The Collective Unconscious

This is how Nancy J. Napier, one of my favorite guides through the maze of child abuse spirituality, describes the Collective Unconscious, in her brilliant book: Getting Through the Day
"The existence of a collective unconscious was proposed by Carl Jung, the famed psychologist who originally was a student of Freud. According to Jung, within the collective unconscious are all the thoughts, feelings and accumulated experiences of humanity throughout time.
All of those who have healed, who have led full and vital lives, have contributed their consciousness to this collective. While we are compelled to be aware of our shared pain as human beings, we can also tap into our collective potential to heal and be whole. Every person who has come before you, and who has healed and moved beyond the confines of a hurtful childhood, has blazed a trail you can follow unconsciously. All the learnings and accomplishments of those who have healed already are available within your own unconscious and can guide you on your way. Also, it's important to realize that each time you make a choice to go deeper into your own healing you contribute something to the collective, as well. All who come after you draw unconsciously on your achievements.
An example of how the collective unconscious may be currently affecting those of us who were hurt as children is the recent emergence of people who are willing to publicize their victimization on television and in other media. At the same time, therapists have made available information that previously would have been found only in professional publications or at professional conferences. All of the public revelations and books demonstrate an important message: no matter what happened to you, or what strategies you used to get through those experiences, you are not alone.
It's as though a tide of awareness were sweeping through our collective unconscious. The increasing understanding of dissociative processes in childhood, supported by public revelations from people who have recovered memories in adulthood, has been tremendously freeing for people who suffered child abuse. It is helpful to be reminded of the fact there are people who have healed successfully. They demonstrate an important truth about what happens when there is abuse: the way you are today is the result of a reasonable response to an extraordinary and unreasonable situation, and there is a way to move out of an accommodation to trauma into new, more effective strategies.
Successfully facing a hurtful past isn't the only challenge where help from our shared, collective unconscious is useful. Those who have accomplished the journey of healing have faced the often frightening and uncomfortable experience of change.
They have answered for themselves the difficult question we all must confront when we choose to heal: What will I lose if I get better? What are the risks of becoming aware of my full self? What will change? Am I entitled to a different life? Will I know myself?
The thing to keep in mind as you ask yourself the many questions that must arise as you journey into healing is that you can draw on the wisdom others have found in their struggles with these important issues. Because of this collective wisdom, there is hope. Once any one person accomplishes something, it becomes possible for the rest of us."

Overachievment and Self Worth

I am an overachiever. When I don't achieve, I feel I don't exist. The grown up in me, who takes care of everything and makes everything go smoothly, I call the "Executive Me".
The Executive Me works overtime until being burned out and has no choice but let other parts of me manifest themselves -usually at the worst moment possible-.
The Executive Me has been created when my mother stopped caring for me, at the age of 2 or earlier. She was not equipped with a maternal instinct and my constant needs were bothering her. The Executive Me takes care of my survival tools and is very old and tired by now. The child in me usually shows up when I feel trapped or defenseless. I have a terrible conduct towards authority figures, especially if I sense they are less intelligent than myself.
I overachieve to validate myself. The Executive Me has done impressive things through the years: straight A student, learned 4 different languages fluently, lived in different countries on 2 continents, moved to the US and became a citizen, created a safe place for the child in me to manifest itself -a beautiful purple condo-, put myself through college while working and no debt! The Executive Me is impressive. While the Executive Me gets some rest, the rest of me moves so slowly, that I feel I don't exist or I'm dead. If I can't validate my existence through the things I do or create, I feel I don't deserve to be alive. My parents never cared about my achievements. They sabotaged me if they could. They taught me everyday of my life that I don't matter, that nothing of what I do will ever matter. I rebelled. I wanted to matter. I wanted to distance myself from them and show them that they don't matter. I had to learn to believe in myself. The bomb proof belief in myself stands in the Executive Me.
I wish I learned how to feel validated even outside of the Executive Me. It doesn't mean that the Executive Me should disappear. Only she should work less, allow the child in me to grow and catch up with the rest of me. I need to be able to trust my every part, if I want to evolve as a human being. If I trust myself enough to evolve, I would be able to help other do the same thing. I would be able to let others validate me, for a change. The Executive Me could provide the fuel for me to change the world.

Obsessive Compulsive Behavior

My favorite OCD trait is the "Rejection" game.
As I said repeatedly, my mother never loved me. She rejected me any chance she got. She was always busy with her vain ambitions. She pushed me aside any chance she got. She rejected any need of love and nurturing I ever had, calling it "bad behavior" and teaching me that "needy" people are not worth loving. This was a core belief that my mother instilled in me ever since I was a baby. "Never show feelings", "People with feelings are weak", "Feelings are disgusting" are some of her favorite sayings, that I adopted as my own.
She abandoned me with strangers. She allowed her pedophile, ex con, felon brother to babysit for me. She allowed my father to rape me at night, with the attitude: "better you than me". Than she would say nervously: "Every mother in the world loves her child", the conclusion to be drawn being: "Therefore, I, being your mother, love you". But her behavior towards me said otherwise. She was never there when I needed her. She always kept herself busy with some scheme that involved money, with the goal of filling whatever void there was in her soul.
She also complained a lot that I don't love her and I don't tell her my intimate secrets and that I don't trust her and that I'd rather trust strangers than her. -Strangers have always been kinder to me than her.- I never lied to her. She lied to me. I craved her attention, but she thought my behavior was bad and my ideas stupid. She criticized everything that I did as inappropriate or ridiculous. Than she would complain that I wouldn't share my intimate thoughts with her. See how this can be confusing for a child? She read my diary in hopes to discover dirty secrets. She was afraid that I was gonna tell the world the truth about our dysfunctional "family".
I try to make female friends and I overdo it. I buy expensive gifts, I try to impress them in a desperate attempt to show them how wonderful I am. I want them to be my mommy. Only most people find this behavior creepy. They soon are reluctant to be my friend, because they think I may have an ulterior motive to treat them so. So they REJECT me. They reinforce the idea that I am not worth loving. They do what my mother did, reinforcing the belief that I'm not worth being loved by any female. Actually, I know I do this to myself. I reinforce the rejection belief to show myself that mommy was right: feelings are bad. I know I don't need a mommy. I am a grown woman who can take care of herself, yet I try to make any girl that shows me signs of friendship, into a mommy, hoping to get unconditional love, support, appreciation. I keep doing this to myself, even though I know it's a destructive pattern.

To be married or not to be married

A girl like me has to choose wisely who she associates herself with. Relationships are not my best bet when it comes to survival. I don't have blue prints for affection and natural boundaries of any sort of social interaction. All I can do is work on myself and hope I make the best of what life throws at me. And this last part includes a lot of loneliness.
Then, a man walks into my life and makes me question all my previously instated coping skills. He is kind, supportive and loving. I know that because even when I fart, he chuckles and thinks it's cute.
He comes from a very loving family. He was sheltered all of his life and life with me looks much like a roller coaster from his perspective. He wants a family and marriage. As if this was not odd enough, I put him through every possible test for the past 3 and a half years of us being together. I even considered him to be clingy or have a dependence problem at a certain point. I also thought he may have started dating me to rebel against his proper family, to get attention: kind of "Look at me, I'm dating the broken girl, she has a past and the sex is great."
I don't care about his reasons for dating me. I know what I'm dating him for: intimacy. Learning to be intimate without sex and learning about society through him and with him. It's been a great ride. Even if it ends, I think I got my money's worth. Thing is: he may want to marry me. First reaction I had: the profound impulse to run away and hide and avoid the "forever" word. I met his parents and I know I'm not a favorite when it comes to family. I'm the bad girl, with emotional issues. I make it difficult for people to naturally like me outside sex.
If I will ever marry him, I will take it one day at a time. No forever. If he'll respect me on regular basis, I'll move on to confronting bigger obstacles. Until then, I won't sabotage myself and our relationship. I won't end it based on future intensely felt tensed life choices.
I owe it to myself, to let this relationship flow naturally, to the end or continuation of it. When I imagine the future I don't see all of it, I only see me. I don't see eventual skills I may achieve by then. I don't see escape doors and interesting growing opportunities that may arise with time and patience. I owe to myself to be patient with myself. I don't want to be like my mother and reject myself, not have time for my own problems, minimize my emotional world. I will take it one day at a time and honor each feeling as it comes. Even if it takes a lifetime. Time is all I have. I will spend the rest of my time nurturing myself. I won't nurture another person, unless it feels natural to do so. It's all about me till all is felt, all is lived, all is accomplished.
To marry or not to marry: I will, only if it feels right. I won't stop myself from living.

Girl with a Dragon Tattoo

I could relate to this film on more than one level: first, the film buff in me responded to the impeccable indie quality flick; second, the incest survivor in me responded to the magnificent survival story line.
The film is the first part of a trilogy -Millennium Trilogy-, based on crime novels by Swedish writer/activist/journalist Stieg Larsson. The trilogy was published posthumously and was part of an unfinished ten book series. Stieg Larsson died of a heart attack at 50 and some speculate that his death may have been induced by people who were after him, as a consequence of his journalistic activity. What a glorious way to go! He exposed extremist groups and criminal activities through his writing. After his death, the Millennium trilogy became second best seller in the whole wide world.
Back to the film: beautifully written, darkly shot, spectacularly acted. Noomi Rapace plays a punk orphan involved in a series of murder mysteries that may be connected to State secrets and political scandals in Sweden. A journalist played by Michael Nyqvist helps her clear her name, while exposing a group of right wing rapists, sadists and abusers, with respectable social status.
The film is a treat. Hollywood is remaking it, which I'm sure means blockbuster star names and a few extra explosions. I liked the truthfulness of the characters, no super hero powers, just regular humans dealing with bigger than life events. If you can make it through some triggering, if you can make it through some explicit abuse scenes, the pay off is immense.
The next two films of the trilogy are The Girl who Played with Fire and its imdb profile is to be found here.. The third installment of the trilogy is The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest and its imdb profile is to be found here.
The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo's imdb profile is here.
Enjoy!

Brutal Convo with mom

Just finished a Skype conversation with my mother. She's the enabler in a 40 year codependent relationship with my alcoholic, pedophile father.
I told her in detail how her brother raped me for the first time when I was 5. He also tried to kill me by burying me in a ditch and putting stones on top of it, so that I couldn't come out of there. I also told her how about how my father raped me repeatedly since the age of 3.
Her response was that of a child. She denied my words, then she yelled and cried and asked me to stop telling her those things. She asked me to have pity. She said she couldn't handle any more of that. Like it was my fault. Like what I was telling her was the source of her pain, instead of the life she CHOSE to live with my father. She was begging me to stop as if I was truly hurting her. My words were hurting her. In the past, I would have believed that my words have some mysterious power that can hurt people and consequently, I must have had some mysterious power to hurt people. I gave up on that kind of thinking. No more magical powers. She chose me to be skape goat of her pain. She made me to be the bad guy, cause she can't face the effects of her life choices. She dumped her pain on me. How unfair is that? I carried her pain for all of these years. I missed out on life because of her.
She cried and told me to stop talking to her. She continued by telling me she wants to take her own life. She wants to kill herself rather than listen to my stories. My father walked in. I could hear him in the background talking shit about me: "She'll kill you one day." he was saying. He continued by insulting me. I didn't lose my nerve and called him a "pedophile" and a "drunk". She said that she doesn't want to talk about it, which is why she keeps herself busy. She also tried the routine of: "Why me, God? What have I done that is so terrible, to be punished this way?" She tried every strategy in the book: guilt me, ask the protection of the abuser until she eventually hung up on me. Before hanging up she made a deal: "Please don't tell me anything else for about a month." She wants time to process the new information I'd given her. I told her I haven't got time and that I think about the abuse every day. It impedes me from living my life. If she wants to be my friend, she'll have to listen to my stories. There's no way around it. Or she could choose to not talk at all and break all contact, which is also surprisingly fine with me.
She's never been a mother to me. I always have been a mother to her. I am also an only child. Even now, she tried to make me the bad guy, she tried to pin the guilt on me. She wants me to bail her out. She wants complete authority over me, so she can use me again against her master (my father). Now I know she never loved me. She never had it in her to love anyone. She never respected me. She never knew me and she was never interested to know me.
I asked: "What about my pain? When will it be my time to complain? When will I have the right to stand up and say something for myself? You never gave me a chance. It was always about you and your pain, moma. It was never about me. I was the sacrificial lamb. I know what you'll say: it's the Christian thing to do. You used Christ to put me down, to enslave me and abuse me. I'm sick of being Christ. I want truth. I want awareness. I want freedom from you. Let me go. I won't save you. I want to save myself."
I'm very emotional right now. She REJECTED me again. Every time I needed her, her response was a rejection. She never had time for my problems. My problems were always smaller than her own problems ( she was an older sister to me, not a mother). We first had to take care of her problems and never attend to mine. I was unimportant to her. That's why I can't have a friendship with a girl: cause the other person's problems are always more important than mine. I don't count. I make myself not to count. With Molly: she calls me any time she has a problem and I listen and hope that one day she'll recognize me as her best friend, but all I am is a door mat.
I AM AN ORPHAN WHO GREW UP RAISING HER PARENTS AS HER WEAK BROTHER AND SISTER, WHO ONLY GAVE ME PAIN AND SUFFERING IN RETURN FOR MY EFFORTS TO LOVE THEM AND PROTECT THEM. NO WONDER I DON'T WANT TO HAVE ANY KIDS.

letter to my unborn child

You have every right to be angry at me. Anger is a good, cleansing feeling. I'm too weak to face it. Strong feelings are like tsunami waves to me. I'll deal with them when I'm strong enough.
You wanted to be born. You wanted the end of eternity. You wanted life. I denied you that. I felt the weight of the guilt and tried to replace it with rational thoughts. I couldn't have you, knowing that my father could have abused you the same way he abused me. I couldn't have you, knowing that my mother would have tried to control you and maybe control me through you. I couldn't bare the abuse anymore. I couldn't give my family yet another upper hand. I wanted to be far away from them, on a different continent and free. Didn't really know what to do with the freedom once obtained. I sacrificed you for my freedom. I sacrificed unconditional love, bonding and support.
I was alone, no one to look out for me. I've been alone and lonely for too long. Maybe if I had had you, I would have abandoned you just like my mother abandoned me. Maybe I would have been a bad parent to you, just like I learned from my parents. I know that from where you are, you can't see these details. From where you're standing, nothing can excuse the denial of life. Life should be sacred and welcome. From your point of view, everything was worth sacrificing just so you'd have life. Be patient. Be wise. There is grandness in waiting.
I imagined the place you are coming from. It is timeless and without fear. Time is an awful thing. It moves against you. Change is frightening. But you can't tell, until you're actually alive. Before birth, your biggest ambition is to see the light of day.
Here, where I am, there is nothing but fear. I know all the reasons for I didn't have you. Now I want to forgive myself. I want silence and forgiveness. Will you forgive me, baby?

Inner child work

A girl in my group mentioned how she thinks of her inner child as a child of her own. That helped me think of my big eyed runt of an inner child.
Her face is dirty and streams of tears are running to her chin. Her clothes are dusty from staying in a ditch, waiting for her death or absolution of some kind. She's angry and mute. Why does it have to end like this? She had no choice. She's too small. She couldn't defend herself. She must be stupid if she ended up in this ditch. She can't even climb out. Bad uncle put wood and rocks on top of the ditch, so she couldn't get out. She's hungry, but she doesn't want to think of hunger at a moment like this. She'd rather think about her mommy. How pretty mommy is! How mommy's house smells nice and everything is sparkling clean! How far away mommy is and how she abandoned her to uncle. Mommy will never know how she died. By the time she'll get the news of the child's death, they will have cleaned and put her into nice clothes and she'll probably be in a nice coffin. Mommy will never know how the runt died. Will mommy cry? Will mommy feel guilty for her death. Mommy never felt guilty. Mommy didn't care about daddy doing those things to her. Why would mommy care about her death? If anything, mommy will feel relieved that she has her life back, that she doesn't have to be responsible anymore. Mommy liked to party, to dress nicely, to entertain. Mommy didn't like to be a mommy. The child felt guilty for being born. Mommy even told her: "You're a curse!"
Maybe she should survive this just to spite mommy. Maybe she should gather the life left into her small, naked, shaking body and survive. The little red dress that fit her so well and that she loved because it twirled, was now full of dust, on the ground. The white underwear with Tuesday printed on it, was now full of blood. It was a summer day, but it was cold under ground.
Uncle opened the ditch and pulled her out. Uncle washed her shaking body. Grandma came home and she told on uncle. Grandma told her not to repeat those words, cause they're shameful. Uncle caught her later and twisted her ear, because she told on him. A regular evening followed. The universe continued its course, as if nothing ever happened. Mommy will never know. Just like mommy never knew about daddy. The child put her head on a giant pillow and cried silently before she went into a dark, coma like sleep.

Oprah

An amazing show happened on Nov. 5th, 2010. Oprah gathered 200 men that have been sexually abused as children.
I cried my eyes out while listening to Tyler Perry recount how his father was beating him and he tried to dissociate and go to his safe place in his mind. He said his inner child died that day and never returned from the safe place. I can relate to that. My inner child is mute, deaf, angry and underground somewhere, buried. My inner child is a zombie or a lifeless ghost. I was left with the shame and guilt of what they have done to me. I want my child back. Please return to me!
My words cannot possibly be more descriptive than the show itself. So here's a link.

Middle School Religion

I must have been about 13, in middle school, when this lady showed up in our classroom. She was in her thirties, pretty, slim, big blue eyes. She was to teach us religion. I don't know what exactly qualified her for that particular position, since I don't remember her to even be a teacher. Maybe she was known to be a devout Catholic or who knows?
Thing is, she went through the routine about God, Jesus and the Holy Crap. Someone asked her what made her be so infuriatingly sure about the existence of God. What prompted her to come to us and tell us these stories? Was she securing herself a place in Heaven, by teaching us the way, by converting our dirty souls to good morals and such?
Here's her answer, and I'm not making this up:
One day she was walking down the street. A man started following her. She didn't know this man, she sped up her pace. Eventually she lost him in the crowd. The next day, this man was following her again. This routine continued, until one day the man approached her and declared his non Christian feelings for her. Oddly enough, her reaction was not run-as-fast-as-you-can-while-screaming-at-the-top-of-your-lungs, which, given the circumstances, would have been the appropriate reaction. Instead, she prayed to Jesus the man would leave her alone. I guess she must have thought she qualified for sainthood or something. The saint of saying "No" to a stalker. She continued her story with more of that struggle between the stranger and herself. I don't remember once thinking of Jesus, or being more attracted to religion throughout her story. I do remember, however, wondering if this kind of story was appropriate for a 13 years old audience. I liked the gal unconditionally at that point. She literally prayed God not to let her cheat on her husband. She was punishing herself for adulterous thoughts. That time was the last time she showed for religion class. I like to believe she caught on with herself and understood the magnitude of her statements and was too ashamed to show her face again, like a good Catholic school girl.
Looking back: repressed sexuality will do more damage than an army of demons.

