Dear Anita,

An angry lion doesn’t like the company of a calm cat, it feels unfair, too much of a gap… the angry lion doesn’t want to be angry, to suffer. He sees a calm cat and is riled up- why, I want to be this calm, I want to not worry, I want to not suffer. Why, this is not fair, I will make it fair then, I will close that gap- – because the angry lion doesn’t know how to be calm, can’t close the gap that way, so the angry lion closes the gap the other way, riling up the calm cat.

Thank you for closing the gap in my own knowledge.  You are absolutely right.

So where to go from there – if I am this lion, and he is the cat, and I angrily close this gap with the calm cat…

Dear Anita,

I absolutely agree.  I am working on accessing that hurt and anger, trying to access it and feel it.  The exercise, with young CC has helped – and has been a start. I like thinking about that, and perhaps next week we can continue that exercise too.  I will work on more ways to access it, I will.

I know there are guide ways that are utilized in psychotherapy, much of which is documented in books and on websites too.

I also know like yesterday, that alone time to ponder can bring up old memories, and perhaps over time, anger too.

dear Anita,

shall we do some now (if you are available)?

Dear Anita,

my mom told me that i shouldnt play outside in my nice clothes and get them all muddy.  i was having fun with michael down the street – but he is naughty, a trouble maker.  we got full of mud and then when i came home my mom said that michael is not that good, and i shouldnt play with him like that where i make big messes

Dear Anita,

I had a lot of trouble answering this. Young Cali chica has no idea what it means for her mother to Maddi her heart. She thought the world about her mother, never once thinking otherwise. Adolescent quite similar. Sure as I got older I thought that my mom was crazy in so many ways, I knew that she had an issue, I knew that she was emotionally unstable, and I knew that she was difficult. But the concept that this woman has caused me, and suffering, and quite honestly ruined my life was never apparent. Ruined my life. What a concept. How dramatic the sounds. But if you think about it, if your own mother poison do you day in and day out isn’t that ruining of a life? What does it matter what your outward life shows if she poisoned your brain, if she led to neural pathways that are stuck and deeply ingrained and stubborn that lead you to suffering every day. That’s not really living.

If you asked me before what was better my life or someone raised by an alcoholic mother, or a drug addict mother, or someone that’s life was a visible mess. Of course I would say my life, look at my parents, look how supportive they are look how organized, the dedicated their life to me.

this is not true. The only thing a child needs is love. Yes the other things can help, financial support, other source of support. What I am thinking about this in such a basic way, almost an animalistic way. A mother that kicks her cubs around versus a mother who simply supports them and allows them to cuddle with her. This mother doesn’t speak negatively to work how was every single day to her life. She may also not speak eloquently and amazing things. The point is it what she is NOT doing that is more important than all the lofty things she could do.

Through our talks this week, I have realized I had him deeply angered and negative. I have to mourn and grieve that anger towards my mother and the ill effect she’s had on me.

I felt some of it today. I felt angry and upset for being so stuck. Usually I feel angry at myself, why does my brain always go this route. Why can’t I pause it. Or actually Anita I should say honestly I didn’t even think this way, I thought that the Play my brain was functioning was normal to me, because of course that was my normal. It’s not that I thought that I was so normal, it’s that I didn’t know any better so I thought that this daily suffering was inevitable. I used to think that there were things I had to change in my external life so that I could feel better, but no matter what I did or who I was with in my external life, where I was. I never felt better. Never. To this day it is the same isn’t it. Because everything that I feel on a daily basis is the product of my brain it is the product of the mother voice. And nowadays with the awareness I have, it is a product of the mother voice beating down on me for all of these years. It is the product of trauma.

Anyway, this morning I thought angry, I didn’t necessarily feel angry at myself but more of the situation, the concept of no matter where I go who I am with I would I do I will always suffer. My brain does not allow me to enjoy and be relaxed, my brain is angry and negative and mean. I Snap at my husband who is the most supportive person and I have a literally tore him to shreds throughout the process. But yet it feels like I cannot control any of this like being possessed by a demon only spews negative Fire.

I thought sad about this I thought angry about it. I felt like why do I have to live like this. I don’t want to live like this. I felt this anger come up it said: screw everyone I wish I could go into hiding on a solitary beach for a month. Suddenly I also started feeling angry at others, anyone who requires any bit of time and energy from me. I felt angry at them. I wanted to scream at them and say shut up shut up – go away for a few months.

But then I also knew that this was just anger, none of these people are harming me, I am already harmed. I am a hard person who is trying so hard to break out of the shower and only knows how to throw punches. Just like a traumatized puppy. Barking and barking. Do you got a stupid squirrel who did him no harm just because the score as they are. Barking like a crazy dog, seeming so aggressive and confident but honestly traumatized and disheveled. Frenzied.

I wanted to be one of those moments that they have on TV, God I’m sick of living like this and then of course there is beautiful music and the person changes. But I know it doesn’t work like that. I also know that to a point it feels like being angry about being like this doesn’t necessarily take ownership. I am angry that my upbringing has led me to become such a negative angry walked person. I am angry that I cannot find joy in life like other people, I cannot walk out and go to the park and feel relaxed without 1 million friends if that’s going in my head. I can for sure still enjoy myself because I have a good life, good friends, go to that is, etc. But we are talking about the state of my mind, not the activities I engage in or who I engage with. My mind, everything is the mind.

who cares about enjoying. This is about the mind. It is about suffering.

So yes I am angry that are over 30 years I have been trained to become this way. But I know that only I can change it. I also know that I wish I could have that aha moment, that says I am sick of being like this so I will make sure I am not like this anymore. But I know unfortunately that is far from true. Baby steps sometimes feel so useless. It feels like Five steps forward and six steps back or perhaps 1000 steps forward and 2000 steps back. Or sometimes only one step forward but two back.  Perhaps  sometimes I feel like there is no point because this is just how I am

Dear Anita,

rescuing that girl.

Funny how I overlooked that girl my whole life. And of recent I try and think of ways to heal my husband but causing more trouble – why?

well I never healed myself. It’s foolish if you look at it from afar. Foolish in that it’s destined to fail. Impossible if you will.

I say this because I think of myself sometimes as failing to “be better” but perhaps it’s because I am aiming to heal the superficial and current, but never processed or accessed the root: the girl who needs to be rescued.

I do agree with your prior post about redirecting anger towards my mother. I also agree with your next thought about how it’s more than that and rescuing the girl.

Its that this seems like an impossible feat. Feels abstract. But I think we have started the process. With the exercise. Started to learn that Cali China wasn’t bad and flawed and her interactions with her mother – even when seemed good – were not. I think we have also started the process by understanding that super CC was a role that was given to me, and that it is not super at all – perhaps Better named : endless misery CC

Endless Misery Cali Chica – raised to keep running and seeking, to never be satisfied, to look for what’s missing.

I also thought about how there is the part of me that makes sure I am not too happy as then I will be “the others”

Oh those others my mother hated. The ones with those silly simply lives and oh how happy and easy it was for them. Can’t be them. We hate them! Just like how you stated you wanted to “wrong the people that wronged your mother” in a way – such as going out in the world and making it right for HER. By staying unhappy negative, and endless misery – it is perpetuating what she believed: that we are not happy and we are unlucky. It is loyalty to the mother voice.