Thank you

Thank you
Friday October 26, 2007

I wanted to thank you for the book, the body never lies.

I was born in Korea and have been physically abused to become concert pianist since I was three years old. I was beaten for grades at school (if it was 98%, it wasn’t good enough) and also was locked up most of the time to practice (obviously was not allowed to socialize) and was beat if I became sleepy during practice and so on. I am thankful that I had talent and love for music and I am a successful pianist now. I fought against my mother every time she beat me (normally everytime I nodded off in front of piano or
brought graded test from school and if it wasn’t 100%) with coat hanger or rough tree branches, and even took a knife against her to protect myself (at which point she dared me to kill her so I ended up running away from her holding the knife), my father and she immersed my head in the bath full of water once to wake me up from falling asleep in front of the piano, and often stuck dead cockroaches against my face if I fell asleep as well as she knew how I hated cockroaches. I have fought and fought against her and in my late teenage years, I did get an apology out of my mother after I wrote her a letter telling her how I felt about this. That I thought that she loved the image of a perfect daughter, not me. After this I thought that I have forgiven her, I studied in different countries and developed Bulimia, allergies, and lately eczema and suffered terribly not understanding why I had this disease in spite of my effort to fix the problems.

I thought I was having a great fun with my parents as I was forging a new life in England with my husband, visiting them every two years for about three weeks in Korea. I have just had beautiful daughter in June with my English husband whom I can’t take my eyes off, and knowing that I don’t want to give her anything negative I purchased your book. First I was a bit doubtful, but the more I think about things, I realize that I cannot forgive my parents even if they are sorry for what they have done even though they have apologized. They have visited me recently here in England, two weeks ago to come see their first grandchild, and only stayed for 5 days which left me quite upset. And suddenly they want me to come back to Korea to teach near where they live to become a professor saying that they will look after our daughter and it would be great to have me back living with them, and when I ask what should my husband do without us, they say he can visit whenever he likes. I feel as if they want to control me all over again when I finally am experiencing my own life that we are making together with my husband.

I just hope this feeling of injustice inside me and bulimia will go away sometime as I fight to own myself and I am so thankful that I read your book just in time. I hope it reaches more people like me and let them know that some parents cannot give you the love you desire, just the same kind of abuse-love that you got when you were little.

Thank you again

AM: I am so happy that my book could support you in your feelings and help you to stay true to them. Of course, you should not go back to your abusive parents; it was a hell what they created you in your childhood. Now they want to destroy your well-being with your family, to make you unhappy and dependent on them again, and they want to continue their destructive work by exploiting your child. Fortunately, you have the insight, the courage, and the strength to protect yourself and your family from them. Congratulations.