Those Of Us Who Were Mistreated

Dear Insane Minds,

I have always said that so binary and so filmic of “the world is divided into two types of people : those who were abused in childhood and those who were not.”

I say it a bit as a joke, a bit melodramatic, especially when I need to receive pampering and feel recognized in my shitty childhood. But I really think about it, although not so gross.

Surely we can make a much more extensive classification, which includes the Minds that have dealt with the issue of abuse well, those that have overcome it, those that have known how to cure that, those that have not known how to cure that, those that take revenge. of the world infinitely to try to close that wound and you know what else.

Well, that: that the other day I started to read the Mente Sana and I see that the Soler who, let’s see, is a real psychologist and not a celebrity like me, has marked a piece of article on the subject that I have been whining all my life : conditional love. He says (and so do I) that when you have been mistreated in childhood, when you have built yourself knowing that people who say they love you do not necessarily do it, or they threaten you all the time to stop doing it (stop loving you, I say) all your life is marked by that, and all your love relationships go through there.

Let me explain: one of the first things I ask my girlfriends (when we are still in the pre-girlfriend stage) is that of … hey, how about your family? Because I always fear that people who have a wonderful family do not understand how broken we are, those of us who had a family that mistreated us in childhood.

They, you, have more margin for error, you suffer in another way, the world does not end when something loving breaks, that break does not lead you to I do not know what subconscious hells or uncover I do not know what Pandora’s boxes that take months later in close again. I already know that we live in a very stupid world where it seems that love is more beautiful if it suffers like a sidereal drama and that we have been told that if you do not suffer enough it is that you do not love.

And I know that she, you, also suffer. What I say is not a criticism of you or a kind of neglect of your ills, which are also there and without a doubt there are many. What I say is, or is intended to be, praise. I am a fan of people who know how to love and unlove without excessive drama, putting things in their place and in their measure, of people who recover quickly and move on to something else.

I want to be like you. .. but I’m not. I try, but for now, there are scars out there that open and bleed and leave you lost sheets and there is no way. I am curing them, but I also tell you that I have been doing it for 44 years and I still have little bits loose …

There are abusive people who undoubtedly use this to pretend or manipulate. Be careful with that strategy too.

What I’m trying to say is that some of us don’t have that much margin of risk and when relationships get very experimental, very complex, very fluid and we’ll see how it turns out, and don’t worry in advance, and let yourself go, and don’t get caught up in it. … We prefer to retreat to our winter quarters and take care of ourselves and protect ourselves.

That a lot of revelry is always asked of all of us, a lot of letting go, a lot of freeing ourselves from neoliberal ways, a lot of being cool, but the price that each one pays is known only by each one. And some of us pay very high prices and a lot of mental and emotional suffering for each fall.

So nothing: this post has come out a bit sad for me, but it is what the dates and the scars have.

Happy week, Minds!