More from the diary...

Things I read triggered the following thoughts:

"Am I impossible to talk to? Not worth to talk to? It's no idea? (but who is this about? Is it me with necessity?)"

Something I read (about familial environment):

"... not fleeing from problems but talking about them in a natural way. If one on the contrary is scared for and flees from talking about deeper feelings one gets problems to solving conflicts which occurs."

More thoughts that have been triggered:

"My feelings - genuine or not genuine?? But how shall I know if I don't test them or get the opportunity to test them?"

I have made additions in all the three last blogs, in the end of them...

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Kolla detta och detta.

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Now playing: Psalmer i 2000-talet - En psalm om tiden Sv.ps. 827
via FoxyTunes

A power battle…

In the middle of planning I try to take time to relax, on the balcony, with a book, or with a bike tour or something… Sat on the balcony now reading about the Swedish author Victoria Benedictsson who lived 1850-1888. Have been reading about her novel “Fru Marianne” (“the wife Marianne” it would be translated to English). This book, "Fru Marianne", was seen very positively by the conservative, because it was about a married couple where the wife stayed in a marriage that had problems. The woman-liberation movement had already started then!! (in a way people written about sounds pretty modern!!! It feels at least! Similar discussions and problems!!). This book came 1887, the year before Benedictsson died.

And I see it as a apology (avbön) from Benedictssons part. She used a pseudonym when she wrote, a male, Ernst Ahlgren (she married a 28 year older man in a village called Hörby, a village where I spent my life from I was 14 till I was 18. Or I lived just outside it). it was ok that women painted in this small village, but writing?? Out of question. She had a relation with the Danish author George Brandes, and I react strongly when I read how he treated her, both as human being and as author. But this didn't cool her down, on the contrary! All this contributed to her suicide in Copenhagen where she is also buried! She was probably also exposed to sexual abuse when she was a child, maybe incest...

Marianne came from a bourgeoisie family and her husband from a farmer’s family, though a wealthier. All in the south of Sweden, in Skåne.

Two people from very different worlds, almost entirely different. Which led to problems when the first love and interest and excitement had died down. Maybe this marriage was a way for both contradicting parts (the two involved) to break with the old life?? For Marianne to be someone and by the wife-role get a position in the society!? And for him, Börje, to have someone to show for the environment.

He worked hard and left his wife at home, a woman that knew nothing about a farms household…

In the middle of all this a friend (the best friend) of Börje, Pål, arrived on the scene, and stayed in the house. He was a man who had read books and Marianne and he got things to talk about!! A lot to talk about. And of course warm feelings came up…

Marianne had to choose!! It came to that point! And in the middle Marianne realized she was pregnant, with Börjes child.

Marianne was forced to some kind of penance against Börje, an awful, a history of humiliation the author of this autobiography writes.

She writes:

“It’s a story of power – nevertheless. A question of power goes through the whole novel. Already shown in Börje’s soberness which according to Pål stands for a fear for the incalculably and a need for total control in him. It’s also shown in Marianne’s half-conscious erotic radiance and the power she with this gets over Börje’s denied sides. A power-battle between seems to be unavoidable, with or without Pål’s intervention.

A new power-constellation comes with the child. One could think it was Marianne’s power that would get bigger. Instead it is Börje’s. While Marianne is awoken toa greater sensitivity for all the unknown in the father of the child, the unexplored in him, he feels he has the best of it (har ett övertag in Swedish). When he sees the fast look she gives him he experiences an instinct-like, egging gladness – maybe a feeling of power.”

Phew!!! But from where the need for power? Whether it is about the woman or the man??? And what does a grown up needs actually? And what not? What stands in the way for real, genuine nearness?

And in society and politics it’s much about power today!! But a power that isn’t really outspoken, as it was maybe twenty years ago: power and suborder. Which I think would be adequate!!

From the personal to the societal.

But there are parallels to today and to how it was for Victoria Benedictsson then!!?? A form of backlash in society both then and as it is today too I think and feel!!

