Dear TeaK,

Thank you for your patience. I will structure this reply in two parts; reply 1 and reply 2.

Reply 1

Yes, I would say one of my core wounds is my “unmet emotional needs.”

It took me a while to name that, and it was not until I’ve heard the stories of others and read more about psychology and blogs like these. However, I was able to name the feeling of being a burden a lot quicker in life. I think it started naming that feeling when I was having giving up life thoughts for the first time in my life. Having those thoughts made me feel like a burden, and it got stronger when I saw other people needing help or perhaps being worried about me.

That includes my mom when she got unwell. But also my brother. There was a time I was going to swim as far as possible out into the ocean hoping to get a cramp since I sometimes got those. My brother seemed to have noticed I was not doing well and yelled out my name, as well as make my mum aware and that she should call me back closer to the shore. That is when it hit me, that despite not even saying out my emotions, a loved one of mine still noticed something going on. My brother. I felt guilty for it, for making him worry.

After that event, I spoke more openly about my depression to my mum and my dad. My dad hired somebody to talk to, the problem was a language barrier. The professional spoke Spanish with tiny bits of English. My Spanish was not good enough to communicate such deep emotions and the inner working of my brain. We tried it two times. The second time both my parents were in the sitting, to both hear and aid with the language barrier (my dad’s Spanish is a lot better). I mentioned how I felt hurt by dad and blamed him for many of my reasons for why I felt so hurt. I quickly regretted saying these things when I saw his sadness in his eyes, it looked like he was about to cry, a face I had not seen before on my dad. This adds up to reasons why I used to prefer not to share my emotions, it will hurt you, the other person.

Although it did feel a bit better coming open with my difficulties it was not long till I found myself saying “take a grip” to myself and started to worry about my mum primarily and the rest of the family.

With each reply to either you or anita, I have noticed myself sharing more of my story. The reason why I try to keep it short, is not to complicate things for both you and anita. Like if I still do not want to be a burden.

When I decided to share more of my stories and my emotions with my two close friends, one of them retreated and I wanted to know what was going on. Since they always said they wanted to know more or receive messages from me. I would ask whether they are okay with the length of my messages, which made the retreat and use of said first one thing and then another were confusing and hurtful. Especially because they knew I already had trust issues and troubles with friendship from the year abroad time. I did take into consideration that maybe because they were going through complicating things, as they told me, it changed their behavior.  I also would send messages and picture presentations to cheer them up. That one friend, once they learned and were more comfortable with honesty, they shared that they did retreat and that due to lack of physical contact/distance between us they feel less emotionally connected to me and reading the long messages and me having too many emotions were tiring, but they enjoyed reading them. That they did consider we are very alike because they also think deeply about things like I. Those sentences hurt, especially from a friend that themself writes about how they are very emotional, an HSP, and write about how the right people will tag along if they are just being themselves. They wrote about, how they also struggle with self-love and have written about how they prefer people different/opposite from them. Sometimes, I wonder whether this is also the case they retreated from me because I am too much like them. We are still in contact, with them still having the habit to not reply to all messages, leaving many unseen. Last year, they once wrote me though after asking that this is what they do and asked whether we could come up with something that we both feel connected to each other. But after that email, they quickly changed their behavior again, and then even took a while to read my messages back then, leaving me very confused again. They are going through their own healing journey and like I said before we are still in touch. It simply is no longer the way it used to be. I do think they want to stay in touch since they said they are looking forward to following my new IG account once I create it.

As for the other friend, which today I’ve been grieving a lot more, it really hurts that I haven’t heard from them for almost four months now. The first time they apologized for not being there for me for the good and bad times and that they have a lot on their shoulder. I was really grateful for their honesty and could understand. Then they messaged like we always did and suddenly stopped at the end of January. At first, I thought I did something wrong, like being wrong for sharing my emotions and my story or maybe sending too many messages, although she kept saying she is happy to receive them. I also wrote to them that they can still send messages to other friends in our same friend’s group on IG, knowing that is something that she would worry about. I know she reads (some) of my messages since eventually, I could see her active on IG. While I know, I did allow it, it still hurt me. I sometimes would send cheer-up puns or pictures (bi-weekly/monthly by now), since she did tell me she is having a lot on her shoulder, and knowing her some of her past, I think it is best to show her I am still here and have not left them. Despite it all, it hurts.

Today I felt lots of grief, so it probably is influencing my writing.

