There was a mother who became ill, and she was confined to her bed upstairs in a two-story house.
As far as I remember this was before electricity was in homes. Her young daughter was given the job of looking after her mother, seeing to her mother’s medical needs, her mother’s health, food, demands, etc.
Time went by, the mother did not seem to get better and she would not leave the bed. She became used to her situation. The daughter from that point on worked hard to keep her ever demanding mother happy. Years went by. The daughter became used to her situation.
Then one day the daughter, in her early twenties died from exhaustion and not being able to have a life of her own. She had given up hope of having a husband, children etc, she had given up hope that life would ever bring her any form of personal happiness and joy. She had given up hope that she would have any normal life of her own. She was held to her chore by obligation, guilt, demands from her mother and the other family members, etc.
After the daughter died the mother realised that no one else was going to become her personal slave so the mother got out of bed and got on with her life, a better life. She got on with her life because there was really nothing wrong with the mother at all except what illnesses she created in her own head that fed her wants for sympathy, and her fears of coping in life without someone holding her up etc. Some people are afraid of coping in life so they create illness in their minds and their body acts out the plan so it becomes a real illness of sorts.
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The mother could easily have lived without her daughter, and her daughter could easily have lived without her mother but both got used to a situation and neither had the courage to break the chains that held them together, even though the daughter was killing herself with misery and the mother would have eventually died a fruitless life if the daughter had lived on.
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We humans can get used to a situation, adjust to it no matter how miserable, and then miss out on freedom and a better life, a life of value that each one of us deserves. Be brave and please don’t allow yourself to be goaded, pushed, bullied etc into a life that you don’t want.
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All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
Friday, 29 April 2016, 10:16:53 AM.