Dear Javier,

I am glad your relationship with your mother improved somewhat in the last years. What you’re expressing now is the voice of your inner critic, listing everything you did wrong and how your messed up your life, as well as the relationships with your loved ones. This inner critic is telling you that “I have failed as a son, brother, grandson, nephew, cousin, and friend“. It’s berating you for using drugs as a teen, and then for using work as an escape and neglecting your family for an entire 10 years.

What this inner critic isn’t saying and isn’t even interested in is WHY you used drugs as a teen, why you struggled with depression, why you needed to escape by sailing off to for-away countries. It’s because of the pain you encountered as a child, living with a father who abused your mother and threatened to kill her. It’s because of growing up in such horrendous, frightening circumstances.

You say that you mentally broke down in your 20s after your then-girlfriend had an abortion (I was devastated, heartbroken, and had a mental breakdown. For almost a year I was numb and dead inside.) But I think it was just the final nail in the coffin of your misery and pain, caused  by your traumatic childhood. You say it has always been your dream to have children, preferably in your early 20s, to see them grow up and have their own children, to be in their life for a long time, to see your grandchildren grow.

I believe it was a dream of a better life, a different life than the one you had as a child. You romanticized it, you put all your hopes in it. But when it was so rudely shattered, all your dreams shattered with it too and you went numb and depressed. What you saw as your ticket to a better, happier life wasn’t going to happen. And it broke you. But as I said, it wasn’t the only reason you broke down, it was just the last straw.

The inner critic is judging you and condemning you harshly. But what you’d need to understand is that everything that you’re condemning yourself for is a reaction to your pain. It’s a reaction to the pain of that little boy who had to endure a childhood with such a father, in such horrible circumstances. Your addiction, your depression, your escapism – it’s all a reaction to your pain.

You’d need to acknowledge there’s a wounded inner child in you – this boy is still living in you – and he needs your compassion, not judgment. He needs your understanding, not scolding. He’s been hurt and doesn’t need another punch in the stomach, another cut into his wound – rather, he needs you to see him and have compassion for him. You need to protect him from that inner critic who wants to keep slamming him.

How does this sound to you? Can you find compassion for that little boy who suffered so much while growing up?