Together with the boy
Thursday April 30, 2009
Dear Alice Miller,
today is my new birthday! A year ago I wrote you my letter (30 April 2008 – ‘born into heroin’) and it has been the most important thing I have done so far in my life. Already I have gained so much: my depressions have been greatly reduced, lasting only for days or hours now instead of weeks or months, I have set boundaries with people that I thought loved me but were in fact silencing me, I have given up the idea of having to write the perfect master thesis in order to claim my right to exist, and in general I am enjoying and experiencing life so much more. The colorfulness of it, the sheer infinity of new situations, the simple but deep happiness of feeling a feeling.
It’s not easy to take care of yourself, to listen to your body and discover your true feelings after all the abuse and the years of separation. I am learning and I make mistakes. I gain two steps and go back one. But at least I know where I am going now, I know I am going forward and I do not despair anymore for not finding a way out. For this I want to thank you again Alice, for I have done the work myself, but you have made it possible for me to live again, to live my OWN life, by speaking right to me in all your books.
The lessons I have learned this past year, and many times have to learn again and again, I would like to share here. I wrote this to someone on a forum some time ago, a friend, and I am sure he doesn’t mind that I repeat them here.
‘I know everybody has different ways of healing, and nothing is sanctifying, but I strongly believe there can be no real grief without anger. Anger and grief, they work hand in hand, but anger is up on front. He paves the way, he informs me about the abuse that I went through, and as a consequence empowers me to set my boundaries in my life RIGHT NOW. My anger clears the road, taking down all the mother and father figures that stand on their pedestals along the road, and then I grief, and then he helps me to remove also the pieces, and broken fragments, and then I grief again, until he has cleared the whole road and I find myself sitting all ALONE and helpless, with NOTHING there, no love, but also not the false hope of love, I sit on my truth, my desert, no illusions, no hope of changing the mothers and fathers, but the clear acknowledgment of how it has been and how it will always be, because I cannot change my past, never. And then I cry my guts out, because I cannot escape anymore, because I cannot soften or lighten up my past, I can come up no more with excuses for my parents, because my anger has cleared everything, I have to look my total abandonment in the eye, I can find no more shelter, no more protection because my anger stopped protecting all those that have hurt me, and I am made to feel how devastatingly hurt and helpless I have been as a little boy. And it hurts and hurts and hurts. And then I pick up my boy, and walk him down this road, to the future, and when I think of my mother or aunt, or anyone else in the future that crosses my path and shows no empathy for this boy, but wants to silence him and his pain and want me to leave him behind again, they have three seconds to get the fuck out of my face before I beat the crap out of them. ‘
Now that my boy is safe, he wants to tell me more. Horrible things. He is anxious and afraid, I feel this all the time, but I want to show him that I am here for him. So today we celebrate our first anniversary together! I already bought him a small trumpet, now we blow a Passerella and we march on!
My kindest wishes,
I.S.
AM: I am very moved by your letter, by your clarity, your determination to live with your fate in a conscious way, to see your truth as clearly as possible and to overcome so the illusions and the confusions your parents inflicted on you. Readers that know your story from April 08 will doublessly be encouraged to overcome their fear and to face their own truth. You no longer need to write a philosophical thesis to “show” your exixtence because you DO exist, since you became a feeling person. This helped you to understand more about your life and life in general than writing a thesis. So many authors of different thesis remain empty inside and actually ignorant because they are afraid of their strong feelings and their history. I am happy that my books were “speaking to you”, as you write, but you were also able to listen to them and ACT in your best interest by embracing the little boy who suffered so much from the beginning of his life. In the relation with him you can’t lose the right direction, even if you make mistakes or steps back, this is absolutely normal. I wish you BOTH the best time on your road to your liberty after so much pain and injustice: