I wrote this therapy after I had reconnected with my mother after years of no contact between us. We had exchanged some letters when in my therapy work the memory of incest came up—a year after my father had died and as I began to trust my second husband deeper. My mother's denial of the incest —“incest—answered with silence”—ended our relationship some time later.
I am doing terribly badly. I am suffering extremely. I am becoming more and more depressed, more and more sad, and ill. I can hardly do anything anymore. I solely FUNCTION somehow. My body is filled with unbearable, excruciating pain.
I feel as if I am going crazy. I feel as if I will never get well. I feel that I have to suffer so unimaginably—and I CANNOT BEAR IT ANYMORE. I cannot bear this for another day. I want to die. I long for my old house, my home. I feel as if I am in a hopeless relationship where we have too little in common. I feel that I want to die. I feel that I cannot suffer so much any longer, that I cannot endure and bear so much suffering any more. I have the feeling that I am incapable of living, that I am wrong, that I do everything wrong. I feel as if I carry a horrible curse. I have the feeling it would be better if I died and were dead, if I did not have to live any longer. I feel that I cannot go on, that I cannot suffer like this, that I cannot endure such PAIN (inside of me) anymore.
Why am I doing so badly? Why do I long for the house where I lived before? Why do I sometimes so long for past places? Why do I want to die? WHAT is bothering me so much? Why do I feel trapped, with no way out?
Because of you and through you, my parents, I have had to suffer and endure unimaginable things. With you, I WAS stuck in hopeless, meaningless relationships WITHOUT having ANYTHING IN COMMON. Constantly, I!! had to provide and create TOGETHERNESS, COMMUNITY, and had to build BRIDGES—day-in and day-out. NEVER did I have a home, refuge, harbor, anything GOOD, and could I experience PROTECTION, COMFORT, UNDERSTANDING, HUMANITY.
If I tell you, my mother, what happened—incest—then you will not believe me; then you WILL NOT HELP me; then you will break off all contact with me and accuse me, judge me, condemn me, and declare me a liar and crazy.
If I could, I would NEVER AGAIN have ANY contact with you. I would like to NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN. It simply HURTS TOO MUCH. I have to and I ALWAYS HAD TO LIE, to make a friendly, brave face to sadistic, horrible games. NEVER could I BE MYSELF and come to you with MY SUFFERING, MY PAIN, MY QUESTIONS, MY COMPLAINTS, MY DESPAIR, MY CONFUSION. NEVER did you help me. NEVER were you on my side.
The first thing, which I told Allen Siegel about you, was: My mother was never ever on my side.
You never tried to hear me, to understand me, to help me, to comfort me. NEVER EVER did you BELIEVE me. I had to BUY MY REALTIONSHIP with you through my COMPLETE SELF-DENIAL. I have bought and enabled a relationship with you through BEAMING and making a friendly face to horrible games—by completely SILENCING MY TRUTH, MY THOUGHTS and FEELINGS, MY VIEWPOINT, MY REALITY. But this relationship did NEVER EVER have ANYTHING to DO WITH ME. This is why the thought of seeing you again is making me ILL, HOPELESS, DISCOURAGED, LIFELESS, and TIRED of LIFE.
To live with you and to be your child meant to DIE, to GO UNDER in a hell of PAIN, DESPAIR and FEAR. To have a relationship with you MEANT—THAT I HAD TO LIE TO MYSELF, THAT I COULD NOT LIVE IN TRUTH, that I NEVER EVER could tell, feel, say, think or express the truth.
SO DEAD, SO LIFELESS, SO DISCOURAGED, SO SUICIDAL was my existence with you. My despair, my suffering, my PAIN, my TRUTH—you never cared to know them, you have never been interested in them, you always HATED me, PERSECUTED me, REJECTED me—in actions or words—when I was NOT PERFECT and when I DID NOT BEAM, when I did not have a BEAMING, BRIGHT SMILE!