“When you comforted your mother when you were just 2 years old, the child doesn’t do it because they have developed empathy at that age, but primarily because they fear that their own existential needs won’t be met. If something happens to your mother, you as a small, helpless child wouldn’t be able to survive on your own. That’s why a child tries to do everything in their power to comfort the parent, to make the parent happy, so the parent could continue to take care of them. It’s a coping mechanism, a survival mechanism for the child. If you help your mother the best you can and don’t represent a burden to her, there’s a greater chance that she’d take care of you, and that your own survival would be ensured. That’s how the child’s mind works, unconsciously.” 

This part of your reply reminded me of the book “The Art of Loving” by Erich Fromm. It also talks about the survival mechanism in a child and that children do anything in their power to make sure their needs are met.

“So, I believe you became an empath, i.e. attuned to other people’s needs, out of necessity.”

That might be the case.

“This continued for many years, where you’ve tried to help various hurt people whom you met on your journey. You would involve in “deep conversations” with them and offered to be their shoulder to cry on. This was your way of bonding. You didn’t ask for much in return, just that they keep in touch. When they wouldn’t, when they would ghost you, that’s when you finally felt hurt and abandoned.”

At first, I thought it was normal that people ghost you since it has been part of my life with constant traveling and moving. However, after accumulated experiences of such cases, is when I started noticing the hurt, which played a part in my first depression.

“I also understand now that some of those people might really be wounded (suffering from social anxiety, as you said), that’s why they would often ghost you. But also, many of your relationships seem to be long-distance, with people whom you didn’t spend much time with in the first place, since you do move a lot, so that’s also something to consider.”

I am happy that I was understood. But yeah, many of my relationships, if not almost all, are long-distance. I’ve come across an amazing blog, which covers articles about (adult) TCK, CCK  (third culture kids / cross-culture kids), and the ex-pat life. I resonated a lot with almost all articles. I am considering buying her book, as it covers stories from over a hundred other people who share similar lifestyles. There are not many instances where I feel touched/heard by the words “you are not alone.” This was one of the cases where I did. It was one of the highlights of the day.

There were some articles covering the topics of connection and friendships. There was one common “lesson” that most TCKs shared, which was “everyone leaves.” I feared that statement once, trying to prevent it. I read a free chapter of a graphic novel last year. It dealt with the same topic, and I felt very moved by it; resonating a lot with the story, even if the details were different from my personal story.

I’ve come more to terms with everyone leaves after they kind of have to right? Nothing is permanent. Everything requires change. Although I lived a life full of changes, it has taken me very long to slowly come to terms with it.

As for the theta healing, while talking about something that concerns you with the healer, emotions will come up, which can show up as physical pain in a certain body part later on (stored energy) or chakra whilst talking. The modality helps clear false beliefs but does not clear emotions. It helps release though. Does that answer your question?

“When you do feel an emotion, it’s good that you can name it, but it might be good to also stay with it for a while, without immediately rationalizing it and trying to get rid of it. Try to see where it’s coming from and which need of yours hasn’t been met. Try not to immediately explain it away, telling yourself that yes, you’re hurt but the person who’s hurt you is hurt too. Because by doing the latter, you immediately overwrite your own pain with empathy for the other person, while your own pain and your own need remain unaddressed.”

I have been working on that. Sitting with emotions is not comfortable I have to say. It is weirdly interesting to come to see/experience just how much energy it takes to sit with one’s energy.

 

Reply 2

“It appears your mother wasn’t manipulating you consciously, but rather, she was emotionally immature and reacted like a child. And then you were made guilty for “making your mommy cry”, and even needed to apologize.”

I think “emotionally immature” is not correct. She only cried 3 times in front of me during my 18 years of childhood. I think that would be putting too many expectations on mothers, to say that they are emotionally immature because they cried in front of their children. Then again I did not share the full experience the first time.

“Your entire family (I assume your father and other adults, perhaps your grandparents?) concluded the same: that you’re guilty and needed to apologize. There was nobody who understood how an adult should behave – all of them were emotionally immature.”

It was only my mum, a family friend and me in the house. And I do not think that one of them is emotionally immature unless that includes suppressing our needs and emotions. In that case, the whole family is emotionally immature, including me.

“And you were emotionally blackmailed: if you don’t behave, you’ll make your mother miserable, perhaps you’ll even make her sick?”

I was not blackmailed.