the pattern

I am a creature of habit. I love patterns. Never got an addiction because I actually already have my bad habits instilled in my DNA. When will my soul clear?
A depressive, fearful, rejection filled period is always ended with a bang, or a shocking event, to snap me out of my fear and back into survival mode, where I can defend myself with old tools. This time around I realize that my old tools are rusty and they don't work anymore, on the contrary, the more I try to use them the more they poison my life. I refuse to dissociate. I refuse to go back to amnesia. I refuse to forget about my inner child in order to cope with adult life.
May God help me be patient this time around! I don't want to put myself in danger anymore. This time I will learn new skills. I don't care how much it hurts, I don't care how long it takes. I won't go back to survival mode. I'll stick with the fear. I'll stick with the insecurity. I'll make the best of it. I'll be lonely for a while, but one day, the fog will dissipate and I'll be able to see clearly again. Maybe all I'm missing is a spiritual side. Maybe it's time to turn to God and make that leap of faith. Or maybe it's time for comedy. It is hilarious how detached I feel, how I don't have a core, how lost I am and noncommittal. I can't commit to anything, not even a damn addiction. I fight my urge to drink coffee desperate to control some aspect of my inner life. I talk crazy. I either enrage, or piss off people right off the bat. I'm either highly inappropriate, or bitterly sarcastic, which to me sounds simply hilarious. Too bad it's not funny to other people. People enjoy hating me, or simply making me invisible. I'm no charmer. I think I would be good material for a stalker, if only it wasn't that uncomfortable to sleep in the bushes.
This time around, I won't try to end my fear, my pain. I'll keep it and nurse it until it goes away. I'm not in danger anymore. I'll live with this awkward, hateble new me, until other people will accept me too. Thing is: I don't even care about being social anymore. It always ends with me either insulting someone, or creating some sort of freeze that could alienate even Mother Theresa.

No evil

IF I were to soothe the anguish of another person in trying times I would tell her:
Life throws things at you. Some of these things are ugly and some are down right horrifying. But they are nothing else than obstacles. There is no evil. There are only obstacles. The thing about obstacles is that once you pass them, you feel joy, or happiness. The bigger the obstacle, the bigger the joy.
When an obstacle looks impossible to surpass, you are too close to it. You need perspective, so step away from your obstacle. Do something else, preferably something you enjoy or you are good at. Then, return with fresh perspective and tools and tackle your obstacle again.
I had some awful obstacles growing up. My parents acted like my brother and sister and we were all orphans. They abused and tortured me and left me confused and half dead. As a result, I learned how to take care of myself at a very young age. I also forgot the misery they put me through. For a very long time. I couldn't remember any aspect of my childhood. I guess I was taking a step back from my obstacle. I did lots of other things during my complete amnesia. Then, when I was ready and had tools to cope, I remembered. Remembering was as tough as living those horrific events, I didn't want to get out of bed for about 4 years, I was a ghost with all life sucked out of her. Slowly, during the 4 dark years, I learned new things, new languages, new ways of handling my emotions. I could now tackle my obstacle and defend myself. I decided to stay away from those people. I needed to remember and resolve the problems, to move on with my life and grow into the person I want to be. I want to be proud of myself, of my accomplishments. I owe nothing to those parents, other than my life. I have many things to be proud of, and once I surpass this obstacle, so much joy and happiness will fill my heart. All of this happiness I worked hard for. The bigger the obstacle, the greater the joy of surpassing it.

Rita Levi-Montalcini

Rita is a role model of mine. She turned 101 years old this year and was born in Torino, Italy, a city I've lived in and adore.
In 1986, Rita was handed a Nobel prize in Medicine for fundamental nerve growth factor research. She's famous for a bunch of other scientific and Medicine related discoveries and also as a woman who has influenced culture and history as we know it. She has done things that movies are made about.
I'm reading her autobiography: "In Praise of Imperfection, My life and Work". The book opens with a chapter about Torino. I relieved sensory memories, emotions, heard sounds that I experienced while living in Torino.
I remember reading an interview she gave when she turned 100 and was still working 10 hour days. The quote that stuck with me is: "My body may do what it wants. I am the mind". Fascinating!
The gal is Jewish and made it alive through Hitler's prosecutions, not only did she continue her work in a lab she rudimentarily put together in her bedroom, but she got a Nobel Prize as well. She became a Senator for life and many universities across the Globe offered her honorary doctoral degrees. I wonder what does it feel like to live one's life with pride? I wonder what does it feel like to be proud of all of one's accomplishments? I wonder what would it be like to be honored without becoming pompous, or diminish one's own merits? I wonder what it is like to accept praise without false modesty or arrogance? I wonder what it may feel like to lift your head high and take in the light? I only know how to lurk in the shadow. I don't know how to be friendly without being clingy, hear praise without wondering what the praising person wants from me, trusting the light enough to walk in it and not be afraid I'll be killed. I want to live in the light. I was born with the light, but people have stolen it from me. I want my light back!

Father's mother

She was my paternal grandmother. I must have seen her 5 times in all of my life. She died when I was about 8 (around the time my father stopped abusing me). I remember she smelled bad. She didn't keep a clean house. There was a wooden door at the end of hallway. She opened it and walked inside a small pantry that smelled like mould. A small light bulb that illuminated with a slightly bluish color showed what else was to be found in the pantry: cheese, herbs, big canisters, barrels and lots of spider webs. She took a pitcher full of a vodka-like alcohol and brought it into the house for my father. I begged her not to give him to drink anymore. He was already drunk and he was very mean when he was drunk. She laughed at me. My father abused me that night and the next morning, in a bed not far from the room she was sleeping in, which made me wonder if she knew and didn't stop him, or if she simply didn't care.
Before she died, she fell out of a tree and broke her spine and she was paralyzed for a year or so. She thought I was the devil and didn't want to speak to me, because I had probably told her what her son was doing to me. In her village, legend said she was into witchcraft. My father called women he was afraid of "witches". His mother probably didn't defend him from the fury his own father unleashed on him as a child. His father was very abusive and another legend has it that he slept with his oldest daughter and impregnated her, which is why she had to marry when she was only 15. My father's father died when I was 12. My father was very fake and fearful around him, acting like a 5 year old.

Car Accident

I've been in a car accident and I'll call it a reaffirmation of life. Through my depression I've never been suicidal. If anything, I feel guilty for having survived and wanting to survive. I knew I was depressed because I simply stopped wishing for things. I stopped desiring, wanting, asking, being jealous about things. I would ask myself why did I want to live that badly: the world sucks! There is pain every day and everywhere you look. Eventually I realized that among all this pain, there is beauty. The more pain, actually, the more beauty there is. People are imperfect, but so beautiful. There is beauty everywhere. I remember snorkeling in the Maldives: I witnessed the greatness of God's creation (I am not a religious person, nor do I bother to define myself as an atheist).
However, I often think about death, trying to pick a good way to die, because I am firmly convinced that we choose everything in life, from the way we are born to the way we die. Sometimes these choices are unconscious and a mere consequence of the erosion that heavy feelings create through our psyche. I will describe heavy feelings: guilt, shame, love. I can't settle for any kind of death. Not even a dignified one. I wonder what would really be worth dying for? An idea? Like Socrates or Galileo Galilei chose to die for? Could I do the same? Or would I cowardly change my mind at the last moment? And if I'd ever be so ready to die for an idea, what kind of an idea would it be? Would it benefit humanity, or just myself? Would I be great enough to share my knowledge with others?
Back to my car accident: It gave me a motivation to get angry and get things done. Anger is a delightful force of nature. Everyday, I didn't have time to look and second guess the future, cause I had to deal with some unpleasant aspect of this car accident. Through it all, I just see reaffirmation of life, something to do, to be angry about, to talk about, to connect to other humans about.

letter to my mother

I hate my job, yet I continue doing it: I'm recreating a pattern. I relive the abuse in my mind to make myself vulnerable, to learn. This time I'm learning about myself. Everyday I drive to work I think about some memory, about talking to my mother or my father. It'll take time to think about all the damage they have done onto me. I'll have to stick with this work, until I'm done thinking about the abuse. The thinking has to be done so that I can move on. The day I'll quit, I will be reborn as a new, stronger me.
Today I thought about the following scenario: my retired mother is getting old and fears being alone and not taken care of. She tries to guilt me into moving to the old country and taking care of her. My response to her would be:
I have my own life to live. You had plenty of chances of being with me. You gave them all up. You never cared about me. You never knew I existed and those times you were aware of my existence, all you did was hate me. You lied to me too many times, while calling me a liar. You abused me and my trust and my love for you. I won't return to that. I choose to not believe you anymore. I choose to live my life instead of soothing your pain. You chose how to live your life. You wanted to be married to a monster. You loved him and protected him even when you knew it was wrong. I admire you for your strength. I won't judge you for your choices. I'm sure you have good reasons to have done the things you've done. I don't want to be part of it anymore. I'm not interested in saving you anymore. I know I promised to rescue you, it turns out you never wanted to be rescued. You don't even remember me. You keep saying you want the best for me, but how can you want that when you don't even know me? How would you know what the best is for a complete stranger? I am a stranger to you. You have no recollection of me as a child, of how fragile I was, of how you never had enough of a maternal instinct to defend me. Be lonely, cause that's what you picked for yourself. Live the consequences of your actions. I won't feel guilty for you anymore. I take my power back from you. I will love you cause you are my mother and you gave life to me, but I refuse to let you hurt me again. Be well!

Craving Love Essay

In my SIA group, somebody posted this essay:

Please don't be fooled by me. Don't be fooled by the face I wear, for I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks, masks that I'm afraid to take off and none of them are me. Pretending is an art that is second nature to me, but don't be fooled, for God's sake don't be fooled.

I give you the impression I'm secure and that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without, that confidence is my name, coolness my game, that water is calm and I'm in command and that I need no one, but don't believe me, please don't believe me.

My surface may be smooth, but my surface is a mask—my every varying and ever concealing mask. Beneath it dwells the real confusion, fear and aloneness. Beneath lies my smugness, my complacently, but I hide this—I don't want anyone to know it.

I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear being exposed. That's why I frantically created a mask to hide behind— nonchalant sophisticated facades to help me pretend— to shield me from the glance that knows— but such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only salvation and I know it. That is if it's followed by acceptance. If it's followed by love, it's the only thing that can liberate me from myself, from my own self built prison walls and from the barriers that I so painstakingly erect. It's the only thing that will assure me of what I cannot assure myself, that I'm really worth while, but I don't tell you this, I don't dare—I'm afraid to.

I'm afraid that your glance will not be followed by acceptance and love. I'm afraid you'll think less of me and you'll laugh and your laugh will kill me. I'm afraid that deep down, I'm nothing and that I'm just no good and that you'll see this and reject me.

So I play my game; my desperate pretending; with the facade of assurance without and a trembling child within. And so begins the parade of masks, the glittering, but empty parade of masks and my life becomes a front. I idle chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk. I tell you everything that's really nothing and nothing of what's everything and what's crying within me.

So when I'm through going through my routine, do not be fooled by what I'm saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying—what I'd like to be able to say, but for survival I need to say, but what I can't say.

I dislike hiding, honestly, I dislike the superficial game I'm playing, the superficial phony game. I'd really like to be genuine, spontaneous and me, but you've got to help me, you've got to hold out your hand, even when it's the last thing I seem to want or need.

You can help wipe away from my eyes—the blank stare of grieving dead. You can help call me into aliveness each time you're kind, gentle and encouraging. Each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings, very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings.

If you choose to, please choose to. You can help break down the wall behind which I tremble. You can encourage me to remove my mask. You can help release me from my shadowed world of panic and uncertainty. From my lonely prison.

So do not pass me by— please don't pass me by. It will not be easy for you. A lone conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearer you approach me, the blinder I may strike back.

It's irrational, but despite what books say about man, I am irrational, I fight against the very things that I cry out for, but I am told love is stronger than strong walls. In this lies my hope, my only hope, please help beat down those walls with firm hands, but with gentle hands—for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder? I am someone you know very well. For I am every man you meet and I am every women you meet.

- Charles C. Finn

Inward

When a child is born, rest must follow. The mother and the newborn must be cozy and comfortable and the world must become a stable place where the baby can grow and explore without danger.
I never had that. My father beat my mother during her pregnancy. She actually spent the last 2 months in the hospital, for fear of losing the baby (me). When she came home, father was convinced the baby was not his and beat her again. My mother gave me to my Grandma, at 6 months and I stayed there without almost seeing my parents for 3 years. Then, one day, they showed up and took me away from the safety I knew at Grandma's. They took me to the hell hole they called a home. My father started abusing me when I started kindergarden (around the age of 3). He was a demented sociopath, drunk most of the time, telling me how I was stupid because I let him take advantage of me, as if we were equals, as if I had a choice.
Now, I find my life to be a safe place. I'm not used to this. I'm waiting for something evil to happen out of nowhere. I'm anxious and socially awkward. Oddly enough, the depth of my being feels like a newborn: I don't know anything and everything around me is new and scary. Thing is, this time, I can enjoy it. This time I can feel cozy for a while, get bored with the stability, explore the world around me in a safe way. I need to learn what safety feels like, so that I can reproduce it later for my kids. There will be plenty of times for me to take chances and live adventurously, in the future. Now, I just want to curl onto myself and sleep in a corner of my soul, where it's cozy and no one can hurt me. I feel like an egg that hasn't hatched yet. I can take my time and come out only when I'm ready. Let's just hope I'm not only repeating a pattern.

Looking Back

Looking back at my childhood, I realize I got gypped. Childhood is the only moment in your life when ignorance is chief and is accepted as a source of absolute happiness. The child explores the universe with honest candor and without negative intentions (aka anger). I was forced to learn. My ignorance was taken advantage of. I didn't know anything about human sexuality, but I was forced to learn. Therefore, I associated learning with pain. I never had the pure bliss of ignorance and that's where I got gypped. As an adult, it's too late to claim my ignorance: I know too much about the world, I'm too afraid to explore, I'm too old to be brave. Knowledge is pain. Ignorance is bliss.
This state of things is far from being fare, but it's my lot in life. I wonder what should I do with this lot?
The hardest part of my childhood being taken away from me is that I never accepted my vulnerability. To this day I find it difficult and have to rationalize my need of giving love to others. To this day I follow the pattern of giving my heart unconditionally, before asking anything in return, before learning about the person I give my heart to. It's like I'm inviting people to abuse me: "I will love you now, if you'll love me later". In my own way, I'm mimicking the ignorance of a child, hoping that this time, the outcome would be a happy one and settle down the conflicts in my heart. I should be the adult. I should grow up and take the necessary precautions, and learn the necessary socially accepted behaviors when it comes to giving. It's time for me to accept I was wrong. It's time for me to accept I got gypped. It's time for me to accept I was the fool. It's time for me to accept the humiliation. It's time for me to cry for my dead childhood. It's time for me to move on.
I should learn that the love and respect from others doesn't ever come unconditionally, but I must work for it. Giving mine so they'll give me theirs can't work. I should find what I'm good at and do that. I should find my purpose in life and follow that thread until I won't need to beg for love and attention, but it shall be given to me.

Inner child

I kept reading about this inner child that needs to express its feelings about the abuse. The more I read, the more I realize my entire persona is being taken over by my inner child. I react like a child to most events around me. I'm fearful, socially awkward and I literally have an anxiety attack every time I'm in public. I don't know how to joke, my mind draws a blank even during the most basic conversations.
I spend a lot of time in the house, by myself. I work weekends and during the week I do chores around the house, because repetitive actions make me feel safe and allow me to reorganize my mind. I can't sit still, unless I lay on the sofa, playing some game on an ipod. I also play a lot of computer games, wasting time, rather than take care of my "to do" list. Then I feel guilty for having wasted that time and I pick a fight with my partner, to feel important, or to lecture him about something.
My inner child wants to play a lot and doesn't care much about my grown-up needs. My inner child wants to be on vacation forever, while the adult me is worried about not having a retirement plan, about not finding a better job than the shitty one I currently have. My inner child wants to eat chocolate and candy, while the adult me is worried about my cholesterol levels and the weight I've gained. My inner child refuses to work, search for a job or even think about handling rejection in a responsible way. The adult me knows that this situation can't last forever.
I'm trying to jump start my life. I'm trying to apply to grad school and feel already defeated because I'm facing some obstacles in obtaining recommendation letters. I worry about taxes I can't afford to pay and the mere idea of having to organize myself in order to apply for financial aid, makes me want to spin in circles and sing nursery rhymes, while my mind settles for a safe spot. I'm tempted to hate my inner child. I know I should be patient and nurse it back to health so that I can move on with my life in a safe way, but how long will it take? How long should I parent this child for? When will I be free to make some adult choices? I need to be active again. I have nightmares about not being successful enough and I can't bare the idea of being a loser. I've always been an overachiever. Am I missing out on life to sort out my childhood demons? I'm envious of my partner because he has a great job and makes enough money.
I drink coffee and my mind races through the maze of my daily routine. My inner child is bored and completely uninterested by all this grown-up talk.
I feel like the adult self should know better and pick up the inner child and move on to a better place where both the adult and the child can feel safe in a natural coexistence. But where is that place? What do I need to get there?

Adam Carolla is an Ass.Hole.

I opened the November issue of Playboy magazine and read an article called "We've built a Minimum-Wage Gilded Cage", by Adam Carolla.
The article seems to be an excerpt from his book.
I'm not going to judge Playboy for having published this article, since they're a business and they do it for the money.
But what is Carolla thinking? Does he imagine himself as some sort of a superhero fighting the Villain who is an underpaid and overworked miserable anonymous worker? What kind of crime is Carolla fighting and what powers does he have? Knocking over poor people and cruely reminding them that they should consider themselves lucky to have a job? Is he seriously bashing the underdog? Is he serious when he calls the U.S. Communist? Cause his article is not even remotely funny. Oh, but I forgot: Carolla lacks the humor, he replaced it with the decibels.
This dude takes 2 pages complete with caricatures, to explain how the minimum wage people are Nazies, in the way of his VIPness. He calls them "10 cent an hour people" and wonders how dare they do their job and not roll the red carpet the minute he arrives some place, making him waste precious time he could otherwise spend being a douchebag. What are you going to do next, Adam? Punch a homeless guy in the face because he stinks up the air you breathe? Or save the world like a true super hero; only in your case, you'll take the "10 cent an hour people" (which is the majority of the world population) and arrange them like Dominoes. Kick the first one in the face and laugh when they all fall just like Dominoes. Then plant your superhero flag in their butts and proclaim that territory yours, cause you're edgy like that.
As for the book you wrote, can you even spell? Or did you simply paste your name on yet another ghost writer's work, to follow today's trend of illiterate overrated, talentless "stars"?
Not all of us have laminated VIP passes, Adam. Most of us must work long hours in jobs we hate, so that we can merely put food on our tables. Excuse us if we're a little frustrated and we ruin your day with our pissy attitude. Excuse us, if we don't take time to recognize your douchebagginess as VIP and risk our already meager jobs, in order to accomodate your immediate VIP needs. Did it ever occur to you that people simply don't like you and that would be why they refuse to serve you?
Your headline is: "Being underpaid shouldn't be an invitation to be an asshole". Allow me to disagree. Being poor is a perfect excuse to be an asshole to those like you, who are overpaid for no reason at all. Excuse us if our being underpaid is ruining your mood. We didn't mean to upset your Royal Assholeness, with our poor, depressed and ugly faces.
I would stop reading Playboy, but the magazine redeemed itself a few pages later in the same Novemnber issue, by publishing a very interesting interview with Zach Galifianakis.

the social network

I saw a screening of the social network. I'm impressed. It's very fast paced, it made the best out of the computer programming gibberish those people were telling each other and it left me with a huge admiration for sexy Harvard graduates.
It's the story of a computer genius, freshman at Harvard, way knowledgeable about computers. He quits Harvard to develop his own interests: the social network we all came to know and love as facebook and the obstacles he had to surmount in order to become a billionaire. An upper, I'd say!
Be smart and you'll be rich, the message is. Except for the exceptions among you, who'll be exceptionally smart and exceptionally rich. Wrong message for the masses, I say.
The acting was good, mainly because Justin Timberlake made an appearance in supporting the message: This movie is cool, has Justin Timberlake in it. The protagonist was so awkward in front of the camera, that he literally looked into the camera in a scene, with a Low POV, of himself exiting a building. Thank God for mastership of Final Cut Pro, cause that way he could actually be a sympathetic character, but not thanks to any trace of talent, which would have been the preferable of the two circumstances.
The imdb profile is here.

Cip

I went to camp when I was abut 15 and memories were trying to come to my conscious mind, but I didn't have the tools to cope yet, the language to express the pain, the support I needed for such a trauma to resurface. As a result, I repressed all sexual desire from my hormone ridden teenage body, constraining myself and any sexual thought my mind would try to concoct.
I tried religion for a while, but I had a big problem with the suspension of reason. Blind faith never really worked for me, plus I could see through the cracks of church dogma and although I couldn't remember the abuse, I knew better than to blindly trust someone.
At camp, I met this boy, my age, named Cip. He had big green eyes. He was missing one front tooth. He lost it in a fight and he was wearing the gap as spoils of war. He was not ugly, although his friends continuously told him he looked that a monkey's behind. He literally crashed the camp, lodging with a friend who was attending that camp. He slept on the floor of that friend's cabin for 3 days. That sounded heroic and dangerous to me. I liked him immediately. We met on the dance floor, at the camp's disco, where I went with my girlfriends. I was dancing by myself, because my friends didn't want to dance. He saw me and started dancing with me. I spent the night on the beach with him and watched the sun rise from the sea. We didn't sleep together, we mainly talked and eventually we kissed. He was very sweet and sort of a mama's boy underneath this "tough guy" persona his friends saw. He had a hard on the entire night and told me jokingly that he'll die for lack of blood to his brain, but he didn't force himself onto me. He was funny and cool to hang out with.
He asked me to sleep a few hours with him on his friend's floor, in a sleeping bag. I accepted because i didn't know how to say no. I had no boundaries. We didn't have sex, we just slept, and that was nice for me.
Later in the year, he came to my home town with his 2 friends, to visit. They all slept in my room. My mother actually was cool for once and allowed them in, no questions asked and even fed them some food. That night he showed me his private parts and I pretended I never saw one before. It was a very playful thing, no guilt, just plain normal discovering each other. We haven't stayed in touch, but he recently found me on facebook. He's all grown up, yet still a very pleasant person to talk to. Still a nice guy I'll always remember dearly.

Shame

I was between 8 and 11 years old, when I reenacted some of the sexual abuse done onto me by both father and uncle.
I was on my summer vacation, at Grandma's and asked all the other little girls that we all pee in a circle, so that I could see their private parts and compare them to mine. I knew mine was broken and wondered if it was different than other little girl's parts. I also took my cousin to the lake and touched her down there to find out if she was different than me. She was. I could put fingers inside me, I couldn't put fingers inside her. I also showed my private parts to 2 little boys, hoping I could share my secret with them. They laughed at me. Their reaction got me very upset, cause father and uncle had told me, that's all boys want: to touch girls down there. It wasn't true. Both my father and uncle were liars.
One of the little boys saw how upset I was and held tight the other boy, for me to punch. I hit him with anger only to notice that hurting him wasn't satisfying at all. I really wanted to hurt father and uncle, not that little boy who simply didn't know any better than laugh at a little girl's private parts. That was a normal reaction at his age. Only I had trouble recognizing normal. Later that day, the boy's grandma came with him to our door and I had to apologize for the harm done mainly to his face. I felt ashamed when I saw the bruises.
I met that boy again when I was about 15 years old and I held his hand and we caressed each other, and kissed, but I think he was still afraid of me. I also met some of the little girls when they were teens and totally alienated from me.
I left that country behind in shame. I carried the shame of father and uncle on my shoulders, without having the chance of explaining to those little girls, that I wasn't trying to hurt them, I just wanted to know how different I was after the harm done to me. I never meant to hurt that little boy either, I merely wanted to know if all boys were like father and uncle.
Ultimately, I was ashamed of the fact that I let father and uncle take advantage of me. I was ashamed of the fact that I couldn't defend myself, that I had no power. I imagined that other kids must have been smarter and stronger than me because they didn't let their father and uncle take advantage of them. I thought I was a failure and I was ashamed of that.

If I want to Whistle, I Whistle

This film is comparable to Dog Day Afternoon, having the same kind of tension build up from a hostage situation.
The drama takes place in a present day Romanian prison, where an 18 yrs old inmate, days away from being released, walks to extreme human limits for love of his brother and a girl student of sociology, who interviewed him in prison.
The film got the Silver Bear at Berlin 2010. The main actor, George Pistireanu, owns the part with a charisma rarely seen in thespians his age.
It is an impressive piece of work. Not for the regular movie goer. It is an art house kind of film.
It humbled any aesthetic criteria I may have had, reason being: these guys have no money to make films. Romania is not like US for an artist. I don't think I would be as strong and believe in myself enough to pull a movie from concept to Berlin Film Festival, if I had to live in Romania. It makes me realize how a real artist thinks, how a real artist doesn't need a lot of money or fancy stories to make art. The film was shot on one location, Cinema Verite style. The themes make one ponder on the kind of courage it takes to take a stand for what you believe in. The director, Florin Serban has all my respect. I bow to him, for he is an artist.
The imdb profile can be found here.

New York

New York feels like any old European city. It has a resemblance to London. It also resembles Paris, or Prague, Milano or Geneva, Madrid or Vienna, Stuttgart or Copenhagen.
Any part of the city could introduce one to any worthwhile historical experience one could desire. I don't think any other city in the world compares to that.
Walking on those streets I could smell familiar scents. I stopped on benches in random parks. I talked to people about life. One particular woman, highly educated, talked to me for about 2 hours and we learned we had a lot in common. She was from California and moved to new York for work. She was in therapy, like any self respected New Yorker. She was the survivor of a series of unsuccessful relationships, that left her wondering how much can she indulge in masochistic, self destructive behavior. She had clever insights about entertainment, politics, society and culture. We agreed on the sad fact that we are doomed to figuring out and pay the expenses of the most significant relationship we have in our lives: the one with our parents. This particular fact made me wonder if some people just give up on figuring it out, before they go crazy. Some other people, instead of figuring it out, prefer to complicate matters by building a new family of their own, where they can play out known patterns to exhaustion of selves and other unfortunate souls. This inevitably brings me to wondering: will I ever feel ready to have a family of my own? Or will I continue thinking about how daddy did me wrong until the day I die?
Sometimes I think about having kids. I'm tempted to think about being a better parent than mine were. Some other times, I'm humbled when I see kids throwing tantrums and mothers too exhausted to even care. I fear that I may be the same and give up right then and there the mere fantasy of ever having a family. What if, along the way of being a parent, I would discover I am just like my parents, when I centered my life on being different than they are? That would be another painful humiliation added to those I already lived at their hands.
I like my alone time. I like silence. Kids don't agree with these selfish concepts. Will I be willing to give, give, give forever? Not likely.
I walked on the cobble stone streets in Soho and bought myself a black cashmere sweater. It was raining heavily and I walked inside a Crocs store. They were advertising some new Crocs and they gave me a free pair just for smiling on camera. That made my day. I love New York!

Irony of life

Some have cancer or a lifelong battle with bad relationships; some lose their wealth or the love of their lives; some decide to live a moral life and yet they die without dignity; I had a pedophile father.
In all of these statements there lies the irony of life. We all suffer. We all have something to love, something to lose, something to cry about. Question is: how many of us are lucky enough to know pure happiness? And I'm not talking about sporadic moments of joy we all encounter in daily life. I'm talking about absolute happiness, the feeling of the Gods, the feeling that if you once felt, it'll make worth the sufferance of an entire life time. Some call it divine love, some others call it Nirvana, most people attach an unattainable god like quality to it. Most die before even having a chance to think of it.
As elusive as it may be, this absolute happiness, which, I'm sure, it's not quiet happiness, but something that allows you to feel the entirety of all your emotions at the same time, without antagonisms, in a unifying feeling. Before it, one may feel anger or joy, separately. After it, one may feel anger and joy at the same time, without the normal antagonisms of the two feelings. It has to be kind of like a dyslexic person, who sees chaotic details of a certain reality, but lacks the capacity of synthesis. Yes, this "absolute happiness" must be like a synthesis of all emotions ever lived.
The irony of life may be, at this point, the capacity to logically understand the existence of such "absolute happiness", followed by the incapacity to feel it. Ha-ha!

knots

I read the legend of the Gordian knot when I was about 7 years old. It was about this king who had conquered a lot of territory and in order for him to achieve supreme power, over the entire world, he had to solve the mystery of the Gordian knot. This particular knot was very intricate and no one could ever sort it out. The king got impatient and cut the knot down the middle with his sword. The morale of the story is that things can be achieved in more than one way.
Ever since then I took an interest in patient tasks. I can figure out any knot. I can do those mind bender puzzles and all sort of mind challenging games. Inevitably, I started comparing my emotional life to a knot. And to give it dramatic presence, I compared it to the Gordian knot. I am aware that working through the massive threads of emotion that have been piling up on top of my being abused is kind of like getting lost in a maze. I understand that I need patience to find the one thread that would eventually straighten out my emotional life. And that one thread would be truth, the core of my entire being. I like to envision it as a golden thread, with steel strength, thick enough, but not coarse.
But sometimes, only sometimes, I wish I had a sword.