You NEVER EVER FORGAVE ME when I WAS NOT PERFECT, when I was sad, when I cried, when I had a problem, when I complained, when I was in pain. You never believed me ANYTHING—not even WHAT I WAS FEELING. MY FEELINGS you called IMAGINATIONS.
The way I feel today, so horrible, to tired of life, so full of intensive, unbearable, immense, huge, enormous PAIN—in THIS WAY I HAD to survive next to you, by your side—without EVER being able to express pain, sadness, RAGE, ANGER, indignation, and without EVER finding ANY ANSWER, UNDERSTANDING, or ANY MERCY.
In my relationship with you, I was the LONLIEST, most deeply suffering, suicidal, most comfortless, most desperate human being—without EVER having ANY HOPE of ANY IMPROVEMENT, of ANY CHANGE.
And then, there were moments, a day, when everything felt BETTER and when I HOPED, hoped against all odds, when I HOPED DESPERATELY, or became EXUBERANTLY HAPPILY HOPING—that I had REACHED you, that YOU LOVED ME. In a TORMENTING CHAOS of UP and DOWN, of being EXUBERANTLY HAPPY—or of DROWNING and GOING UNDER, I had to SUFFER EXACTLY in this UNIMAGINABLE WAY—and have I BEEN STUCK, existed, “lived” with you—with NO WAY OUT.
THIS IS WHY the journey with my father was so wonderful for me—he was the one who promised WAYS OUT, REFUGE, moments of HAPPINESS out of your dark, black, sinister, brutal, merciless world.
In my despair, in my relationship with you, I was STUCK exactly like this—with NO WAY OUT as I feel today—and also with such UNBEARABLE PAIN, which makes me feel that I am GOING CRAZY—like I have to feel and experience it today.
Day-in and day-out, CONSTANTLY did I LONG for Hotto, my nanny, or for my father, like I LONG today for my old house. They seemed and were the only rays of light, the only joy, the only COMFORT in this horrible HELL filled with endless longing—in this hell, which having a relationship with you meant. After Hotto left, only my father was left to attach my hope and longing to.
Being in a relationship with you was like being constantly in the DEEPEST depression. In the relationship with you, there ONLY EXISTED DEATH—and there existed NOTHING LOVING. There was NO LOVE. NOTHING TRUTHFUL. NO TRUTH. NO SELF-EXPRESSION, NO LAMENT, NO PAIN, NO TEARS, NO DESPAIR, NO QUESTIONS, NO HOPE, NO COMFORT. THEY WERE NOT POSSIBLE. WERE absolutely IMPOSSIBLE.
It was as if only you were entitled to feelings. As if you possessed and owned feelings—while you destroyed mine.
We had NOTHING in common, you and I—NEVER!! I have ALWAYS felt and experienced my Self as a completely and totally DIFFERENT human being than you. In my FIRST LETTER to you, informing you that I had entered therapy, I already WROTE to you that there is an ABYSS between you and me.
THIS I obviously ALWAYS KNEW. I have NEVER EVER wanted to be, to live, to become like you, and certainly not wanted to LOOK like you! I ALWAYS wanted to live and be FREE, ALIVE, LOVING, PASSIONATE, and OPEN. I have ALWAYS regarded myself as a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT human being than the one that you were, and still are!!
NEVER did I need a MONSTER as my mother, which inflicts UNIMAGINABLE PAIN on me—but which does not take MY pain SERIOUSLY, which does not even wish to KNOW my pain, to LISTEN to it, which NEVER believed any expression of MY pain—and which TRAMPELS ON THE TRUTH!!!
NEVER did I need a mother where I had to HIDE MY SELF, the TRUTH, my FEELINGS. I needed a mother where I always would have been SAFE, accepted, well taken care of, and HEARD. I needed a mother who LISTENS to me and HEARS ME, who BELIEVES ME, who takes SERIOUSLY and HEARS my SUFFERING, MY DESPAIR, my COMPLAINTS—who COMFORTS me, UNDERSTANDS me and who is THE MOST LOVING COMPANION and SUPPORT!!
