Dear Inquisitive Soul:

I admire you for the following (in your second post): “I was reading some psychology book that touched (on) the subject of ‘passing mental illnesses’ through generations… it needs to be severed that’s why, until I.. figure it out myself, I don’t want to pass it onto others”- I wish that this kind of awareness and personal and social responsibility was more common than it is. If more people were as responsible as you are- there would be way less suffering and destruction in our world.

I re-read your posts this morning and will be developing my understanding as I type, and that means that it will be a long post, I hope you bear with me, and take your time reading and considering the following:

There was a certain time in your family that you did not talk about but which was very powerful in your life, a hard and stressful time of issues and bad stuff: “other issues were happening at home but whatever… the hard and stressful period in my family.. Thy tried really hard to keep me away from the ‘bad stuff’. I noticed that, as far as I can remember, and wanted to not cause any trouble and just have some quiet time”-

Your family members, your mother, your grandmother, others perhaps (?) tried really hard to keep you away from the bad stuff, but they failed. You noticed the bad stuff.

This bad stuff was very difficult for you, even though your role in the family was easy: “almost everything was handed to me and done for me… I was happy and kept myself doing ‘my thing’ whether it was drawing stuff or playing with things. I was creative and had fun”-

It was a very difficult time for you because you were kept out of the most important issues that were happening. If you were given some role in addressing those issues, and solving those issues- you would have felt useful, a valuable member of the family, a valuable part of the team. It didn’t have to be a major role, given your age, but if you were asked for your opinions, if you were listened to when you offered your opinions, and if some changes made because of your input- then you would have felt being a valuable member of your family, working together as a team to solve team problems.

But instead, you were ignored, protected from what you needed most, to feel valued as a team member. When your family was “overprotective” of you, by keeping you away from the problems, they sent you the message that you don’t have what it takes to address team problems and come up with solutions together with the team.

“Then the schooling years came in” and you were kept out of other teams: sports teams (“I was always picked last when playing team games”), and popular/ accepted-kids teams (“I was made fun of and kids picked on me”). By this point you were kept away from your original team (your family) and secondary teams (peers).

At home you worked/ played Alone: “I.. kept myself doing ‘my thing‘.. drawing stuff or playing with things“-

– playing/ interactive with things, not with people.

At school, you were accepted, admired for work (art) that you did Alone: “some kids (and teachers) admired my skills when it came to my art skills and that gave me a sense of acceptance and approval”.

So far, you received approval for keeping to yourself Alone, apart from any team. And then, you discovered online video gaming and played a lot of those, “for years upon years”. If those games included virtual team work: one team of players playing against another team- then for the first time in your life, you experienced being a valuable part of a team, playing/ working as a team.

“Important note to mention: I feel ‘endangered’ when in the presence of other more knowledgeable people but at the same time I respect them”- your efforts to work together with your family members (adults who were supposed to be more knowledgeable than you), and your efforts to work together with peers who were better than you in sports, or more accepted otherwise)- failed. You were rejected by the original and secondary teams. To be rejected feels dangerous, for humans and for other social animals. It is an instinctive fear that all animals who live in groups share: the fear of being rejected by the group.

When you wrote: “I just can’t break the ice. This feeling (fear?) is so strong I can’t fathom it”- you may be referring to the instinctive, animalistic fear of every social animal, the fear of being rejected by the group. Alone, a social animal is not likely to survive.

“A vicious cycle of self-hatred and destruction has begun there- not only I hated myself there but also others”- hating yourself for not being valuable enough to belong to a team, and hating others for sending you the message that you are not valuable enough to belong to their team.

“I also have (to this day) a strange habit to pick on others’ undoings or simply stupid stuff they do, like ‘Why don’t you do X instead of Y? It is so simple, you must not do this’ etc.”-

-I imagine that when the hard and stressful period of time was happening in your family, and/ or afterwards, when there were stresses in the family- you (as a preteen or a teenager) volunteered your solution to the problems. Let’s say your mother did Y and Y wasn’t working. You knew that doing X made more sense. So, you told her something like: ‘Mom, why don’t you do X instead of Y?, but she didn’t listen to you (and maybe criticized your input), and she kept doing Y. Angry that she kept doing Y, you angrily said: ‘Mom, it is  so simple: you must not do Y. Do X instead!

“in situations where some ‘romantic’ opportunity was emerging.. I quickly caved in.. it was a fear of being close to someone”- afraid of being rejected by a romantic partner, rejected by another kind of a team.. a romantic team of two (?)

anita