Back to the grind

My first night home after the sunny vacation in Florida and my mother calls hysterically informing me she didn't hear from me for an entire week and that she was worried something might have happened to me. Funnily enough, before leaving, I spoke to her and let her know I would be on vacation. Does she have no memory, or does she have selective hearing? Either way, it's a sign she doesn't care much about me.
She complained about not having money and about the hardships she must endure. I was very tired and couldn't listen and I cut the conversation short. I dreamt I was locked in a house with her and Father and I was hiding. The house was beautiful, full of antique furniture. At the end of the dream, my Father actually found me and I beat him up with a shovel. Lots of anger towards both my mother and father in this dream.
Today I took care of small chores. I found time to continue reading a guilty pleasure book. It is the "unauthorized" biography of Angelina Jolie, by Andrew Morton. The guy is a good writer. I could see him writing novels of a certain depth. However, he wrote this book about Angelina, and although I am against all this celebrity glorification culture, I couldn't resist buying it. I have insecurities about the way I look, and I blame Angelina for being too beautiful and setting the standards too high. One good look at her naked body in Wanted and I feel awful about my big behind. Also, the mere fact that this biography is "unauthorized", implies it might contain some secret the tabloids left out. "Unauthorized" is from the same category of words such as "rebel", "dangerous", "uncommon", "wild". It fits the public image Angelina herself created, with the help of the media. Angelina is portrayed like a deeply disturbed ex model, an anorexic junkie, with abandonment issues. Andrew Morton took the time to talk to various psychotherapists, to help map out Angelina's erratic behavior. He describes her personality from crib to fame and points out she is a very ambitious girl, with an appetite for destruction. He doesn't say anything new about Angelina, but tries to establish a pattern in her publicly observed behavior, so that us, common folk, the readers, can relate to her. The truth is that Angelina is exceptional. She doesn't fit patterns. Exceptional human beings don't fit patterns. Those who survived traumas and raised above their own condition will always be regarded as "disturbed", but that doesn't take away from the fact that these people inspire generations of people with their life choices. I'm sure that if I personally knew Angelina, I wouldn't like her and I wouldn't be friends with her. We have very different life perspectives. Yet, the fact that I wouldn't like her, doesn't stop me from respecting her.
I should stop reading this book. I'm being caught in the tabloid haze.

Miami

I love Miami. The oven heat that integrates me and squeezes sweat out of my pores. The green of the piss warm ocean, dotted by algae brought from far away. The sun burned tourists speaking every imaginable language on the face of the Earth. The pretty girls and their colorful bikinis. The jocks and their muscles. The Cuban food served in Art Deco restaurants. The general small beach town feel. I recognize the green of the tropical plants. I belong here, just like I belonged in those endless summer vacations, in Grandma's village. The same smell of day dreaming mixed with boredom, mixed with silence, mixed with plans for a lifetime, mixed with nature.
The first time I came to Miami, I was just out of college. It was a graduation gift from my parents who came along. That was the time when I told my mother about the abuse. She pretended she didn't know about it, although I clearly remember her making references to it throughout my childhood.
The second time I visited Miami, I broke up with a lover. He was a man with one big ego and many small insecurities. I take pride in having refused to sleep with him at our break up.
The third time around in Miami, I was turning 30. I was in the middle of the most depressing, gut churning life crisis. I was coming to terms with the past abuse. I was trying to make sense of my new life and new found truths. I was lost and I slept a lot. My best friend at the time was with me and nursed me like a mother throughout my depression. There wasn't a lot of talking, but all I needed was silence and a presence. I couldn't move. I was like a recovering cancer patient. Every part of my body hurt and my mind was a mine field. I couldn't trust my own thoughts.
I am now in Miami. The heat is still oven like. The nature still smells like vacation and I still give in to making life long plans and I apply myself at being lazy on the beach. Only this time around I am functional. I got together with a dear friend who now lives in Florida. I made some new friends. I even recognized happiness in my thoughts. There still is sadness in me. There still are anger and desperation, but among all these negative feelings, I could see the glimmer of hope. It's as if spears of light pierce through the cracked shell of my old self. I came a long way, but I still wonder if my healing will ever be complete and most of all how will I know, when I'm healed? Will it be like a revelation or a complete turn around? Will it be a state of mind?

The Jedi

The one thing I still cannot accept fully is that I was powerless when the abuse happened. "Powerless" is a word I don't like. It implies humiliation, humbling. I don't like to be humiliated.
I remember times in my life when I overcompensated by controlling a situation to the extent of destruction. Why can't I accept I was a toy, the abuse not being about me, but about my Father? He was playing out his monsters. It wasn't about me. Maybe, if he would have made an effort to know me, he could have liked me. But this kind of thinking got me in trouble numerous times. I tried to make him like me: I've been submissive to him, I rebelled. Nothing worked. He simply couldn't see me. All he could see was his own pain and in the process, he was teaching me that same isolation he was stuck in. He was transfering the monster to me. He taught me to hide, to lye, to build up walls against the world. I am not him. I am not like him. I am not like everybody else either. I am trapped in between two worlds that I cannot master the secrets of. I don't want to be on the dark side. I also don't want to be like everybody else.
Luke, the force is strong with you! Darth Vader is your father. (for those who don't know George Lucas, this is a Star Wars, the Empire Strikes Back, reference). Ironically, just like Darth Vader asked Luke to join him on the Dark side, so my Father asked me to join him in his sin. I remember one time when I shoplifted (I was a teen) and I got caught. The mall security called my Father. He paid the stolen items. He never complained about that incident. He only hugged me. He recognized me as his daughter. For the first time ever, he connected with me and helped me. I followed up that minor rebellion act by becoming a stripper. He never complained about my bad habits. I was more and more doing what he taught me. He was recongnizing his legacy in me. I was destroying my life and the more I was destroying it, the more my Father accepted me. Until, one day, I realized I didn't need this kind of acceptance and love in my life. I survived without it as a child. Now, as a grown up, I could take the chance of becoming a good person. I could train to become a Jedi. But this possibility opened up a whole new endless universe of unknown rules, fear of the unknown. I was illequipped to face it. I did not have enough energy, cause I spent most of it hurting myself and hating the world, I did not have enough courage, cause I was at the end of my survival battle. I could not go back to the bad habits and reverse the epiphany. I could only go forward. Blindly. With no Yoda to guide my steps. With no training other than the truth in my heart, which was so small and disconnected from the rest of me, that I could barely hear its weak voice. No I had to show what I was made of. What was I made of, anyway? What's my basic structure? Am I hero material? Am I a Joe nobody? How should I act? There is no expression of myself until I know who myself is. Will I ever become a Jedi?

Catching up with myself

I have been avoiding finding new memories about my abuse for a long time. I know I must heal before I move on with my life. I call it "catching up with myself". I need to go through all of it, until there's no bad left over feeling from that abuse.
I realized that if I wake up with an alarm clock, abruptly, I feel angry and direct my anger towards my father or uncle, in the shape of revenge fantasies. Sometimes I even take it on my mother, the silent partner. Waking up abruptly makes me angry. So I avoided waking up abruptly for a while. My sleep patterns are all over the place, as a result. Thank God I can afford that!
When memories come up to my conscious mind, they bring up all sorts of feelings, even good ones. I'm learning to accept them, to categorize them. I'm learning about myself. It turns out, I'm a fascinatingly complicated person. I can't even describe myself in one seating. There's so much about me, so many details, so much strength about certain aspects of my life, so much frailty about certain other aspects. I wonder what I would have been like if the abuse never happened to me. I wonder if there is a parallel universe, in which I am perfect. I wonder where my inner strength and dignity would have taken me, if I didn't have to use it all on defending myself, tragically being left without defense at the will of the elements, by the age of 29. Would I have been a mother? Would I have been a doctor, like I always dreamed, although the sight of blood makes me weak in the knees? I wonder what I could be if I heal. How can I better distribute my left over energies? How can I better take care of myself and forward my life at the same time? How can I integrate the abused child in my future self?

My turn to grieve

Father took me with him on a trip. He sat me in the front seat of his green car. He molested me with his hand. I was ashamed and worried that people might see inside the car. He didn't care. I was just an object for his pleasure.
I was at my grandma's in the country. I thought my parents abandoned me, forgot about me and I was trying to get used to the idea of what it would be like to live without parents. It wasn't so bad, only my uncle showed up and abused me in the cellar. He locked me in there for hours. I was afraid I was going to die. That's when I decided I was not going to be buried when I died, cause it was very said, dark and lonely and it smelled like damp dirt and mildew. It was a relief when my parents showed up and started fighting over me. I felt special. They were asking me: "Who do you love most?" And I thought about it and I found wise to say: "I love you both equally", cause I didn't like the confrontation. I actually thought they cared about this. It was only banter. My father wanted to show mother that I loved him more. He wanted to justify the abuse. He thought that I loved him more, because he was molesting me. I must have been about 5 years old that summer. They took me from Grandma's and we went to the beach. I was so happy and grateful. Only that my father told me I was supposed to pay for that happiness. The payment was supposed to be sex, of course. Mother was shopping. He took me to the man's bathroom with him. He made me perform oral sex on him and then he said he was feeling good, liberated. It didn't matter how I felt. I was only there to make him feel good. The truth is I was feeling sad, ashamed, with no hope. I was losing my dignity, which was the most important thing to me. I learned to never be happy again. I learned to never show when I was happy. I learned to never show any feeling ever again. I started singing a lot. I would sing anything I could hear on the radio, in order not to reveal that I might feel anxious, or sad, or fearful, or even happy. I was scared my father could guess my state of mind and make me pay for it. Only now I know it didn't depend on me. He was a psycopath.
Now, writing this blog, I feel that it's finally my turn to show my feelings. It's my turn to be sad. I'm safe enough. I can cry. No one has ever had patience for me and my feelings. At least now, I can show them to myself and grieve.