English word of today “penance” which means “botgöring, ålagd botgöring” in Swedish.

The book in question (which I am reading now) is titled "Victoria Benedictsson" and is written by Birgitta Holm. ISBN 978 91 27 09778 0.

About her in Swedish. In English.

Some morning thoughts…

In a lunch break today (a lot of things on different levels have triggered these thoughts):

In our work plainness (tydlighet in Swedish) is extremely important because the character of our work and how it is organized (for our sake as teachers, but this also functions as a model for how we behave towards our pupils/students etc.)!! Maybe more important than in many other jobs? Now I thought of plainness what concern the organization, an organization that leaves as little room for doubts as possible. Of course no organization will ever be perfect!! But that’s no excuse for trying not to make things even better.

But what I thought about on my way to work this morning was that in dealing with people in my work (parents for instance) informing them about things is important. How I/we work, which our circumstances are etc.

If they don’t understand I have to try to explain for them a little better!? And if they still don’t understand, but persist in something, I can try to be even clearer? But sooner or less if they still persist… Maybe I have to ask what it is about? Yes. If I have tried to be very clear. Is it my fault, that I am not clear enough (which of course can be so!?) or what is it about? Here self-knowledge would be an advantage!!?? Is it me tat doesn’t see something? Or is it the other part that is the problem? Or is it both about me and the other?

This can really be tricky, and make one feel both this and that… Bad, lousy etc.

How is it then on a more private level, with if not partners and family, but with friends concerning these things: Setting limits or maybe seeing that you are stepping over limits too (and realizing what harm you actually do by this!? Big or small? To a powerless, dependent, small or to a person with own power, which isn’t dependent, is grown up even).

Of course there must be rules between people!? You can’t walk on like a bulldozer, and not accuse the part that is reacting for being too sensitive, maybe for being oversensitive!!? Which is also a risk! That one part can do! But that’s not either to take responsibility for yourself…

This about communication – the difficult, tricky thing… Where all involved have responsibilities… To communicate, preferably as soon as possible (which can be difficult if one has been harmed and doesn’t know what boundary-violations are)…

If one sees things here too try to communicate as clearly as possible where your boundaries lies, what you feel, how you react or what it is about… And if you have repeatedly tried to communicate something as clearly as possible, and the other person doesn’t understand, then…

A female physician and Gestalt-therapist said that she has one cock horse (käpphäst in Swedish) and that is not saying how another person is. Not to say:

“You are…”

Where does such a statement lead? To anything? What is the one being labeled supposed to say? Admit?

“Yes, I am! Thank you for saying it! I am so extremely grateful to you, that someone at last told me this! I shall immediately try to change!!”

If I say:

“You are…”

doesn’t any further discussion easily get stuck?? And can’t such a statement also be a projection? And to exemplify more explicitly:

"You feel no remorse!"

What do one answer to that?

"Oh yes, I certainly DO!!!"

Or, after having thought of it

"Yes, you are right!"

Who knows for sure what another person feels or thinks? And how do one prove neither the first nor the latter? And if the other already has decided who and what you are...

Think if the one who is said to be a lousy person gets sad?? What then about remorse from the one saying such things as

"You are..." "You feel..."??

Not being plain what can that be about? You have the power not to be? Are you behaving as the authoritarian, totalitarian parent who didn't have to explain anything once did, or? Just some wonders...

Each person, and all involved, has responsibility for her/himself, shall take it and ought to take it... Does here exist any reconciliation? Between grown ups!? But when it comes to a child (now grown up) and his parent/s... Then it is prescribed! Almost? This doesn't mean I think reconciliation should be prescribed between grown ups either to the left and right... Moralistically.

Moralizing is a question of its own...

Addition: On my way back to work after lunch I came to think about my 20-year old nephew. We had a talk this winter which made me think… And realize things!? Made me see things from another angle?

What a tragedy it would be if he harmed a girl, raped a girl… I don’t think he would do that deliberately (want to believe he wouldn’t?).

