Dear Lily:

You are welcome and thank you for your kind words and wish that I am okay. I am.

You wrote: “They (your parents) wanted me to submit to their rules and if I didn’t want it, I was the bad one”, so you learned that to assert yourself means you are a bad person, to submit to another means you are a good person.

A child wants nothing more than the parent’s approval and will adjust to what it means. Problem is submitting to others as a way of life brings misery. It is not an effective way to live. But when trying to be assertive we do have to  overcome the fear of being a bad person, which meant as a child, to be rejected by the parent.

There is nothing a child fears more than being rejected by her parent.

You wrote, “Trying to be in a relationship is hard and I have to constantly overcome my fears. But I want to try harder, because at the end of the day I have nothing to lose. I could only end up alone and I already know what that is like”- excellent thinking, clear and true to reality.

I hope to read from you again and again, anytime you would like to post here, I will be glad to read and reply to you.

anita