What if I was abused by my parents who should have loved me the most in the world? I met a woman who had spent years in anguish. Her parents’ beatings and the memories of those beatings since the time of her birth led to suffering from anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder even as an adult. It was an environment that mentally and physically devastated her. But now that she’s out of it, she calmly tells her life story. If there are people in a similar situation to her, she hopes they become free like herself.
- Domestic violence is a terrible phrase. Can you tell me what happened?
Of course, now that I have escaped from it all. In a few words, I never received love since I was born. This means that I grew up being beaten, scolded, and hated. And the worst of it was it was from the parents who gave birth to me.
- Why on earth?
My family history is like a drama. My mother had me when she was 18. Of course it was an unwanted pregnancy. There was commotion on both sides of the families due to the unexpected nature of the situation. My mom actually set up a home with my dad while he was with another woman because my father felt he couldn’t abandon a woman and his child.
- So this is when the abuse started?…
Yes, but it gets worse. My mother gave birth to my sisters. My grandmother wanted a grandson, and was disappointed to know my mother had 2 more girls. I don’t know what my grandmother had told my mom, but my mom took some OTC medicine saying she was going to die after giving birth to her third child. I was six years old then. My mother couldn’t breastfeed, so I had to take care of my youngest sister at that time as a baby. Because my father had no financial capability, my mother raised the children by herself and engaged in a side business as a street food cart vendor. Since she was only in her early 20s, it must had been hard for her as a woman. She poured her resentment onto me.
- She unleashed all her anger on her child?
The words I heard most were, “My life is ruined because of you” and “If it weren’t for you”. I really hated hearing those words. I heard she would hit her stomach while she was pregnant with me, trying to get rid of me. When my mom called me, there were two reasons: to scold me or to order me around. When I was 11 years old, my mom started to run a sushi restaurant and I was able to get off her radar screen a bit. But when I got to middle school, I had to help her business.
- You endured all of that at a young age. I would have run away from home.
That didn’t even cross my mind. I don’t think I even knew I was being abused. I didn’t know anything besides that environment. But when I got older I would drink and act up. When I was 15 years old, I drank for the first time. I couldn’t remember anything because I blacked out, but my mom was very angry the next day. I don’t know what I did, but I felt relieved at least for a split second of my life. After then, I was a terrible drunk. I think I drank and acted up once or twice a year after that.
- I heard that you worked in Japan.
I majored in Japanese literature at my University. While living alone, I would date and I lived freely, which made me feel better. However, whenever I thought about home, it was hard. Then I got a chance to work at a Japanese company and lived in Japan for 13 years. Later, while meditating, I realized that I had wanted to runaway from my mother the most.
- When did you start meditation?
In 2007, my mom ran away from home at that time. Since she had never lived a womanly life, when she was in her 50s, she couldn’t stand it any longer so she left. I thought “is this reality?” No matter how much fun I had, my home was always depressing. After finding my mom, I felt a big load was taken off my mind. Meanwhile, a co-worker told me to take a week off and introduced me to this meditation. While I was listening to the lecture on the first day, I thought I should do this meditation for more than a week.
- Isn’t this meditation about reflecting on your life. It must have been hard for you.
It is said that a person’s personality is formed from when one is inside of the mother until one is 10 years old. I grew up persecuted by my mother. My father used to hit me too, but I suffered much more from my mother. I thought I shouldn’t have been born in the world and I should disappear. No, actually, I wasn’t able to even think that because I was weighed down by my mother’s burden. It was so severe to the extent that I was a bed-wetter until I was about 40. But as I meditated and my fears and anxieties were thrown away, it stopped.
- Have you thrown away your minds about your mother?
I felt sick just thinking about it. The more I meditated,
the more my mother remained in my mind. Whether my mom was really next to me or not, she was always inside me. I always thought that I shouldn’t be scolded by mom and that I should do everything she asks me to do. When I met someone, I thought of that person as my mother. So, I hated people, I was annoyed, and I was nervous. She had given birth to me, but I couldn’t understand why she should have hated me so much. One day while meditating, I was so surprised to see and throw away all the images of my relationship from the time I was in mother’s stomach. I realized that when my mother tried to kill me by hitting her stomach, I, a fetus, decided I would not die alone. Some of you may not believe it, but it is true. It was horrifying and terrible. After all, she had to have instinctively hated me who hated her. If she didn’t, she would probably have lost control. Even if she tried not to, she couldn’t control herself. My mom probably regretted it, yet scolded me, then regretted that, and then beat me up. Only then did I begin to understand and be penitent.
- So your mother, who was the watchman in your mind, disappeared?
I have no grudges. She must have had it hard, too. I only saw my mom through the pictures in my mind. I could have been supportive of my mom, but I couldn’t. For that I am sorry. Even after seeing that, when I meditated, I just cried when I thought of my mother. Not because I hated her, and not because of my resentment. For a moment, I felt like I was cleaning my mom’s heart. There was an enlightenment of connection. All of this suffering I had was what was in her mind also. My mom also suffered this much.
- Has your daily life changed? Has your behavior of being a “bad drunk” disappeared?
I don’t drink at all. Actually, alcohol never agreed with me. I had been smoking since 19, but I’ve stopped. I didn’t even decide to quit, but while I was on level 3 of the meditation, I suddenly realized I had stopped smoking. I didn’t think of cigarettes at all, so I realized I just naturally quit. Everyone around me was surprised.
- Actually, there are a lot of people with childhood scars, what do you want to say to them?
I think that the life lived from the time one is inside one’s mother to the age of 10 contains all the answers. Depending on what the circumstances were then, a person’s personality and values are formed. All the problems are solved only when I know and throw away the cause of why it happened or why it is happening to me. Through this meditation, I severed the link to the pain. I’ve escaped from it all. Of course I’d recommend you do this meditation.
Source: Woomyung.org
