My dear friend, last time when I took the decision to come to your countryhouse to spend 2 or 3 days with all of you, I took this decision specifically for the purpose of getting close to your younger son;without him knowing it of course. I wanted to help him disentangle himself from the dark web he was entrapped in for the last few years, affecting seriously his physical health, his mental capacities and his emotional stability. I had to use every means to make him abandon these nightmarish feelings of self-rejection and generally of rejecting life itself. I first communicated those intentions(to be with your younger son)to his brother by phone, 2 or 3 times, and he felt very happy about the whole idea. Your older son was the only person who knew that I would visit your countryhouse for this specific purpose, and we both agreed that he would also be there for support. Your older son felt contented and satisfied with my plans, and he encouraged me because he had known for a long time(before you) how tired and disturbed his brother was, since this situation had began when they were both studying abroad, and living in the same city.

I remember clearly the time when in front of me your older son was trying to explain to you and your husband his anxieties about his younger brother. He was specifically mentioning to both of you the dark themes of his cartoon sketches(excellent cartoonist) during the last few years. Both of you responded in a self-righteous and apathetic way, telling your son that there was nothing really wrong with his brother;even though you were both witnesses of the after-effects of his psychological condition on his physical health as well as on his social behaviour, especially with you, his parents. During the last few years, he would sketch the faces of people without any eyes and with facial expressions projecting feelings of pain, fear and madness. Do you remember when about 2 years ago, he had made a cartoon portrait of the whole family?He sketched all the members of the family as “vampires”, without any eyes, with distorted facial expressions, and with 2 long vampire teeth sticking out of your mouths.

***This particular family portrait was a critical message to all, including to himself. And my dear friend what did you do?You framed the portrait and you placed it in the living room of your house, as if there was absolutely nothing wrong. It was a gesture on your part which clearly showed how much more important your “virtual reality” was than the signals of desperation coming from your younger son.

Your older son was in absolute agreement with my plans to get closer to his younger brother and have similar meetings in the near future, because he knew for a long time, since his childhood years, how much I loved his younger brother, how nonconformist and truthful I was, and how many young people I had helped during my life, starting from your own brother 35 years ago, when he immigrated to North America.

From the start, I had planned to spend 2 days at your countryhouse, since I couldn΄t cope with all the tension among you. During those first 2 nights, I sat with your younger son on the large veranda facing the sea, and we talked almost until daybreak. Your son was truly thirsty for direct, creative and down-to-earth communication, something which rarely happens with you and your husband as your priorities are somewhere else;in the fictitious image of a successful life, socially and financially.

Those two nights, your younger son began to once again(after a long time)express himself calmly and freely, without feeling the pressure and the need to play a particular social role, the way he does with both of you most of the times. With you he feels obliged to show how “sensible”, “stable”, “dynamic”, “normal”and “loyal” a son he is;which means absolutely NOTHING!It is just “virtual reality”just like all those “virtual realities”which we have to experience every moment of our lives. During those magical and intimate moments on your veranda, your son finally could feel that near him was a loving person who would tell him how things really are(at their face value), allowing him the time and space to express all types of emotions, including those which had been mangled up by his society, his social environment, and of course by you two. Your son during these very personal moments wanted to have real human contact with a person who respected him and loved him for what he truly was. There was real communication without any “set of social rules” and naturally without any “social hypocricy”. Through these discussions, we agreed that for the near future we would have such meetings until he could find “his real self”and “his inner strength” to be able to live his own reality;without feelings of guilt and self-negation, and without the burden of other people΄s positions and actions.

I believe that this type of openness and directness(seen as taboos in our modern society), did not sit very well with you and your husband, because I believe that both must have felt inferior and deficient concerning the emotional and existential needs of your sons. Another reason why all this did not sit well with both of you, was the fact that a few days before my arrival, your eldest son announced to both of you that even though he agreed with the idea of working in his father΄s enterprise, he would not want this career job to become his main focus in life where he would have to sacrifice his health, his peace of mind and his affinities with his fellow human beings. He made the point clearly to both of you that he had no intention of developing into a successful and powerful businessman like his father. He knew”first hand”the disastrous effects and the emotional injuries of such “virtual”ambitions. Your elder son was the one who confided this event to me, and it was you yourself who surprisingly(or not so surprisingly) mentioned it to me when I last visited your countryhouse.

You knew well that after so many years as teacher to your sons, and after so many years of intimacy and trust between myself and your children, that it would be very difficult for them to accept to function as disabled human beings, both “spiritually”and “mentally”, just to follow blindly your “fictitious”ambitions. Your egos were traumatized, your strategies were undermined and your objectives were weakened. So naturally in both your minds I represented a major culprit in all those unpleasant developments. I had to be ostracized by any means, starting from the image your sons had of me concerning my honesty and inegrity. Your children had to feel under their skin the emotions of “fear”, “insecurity” and “uncertainty”so that they could be lead back “into the fold”, to the “security” and “safety” of the family set-up. Meaning the “incestuous”type of human dependency where there can be no personal well being, no truth and no real human development.

***P. S. I have used 3 sketches of the younger son in my site. The first one is that of an old man dated 2008-08-02, and which is typical of what he has been drawing lately. The second one is that of a young boy in front of a lap-top dated 2008-10-10, described by me and wonderfully sketched by him. The third one is my portrait which is permanent in the section “ABOUT US”.