A prophet

This is a film about a nineteen year old gangster, thrown in jail with the big dogs and cropping his way to ultimate power over the crime world. It was nominated for Best Foreign Film Oscar, 2009, being a French production.
It is a fascinatingly truthful thriller. It is a virile film, yet doesn't lack sensibility. The director inserted unexpectedly poetic sequences. One of them, about some deer running in the woods, gives the title of the film.
The main actor got lots of recognition, including some prestigious critic awards. Rightfully so: the kid can act.
The film could be like Scarface, without the apologetic scenes. NB: Apologetic scenes being those scenes in which Pacino's character apologizes for being an ultimate villain in the position of a hero. I guess, A prophet keeps it real. It tells the story how it could really happen, without the big fireworks, needed in American studio movies, for box office fluffers. It talks about the fear and the balls it takes in order to survive and gain power. It has very complex characters. Doesn't contain characters in two dimensions, NB: one strength, one flaw. It could be a film about life, it just happens to tell a story about the crime world.
The imdb profile is here.

Robert

Well, Robert was a Puerto Rican born in Brooklyn, heavy set and sweaty, with a kind demeanor and a dark past. Many years ago, I trained his wife for a job. I met him through her and he immediately gave me a tight hug.
We became friends and talked extensively about life and our past experiences. I learned I could rely on him in moments of need, aka when I got stranded at an airport, with nobody to pick me up in the middle of the night.
During one of our conversations, I learned he used to be a gang member, shot twice and yet somehow still alive. He had a witch mother who gave birth to many kids and never looked after them. He's been molested by an uncle at a very young age and his mother woke him up in the middle of the night, grabbed some things and jumped on a bus to LA. His mother, his sister and himself lived on Skid Row for a while, where he learned the rules of the streets. He became a drug user. He did a lot of speed, he prostituted himself for some pocket money, he rhymed and wrote poetry in his spare time. He eventually got married to a woman he bought a house for. He also gave her two kids before he jumped back into drugs and the darkness of his inner monsters.
He met my friend in a Romeo and Juliet kind of love story and started cleaning up his ways, only that he lost himself in the process. He tried to fit in. He tried to cope with reality, but reality is a bitch. He was confused at best. He acknowledged how little he really knew about normality and he indulged in feeling like an outsider. He lived in fear of "gray shadows out to get him".
Every time I saw him, he would hug me just the same, we would talk just the same, yet there was nothing I could say to comfort him. His fear grew exponentially until he couldn't bare it anymore and he would drug himself up to not deal with it.
The last time we talked about darkness, I went to their house. We stayed up late. I complained about my life. I was struggling with accepting some sadness/anger feelings targeting my pedophile father. Robert said something unusual that night. He said: "I'm clairvoyant and I see you are in danger. Something bad will happen to you, you'll be in the hospital. Don't do it! Don't do it."
"Don't do what?" I was thinking. I know my complaints sounded dreary, but I never mentioned doing something to hurt myself, I was just getting it out. I was not even depressed. I was just kind of sad.
A year went by. We saw each other twice more. He was absent and spent.
Last Sunday, I received a phone call from his sister. Robert is dead. Robert killed himself.
It turns out that when he was saying "Don't do it", he was just asking for my help. I just couldn't read him. I couldn't hear him, blinded by my own pain. Could I have helped him in any way? Probably not. Most I can do is listen. And it hurts to witness all this suffering and acknowledge my littleness, my incapacity to help others.

Blame it on Fidel

This French film came out in 2006. It is a very personal story. No one could know the soul of a child in that amount of detail, without having lived that particular childhood. There is no research that can make up for truth. And this film is truthful.
It is a story of a highly intelligent little girl, who's parents decide to become left wing political activists in Paris, during the '70s. Among very bourgeois ideas, there are a few very idealistic points of view. All in all, this little girl struggles to understand the changes her parents produce in her life and she also struggles with understanding grown up world. She makes up the parts she can't grasp and she asks very profound questions. In the process she's growing up. She learns about the making of the world from refugee nannies and in the same train of thought she is very secure in her knowledge about where babies come from. Nannies tell her stories from Greek and Chinese mythology, caressing her childish face. Next minute, she ponders things like: "How do you know the difference between solidarity and sheep that fall of the cliff?"
She struggles to fit in at school, she's an overachiever limited in her thirst for knowledge, by her parents' activities.
The imdb profile is here.

Crying in Dreams

I have very realistic dreams in regards to my family. I also cry in my sleep. I cry from the heart, with passion, my sadness fueling the tears. Breathing tightens and my crying is like the universal flood.
I dreamt my father, who was still fat and harassing me and I was immensely sad. I have a problem expressing sadness. I can only cry in quiet, alone moments, when I feel safe and away from everybody.-the mere fact that I need to feel safe in order to cry shows my inability to ask people for help-. For once I'd like to be encouraged to cry by someone I trust. Of course I could only trust an evolved human being, deeply connected to her own nature by instinct: a mother figure. The universal mother. The mother I never had.
I learned that difficulty in identifying one's emotions is called alexithymia. It has a name! Knowing that enough people have this problem, in order for science to come up with a name for it doesn't bring me any solace. There are 7 billion of us on this Earth. Numbers are bound to be great.
Will I ever feel protected? Will I ever feel important and safe outside of my own input? Will I ever feel safe enough to cry in front of someone and express my ocean of sadness left into my soul by my family's actions? Will this ocean of sadness, ever go dry? What should my healing process be motivated by? What's the ultimate goal, the ultimate image I must aspire to in order to feel healed? Is there a goal, or is this an ever growing ordeal, as long as life itself?

Bollywood Dance

One evening, after eating too much sugar during the day, I've decided it would be wise to go to the gym, before going to sleep. I made a "to do" list in my head, with everything I needed to accomplish on that particular work out session, in order to burn the sugar rush and get some sleep: some upper body weight lifting, followed by half hour intense cardio, etc, etc.
I drove to the gym, found parking immediately (this never happens!). I walked in and showed my gym Id to the front desk, then rushed up the stairs to the weights room. As I walked by the dance room, I peeked through the glass door. My eyes lingered on an incredible spectacle: a group of people jumping around in monkey poses to some exotic rhythm that I couldn't fully hear. Fascinated, I stopped and stared. It must have been 5 minutes of good staring, during which I noticed that every member of that particular group had a smile on their bright, blood engorged, sweaty faces. I couldn't resist and opened the glass doors. It was like walking on the sun. The room was vibrating. The music was Bollywood dance music. I joined in and danced the rest of the class.
I can't remember the last time I've been so happy. I did series of jumps, in which one uses the entire body, just like when you're a kid, and you run everywhere, cause your energy is limitless and a summer day lasts forever. I ran in place, just like I did as a kid as a warm up for ballet classes. My arms flew around me, dragging my back, sides, chest and abs after them. The music sounded cartoonish, fast drums and squeaky voices, singing incomprehensible words.
At the end of the class, we did some yoga moves and the teacher said something like "imagine what would make you happy, imagine what you'd feel like if you had right now, grab it with your hands and hang on to it" (while twisting your body in impossible poses). I know it sounds corny, but I envisioned happiness. I had a little glimpse of that first something, when your heart races and you can't stop smiling and you're giggly and stop wishing for things because you feel like you've got it all. I saw happiness.
Needless to say, after the class, I've abandoned all of my workout plans, went home and showered.

Authority and Respect

I treat authority one of two ways: complete submission, or hateful envy. There is no middle ground. It's either: "I succumb to you, oh powerful one; do what you wish with me!" or "You've got to be evil to be this successful, I hate you and I really want to be you!". Neither of these situations brings any solace to my already very conflicted soul.
My treating authority in these extreme perspectives comes from the abuse, of course.
My father started abusing me when I was 3 years old. He got me out of kindergarden early one day. He took me home and with a fake sweet voice that I had never heard before, asked me about my day and more specifically: what games did I play in class. I was so excited that, finally, this all mighty man was giving me some attention, that I involved every mental muscle I possessed at the time, to explain a game we played, called: Guess the taste. The game involved a blindfold, and guessing a few distinct foods: an apple, salt, sugar and bread. My father blindfolded me and made me taste something completely new and different, that I couldn't guess what it was, but it smelled bad. I started crying. I was scared. I sensed that the game my father was playing was a lot more dangerous than I had expected. My father told me I was dumb, cause I couldn't guess what he had put in my mouth. And I felt dumb: I felt dumb for not foreseeing that he was going to humiliate me. I felt dumb and upset at myself, for not standing up to him. That was the very first time I knew I couldn't trust my Father. That was the very first time my soul was overwhelmed by sadness.
My father was the supreme authority in our household. He made sure we knew this while he was drunk and violent. He taught me fear. He taught me doubt. I felt completely helpless. As an adult, I am duplicating that experience in the way I treat authority at work and elsewhere.
There were times when I got angry at my father. I rebelled. I hated him and wished him dead. That translates in the other way I perceive authority: hate and anger.
I wish I had the experience where I could learn to respect authority, without feeling threatened, without sexualizing the whole thing. I wish I was more secure, and grounded, have one center that I know is truthful and it's me at the same time. I wish I could have this center as a point of reference when I judge authority and evaluate it, without diminishing myself, or without snapping with anger.

