Dear Juanita:

In regard to Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams that you mentioned,  I found this quote that I like, which fits with a reply you wrote a few hours ago to another member regarding true vs false self, and with what we are doing here, on your thread: “When we heal ourselves, others are healed…When we speak the truth from our healed hearts, we allow life abundant to continue on our Mother planet”. A bit flowery, for me, the last part, but I am all for healing, promoting others to heal and speaking the truth from our healed heart! (I like the distinction between speaking “truth” from a sick heart vs a healthy heart).

Regarding Borne Free that you mentioned,  the 1966 movie- successfully rescuing Elsa the lioness cub from being sent to the zoo brings a smile to my face right now. Animals in cages exhibit anxiety much like humans do, including OCD symptoms, symptoms not observed in animals in the wild. Living in a cage damages the mental health of other animals, not only humans. We are all.. born to be free.

“I am sorry that this is a lot to read again and I hope it’s not too much for you?”- sometimes it is, so I postpone it to the next day when I am more focused. I often have to re-write information part by part so to process information thoroughly. But I asked you a few questions heavy duty questions in a post,  and you answered my questions, so…  I asked for lots of information.

You shared that your father is dyslexic, and that he envied you at 3 for having a photographic memory, for learning fast, and for being able to write and spell so much better than him at 7 years old. When you were 9-10, you disagreed with him in a calm way and stood your ground. “he still portrays himself as inferior in reading/writing/intellect compared to me… He was also intimidated by my calmness and logic.. he felt shame”.

Your mother was creative and talented, and was intimidated by your creativity and talent, so she ignored or dismissed your creative productions. For example, you sew clothes for her as a present when you were 8, and it fit her perfectly, her response: silence. She didn’t express any praise for you cooking and baking creations, and simply gave you a list of what to cook for dinner. When you asked her for help, she was vitriolic (synonyms: virulent, venomous, later you wrote about your mother: “I always thought of her as .. icy and poisonous” ). She displayed her creativity to guests, but not yours or your sister’s, “too messy”, she said.

Once, when a friend of the family asked you if you started reading the book he gifted you for your birthday a week earlier, you told him that you already read it, and your father said: “yes, she reads a book like that in half an hour”. The family friend was “speechless and couldn’t believe it”.

Your mother told you from a young age that it was your fault that the family didn’t have enough money, that you were living in her house and had no rights, and that you should be grateful that she lets you live there. You therefore felt like “an unwelcome outsider” (I am focusing on your mother because you wrote that she didn’t behave this way when your father was around).

You experienced your mother as the one in power, and that she perceived you as a challenge to her power. You “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”. When your father argued with your mother, he used you to triangulate, that is, he didn’t talk to your mother directly, he talked to you for the purpose of her hearing what he said. You didn’t know it at the time, you thought he was sharing his thoughts and feelings with you personally, but now you realize that he used you and that he dropped you instantly when she was friendly.

When you cried, your mother didn’t attend to you. When you were injured or sick and approached her for help, she was “hugely resentful and verbally attacked, criticised, guilt tripped and humiliated” you. She “avoided affectionate physical contact, only violence- plenty of that”. She didn’t help you “unless there were witnesses” present.

When you were 5, you had a serious accident, but your parents did not take you to a doctor, and as a result, you suffered a lifetime of “costly and extremely painful health problems”. She continually verbally attacked you regarding your physical appearance, mainly for being “too big.. tall and large build compared to her”, and when you got to puberty she said that you will have “a big fat arse like all the other women in the family”. She repeatedly told you that you were “lazy and useless like ** (family member) who has come to nothing and you will come to nothing!!”, even though you did “a huge amount of cooking, cleaning and ironing from very young age”.

When you were 5, 6 or 7, she chased you “around the garden with a knife”. When you were 5,  your mother “vented her fury upon me.. by chopping my quite long hair off in a rage.. screaming hysterically”.

You remember your sister “maybe 4 at most.. cowering and terrified, hardly able to keep standing, utterly desperate, extremely confused… 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 your sister as well, saying she was too  big, that she looked like your father’s mother, that she was fat, and your sister believed from an early age that she was “an ugly, wrinkled old lady.. too fat”. She compared her to you unfavorably in regard to her body and intellectual abilities, questioned her decisions she dared to make and “forced her into retreat”.

At this point, I will quote two of the things  you shared and offer you my thoughts:

You wrote regarding your mother: “To this day we both get our hackles rising when the theme of inherited characteristics arises as neither will budge  position”.

You wrote about your sister: “I hated feeling so powerless to be able to  help her as she always nevertheless continued to look towards my mother…. 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”.

My thoughts: after thoroughly processing the information you provided about your mother’s decades-long terrible and un-repented mistreatment of you and your sister, I don’t think that it is possible for you to do the following two things: (1) to achieve your own “liberation frm the cage” (2) to provide your sister an example of such liberation, one that she may follow herself with action- not for as long as you still submit to your mother’s abuse.

