Rimbaud

Rimbaud
Saturday July 21, 2007

Dear Mrs Miller,

Thank you for your answer
You are right, I should not fool myself, being true to myself and being emotionally honest is still a problem for me.
The reason is exactly as you describe in your answer: I was told and showed by my parents again and again that it was strictly forbidden to show my strongest emotion like rage. But it was even worse, I was forbidden to show any emotion.
Expression of emotions was the big taboo for me and my bother and sisters.
I had to act as if I were not there and I fulfilled this parental command in a perfect way by later in my life not realising any serious involvment in a relation or a carreer. I have the conviction that my parents made me spill my talents by creating the big child that is still hiding himself now. I am hiding away in a seemingly luxurous position of material wealth that I realised with not too much effort. But the real reason for staying inside is that I am afraid to see what is going to happen when I show myself to the outer world.
I was never listened to and my ideas were never respected. As you say in your comment on a readesmail (April 21, 2007) “not to be listened to in childhood teaches us not to listen to ourselves in adulthood”. In another comment (“March 05,2007) you write: “not being listened to can be a matter of life and death for a human being” and what you say in this comment also counts for me: I am still afraid that nobody is interested in what I have to say.
In my family there was never a compliment, never a hug, never a sweet or positive word.
The result of this upbringing far me was a huge selfhate, feelings of depressin and suicide thoughts.
I feel a resemblance between my family and the “Graveyard family” in another readersmail (January 24, 2007): I also feel the the child in me that is still screaming inside from the pain of neglect and not being loved.
Thanks to your works I could allow me to accept that it were my parents who killed my soul.
I still suffer from their emotional abuse, and I can feel the indignation of what they did to me. The big step I already could make forward thanks to your guidance is that I dare to accept now from what I am suffering. This made my selfhate disappear and I am very grateful for that.
However there is a heavy struggle between letting my rage be there and the feeling of compassion.
So I think I can see the reason of my emotional handicap. But taking the lessons out of it is for me still a painful fight of falling and standing up again.
In “The body never lies”you write about Rimbaud and the total control of the mother on her children which she calls love.
Although Rimbaud sees through the lie, he is not able to accept fully what he is seeing. He does not allow himself to feel the hate towards his “loving” mother. So the hate is directed towards himself. All along his life he tried to escape his feelings with alcohol and other drugs and by making long voyages. He ran away from home and two times and was brought back again.
There is a resemblance between his history and the way he responds to it and my life so far.
The difference I hope will be that I do not want to end up like him.
For the first time now I do not feel the urge to continue my way of trying to escape my feelings and to find peace of mind by going to move into another house again or by booking new flights to cross country-boundaries several times a year.
The reason of this change must be that you made it possible for me to start looking behind the “barriers of my mind”.
Now my biggest adventure and my biggest voyage has to be to cross the boundaries of my mind.
Thank you for being there. W.

AM: We CAN learn to give up compassion for somebody who abused us in our tiniest age and hindered us to live our true emotions, our TRUE SELF. This is like killing a person.