Aftermath

Aftermath
Thursday October 11, 2007

Dear Alice, I wanted to write and let you know how my life is changing. My childhood was a virtual blank with hardly any memories but within the last 8 months of therapy much of the past has returned and I know for sure why so much was supressed. This period has brought me almost more pain than I could stand but I have survived what I was never been able to consciously feel. There have been times when I felt like I was going crazy and very well may have approached this point at least temporarily. Also there were moments where I contemplated suicide because of the hopelessness and day to day terrors. These were the times when my old reality made itself fully known or was on the verge of surfacing. My subconscious opened up and gave me what I needed and with this I have felt helpless, hopelessness, abandoned, lack of love, the brutality of my father, my mother using me for her own needs, extreme terror and more. A deep rage came and I have expressed it over and over openly towards my parents. As long as I can remember I felt crippling shame and guilt and now much of this is beginning to fade. I have experienced the repressed feelings from early sexual abuse and this trauma is fading too. Very dramatically the physical symptoms that bothered me for years have virtually disappeared. For awhile I felt these recovered memories were producing the current feelings of trauma and they were, but its only recently that I’ve come to the understanding that this entire state of trauma was just a carbon copy of the way I really felt in my day to day life as a child. Today there is little forgiveness for my parents and thats such a relief and I don’t feel guilty for feeling this way. As long as I can remember I’ve always been a caretaker for their feelings and I understand now this resulted from early fears of being abandoned and left to death. I’ve expressed to them very emotionally, from the depths of my heart, the hows and whys and consequences of their hurting me but they can’t see it and have offered only feeble and empty remorse. As you say their hearts are frozen. Seeing all of this has finally allowed for me a genuine separation which has been long overdue. With me, they lived their lives mostly for themselves (out of ignorance and their own traumas) and my feelings were never a concern and seeing this has given me the much needed feeling and insight in order to let them go. Afterall, they were never there for me emotionally and in a sense I have always been an orphan and on my own. Today I’m asking myself why should I continue my old pattern of attempting to have a loving relationship with them. The answer is, there is no reason. I know I will never get the love that I wanted and needed so badly back then and today I can survive on my own. I realize they can’t love me back (although they think they do) and I will have to find it with others. During this period I lost a number of “friends” because they took such a stand against my attitude towards my parents and refused to hear me as a friend and kept from me essential support at the time when I needed it most. They took my parents side because they think so much like them. I’m glad they’re gone and my feelings are clear enough now that I believe I will be a better judge of people in the future. I’ve also had the very uneasy feeling of being both a stranger to myself and to almost everyone I know including my family. This is a copy of the way it was because within my family we really never knew each other, we just pretended, and this left me confused. Very recently I am starting to feel better and I have realized feeling and understanding what happened so long ago has brought permanent change and its for the better. At times the old feelings of my personal history are still difficult to live with but maybe for the first time in my life my feet have touched solid ground and I am finally becoming free to live MY life as I always wanted. Since I was 20 or so my main goal in life was to “know” why I felt so terrible and this obsession did become my life’s work. After 25 years of therapy, much of it bad, I now have a large portion of what I was looking for and more to come. Finally i’m able to see and understand the consequences, the high price I paid as an adult, when these traumas were banished to my subconscious. Now, each time I become aware of the old pain and resulting insights I am eventually returned what makes life worth living. My feelings! I am hoping that with all of this I eventually begin to feel more of a genuine love and respect for myself. As I write this I know I’m exhausted from this storm but I do believe I’ve made it thru the worst. I’ve written this letter in response to one you published on the 7th titled “An incredible Pain”. I thought my pain would never end but it really has started to subside and I detect lasting changes. NOW I have very solid reasons for a better future. Thank You

AM: Yes, you do have solid reasons for a better future. Everything that you wrote here makes sense to me, and once you could give up your illusion of getting eventually the love of your parents, you became free, I have no doubt about this. It was the fear of being punished for the truth and the misleading “philosophy” of your therapists that blocked your progress and increased your fear. Fortunately you could overcome this fear and allow yourself to SEE and FEEL your truth.