Dear Murtaza:

“My big brother is autistic and he kind of uses my mother to get her attention and to hear him out, she doesn’t mind since she feel like she is giving something (a sense of worth)… If this is what’s happening here, please let’s end it because I won’t like myself”-

– No, this is not at all what is happening, and I am glad to be able to say this confidently, without any hesitation. It is only yesterday that I thought about how much you are teaching me: you are teaching me to not be arrogant, to not assuming that because something is possible for person X, it is also possible for person Y. You are teaching me that it is forgivable for me to have the feeling of love for you, and then to lose it.. and have it again. You are teaching me to be less academic and no longer authoritarian in my replies to members. You are teaching me the importance of sharing about my experience of life instead of arguing with others about their experience of life.

“I do value not hurting people and just leave them be, to live in peace with them, so from now on, I won’t answer another member that I don’t see a point of our conversation, and I won’t answer him unless I have something nice to say, I think that its better to not say anything than to lie”- I am pleased to read that you value not hurting, and living in peace with other people. I value the same. I believe that you value very highly being true to yourself. I say to you and me: in all circumstances where and when it is possible to practice both values, practice both: be true to yourself and don’t hurt/live in peace with others.

“just to be sure that this conversation isn’t just about me”- it isn’t. “I want you to be as comfortable as you can be”- thank you!

From your previous post: “I don’t even feel lonely anymore, I don’t feel anything, I just exist, which is better then feeling lonely and (not being able to) change it. If the cure requires to drop all life passion, then it’s worth it, because I suffered from that passion”- there is no arguing with what you wrote here. Your life experience provides the evidence that this is true. I believe that what you wrote here is indeed true.

I wrote to you: “Fast forward to now, it seems like getting back to feeling empathy for other people makes me feel a  togetherness, not alone/ lonely anymore. Empathy is like magic, in this context. It makes a big difference”, and you wrote: “I don’t understand exactly what you mean, could  you elaborate? How did you feel empathy? I feel sympathy.. but empathy I only feel when I like the person, I don’t let anyone get my empathy, it’s a feeling I appreciate and won’t spend it on people that aren’t worth it”-

– I don’t feel empathy for everyone. I definitely don’t feel empathy for people who are hurting other people, for people in great positions of power who have the opportunities to help thousands and millions of people, yet they are choosing to not help, and/or harm instead. I don’t feel empathy for a cruel, inhumane person- whether he/she intentionally and severely harms one other individual, or a whole nation.

To elaborate further about empathy: as I am typing this post to you, I am one person talking to another person of equal human value, as well as a person (in my mind) with equal/ comparable intelligence, a person like me: not more than me, not less than me. Empathy is in equality, and in equality, I am no longer alone and lonely.

The way I used to live, in social isolation and alienation, I was either inferior (the great majority of the time) or superior, never an equal.

“‘External validation never works for me, it always has to come from me’, this may sound like a small thing, but it isn’t, I always asked for people’s validation online in the past, never happening again”- It is a big thing to me: when I asked for others’ validation in the past, I did it under the assumption that they are superior to me. I had no evidence to make such an assumption. Members in these forums often ask just anyone who may be reading (people they know nothing about, people they never communicated with before): am I a bad person for thinking/ feeling/ doing this or that? My question to the person asking this question is: who are you asking?

“I believe that everything has a price, and this feeling good may has unknown price (such as addiction or some hidden long term effects)”- yes, unfortunately. Yet, I didn’t know until then that it was possible to feel like that for any length of time, for even a minute. It was a very new emotional experience for me.

“how would you describe feeling good under that drug? Of course you can just skip this if you don’t want to answer, and I won’t mind it”- thank you,  I don’t mind: it felt like all the fear, all the shame and all the guilt were squeezed out of my brain and body and were gone. So, I was happy, heavenly happy and I waited (not anxiously, just waiting) for the next thought that will cross my mind and take away this happening, and to my surprise, whatever thought entered my mind was .. devoid of any fear, shame or guilt.

“I wonder if you have seen Mary and Max?”- no, I just googled it, it’s an animated comedy-drama, it says.

It is good talking to you this Sunday morning!

anita