I finally listen to myself

I finally listen to myself
Thursday September 06, 2007

Dear Ms Miller,

When I read your response I felt frustrated but grateful. I have in the past years done a lot of focused work on anger through linking my raging to both my parents, through writing my rage and hatred of both of them in journals and letters mostly unsent. I have at different times confronted them with my grasp of my reality in the past and confronted my father about his insane behavior. He has wept to some of my brothers in his amends. I have seized many opportunities watching movies like La Bolla to express my rage and hatred for his cruelties. La Bolla is a spanish movie depicting the life a young boy slowly revealing the horror he was subjected to at home. I have stood in the middle of the room while witnessed and raged about the actions past and present of my mother’s cruelty. So it is confusing to me that i might have fear about my anger. I believe there will always be another layer of fear to come off with another layer of rage beneath.

I decided to help my brother who has been shouldering all the decisions and work that fell upon him without choice about both my parents. I went with considerable aversion and fear for my health so that I could support him and my stepmother who has been validating, and kind to me. Being there brought home with intense force the state of my existence as a child having to emotionally care for my mother and be her counsel her confidante and surrogate spouse, as well as supply my father with affection and mothering, later to counsel and also play his spouse. I was slammed into the most horrible sense of the ferociously overbearing, staggering load of responsibility I was almost buried with from one day to the next for years. And I had to emotionally nurture my brothers because my mother was incapable of emotional nurturing. Here is this staggering 5 year old child running back and forth working very hard to relieve mom and be helpful and soothe dad so he won’t beat anyone and care for my brothers when they were hurt or angry. I was so monstrously used up. I was drained and exploited day by day to provide fixes for my parents that never stuck, never propelled them to take responsibility for their own emotions by seeking counseling or any help. I gave of my time endlessly, racked my brain for answers and validations and insights. They used me and walked away, never capable of giving me any of what I gave so much. Never stopping to apprehend the little girl desperately struggling behind the wizard she had created to survive and feel like she mattered. All they did was take without ever being fulfilled without ever taking my ideas seriously. I was their toilet to dump their old pains and resentments into, their fears and losses. BUT IT WAS NEVER MY TURN. They could feel seen and heard BUT I STAYED INVISIBLE. Yes I have felt a lot of rage for this.

This became a role, that has caused me great pain and suffering. I have depended on it all my life to help me feel like I mattered. It is cracking apart and I no longer can sustain it. I have had enough.

I just looked at your 2nd response and am not surprised how attuned your perceptions are with my plight. Being the rock has been my suffering. I had a dream of a massive concrete domed building, a department store that was crumbling. Chunks breaking away. I went inside and everything was being given away so I grabbed two Japanese ceramic pots of bold colors and made it out as I heard huge chunks crashing down the sides to the ground. The building was collapsing.

I am grateful to have been seen and heard.

Love, Lorraine

AM: With this letter you could eventually reach the small, never protected Lorraine. Stay with her, don’t abandon her anymore for ideas and all the stuff you had to learn. She needs you, your love and your protection above all, nothing more.