“She’s Dead to Me” — Tony Soprano

I woke up today after processing in my sleep the watching of season 6 of the Sopranos last night. The show is a study of an undervaluing parent and the effect it has on the kids. Essentially being slapped multiple times daily by your primary caregiver. Creating an emotional orphan.

I can relate. Consequently, everyone in my family has a criminal past, including myself.

Everyone has been recruited into a cult a new “family”, with overvaluing, including me.

The kids either became narcissist manipulators without empathy or, more usually, super nurturers easily manipulated, like me.

So I reflected on my learned behavior of selling myself short and then being dependant on others for valuing. Sometimes called love addiction.

The cult I was in said I was a being of Divine Light then had me work without pay, usually charging me money for this experience of burning off past sins in past lives. Manipulating with Guilt Obligation and Fear. FOG.

I left it for art school and was deprogrammed by academics and artists and therapists where I learned to better accept myself. I also, like a lot of art students, left the relationship I was in as I learned to see I was being undervalued which contributed to selling myself short.

I battle this primary programming every day. The tool I use is REBT. It is irrational to undervalue myself, others and the universe, as there simply in no evidence for it. It’s a con used to steal my resources.