Dear Miracle88:

It could be very helpful to you if a person of the Indian and American culture, with that specific experience, and who has gained wisdom, would reply to you.

I re-read your posts on this thread. You wrote: ” I felt ostracized by what people would say in judgement. I was constantly judged and sized up. I felt that I was never good enough.”

I do have a lot of experience, unfortunately, with being ostracized and negatively judged. I too felt like I was never good enough. And I too, had trouble with employment and relationships through my adulthood.

I have found out that being negatively judged, criticized and put down by others is a very common experience for many children. As we are ostracized and judged as children, we begin to ostracize and judge ourselves. There is a voice in our heads doing what others have done to us.

The bullies who bullied you in school- they have a mental representative who continues their work in your brain. I call it the “inner bully.” Its common term is the “inner critic”.

There are ways to deal, manage and shrink that “inner bully.” It starts with noticing what it is that it tells you. In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), you learn to challenge it for truth- is what it says true or false? By practicing Mindfulness you learn to notice the thoughts (what the inner critic says) and the distress that accompanies these thoughts, and you learn to calm yourself, to … regulate your emotions, to no longer be taken by them in a storm, but to be in control as much as is possible for you.

Hope you post again.

anita