NO LONGER and NOT ANYMORE do I live in your dark, sad world with NO WAY OUT, where all souls, all feelings, all life around you MUST DIE and are BEING EXTINGUISHED!! THIS IS OVER. FOREVER! You have NO, absolutely NO more POWER, none whatsoever, over what I THINK, FEEL, NEED AND HOW I LIVE!!!! You have absolutely and TOTALLY no more POWER and CONTROL OVER ME, MY SOUL, ME FEELINGS, MY THINKING, MY MIND, MY BRAIN.
Inside and OUTSDIE, INSIDE of me AND IN MY OUTER LIFE do I live in a world, which is completely unreachable, incomprehensible to you, which you ward off and keep away from yourself by scathingly judging, condemning, criticizing, belittling it. So that you don’t have to look at yourself and see yourself.
BUT your world, your viewpoint, your dead, narrow, absurd view of me, of life, of the truth, of humanity, of feelings, of love is OVER—it has NO MORE, ABSOLUTELY NO MORE POWER over ME, MY LIFE, MY REALITY. It has NOTHING whatsoever to DO WITH ME. I am FREE of it and I LIVE FREE from it. I have DELIVERED and LIBERATED MYSELF FROM IT. I am NOT STUCK anymore in hopelessness, in feelings of having no way out, in such a desperate TIREDNESS of life—as I HAD TO experience it with you, because of you, and through you.
You still have dug and drilled deep within every cell of me your claws of depression, sadness, of black and bleak hopelessness, of being stuck with no way out, of self-hatred, of despair, of pain.
But this is OLD and has NOTHING ANYMORE, NOTHING AT ALL, TO DO with ME, MY LIFE, MY REALITY.
I try to see you, my mother, again because little Barbara longs for you and wants you and a connection with you. I!!! Do NOT look for a connection with you anymore. My connections into life have NOTHING AT ALL ANYMORE to do with you. NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
I AM FREE of you, LIBERATED from you and SAFE from you. MY VIEWS of life, of truth, of reality, of the past AND PRESENCE are NOT based ANYMORE upon the hopeless NIGHT and DARKNESS, in which I found myself through you and because of you—but are based upon LIFE being LIVED COMPLETELY DIFFERENTLY for almost 20 years—in which feelings were allowed, welcome, and IMPORTANT—and REALITY!!! NOT their DENIAL!!
I can be PROUD of myself and my journey, and I AM PROUD of my path. And that you do not approve of my journey and despise it, reject it, condemn it and find it WRONG—this does NOT MAKE MY JOURNEY AND WAY OF LIFE WRONG!!! On the contrary—it only shows HOW IMPORTANT, HOW LIFE SAVING AND HOW ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY this path was and is.
It has distanced and removed me unimaginably, endlessly, and unbridgeably FAR AWAY from you. You will NEVER AGAIN pull me down, envelop, engage me into your fear, into your dark, sad, silent, sinister, life-less, suicidal, no-way-out hopelessness. I AM FREE of it, I have LIBERATED myself FROM IT!! I am DELIVERED from it and LIGHTYEARS removed and away from it. You cannot harm me anymore in any way. You cannot stop me anymore from continuing and walking MY PATH, making MY JOURNEY.
I only help the child within to experience a small connection with you, so that she does not suffer unnecessarily; so that she does not feel cut-off.
But my soul does not feel and is not ANYMORE CONNECTED with you, and has completely and FOREVER let go of you, removed itself from you, and liberated itself from you. You don’t have any longer anymore POWER OVER ME, and NEVER AGAIN will you have ANY POWER over me EVER AGAIN—and I will NEVER EVER AGAIN GRANT you ANY POWER over me and my life!!!
I have CLAIMED MY LIFE, and I have SAVED, CREATED, MADE POSSIBLE, AND FOUGHT FOR AND REALIZED MY ALIVENESS, MY TRUTH, MY INTEGRITY, MY REALITY, MY SELF RESPECT, MY POWER OF EXPRESSION.