Your mother never apologized and made amends for chasing after you with a knife, for cutting your hair in rage, for screaming at you, for calling you names, for all the things she has done to you repeatedly, over the years.. for not taking you to the doctor, for causing you a lifetime of health problems and anxiety and dysfunction because of her neglect and abuse.

So.. even if she is not literally chasing you with a knife now, she is still chasing you with a knife figuratively because there was never an apology, never a regret, never a compensation offered to you for her cruelty.

When you talk to your mother, be it as little as you  do, you say to her “please” and “thank you” I imagine, or you ask her: how are you? And such niceties, while she is still figuratively chasing you with a knife: this is submission to her abuse. You can’t liberate yourself while still submitting to abuse, and you therefore can provide your sister an example of such liberation.

Let’s say, you keep the niceties with your mother and you manage in real life to slay a dragon, exhibiting great strength by slaying a dragon! But you are still too scared to get away from your mother. Your mother is the biggest dragon there is in your life. But you are too scared to end contact with The Dragon in your personal life.

anita

Dear Juanita:

You are welcome and thank you for your kind words. I am glad to read that you are feeling a lot happier in recent days and that you felt “no confusion, sadness, or fog!!”, Yay indeed!

What you are planning on doing, taking time away from our communication so to re-read the now five pages of it, process the information, is what I thought of suggesting that you do earlier, fearing that we were going too fast and that you will get overwhelmed. It is amazing to me how much on the same page we are!

So do take your time, all the time that you need, be it days or even weeks, as long as you need. And do your artwork or an art journal exploring the theme of a caged wild animal. I will be glad to read from you when you return.

Before I close this post, I will respond to your thoughts regarding ending contact with your mother: I understand “Guilt, pity, sadness, to name a few” involved with the thought of ending contact with one’s mother, because I have done it myself, back in 2013. Regarding your concern for your sister and nephew if you end contact with your mother, you may want to think how exactly or precisely will they get hurt if you end contact with your mother, and if you will be able to have contact with them, but not with your mother.

Have a good night and week ahead.

anita

Dear Juanita:

You are welcome, and thank you for starting this thread, it is very meaningful for me to communicate with you and I am looking forward to more, when you are ready. I will be here.

anita

Dear Juanita:

“the stars looked like sprays of diamonds tumbling out of the heavens, the moon glowed like a softly luminous pearl, a lovely scented breeze from some night- scented plants enveloped me, the frogs and crickets going ten to the dozen, and some little bird singing away in the trees”-

– I feel refreshed just reading this description, beautiful. I can’t say that I ever read anything more beautiful than this.

I am fine, thank you, feel more refreshed this morning after reading the literary gem you shared with me. Good thing, that you started to draw and paint again. If you draw/paint as beautifully as you write, I can imagine you putting together a lovely book combining your writing, drawing and painting talents. I imagine the cover page having the image of a cage and some symbol of freedom, or liberation.

Interesting, you wrote: “I will be rewarded when I am creative”- your creativity rewarded me this morning!

“definitely moving in the right direction.. I must be doing something right to be getting back to these joys again”- keep moving in the right direction and doing what is right for you.

anita

Dear Juanita:

After I submitted to you my last post (and before I read your recent two posts) I went for my daily long walk and it occurred to me that I made a mistake in my post to you. I wrote there that I was answering your question: “how can I find my joy again?” (my answer: first step remove the object of your craving-your mother- from your life). My mistake is that I answered the following question (that you didn’t ask me): how can I get unstuck/ no longer be stuck in confusion, conflict and distress?

Joy- for me, that’s the Fantastic feeling I wrote about, the fantasy of mother loving you, finally quenching that thirst for her love. The benefit I personally experience from not having my mother in my life and mind is not joy, but clarity and calm, which make it possible for me to be engaged with life, to be available to the here and now. In other words: I got unstuck. Now, I live my life similar to an animal in the wild who continuously interacts with the here-and now, feeling all kinds of feelings, as opposed to a cage animal who primarily feels distress as she paces in the cage for what seems to be eternity.

Then I read your two posts: “I came to believe that my writing is nothing special.. and hardly dared to try and write anything”- I do so much want to read more of your creative writing, if you can, at a state of calm, let the words come out of you, set the words free from the caged-you, set them free ahead of you. You can follow your words to freedom later, or bit by bit.

You are welcome and thank you for your appreciation and kindness. I appreciate you very much! One more thing: I do answer quickly to posts, but I don’t expect you to answer me as quickly, take your time, and no need to respond to every point I bring up. Back to your creative writing.. you can do it here, set your words/truth free, stating the truth like it is, in a raw way, your way. You can try it here, as an exercise, if and when you are able and willing.

anita

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