Came to think that even if the girl (woman) takes part in these things at first, she can change her mind suddenly in the whole?? Even if they have come very far… Then of course he shall stop what they are doing, respect her wish. With no doubt.

The Finnish author wrote the book Märta Tikkanen“Men cannot be raped” (“Män kan inte våldtas”) already 1973 (or somewhere there)… A book in which a woman tried to take revenge by exposing the man who raped her for a rape himself. So can a man also feel in the middle of such an act that he doesn’t want to go further? I imagine that’s rarer! Maybe I am wrong? And maybe that's not manly to do either - to say no I don't want to go further? Even if he feels so? And I wonder if it is possible to rape a man, sexually at all? But it is possible to rape all human beings emotionally, despite gender or age!

I tried to put myself in my nephews situation: if he didn’t see or sense that the girl/young woman didn’t want to continue but went on with what he was doing… And thus raped the girl/young woman. Or maybe didn't really heard what she said...

Or if he didn’t notice immediately and sensitively that her boarder was reached… But just went a little bit too far, before he stopped, but stopped after a while. Because he has experienced things (not with certainty the worse sexual abuse) and thus is a little bit insensitive, but sensitive enough to understand afterwards what he has done to a certain degree and was capable of feeling regret for it…

Would it be possible for these two to talk about the whole??? But not being forced by any authority or anything, but talk in a protected circumstance where no further abuse could occur? That he got the opportunity to understand what he had done and regret it and ask forgiveness genuinely? A process in which he really understood what abuse is?? But is certainly no prescription either for "what you/one ought to do"!!! And I don't mean to excuse these things either - at all! Not the slightest bit!

Now I am seeing it from the abusers side? Entirely?? no as I wrote, it doesn't mean I excuse this at all!!! It simply shouldn't happen!

But if we harm boys when they grow up the result can be this: that he commit these forms of abuse! Isn’t that awful?? For the boy in question too? And shouldn’t happen?

And the girl is probably also harmed which landed in this situation? Which is no excuse either for doing this to her!

Abuse of this kind (=sexual) can lead to excessive sexual life or no sexual life at all… So another result can be that the early abused person doesn’t have a sexual life at all! Avoid it entirely?

I see other parallels in other situations when people deal with each others, where no sexual intercourse never took place either, but the contact lay on another level... And one went too far (or was thought to have gone too far, despite, still, that no intercourse or such things ever took place). And the other part was too harmed to see it not until very far into the relation... A relation between too harmed people?? Where both were a little blind, and a little insensitive...

Realizing suddenly with a shock "what it was about"?

How would a grown up reaction to this be? Should one let "the abusing" part get an opportunity to explain anything? Or is it even anything to talk about? And when shall one not?

Am I talking in riddles now?

I am trying to understand things... And what shall I understand of this?

Reconciliation…

Written yesterday evening...

Things have been (and still are) solved with reacting against scapegoats (at first in the family)? Scapegoats are created because they are needed. But this doesn’t resolve anything for anyone. Things are rather held in place, rigidly even, and got even more strengthened with the use of scapegoats? Noone will ever be freed as long as this continues and goes on, less the ones reacting at the scapegoats.

If things were directed at the true sources by all, in all now living generations (an illusion probably, but let’s use it as a play with thoughts), how would that be? All would see differently, communicate differently and more genuinely?

And you will inevitably pass things further if you haven’t processed things or been aware of what was done (and how) and aware of how harmful it was and that it was (many times) extremely unfair, and not only that, but damaging (and how it was damaging). Even if the consequences weren’t visible then or right away or maybe didn’t come at once (but “only” were wounds in the soul).

So it wasn’t only the parent that got badly treated in her/his childhood in different ways and this later adult managed to avoid many of these things he/she maybe believes? Or that their children become harmed less badly. Maybe didn’t become harmed hardly at all? Thus minimizing and belittling what ones own children suffered? And you will do this until you realize to a certain degree how it actually was for the child you once was yourself.