This is NOT a CRIME, as you choose to see it and condemn and fight it, but it is a WONDERFUL, IMMENSE, CREATIVE, FAR REACHING, AMAZING, INSPIRING, UNIQUE ACTION, ACHIEVEMENT, AND ACCOMPLISHMENT!!! because you NO LONGER can burden and destroy me with guilt feelings—because I NO LONGER ALLOW you to burden, depress, and extinguish me with any guilt feelings. Because I NO LONGER ALLOW you and LET you BURN guilt feelings so PAINFULLY and DESTRUCTIVELY into EVERY CELL OF MY BODY.
It is NOT my guilt; I am not guilty for Hitler destroying your life, that you believed him and loved him, that you never found love in your life, that you don’t know love or life.
I AM NOT RESONSIBLE for this, and I CARRY NO GUILT FOR THIS!!!!
I AM WITHOUT GUILT!!
I AM "GUILT-LESS" for your suffering, your depression, your illnesses, your self hatred, your unhappiness, your loneliness, your hatred, your judgmentalness, your bitterness, your persecution—above all of me, and of love and life!!!
I AM GUILT-LESS!!
I DO NOT HAVE and DO NOT CARRY ANY GUILT for you and your misery, ABSOLUTELY NO GUILT for all this and for what YOU DID TO ME or for what my father did to me. Not for your beatings, your whippings, your yelling and screaming at me—and NOT for my father’s RAPE.
This was YOUR FAILURE as parents; these were YOUR MISTAKES as parents and YOUR KNOWINGLY CROSSING THE BORDER of the most elemental laws of humanity and love, of decency and respect, of protection and protecting, of dignity and true parental responsibility!!
You ALONE bear the responsibility for what you did to ME and for what happened!! I do not carry ANY GUILT for the fact that you put too many children into this world whom you did not love, whom you could not love, whom you did not want to love. I am NOT GUILTY that you FAILED, that you were irresponsible, loveless, inhuman and that you acted irresponsibly, lovelessly, and without humanity towards me.
This has NOTHING, NOTHING WHATSOEVER to DO WITH ME. I not only loved both of you very much as a child, but I was absolutely unconditionally devoted and devout towards you, and I did everything in my power to be a GOOD CHILD.
I do not carry any blame or responsibility for your war against my feelings, my thoughts, my aliveness—and against the men whom I loved and who loved me, against Jan, against Rainer, against love, life, and being loved. I do NOT carry any responsibility for your inhumanity, for the rape and for YOUR BAD CONSCIENCE.
I AM FREE OF GUILT and
FREE of MEANINGLESS FORGIVNESS = useless devoutness, silence, meaningless submissiveness, and degrading
obsequiousness.
It is NOT my job, and I am NOT RESPONSIBLE for your happiness or unhappiness—like you ALWAYS made me feel—or for your irresponsibility, for your inhumanity, for your lovelessness.
I am NOT RESPONSIBLE and I carry NO GUILT for it. NO GUILT AT ALL. NONE. It is NOT my guilt that you did not want to see me when I came for a short visit to Germany, that you used my husband’s betrayal to betray me, to abandon me, to hurt me and ban me out of your family. I am not responsible for the fact that you ARE NOT a mother, that you NEVER WERE a mother, that you NEVER WILL BE A MOTHER,
THIS IS NOT MY GUILT.
THIS IS NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY.
I AM NOT GUILTY FOR YOUR CRIMES, YOUR FAILURES, YOUR MISTAKES, YOUR INHUMANITY.
I don’t FORGIVE ANYTHING —I only REMOVE MYSELF more and more and further and further AWAY from it and LIBERATE MYSELF.
There is NOTHING to FORGIVE because I have NEVER EVER HEARD or experienced even ONE SINGLE WORD of REGRET, of SADNESS, of REMORSE, of INSIGHT. Only hostility, tyrannical accusations, condemnations, reproaches and even—TO THIS DAY—pronouncing and declaring me as crazy, and seeing and describing me as WRONG, DISTURBED, DANGEROUS, and SICK!!!
