Dear Aum:

I re-read all of your previous posts of Aug 2020 and Aug 2021 in order to understand your current original post better. I want to first quote from your previous threads as it relates to your current thread:

“I don’t have many friends, and again, my relationship with my parents is dysfunctional” (Aug 2020), “I didn’t have the best support system growing up – my parents and my only sibling, my brother are not what you would call emotionally available or even aware” (Aug 2021), “I don’t really have a good support system” (Nov 2022).

In the previous threads, you described the dysfunction you grew up with, the one from which you still suffer: “I had also been taking care of family from a very young age… I’ve always been compared to my brother by extended family members and friends… It’s a lifelong pain that I’ve had… I feel like I don’t belong in my bro’s life or even my parents’ lives… it hurts to be around them – esp. since I know that if I put some (literal) distance between us I can be much happier, healthier, and at peace. When I was away from them, I felt like I was my best self. My absence didn’t seem to impact them in any way, my bro in particular seems indifferent to whether I’m even in the house or not” (2020, 2021).

Because your parents and others compared you unfavorably to your brother, you naturally felt angry from an early age: “I’m the easily angered, opinionated, ‘disagreeable’ one… I lashed out a lot when I was a child, and even now, being around them makes me want to lash out“.

And now, to your current original thread, a year and 3 months after the last:

“I’ve always felt anxious at the end of the year. I look at all the goals I didn’t get to, all the hopes and dreams I had for myself and it makes me afraid of setting new ones for the new year. What if I fail and let myself down again? What if I hope for something and it never happens? Will I be able to survive?“-  I assume that your goals in past years were about taking care of your family and finally winning their approval.. finally making them value you. You can set new goals that have to do with creating that physical distance that you need from them and finding your value outside the context of your family, outside the dysfunction that you were born into (a dysfunction that you did not create!)

“If I look back, I did manage to achieve some things. And even at my lowest points, I made it through. That has to mean something right?“- yes, it means that you are strong, enduring, and resilient.

“Because I’m hopeful, I really am“- no longer hopeful to win your family’s approval, I hope.

“I want to be stronger, set new goals and honour them. I owe it to myself to be happy and healthy“- set new goals outside the dysfunction you were born into because you do indeed owe it to yourself, as an individual who was born to be free (not one born to be imprisoned in a familial role).

“I guess my question is this: how do we overcome the past year, especially when it was so tough, and move on to the next one with hope and faith?“- I will answer using the 2020 and 2021 quotes:

“I’ve always been compared to my brother… It’s a lifelong pain that I’ve had“- free yourself from this comparison and pain in 2023.

“I feel like I don’t belong in my bro’s life or even my parents’ lives… it hurts to be around them – esp. since I know that if I put some (literal) distance between us I can be much happier, healthier, and at peace. When I was away from them, I felt like I was my best self“- don’t stay where you don’t belong; don’t take care of a family that thinks of you as less valuable, put the physical distance that you need between you and them.

You will feel guilty for a while: it will be the price you’ll have to pay for your freedom and eventual health, peace of mind and best self.

“My absence didn’t seem to impact them in any way, my bro in particular seems indifferent to whether I’m even in the house or not“- they will be okay when you are not around and so will you.

anita