Pushed away: Violets
“The moment somebody starts looking after me, I want out of the building.”
It declines to get better and declines to commit, holding off love, closeness and anything sacred, because all of those arrive in the form of a hand reaching toward it and that hand has a history. Mothering that was intrusive and imposed its care regardless of what was wanted taught it that being tended is a form of being taken over, so remaining slightly unwell keeps the tending at a manageable distance. What it asks for is one piece of care accepted from somebody who asks first.
It echoes Rapunzel, kept in a tower by a woman who called the keeping love and meant it, and who never once asked what the girl in it wanted. The form implies a task: to find out whether every hand that reaches belongs to the one who locked the door.
- Essence
- The Sealed
- Rule
- Being looked after there meant being taken over.
- Substance / Activity
- Violets
- Archetype
- Rapunzel
- Emotional theme
- Care remembered as invasion
- Behavioural pattern
- Prevention of one's own healing; commitment-avoidance; rejection of love, intimacy and the sacred
- Family dynamic
- Severely intrusive, care-imposing mothering that overrode what the child actually wanted
- Core wound
- Being looked after there meant being taken over.
- Exit
- Accepting one piece of care from somebody who asks first.
What is the "Pushed away: Violets" pattern?
It declines to get better and declines to commit, holding off love, closeness and anything sacred, because all of those arrive in the form of a hand reaching toward it and that hand has a history. Mothering that was intrusive and imposed its care regardless of what was wanted taught it that being tended is a form of being taken over, so remaining slightly unwell keeps the tending at a manageable distance. What it asks for is one piece of care accepted from somebody who asks first.
What does "Pushed away: Violets" sound like when it shows up?
The moment somebody starts looking after me, I want out of the building.
What is the archetypal form of "Pushed away: Violets"?
It echoes Rapunzel, kept in a tower by a woman who called the keeping love and meant it, and who never once asked what the girl in it wanted. The form implies a task: to find out whether every hand that reaches belongs to the one who locked the door.
This is a pattern. Not a verdict.
It appears in many lives.