QUESTION FROM READER

I have been in the trouble of AC (adult children) problem and was treated bullying in school. My family is a kind of dysfunctional family.

Mother has a strong distortion on gender issue and tries to justify her discrimination on my sibling by saying it is natural that mother is fond of son more than daughter. She, who ignores grandfather’s violence against grandmother and that of my brother’s against me, also believes woman’s behavior must be corrected through physical damage done by man if/when she is wrong. My father, on the other hand, don’t say anything to my mother and seemingly has no response of sibling’s suffering because he loves mother. I just can’t accept such a distorted family.

I am now a senior student and finally got the job after making a long hard effort all by myself to escape this family. I am happy to be able to run away from this situation but still emotionally quite unstable, being too keen to my own feeling and sensibility as I have grown up under such a circumstance. I can easily feel anxiety, fear and anger but am insensitive to joy, pleasure and the sense of my own accomplishment etc. I can’t protect my territory, so to speak, and become insensitive toward mean behavior against me so I cant’t ask to stop it because I feel anxiety to feel as such.

I feel helplessness to say anything to perpetrator from my own experience that my parents didn’t stop their mean behavior toward me even when I asked to stop it. I am usually afraid of being condemned by other people under any occasions and become defensive to begin with.

I soon become a working adult and accordingly would like to seek my emotional stability. Is there any advice for me?(Midori from Hyogo Pref. ,22 yrs. old )

REPLY FROM COUNSELER KIYOMI KAWANO

Dear Midori

It must have been very difficult to bear. I will feel sympathy for you having read your email.

It is very good, however, that you can objectify your family as well as yourself. Congratulation on your new job. I am moved by the fact that you can look at yourself and your family objectively, and also your courage to get out of your home.

As I understand your emotional instability quite well, I just couldn’t simply suggest to gain your self-confidence and go forward by looking at current your accomplishments. And you too understand my hesitation. How about trying to visit near-by feminist counseling room introduced on this WAN Web ? You may not be able to pay a fee for an individual counseling now but there are all different kinds of activities in the rooms such as self-help group, AC talking group which are almost free-charged and be helpful. By talking your experience repeatedly within a self-help group, the recovery must be expected.