How does one lose their sense of self? This is a loaded question. With a child, it begins when you are more focused on your parent than yourself. You realize that their needs are more important than your own. You make decisions that they will like rather than what you want. You compromise your likes and wants and needs to make sure they are happy. It can come from not having boundaries growing up so that there is no space that is your own. One example is not allowing doors to be locked, even in the bathroom. Therefore, when a child is going through puberty any moment a person can walk through the door. This is frightening to hear but yet this has become a life they are accustomed to. You don’t know any different. Another example is a child who does not even have a room to sleep in and so there is no place to go and read or talk to your friends on the phone. Losing your sense of self can make a person feel like a robot; they are just there doing what they are told. As one person stated, it made them feel invisible from those around them.
Continue reading
We three Leos’ have read your books which were handed down from one to another. First, it was Lia, who once was a little toddler that crossed the border from Hungary in 1956 with mommy and daddy. She was sick and they were granted passage on a plane to get her to America more quickly, I believe from an Austrian camp. Then it was her mother, Marika neni who read it next. Marika neni has told me her story many times of coming to this country. She was a woman I grew up with, who was like an aunt but more of a sister to my stepfather. Lia was our babysitter in my formative years. Marika neni and my stepfather met at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey, when a group of refugees decided on Wheeling for their new home.
Jeannine Vegh 