to reach with words and thoughts, but I feel I might be able to make an initial contact through art.

I would love to have answered the remaining 3 questions you asked but I am going to have to go to bed now as I have to be up very early.  I think I am around 9 hours ahead of you.  I didn’t get too bitten by the mozzies, just one very burning one on my ear.  I don’t have any spray left so I had to do a dash around the garden.  Worked out okay.  My little cat is feeling a lot better now and she was racing around me whilst I was mowing.  She always reminds me how important playing is!

Juanita

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Dear Anita

I am sorry that this is a lot to read again and I do hope it’s not too much for you?  I naturally do not expect you to answer to each paragraph, but rather I understand that you want to know more background details to perhaps refer back to at some time, so I am supplying the information, but without a major expectation as we already have a lot of “pancakes on the griddle”!!  So, to answer your questions:

1. You wrote that both parents felt intimidated by you.

My father: I learned to read/write/maths age 3 and was a very fast learner, very few spelling mistakes (photographic memory), read at the speed of light (still do).  My father is dyslexic but didn’t know it then.  By the time I was about 7 I was writing and spelling much better than he could and I could sense his discomfort around me, so I figured out ways to help him and he has overcome many of his problems.  But that feeling towards me has always remained and he still portrays himself as inferior in reading/writing/intellect compared to me.  He was also intimidated by my calmness and logic as I got older (9-10) when I was able to disagree with him and stand my ground, also my rejection of corporal punishment (he felt shame).

My mother: is very creative and talented but saw me as competition, so the intimidation was that I was/am also very creative and talented.  Her response was to ignore everything I did, and if I did try to show her something I had made she always said, “huh, alright when you have time for things like that”, so guilt tripping me and not acknowledging my creation.

I could sew clothing as well as an adult from around age 8 and e.g. as a surprise present I made her a matching set of clothes which fitted perfectly although I didn’t try them on her before.  Silence.  Even though people commented how well I could draw or sew – always silence.  She only wanted people to admire her creative works. If I asked for help she was vitriolic and only helped me later (11-12) once I had to make my own clothes because I was too tall to find clothes in a shop (small people in that country!)

I could also cook and bake very well even as a small child, which I also enjoyed, but this was never mentioned to others either – I was however regularly given a list of what to cook for dinner!

My parents entertained quite a lot and it was a very big deal when guests came that my mother always received much praise for her food, her artwork, and whatever other creative things she’d been doing.  But there was never artwork from my sister or I on display (“too messy”), nor anything else I might have made was ever shown (my sister is not into making things).  The only pictures of us were ones mother had drawn, but no cute snaps of us anywhere.

What amazes me now in retrospect is how automatically my father and sister towed the line of maintaining silence to that nothing of my talents was ever mentioned to others.  I remember there was just once when I was 7 and a friend of the family who had gifted me a book for my birthday came around about a week later and asked how I liked the book and if I had started reading it.  He was amazed when I said I had already read it.  Then my father said, yes, she reads a book like that in half an hour.  The man was speechless and couldn’t believe it.

2. “my family actually wanted to keep me in passivity”: who in your family, both parents, sister, anyone else in the family?

No.  There is virtually no other family, and none who are like that.  I would say my mother and sister more actively, exaggerating my weaknesses/depression/ whatever.  My father more by default as he sees me as too courageous, he never dared try to realise his dreams

3. You quoted me (italicized) and added: “Crushed and Caged.. treating you like you were the opposition that needs to be crushed/ caged– yes!!! This has to be the best description ever of the essence of how it feels”- can you tell me more about how specifically your mother treated you like you were the opposition, how she tried to crush you, and separately  howshe managed to more thoroughly crush your sister (what did she actually say and do to you and to your sister)?

Opposition:

I can remember being told regularly from a very young age i.e. as soon as I was talking properly (I can still feel and see myself) that it was my fault that they didn’t have enough money, and that I was living in their house and had no rights, but should be grateful that they were letting me live there.  My father was very rarely at home and she didn’t behave like that in front of him.  So my whole position was already as an unwelcome outsider, and anything I then dared to say or any opinion I dared to have was seen as being an outsider challenging her authority – and she took everything and anything as a total challenge of her position of power.  I always thought of her as “The Snow Queen” because she was beautiful but icy and poisonous.

Even though I knew it was wrong of her to treat me like that, I often couldn’t get to sleep as a small child because of trying to think how to earn enough money to buy my parents everything they needed/wanted.  It felt very overwhelming.

I think what made the opposition worse (but this is just from hindsight) is that my father always used me to triangulate when he had argued with her.  I was very empathic but after noticing that he always dropped me instantly when she was friendly again, and she subsequently punished me, I figured it out (age 9-10) and left them to it.

