Dear anita,

I am doing what you normally do –  pasting what you wrote and responding to that – i think it is a great way to respond 🙂

She criticized you but kept you lost in her criticism with no way out, no way to correct the alleged faults. You were lost in the land of the Flawed & Incompetent with no available path to the promised land the Adequate & Competent. – this has been the theme of my life, started with my mother and I found this at work too. I have read in many places that you attract the same type of people until you learn the lessons you have to. Do you think that is true?

–You believe the rudeness is warranted because you believe you are indeed faulty and incompetent and he/she happened to notice it. – I think I am making the same mistake i am accusing other people of doing, judging my worth on what I achieve so I justify their rudeness.

Next you tell yourself that you  ought to be better. The reason you don’t do anything is … that there is nothing to do, because there is no fault or incompetence to be corrected. – this i could make my life long mission, to truly believe that i am not incompetent or that i have no fault to be corrected. Since i started this thread, i have been able to see that i have a very bad opinion of myself, but i am not able to give myself permission to do change it and i guess that is why I brought up how i was not a great daughter or perhaps a good employee – i have my sister and other junior developers to compare to. It makes me feel like I have no right to believe i am truly competent or adequate.

Like any professional you have to learn and improve, true to the seniors in your company as well. But there is no fault and incompetence about you. This is a false core belief, a core belief that is not true to reality. – instead of choosing to learn and improve, i chose the path of defend and survive. And this aggravated the core belief.

The procrastination you mentioned and lesser performance on your part is not a result of being faulty and incompetent, it is a result of believing that you are and therefore believing that you will be found  out at any time. – I see that it is not some inherent fault, what it is maybe a gap in skills required – which i could have learnt and improved myself. But since i identified with failure so much the procrastination was inevitable, since i was sure i was incompetent i used to give up before trying.

I’m not as good as all other tech savvy peers… I still was recognized for one feature I developed yet I’ve had to hear about how slow I am and not up to the standard the industry expects me

– but it makes sense that senior tech co workers will know more than newcomers, beginners. – The peers I had mentioned there were other juniors my age. But I no longer hold this view. There may be a difference in our skills but I have been recognized for other strengths. You said earlier anything can be learned with patience. I will take that advice moving forward.

I tend to ostracize myself, i guess i want to beat others to criticize myself. I envy what others are recognized for and also that more seniors acknowledge them. It has to do with my insecurities – if lesser people appreciate me and their skills are more valued – i may  lose my job and “end up on the streets”, and so i am not ” good enough”. It is something i still struggle with but I do think I making some progress in appreciating things I have achieved and skills I have gained..

This core belief is associated with a deep feeling of shame, which is emotionally painful. It is so painful. The number of times i have gone to the washroom at work to cry my eyes out is insane. I used to and still do feel ashamed when the people around me would find a way to poke at this insecurity of mine. I used to feel like giving up on everything.

 reason you don’t enjoy many things, feeling that lack of passion and motivation you wrote about, is that where there is shame, there is no passion or motivation. – I was trying to look for reasons as to why i was incompetent. I had decided that it was because I was not passionate enough. But i now see that it is the other way round. If i did not have so much baggage tied to functioning in society and failure, lack of passion/ motivation would have been a non issue.

The problem is not in who you are but in who you believe you are. – thank you! I needed to hear this. Feeling like there is something wrong with me has been unbearable.

The bad news is that it takes a lot of time and a lot of work. – I am ready for it, this plants needs some water!

Do you know of people who deeply believe something that you know is not true, maybe certain religious beliefs? If you do, then you know that it is possible to deeply believe something that is not true. – Yes! But i guess one needs to evaluate if the belief is doing any good for them and challenge it if it is simply causing pain.

In my life experience, I have never come across a woman in her twenties (and you are only 23) as intelligent as you are. I have no way to measure your IQ and am not qualified to do so. What I am referring to as intelligence is your insight, your curiosity, how far reaching your thinking goes. You are also a very honest person, honest with yourself, willing to look at reality, willing to examine it. You are a very evolved person this way, not rigid and limited, but open and capable, competent. As a matter of fact, I have never met a person your age who is.. more competent than you. – Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I don’t know if i ever mentioned this, but there used to be times when i mentioned how i felt to my mother and she used to just move on to something else as if i had not said anything. It used to make me feel invisible. You have said the most nice things anyone has ever said to me. You feel like family to me. No one has been this understanding and supportive. Thanks a lot.  Thank you for taking the bad things that happened to you and using them to help others. It really inspires me.

Girija