I know I am keeping these messages a bit short, but I hope you have read the event with me and me in the reply I sent anita. There, there is more information on how the event played out.

It really can take only one event that sticks out to all others to make keep “lessons” in mind.

About the generalizations, I do not think they refer to my family, or at least only to my family, as I was having different images in my head. They were more like an accumulation of several experiences, which confused me but did store up anger or hurt inside me, but also due to me rationalizing or being understanding I probably neglected my own emotions.

1. People want fairness but we are not fair. So many times have I been treated unfairly because of being different; different skin color, different likes, different ideas, different backgrounds.

All of these statements I was thinking of experiences outside my family, from books, school, movies, uni. And child me would say “mean” or maybe even “angry and scary” as opposed to unfair since that word a child probably would not know. The first time I thought something was mean was a story my mum read me from the children’s bible; I am not really religious, however, for the short time we did go to church when I was little. I remember to this day how the book cover looked like and that one specific story. It was about two women quarreling about whom a baby belongs to. One woman was a liar, the other told the truth, but the person who was trying to come to a “correct” (that is what a child would say) solution cut the baby in half and gave each woman half of the baby. The baby no longer breathed when cut in half. However, the mum who lied got angry and complained that there was no use for the baby now. The mom who was telling the truth was sad and cried. That is how they figured out who the real mum was. I can’t remember the end of the story, or whether that was the end. I do remember I found the solution, and the lier means and was sad hearing that story, maybe even a little scared. There are other stories from children’s bible movies/comics I found scary and it always boils down to someone being different, which is why they do not get treated kindly. This is very common in life. The cases where I found that to be the least the case was in the international school in Cuba, which was filled with diplomat kids and kids who been in contact with several different cultures in their life (like a lot of different cultures).  Although not all memories are pleasant, I always found that school to have the most family-like atmosphere and the fairest, color, background, different ideas were rarely an issue in my viewpoint. The unfairness I’ve experienced in that case was all because people were hurt (sick parents, divorced parents, death of loved ones, not feeling like they are enough or worthless), and by then I already knew that hurt people hurt people.

I could probably give more stories, but I would rather change my statement as I no longer store that anger in me, when I said it. Now I would change it to “People want fairness and they try to be fair. What is perceived as fair depends on the worldview and experiences of each individual person, making an equal perceives fairness difficult to obtain unless people approach with open-mindedness and desire to want to get the other side better.”

2. People want authenticity but only to their liking.

This statement kind of plays along the lines with the first one. When I thought about this statement, the image I had in my head was that of modern society and the influence of corporates, polarization, and the trends in showing integrity. However, the first story I think about is one from middle school. In school/uni I was good at debates and discussions. I didn’t like them though. The group usually wants to win, and me being often class best there was kind of the guarantee perceived by others, that if they had met in the group they would win or get a good grade. There was once a debate about the nurture and nature topic during middle school, because of lack of time, the teacher simply split the class in half (literally took half of the class and made that one group) and randomly assigned which side we would defend. It was okay that we could agree that both sides brought valid points, but we still had to debate in such a way that favored the side assigned. I remember wanting to be on the other side since I favored that side more personally, yet the assignment required me to debate in favor of the other side (my group), plus I think I was influenced by peer pressure and the role of being class best. Our group won, although I honestly was let down on how the other group could not think of ways to argue against the claims I was making. What matters more is the fact that I did not like what I was doing; it was not authentic nor upheld my truth in my opinion. It did not matter which side I stood on, I believed I could win on either side of the debate because I would come up with counterclaims for both and unless there was no one to question what I believed then I would have nothing to challenge my own thinking. Maybe with this statement, I was also angry at myself, because although I want authenticity from others, even I hide all of myself in order to blend into new cultures in order to maintain peace. I hope this is making any sense.

3. People say you should be yourself, but if you are yourself and it is not to people’s liking then that is a lie.

This follows along the lines of the second point. I feel like I have been saying the same thing in different ways. In this statement, I would agree that family does play a role in it. For example, I could not be fully myself when taking care of others.

This statement I would like to change to “It is hard to be yourself in a world where many people are still all trying to find what it means to be yourself and allow to be oneself.”

4. People say they want kindness but are skeptical of it.

This statement came from blog posts, forums, and articles I had been reading prior to writing on this platform. Two of my friends had pointed out that they think I am too kind (this was last year), and thus I was searching about what the problem is with being too kind. People being skeptical about kindness came up, but to be honest I do not think I should have let it affect me so much since I was probably too vulnerable to read such things at that time.