I AM NOT GUILTY and I do NOT NEED to BURDEN and TORTURE myself with useless, meaningless, empty, destructive ideas and attempts of forgiveness, with mendacious hypocrisy—and I DO NOT NEED to BURDEN MYSELF ALL OVER AGAIN with SOME NEW GUILT!!! THE GUILT OF NON-FORGIVENESS.
I AM WITHOUT GUILT.
My parents should ask MY FORGIVENESS.
THAT is reality, and that is what should be the reality.
I do NOT have to twist my brain, my feelings, my emotions, my sense of truth, reality, dignity, humanity, of cause and effect—in order to burden myself with forgiveness and becoming forgiving —so that I again become the perfect, good, dead child.
I will always honestly accept my feelings as messengers of either my reality, my life, or of my past. I will never ever stop or end that precious process. It once was destroyed, stolen from me, and never will I let this happen again.
I will always help, understand, accept and heal my feelings and pain—as if I was my own mother. I will love my Self. I will not judge my pain nor will I condemn it. I will listen and love and heal—always, and like I have done now for almost 20 years.
FORGIVING MYSELF means to me: LOVING MYSELF, TAKING CARE of MYSELF, HEALING MYSELF, like no one has ever done it for me, or taught me.
IT ALSO MEANS GROWTH, DEVELOPMENT, CLARITY, TRUTH, INSIGHTS, HAVING A VOICE, AND SELF EXPRESSION!!!
I AM WITHOUT GUILT.
I DO NOT HAVE TO FORGIVE.
I DO NOT HAVE to BURDEN myself with meaningless demands and expectations of forgiveness and thus—all over again—with NEW, WRONG, IDIOTIC and NO-WAY-OUT GUILT.
NEVER AGAIN will anyone or anybody burden me with GUILT.
I am FREE of GUILT.
I AM FREEING MYSELF FROM GUILT!!!
I LIBERATE MYSELF FROM GUILT!!!
I DECLARE AND PROCLAIM MYSELF FREE FROM GUILT AND from MEANINGLESS, SUFFOCATING DEMANDS OF FORGIVENESS = HAVING TO BE SILENT!!!
Buying a relationship THROUGH SILENCE!!!! = CORRUPTING MY INTEGRITY, DIGNITY, and TRUTH through SILENCE.
I CLAIM and DECLARE my GUILTLESSNESS and final, and COMPLETELY DESERVED FREEDOM, DELIVERANCE, LIBERATION and SELF-LOVE.
Which does NOT include UNASKED forgiveness but ONLY and exclusively DELIVERANCE from SILENCE, from HAVING TO BE SILENT—and from useless, meaningless moral demands and ideas.
It also includes a way which leads deeper and deeper and more and more clearly into my own truth, my own reality, into SELF FORGIVENESS—WHICH IS IN TRUTH giving myself finally the permission for my very own SELF EXPRESSION and for SELF LOVE. That leads into CREATIVITY, discovering MY OWN SELF WORTH AND MY OWN PATH and JOURNEY!!! And that leads into LIFE and into, and towards, LOVE!!! Also and ABOVE ALL SELF LOVE!!!
. . . there is in every cell of my body an incredibly aching, burning, caustic, painful, poisonous “solution”, which carries the name GUILT. This potion is completely full of GUILT, and horribly full of reproaches, accusations, condemnations—POISON, burning, biting POISON!!!
The healing light draws and pulls this biting poison with the guilt label out of my body, out of each and every cell of my body. It fills my body with golden, warm, loving LIGHT, which spreads LOVE and WARMTH, UNDERSTANDING and ACCEPTANCE, BENEVOLENCE, COMFORT and HOPE. The pain in my cells and in my body disappears, is delivered, is resolved. The incredibly aching, biting, stinging, terrible PAIN is much better, almost over.
I feel much, much better, and simply nicely tired.
