The first step
Sunday June 14, 2009
Hello Mrs Miller.
I’ve read three of your books already and even if my reason comes to agree with you, “it” hasn’t reach my feelings and the child I was yet. I guess that why I can’t understand my little cousin, aged four.
Her parents threw her. Her mother is constantly lying to her, telling her that she’s gonna pick her and live with her. His father is more interested in getting fashioned and remarried than to his daughter. He visits her, usually once a week. Her mother doesn’t visit her.
So, she was left to my grand-aunt house, who is not really living to her own place. She’s living with our aunt, my little brother, aged 17, and me, aged 19. To sum up, she lives with three nevrotic persons who hates “bla-bla” shit. The problem is, this little girl keeps talking all day on with persons who don’t care about what she’s talking about and just want her to “shut up”. Actually, she just wants to socialize with people who cares about her and no one does, neither I. She’s pissing me off, every time I’m next to her and I act with her the way every one else do: rejecting her, shouting after her, even bite her until few weeks ago ( I told her that I’m not gonna hit her anymore and I didn’t since then, but still, I don’t respect her). I’m trying to avoid her in order to not hitting her. The problem is she has to face our aunt, my brother, sometimes my grand-aunt and my father. They all want to teach her “how to don’t disrupt adult stuffs!” by the strong way. She is always humiliated (I’m pretty skilled to make her cry without touching her) and she is scared. Our aunt puts scotch on her mouth once and she often threatens her to lock her in a storage room (I convince her to forget about this terrible idea, that’s the only thing I can’t let them do, even if I get injured for that.)
For me and especially for her, it’s a big issue. I know things are going wrong for this kid but I don’t feel concern about her, I don’t even have any sympathy for her. But who else can help her? Who is gonna take care of her? Who is gonna listen to her? This family used to base what they call education in violence, humiliations and submissions. I, myself, am still bound by the education they give me and I’m to scare to get upset and telling them what I’m thinking of their “methods”. Worse, I used to be a victim and I changed into a tormentor.
Thank you for all Mrs Miller. Even if I’m still a jerk, I know I can change, thanks to your work. Good luck for the future and feel free to publish this letter.
AM: I can’t tell you what to do, only you yourself must find the right answer. But I don’t doubt that you will find it because you succeeded already to see and understand why you can’t give to this small cousin the empathy you would like to give her. Because your body doesn’t know what empathy is, as you never received it yourself. However, you honestly report how you feel and this honesty and understanding is already the first step to become conscious about your own history. Then you become a feeling person as you want to and can be.