The Road

Just finished watching this film, with Viggo Mortensen. It came out in 2009, great reviews and critically acclaimed.
It's a film about human nature. In fact, the characters have no name, they are just "Boy", "Man". etc. It is a story of survival of one Man and his young child during post apocalyptic times, when some humans turned to cannibalism. It is a perfectly crafted story, with perfect highs and lows, but most of all it really pin points some basic human needs and fears : love, fear of abandonment, hunger, all to the end of survival.
I found myself thinking about it, and replaying a few scenes in my mind. It strikes a chord with me. It makes sense.
The imdb profile is here

Dear Mother,

I wish you would have loved me. Not a lot, just a little bit. Make me feel wanted in your life and all.
I remember how you played with me as a baby. My whole world lit up at your smile. Then, I stopped being interesting for you. Was it because I looked too much like my father? Was it because I reminded you of him? Was that why you were beating me for no reason, with a belt, leaving welts into my skin? You took one look at me, you saw him, the abuser, the man who raped you repeatedly every night, out of every week, out of every month for 30 years of marriage, drunk and smelly (FYI: you could have left him!). Or was it because you were too busy to keep him interested, you figured you could abandon me.
Now you come to me and you ask for things. Mostly, you want me to be closer to you. Ironic request! For so many years you rejected me, after calling me names and a lier, when you were the one lying to yourself and the world. You always complained you didn't have access to my life. It's because you weren't interested. I was always honest with you, only you couldn't notice the honesty. You couldn't accept the honesty. You always thought I was hiding something, until I started believing that myself. Eventually, I realized all that I was hiding was the abuse. Father abused me at night. You abused me during the day. You never accepted me for who I was. You never gave me a chance. Why this sudden interest in me being closer to you? It's kind of shocking, after all these years when you couldn't care less.
The relationship I had with you translates into every relationship I ever had with female friends. Since you only taught me mistrust, that's the best I can do. I now need to move forward. Let me go! I need to have sane, routine, steady friendships. I can't keep begging for your love. I can't keep clinging on every female friend I got: "will you be my mommy?" I need to be functional, and for that, I accept the fact that you never loved me, you never will. I'm an orphan. I was not blessed with a mother and I'll do my best to have functional friendships with people, without trying to fulfill old needs. Those needs were not fulfilled at their time, now it's too late and I got new needs to think of. Sometimes you're lucky and get what you want. Sometimes you got to cut your losses to move on.
This is what I'm doing, mother: I'm cutting my losses. I'm cutting you out of my life. For good!

therapists

Many people go through school and become therapists without having a real understanding of what they're doing. I've looked at the GRE test: doesn't teach you any empathy!
There should be some emotional tests for those who want to become emotional healers. Besides the medical expertise, there should be some sort of evaluation that goes beyond the intellectual capacity and could only be handled by emotionally evolved people.
Working with emotionally scarred people may be heavy on the soul. If you have any feelings at all, it'll mark you. I think it's the same as working with lepers, back in the day, when medicine was just another version of witch craft: if you don't know what you're doing, you'll become a leper yourself.
I tried therapy myself and didn't get much out of it. I felt that 45 minutes per session were not enough for me to express myself in depth. Also, I could not reach my emotional self to be able to tell the therapist exactly what I felt and since I was paying for all this out of my own pocket, it became a rather expensive approach to healing.
Also, I am part of some self help groups, where a bunch of victims of abuse try to make light on what happened to them. These women are ready to regurgitate slogans learned from self help books, at a moment's notice. I am sure that what they read in those books resonated with them, but they just can't put their finger on it and can't name the emotion the reading stirred up. They rush to preaching and what they say sounds more like a mesh of generalities and platitudes, than really personal stuff. Same goes for those women still in therapy: I'm sure it helps them in some way, but they can't really tell how. It is difficult for them to express what they have learned about themselves and their wound during a therapy session. This lack of clarity should be blamed on the therapist. If things were clear for the therapist, things should be clear to the patient. But things can't be clear for the therapist, since the therapist is thinking about dinner while the client spills his guts while sitting on a couch with ugly patterns.
My point is: each client is unique. Each abuse experience has a devastatingly isolating effect. From this perspective of isolation, an abuse victim can heal in her/his own time. No therapy session can measure up this timing. Healing is as personal as inspiration: it comes in waves, it can only be felt by one individual at a time and it is not repeatable. Memories come out of the subconscious when the conscious mind is ready and not a moment earlier. The subconscious doesn't respect a schedule, let alone the therapist's schedule. Healing can only happen in the privacy of one's loneliness. A therapist, at the most, can only soothe some of the effects.
To be Ariadne, one must first know the labyrinth.

Father's figure

Many of the self help group people advise to believe in a Higher Power. Have faith. The Higher Power loves you. And it may be true.
It's just this blind act of having faith that I don't trust. I had faith before, in the greatness of the Higher Power. Look where it got me: my father abused me and told me I was a sinner.
Incidentally, my father believes in a Higher Power. He goes to church every Sunday, he fasts and he keeps every Christian holiday as if it were his last.
Now, forgive me if I don't care to worship the same Higher Power that he worships. I look like my father and I hate those biological traits that I share with him. All my life I wanted to be so different from him, to convince myself that him and I have nothing in common. I evolved as a species, I got smarter, I refuse to have anything in common with that man. Yet, every time I look in the mirror, I remember him. I am his daughter. I am trapped. In hell. With my father. And a long time ago, I desperately wanted him to love me and stop hurting me. Why is this Higher Power so cruel? Where do I find the strength to have that blind faith? I have fear, not faith. I have fear of my father. I have fear that other "worthy" men, may hurt me. I have fear that this Higher Power is as elusive as the love I never received from my father. I can't have faith. Too busy defending myself. Am I becoming like my father in that respect?
Because all of us are worthy in the eyes of the higher power. Even my father. Is there a chance that my soul will meet his again? I hope not. His soul sucks.

worth

She said: "It boils down to: you have a right to exist!"...
Then, she continued to enumerate ways in which I should love myself every day. She told me I should take care of myself, be attentive to my needs and concluded with: "You are worthy!"
Powerful words: I'm worthy!
The only problem with these words is that: I don't know what they mean. Worthy of what? On what scale of things? Am I worthier than a criminal or a normal person? Does my past entitles me to some life goods that I am not aware of? Or are we all equally worthy, just in different ways?
I give a lot of attention to myself, ever since I started working on my emotionally crippled soul. I fear that all the love I can give myself, will never replace the love I don't receive from others. What do I expect from others, anyway? What does it feel like to be loved/accepted? Does it feel like ice cream on a hot day, or does it feel as overwhelming as hate, only in the positive way? Ultimately, aren't we all looking for love, abused or normal people? Aren't we, the abused ones, competing for love with the normal people?
A lot of anger and hate came out of me lately and sometimes I fear I could never offer anything in return for love. I also fear that people could realize how mean I can be, with my snappy come backs ( that, I personally think, are hilarious). I don't know how to fit in my victim past with my day to day functional self. There are many gaps in my personality. One moment I can be invincible, and the next I could crumble into pieces, because most of life is new to me. I'm living everything for the first time. With emotions. Much like a baby, it feels like I was born yesterday. My fragile self mixes in with the survivor self, who knows how to pull through hard times and is too wise for its own good.

Seraphine

Just finished watching a little French indie, called Seraphine. No major director, no big actors, just a well acted pseudobiopic.
It is the story of a simple minded, uneducated woman painter, at the beginning of the 20th century. A highly educated and intuitive art dealer discovers her in her natural habitat and offers her a chance of a lifetime. She, however, is and erratic soul, with little grip on the daily realities. The detail of this character impressed me. The actress who played the part (Yolande Moreau), had an honest descent into this woman's soul. She portrays Seraphine, as if she knew her personally. There are nuances like her relationship with the divinity, her lack of sexuality, her overwhelming talent, that didn't leave any space for anything else to form inside her personality. These nuances are expressed through song, facial expressions and continuity of gestures that are rare to observe in the acting craft. Nowadays, when films are taken over by pretty faces and short lines, to see such richness of character, is a treat.
I was moved. I understood what she meant, when she talked about painting as a force that overtakes her life. Yolande Moreau is such a fine artist that she communicated to me (the untrained spectator), what the life and mind of Seraphine must have been like.
The imdb profile is here

the band aid man

You know how sometime you cut your finger and it hurts and you put a bugs bunny band aid on the wound and just because the band aid is there, you feel like your life is going to be OK? The same goes for relationships.
I had a band aid man. He was the Mother Theresa of emotional invalids. His patience took that one step further and made me wonder if he ever had any need, or if he ever lost his temper over anything. His family taught him endurance. They never expressed big emotions. It was not dignified. Repression was the healthiest emotional exercise in their household.
I walked into his life like a hurricane. I had emotions pulling me in every possible direction, with no map. He looked at me, completely fascinated. He stayed with me, trying to secretly mimic emotions he never even knew existed. He started expressing his repressed anger in traffic. He would giggle apologetically immediately afterwards. He was not comfortable with showing emotion, yet that was everything his soul craved for. The craving turned into addiction. The addiction turned into repetitive behavior.
One day, he told me we should get married. Since most of my emotional insights are fairly short sighted when it comes to commitment, I thought about it. I thought about what it would mean us being married. It couldn't possibly change much from what we had up until then. We lived together, in a purple apartment, I liked to call "my purple egg". I did laundry every week, hand washing or soaking the soiled stuff. I cleaned the house with baking soda, which makes for a miracle ecological detergent. I waxed the floors, without ever getting the hang of it, really. I ironed sheets and shirts. I cooked fabulously complicated meals, when I felt inspired and shopped for organic produce at local farmer's markets. Life was bliss in that day by day routine, that somehow establishes a rhythm. My heart tuned to this rhythm and chaos became lighter and easier to navigate. I've decided I was going to have as life goal: to be boring, to take no chances, no risks, just be, in that rhythm that my heart learned. No plans for the future, no master schemes. For once I'd trust life to be in control. But where would "us being married" fit in this picture? Were we already playing married and just needed to seal the deal? Were we two random souls, united for a while? Were we meant to be together? What does "meant to be together" mean? What does it feel like? Would it be fair of me to marry "the band aid man"?