Crushing: obviously being treated as unwelcome and an outsider by your mother is crushing to a small child, but also from as far back as I can remember (3-4)

– she never – not once ever – came to me when I was crying

– was hugely resentful and verbally attacked, criticised, guilt-tripped and humiliated me if I was injured or sick and came for help.  After a serious accident aged 5 I should have been at the very least x-rayed but I wasn’t even taken to the doctor, and this has caused me very serious, costly and extremely painful health problems throughout my life

– she avoided helping me with anything if at all possible (unless there were witnesses)

– she avoided affectionate physical contact, only violence – plenty of that

– continuous verbal attacks about my physical appearance – mainly it was about being “too big” (tall and large build compared to her from my father’s side) and generally making me feel I must be ugly and as a small child I concluded she rejected me because of this.  Later when I got to puberty she was always digging her nails into me and bitching that I might be skinny but I’d end up having “a big fat arse like all the other women in the family” (I have sadly failed to fulfil her prophesy) and I felt very intimidated by her open aggressiveness spiked with envy

– continuous verbal attacks about who I am and how I would become – she repeated very regularly that I was “lazy and useless, just like ** (family member) who has come to nothing and you will come to nothing!!”  (I’m just thinking to myself now, what a damn irony to say I was lazy when I did a huge amount of cooking, cleaning and ironing from very young until I left!!)  I always responded that I am me and cannot possibly become like another person, I will only become like I want to, which infuriated her.  To this day we both get our hackles rising when the theme of inherited characteristics arises as neither will budge position.

I realise from writing all this that in some instances I was actually intentionally the opposition.

Crushing my sister

–  I can remember more intensely what my mother said to my sister than to me because I was always there as soon as I heard her start, to try and actively stop my sister from believing her, saying “that is stupid and crazy and obviously not true!”  I can still see my sister (maybe 4 at most) cowering and terrified, hardly able to keep standing, utterly desperate, extremely confused.  I hated feeling so powerless to be able to help her as she always nevertheless continued to look towards my mother.  I would yell my opinion (opposition!) until I got a beating and was sent to my room (or kicked into it)

–  she vitriolically verbally attacked my sister too, saying she was too big (tall, big frame), but also that she looked like my father’s mother.  My sister has since told me that in that moment her child’s mind understood that she actually looked like an ugly, wrinkled old lady and she was terrified.  My mother also began telling her she was too fat when she was only 5 at the most, which my sister believed too.  I was starting to get much taller and thinner than she was, so although she was perfect, my mother compared her to me to make her feel inferior.  I also defended that this was not true but with the same outcome

–  she also always compared my sister’s intellectual abilities to mine in order to make her feel inferior, although my sister is perfectly intelligent and capable and has many talents

–  she questioned any decision my sister dared make for herself, attacked her and forced her into retreat if she had dared to follow through with a decision of her own

–  she interfered most detrimentally in her relationships and friendships, her clothing choices etc  – she now sadly has neither has relationships nor friendships

Apart from all the strategies to crush my sister’s independence and personality, she also favoured her and let her off any household duties or having to earn money as the “sugar”

My heart is always so full of sadness about the life story of my sister, and I am very sad to have never been able to help her.  She has already suffered so much which is why I do not want to hurt her more by distancing even more from my parents.  I hope that she may gain courage if I am successful in my liberation from the cage and she sees my example.

Juanita

Dear Anita,

I was going to sleep, thinking about how my memory of my sister’s suffering is more intense than my own, when I suddenly realised I have forgotten two very significant “crushing” experiences.  One regards my furious mother chasing after me around the garden with a knife when I was quite small 5-6-7.  I didn’t know it had happened any more but when I met up with an old friend after many years, this person told me they had never forgotten the above scene.  It was a revelation for me as I suffered from recurring nightmares well into adulthood of being chased by a pirate with a huge sword around the garden, being trapped in a corner and having to choose whether to defend myself or facing death, but I couldn’t bring myself to defend myself because the pirate then always “turned into” my mother.

The other situation I do remember, but only once we were at the hairdressers’ because I found it confusing that they acted as if I had cut my own hair.  In reality my mother had vented her fury upon me – I have no idea what I had done – by chopping my quite long hair off in a rage.   I was 5.  Thankfully my father was home and heard her screaming hysterically at me from outside.  I guess his main goal was to quickly shut the windows coz “what would the neighbours think”.  I was then taken to the hairdressers but I basically ended up with very wonky short hair.  I projected my trauma into the colour change of my hair after this, as it went from blonde to dark and I believed for a very long time that this was a punishment.  The family story was always that I had cut my own hair, but in the last years my mother confessed that she had been the one to cut it.

Juanita