Awareness is decisive, and it should have existed then, to avoid passing things further at all, or passing it further very, very little.

Awareness later, maybe even very late in life, would be to at last take responsibility for oneself, for ones own parenthood (if one has children) and for yourself!! Not least!? I.e., become the adult you are and SHOULD BE!! Not easy probably! No sadly to say there ae no quick fixes here??

And can a sibling feel reconciliation on behalf of other/all other siblings? On behalf of all?

Isn’t it awful that so many got harmed? Can another forgive on behalf of others? And can one continue to have contact without forgiving?

I reacted very strongly at several things the psychologist said in the interview I recently referred to. One was the topic reconciliation, which she brought about and said she felt for both her parents: the very abusive father and the submissive and insecure mother, that couldn’t protect her children at all??!! At her father’s deathbed she felt as another sort of communication would have been possible (and this was before she started to remember what she had been exposed to. She thought this made her start her work. A few days after she gad said goodbye to her father she got the message she had breast cancer).

This woman didn’t get any siblings until she was six if I understood it right… Her mother was only 20 when she got born and the young mother used her daughter as confident (emotional incest, which Pia Melody thinks is very common in our western society, and I think it is very common in the whole world, and it is probably more harmful than we thinks. This woman said she probably had to be a sort of mother for her own mother).

Addition: This woman said that the reactions on her book and what she revealed there were very positive from readers in general, but her colleagues (other psychologists and therapists) reacted differently!! Approximately 50 % of them reacted negatively, even a bit condemning, they didn't think a therapist should go out with her own history like this!!! She didn't agree with this, and didn't quite understand it. Because a therapist reveal so much already by her/his way of dressing, the things she/he has o her/his office etc.

And the interviewer asked something (I don't remember what) to which she answered that for the child then this was awful what she had to endure (with an abusive, violent father, which also sexually abused and a submissive mother and mean maternal grandmother, mormor in Swedish), but as a grown up woman she saw it a bit different; she could understand him/her father (something in the style that she understood he himself probably had been exposed to things - as I remember it)!!!

In my feeling this was like a concession, remission (eftergift in Swedish) to her colleagues and "the right way" of reacting!!! And she also used the word/expression "reconciliation"...

She claimed she had abandoned the role as nice, sweet girl, adapting to all and everyone, but I think these two things above proves other things!! And on top, from what I know more, and from what I sense and feel, I think this woman can be fairly mean too!

I am not sure I would have searched her as therapist! Not where I am today at least... But she left her work before she retired and did other things instead... Has written several books (all except the one mentioned above in Swedish), given (and still gives) retreats and has a company with her husband who is also psychologist...

Siblings...

Ingmar Bergman wrote in one of his books about a meeting with his four year older brother Dag… A meeting between two older men, who had grown apart and had nothing in common. Two complete strangers who had grown up together and shared so much then (their mother's love-affair with a ten year younger man and colleague to their father, which noone spoke about and a lot else), but had nothing to talk about - at all, now as old. The silence was compact? There you could talk of the Wall of Silence?? They had developed in totally different directions (Dag Bergman, the ambassadeur, died fairly early, at 70 years. He was born Oktober 23, 1914 and died December 10, 1984. They had a sister Margaretha born 1922).

Something I think Bergman noted with amazement…

I have also thought for a while: how would the (whole) society react if a woman got nine children with six different men and didn’t take care of them but left them to the mothers?? And entirely devoted herself to the work and to be the best there…

Bergman said that his personal life was an entire catastrophe, but he tried to measure it up by trying to become the best workman…

And if I don’t go further than to my own work: for how many male musicians (and maybe all artists) haven’t work work/the playing/music come in first hand? Entirely? And with no thoughts or guilt feelings? I came to think of the pianist Arthur Rubinstein… He admitted that his (very long) life had been about “wine, women and gesang”!!! How sad if he had sacrificed his talent!!??

