Dear Lise,
It hit me ,of course ,you would be afraid of any feelings. You had "normal" self protection and you ended up in Juvenile Hall and then a mental institution b/c of it.
Something has been stirring in me about this incident with my mom. I decided to revisit this post. As I was reading a few responses, I realized that if someone had done to me today what my mom did to me back then I would be outraged!! Well that is certainly how I feel and have felt but I am still not completely there with understanding or grasping the evil of my moms behavior. I realize as I write this that it is because I am terrified of her. Just like in Ami's post above...to feel deeply (which I have) is to fear terror at consequences of self expression.
Just today I hired a young girl to come and clean my house. She is only off meth for about 6 months. She lives in the worst part of the city. She has two kids who are both taken out of custody but she is trying her hardest to grow spiritually (I'm her sponsor) and to complete her SAGE programs, she is trying to clean up her life. So I told her if she wanted to earn extra money for Christmas she could clean my apartment. I pay a professional cleaners to clean once a month so I figured I'd give the money to her and let her have a try at house cleaning. Well, at 4:30 p.m. today she calls me and tells me, nonchalantly, that she is not going to make it my house to clean. The thing is that I do not care so much about the cleaning, I care about her and helping her to develop a work ethic, I'm also annoyed by her selfishness. I got angry with her and gave her a lecture about putting the needs of others ahead of our own and thinking about herself and not considering my needs when we had an agreement and I expected a professional attitude. I could tell she was not happy with me. It pushed my terror buttons. However, I refrained from backing down. I told her "welcome to the work force, it is not easy to earn a living." She has not held an honest job in over 6 years, she is 28. I also told her that if I was another person besides her sponsor that she would have been fired.
My feelings, especially my anger, can terrify me sometimes.
To Leah:
Now that I have read YOUR story I know how much you can understand, like you had said.
(BTW: I have been reading People of the Lie).