I still think people tend to be more skeptical of kindness because there seems to be a larger number of hurting people who have not dealt with or have only dealt little with their scars/wounds. This would make kindness look like scarcity and thus more skeptical because we (humans) would tend to react based on our negative experiences first.

Now I feel like that statement has nothing too little to do with my actual feelings. I think I let my stored anger/sadness be fueled by a different anger/sadness; like putting oil to the fire.

5. There are so many things that contradict each other so there is no right or wrong, but people say something is right or wrong.

Honestly, this primarily comes from my tons of experiences of moving around and exposed to change frequently. The statement did not provoke anger in me, but rather overwhelming. I actually find paradoxical/oxymorical to be part of my core traits; they are like the big trunk that holds roots and branches together (I’ve made a picture of it even; it is not complete yet). I find it beautiful, but I first somehow also had to find peace or some sort of understanding of how that is part of my identity and how it influences my relationships and experiences as an individual. This is where the TFK/CCK articles helped greatly with getting some more clarity.

6. Working is fun or full-filling, that is a lie. Most people I have met so far are sad or angry when they come back from work.

This started in the family. To the largest part, I found my dad, and one aunt that works to be unhappy with their work, and they were stressed out by it. This was also the case with other adults that worked, hence when people tried to say work is fun or can be fulfilling I would find it hard to believe, especially if they themselves do not seem that happy and more often stressed.

The emotion attached to this statement is annoyance and probably some fear (of the unknown).

I am not looking forward to working full time, but at least it is no longer as bad as it used to be.

“Was someone in your family (e.g. your siblings) jealous of you being smart?”

The first time I got that feeling was with my second oldest cousin when doing homework together (I was in grade 1). It was not voiced out by them, nor did I know how to describe that vibe I was receiving. However, I could match that feeling with the classmate voicing out their jealously. Usually, I would equate jealousy with loneliness, thus make it a goal to not get people jealous of me, as far as I could, because my desire to make dad proud was higher.

The more confident I am growing with all my experiences the less I care about it. Even jealousy is an important emotion that tries to tell you something. It would be unfair to deprive someone of feeling that, even if I may not particularly like it when I feel like others are jealous of me. After all, I also have been jealous of others. Although usually, that drives me to be inspired by them for what I envy and try to learn. I think I subconsciously wanted people to do the same things with their jealously towards me.

“It doesn’t mean you should start yelling at your mother and other family members, being angry at them, but you can allow yourself to feel those feelings privately, and not feel bad about yourself for feeling them.”

I like it that I can feel these things privately. Although I can also admit that I could talk about this to my mum in a subtle and calm way; about how I store anger inside and had to find a way to get it out of me. I even told her that maybe she can resonate with some of my feelings. Next, I shared how I wanted to turn these “lessons/experiences” into stories and shared some of my writings with her. She found it beautiful. I am really happy that I am communicating a lot more with my family, at the end we say more often “I love you” (with my mum that was almost always the case though). You really can feel changes happening and each one trying.

“When you talk about “people” in those presentations, e.g. people who don’t care about the environment, you may be in part talking about your family who doesn’t care about you, and you’re angry and upset at them. And it shows in your presentations…

Does this sound like a possibility to you?”

I feel more like I learned how to evoke such feelings subconsciously and consciously. In high school, we learned about, which background could make a bigger impact on the audience and get their attention + various other techniques. Especially for (collectively considered) important topics like environmental protection.

I think I rather have more of a problem with myself, which is that I know I can be manipulative and that I can be good at it. After all, such techniques at the end are a form of manipulation. This would not be the first time that I would feel that about myself. Nature and nurture is another scenario where I was afraid of my own capabilities. I think it also plays a big role in why I focus on social responsibilities yet trying to come to solutions, I hope not to fall into any manipulative behavior subconsciously or consciously. I talked about this with a friend, and they said there are good and bad forms of manipulation and it is impossible to avoid it. A mum for example might treat her child to a goodnight story if the child thus goes to the bed early is a form of manipulation even if the intention was out of the good and caring pursuit. They also mentioned, that I might care or overthink too much and I am probably more afraid of my own capabilities, especially because I could be good at it. It soothed me to hear, the fact that I am aware of it, is a good step forward.

Kibou