But through history there are many male composers who never married or got children: Tjajkovsky, Mendelsohn, Beethoven, Schubert…

Bergman made the film “Autumn Sonata” (“Höstsonaten”) about a female pianist which abandoned her two daughters and the very neurotic and tense relation between the mother and her daughters when they met after many years again…

But what film would it have been if it had been about a male pianist abandoning his children? Wouldn’t it have been entirely different? Why you can wonder about?

And I also came to think how one has viewed things: the work-responsibilities were more important than how the man/father was as father!! So what he did at work was worth to get paid enormously - sometimes!! How one values parenthood, children, human beings…

About Ingmar Bergman's father Erik Bergman. But his mother wasn't actress as it stands in Wikipedia, but nurse.

The female Swedish bishop Caroline Krook in Stockholm about Ingmar Bergman and his influences on the Swedish church.

Addition August 12: cow- (or lingon-) berries from the wood... There are may of them too!!

A family...

A warm summers day like this I visited the woods near the small village Paharova in Norrbotten together with my maternal grandparents, my aunt Gerd, two female cousins in my age and their parents… For picking cloudberries where grandma probably had picked cloudberries and other berries when she grew up.

My grandma Hildur was born here October 13, 1894, as the tenth child in a family of sixteen children. Many of her siblings and their children and grandchildren still lived in this village and of course we visited them. Although I was 12, 5 years I don’t remember so much of these people or the village or houses. More of the berry-picking in the wood. My three year younger sister Elisabeth and our cousin Ulla got lost in the wood, but we found them, crying of course. Our parents were home in our home in the middle of the country, Elisabeth and I was alone in Norrbotten.

My great-grandparents Johan Petter and Erika Johanna got their first child Maria Henrika (called Maria) September 27, 1884, when they were 28 years. So they didn’t start early getting children!!

Johan Petter was born April 24, 1856 in a village called Norsijärvi (I think) and Erika Johanna was born June 15, 1856 in Kainulasjärvi. He died 1935 and she 1939, thus 79 and 83 years old!!! After having got 17 children up there near the Arctic Circle - amazing!

Their second child Alida was born a year later (I don’t know what month).

The first son was born Mars 17, 1887 Petter Hjalmar, called Hjalmar. Sons were more worth??

In this village there was only another family with as many children, but many of these children died in tuberculosis, noone did in grandma’s family!! Strange!

The children followed one after the other. November 5, 1888 Amanda Hilda Johanna (called Amanda), January 7, 1890 Johan Enok (called Johan), Mars 11, 1891 Albert Valdemar (called Valdemar), June 3, 1892 Oscar Villiam (called Oscar), June 29, 1993 Emil August (called Emil), Octiober 13 1894 Sofia Hildur (called Hildur, my grandma), December 2, 1895 Axel Hugo (called Axel), 1896 Josefina, 1898 Amalia Kristina (called Amalia), November 27, 1900 Anna Karolina (called Anna), ? Levi which died at birth, but was baptised, September 2, 1902 Mia Helena (called Mia) September, 1903 Alma Karin (called Karin) and last Albin Herman (called Herman) February 17, 1905.

Maria lived till 1969, got 10 children.
Alida lived till 1957 and got 14 children, of which five died before 10 years age, Hugo the first was born 1913 and died at six, Johan the next in line was born 1914 and died at four years, Ebba, the fourth in line was born 1917 and died 1921, Oskar the fifth in line born 1918, died 1926, Anna born 1919 died 1928. 8 of her children were dead 1987.
Hjalmar never married. Died 1979.
Amanda died 1969 and got 7 children, of which all got grown up, but many of them died fairly early.
Johan got 11 children, the last when he was 55 and his wife 50, he died 1965 and his wife died when she was 88! The second in line of their children Linnéa died as child, all the others grew up.
Valdemar only got 5 children but 24 grandchildren! He died 1966.
Oscar died 1969, got 8 children.
Emil never married, died 1965 when he was 72 only. He was one of the favourite uncles together with Herman.
Hildur my grandma got five children (the third Maj, died when she was two or three years). She got her first child when she was 31!! Her husband, my grandpa was then 25! She died on her 91 year, my grandpa got 87.
Axel got 8 children, all were married. He died 1975 at 80 years. His wife was 9 years younger.
Josefina married but didn’t get any children. Died at 59 or 60 years age?
Amalia got 10 children; all got grown up and married. She died when she was 70. Her first child was divorced!! There are hardly any divorces among all these people!!! She had 31 grandchildren!
Anna got well over 90 years. She got 7 children, the first when she was 30. She got 14 grandchildren as my grandparents.
Mia never married; she lived till she was 81.Was the favourite aunt!!!
Karin got 4 children, but 33 grandchildren. Karin was extremely god-fearing (gudfruktig in Swedish)! She married a three year younger man and got her first child when she was 37. Her oldest daughter got her first child when she was 16.
Herman married a fifteen year younger woman; they got their one and only child when he was 35 and she 20. She got tuberculosis and later and later a bleeding in the brain (an aneurysm).

