Originally Posted by
unefille
Yes I am. My mother is EIE 1w2. I am an only child and I had a very 'unique' childhood. Until I was 7, I lived with my mother and her family. From the age of 7 onward, we moved to Australia and for the first few years, I had no friends. My parents didn't socialise much. My world was insular, my father distant with work and my mother ruled my world.
Every time we met someone, she would mention what they thought of me, how they interpreted my behaviour. After every performance or recital, the first words out of her mouth would be 'you were fidgeting', 'you didn't make enough eye contact', 'you need to project your presence more.' If I went to a birthday party, her words to me when I got home was 'did anyone tell you that you were pretty?' and 'what did they think of your new dress?' Because my mother watched me so closely and scrutinised me so thoroughly, I've essentially appropriated her gaze myself. I think the entire world watches me closely and evaluates me constantly, because my mother did and does and because, until my teenage years, she essentially was my world.
But whilst I've appropriated some of her values, they aren't mine naturally. They had to be beaten into me (not always literally beating, of course). I still disagree with them, but I have internalised them. Which is why in my ideal world, I am a different person to the one I am now, because for me, the world is a Beta world - in that Beta values are what I am most conscious of, what I most easily anticipate. Since I can't change the world I find myself in, I have to adapt. The essence of the 3 is shame (I am wrong for this world) and the strategy is deceit and adaptation.
Thank god for the anonymity of the internet.