My grandma was exactly in the middle, had 8 siblings before her and 8 siblings coming after her. They all went to school, but had to live apart from the family during the school-year. My grandma was in school for approximately six years! This surprises me!!

She did very well in school?? But said this was because she could "take" (i.e. "charm"?) the school-teachers. She was offered to studying singing in Stockholm by the county governor in Norrbotten who had heard her singing in Korpilombolo church. But she said later that she "didn't want to leave mom".

Their native language was Tornedal-Finnish even though they lived pretty far away from the border to Finland (lived near Gällivare I think ,for those who are Swedes) and certaunly were Swedes. But in the school they had to speak Swedish, they were even forced to do that? Grandmas oldest siblings never learnt Swedish though (didn't they go to school?), and her paernts never learnt Swedish either, so mom and her siblings couldn't communicate with them, and I doubt they would even if they had spoken the same language, an impression I have got from what I have heard and sensed.

And my mom hasn't met all her aunts and uncles and definitely not all her cousins, even though they all grew up in the same area (but bthen it was more tricky to travel too). This is extremely strange to think of, that such things aren't more far away in time!!

All (daughters?) got a heifer (kviga in Swedish) when they got married, so also my grandma. And she walked with this from her old home to the new, which meant a walk on 60-70 km (I chaged this August 6 from 30 to 60-70 km after having asked my mom about the distance)!!! Then she was pregnant but got an abortion, because of this walk??

How could her parents afford this: giving all their daughters this??

How was it with so many children and siblings? Too many children – not enough attention?

But my grandma wasn’t especially sensitive, very much in herself (lived in her demons? Which she never verbalised. Neurotic, ran to doctors, but was very healthy in fact? Ate a lot of pills all her life, despite this she got over 90 years)… Was very non-psychological. She ruled the household? My grandpa was a very quiet man, hardworking, but when he got angry he really got angry?

There is a picture in the family on my great-grandparents; my great-grandma a small, round old woman, looking a bit humbly onto the photographer, but I think she could say what she thought. When her daughters came home with their children and asked her as baby-sitter she refused with the words that she had her share of that or something like that!

Her husband almost one head taller on this photo! This photo is taken in front of a fence to a garden, a garden that doesn't look so barren surprisingly? But they were all small people, short!??

Spontaneously written...

Now things I have discussed with a person standing near…

So this is more high thinking:

One parts ability to self-criticism won’t keep a relation going, definitely not in long-term…

If the (early) hurt or injured person takes responsibility for her/his injury or damage others space won’t have to be shrank, even if the damage and injury is big. People who care for each others want to help the best they can, show respect and consideration for each others damages etc. This is not burdening, but if you have to “save” the other person from his/her damage then you get exhausted. That is if the damaged want to flee from his/her damage and want help with this flight rather than taking care about it or doing something with the damage and injury; as trying to meet it, processing it and repairing it the best he/she can. Responsibility is the keyword if there shall be space for other people around the injured, damaged.

If one takes responsibility for ones injury and damage there is space for others around you and their possible injuries and damages too. All can exist with theirs. No one at the expense of any other person. No one that has to shrink his/her living space.

Even small wounds needs treatment. It’s not a question of who is more or less damaged!? Big wounds don’t take small wounds away. Neither if they are sitting on others nor on one and the same person. A wound is a wound. And to “live” on your wounds, taking advantage of them, profit by them, even benefiting on them, to parasitize on others sympathy and empathy – that’s really a flight from the pain itself and the damage, injury – those things that needs attention and processing, the opposite of responsible-taking.

Yes, there is always someone that is more hurt. And even small wounds needs treatment. If they don’t get they can cause more damage. Both for oneself and for others. Damage that wouldn’t be necessary at all.

We have spoken about communication, to give and to take. To narrate/tell and get to hear. But connected to this is the risk you loose the control, and thus the power (or can’t this mean a lot of possibilities too?)? A risk you take/can take: that the other part gets opportunity to talk and give her/his view on the whole!? But this also means that you perhaps are forced to listen and to hear!? Maybe this is too dangerous. In a way one gives the other part power? And maybe one doesn’t want to do that, for everything in the world!?

But of course there are limits for how long you can go here, strive and struggle and try and understand!! Of course you can get used and even exploited!! And that risk is greater if you are already damaged and haven’t got opportunity to process your damages enough… So, no, this ISN’T easy!!! (it is steadily more acknowledged that for instance women who were sexually abused, or abused in other ways as children, are at risk of landing in abusive relations as grown ups too! And the less hurt you have been the smaller is this risk!!! So some can really land in viscous circles, and are on top often stigmatized by the environment and the society, which is horrible isn’t it?).

An industry-man here in Sweden Michael Treschkow spoke on radio (Sommar). I didn’t listen to this programme, but he had said that he was glad Nelson Mandela wasn’t bitter!!! That he didn’t show any such signs!!! Without mentioning that the Swedish trade and industry union (Svenskt näringsliv) “earned a lot of money on the apartheid-regime” a female Swedish journalist said very ironically I felt, as a reply to that SHE was accused for carrying on propaganda for the communism in HER Sommar-programme!

That’s the other side of the coin?? Not being bitter, not behaving like a victim, a poor powerless victim, but “taking yourself in the collar” (as we say here) and show how clever you are despite the worse circumstances: rise from these, in the best case, to success!!! This will be applauded!!! Enormously! And you will become enormously admired!!! Every time you “stand up from your bed and walk away with it” as a Lazarus once did!?? How much you even sacrifice!! Even if the effects come high up in ages!! We are all human beings, even the strongest and cleverest have human limits!!?? Or do we need to believe in something else? Why?

Even in therapy, you have to avoid being a victim. This is worth a separate blogpost, but if you were a victim, of course you still are if you haven’t had or still don’t have opportunity to process it. You are, but you can be responsible-taking at the same time!!?? Jenson has written about this, about the prohibition against victim-feelings, and I think Bosch too.

Is this, to summarize this topic, “contempt for weakness”? That stems from early, I wonder? Many of us have needs for control, power – and strength!!?? And why is that?

To be able to admit to and address damage, the damage, injury has to be acknowledged by the damaged. To seek or search for excuses isn’t to acknowledge. Honestly wanting to acknowledge, even if it certainly is difficult and painful and probably even frightening!? And shouldn’t become minimised, but maybe it’s less scary than we thinks.

Relations between children and their respective parents: everything the parents think is bothersome, which had demanded a little processing from the parents parts/side, for instance “Why am I so afraid for my husband (wife??) when he (she?) gets angry?” could end in a divorce depending on how the man (woman??) reacts on the woman’s (man’s) questioning of his (her) “right” to vomit or belch out his (her) temper or mood on the nearest victim. Everything the parents think is bothersome – which had risked their status quo in life – the children have to take, carry, stand, repair etc.

I think the roots to all these things lies early in life. Which doesn’t mean later experiences doesn’t count… Or should become diminished.