Dear SereneWolf,

I totally agree like you mentioned (and even others told me) I was resourceful and pretty much self- reliant. But the thing is that for my parents and grandparents they never saw that as my good accomplishments. They were always like look what he did at this age? Look what he accomplished? Mainly my grandfather and father (Both are very “perfectionist” nature) So instead of praising they were criticizing me and that made me realize that no matter what I’ll do I wouldn’t be good enough for them. (I realized that years ago)

Good that you’ve realized it at a relatively young age! But the imprint stayed, and so their perfectionism became your own perfectionist inner critic. Which is telling you that you’re not good enough, not accomplishing enough at work, not earning enough money etc etc. It’s sad that both your father and grandfather were perfectionists, so you received a double dose of criticism.

Not only that, but it seems there was no male role model who could have served as a positive father figure (“My neighbors are like that, older relatives etc because they grew up in competitive environment“). So you were surrounded by bad role models…

Yes, I can totally relate! I know that feeling, but it must have been hard for you. In my case it was my grandfather. And even though I had good grades, It wasn’t enough! I felt literally pressurized to be in the Top 3 students! and yet I still made it as a Top 1st student till the end of high school. Just to feed their ego. So he can talk others like “look my grandson has always been the 1st”.

Right… so for your grandfather, it seems you were a tool to boost his vanity and pride. He boasted to others with your accomplishments, while at the same time he wasn’t really proud of you, but kept criticizing you. I can see how damaging it was for you, and how toxic. I understand why you wanted to get away ASAP…

But Because my mother and grandmother never criticized me for that and just loved me without any expectations from me. so It was kind of sane place for me. Otherwise, I swear I’d have to run in the jungle much earlier and never return.

It’s good you weren’t criticized by your mother and grandmother. However, I get the feeling that they didn’t protect you from your father’s and grandfather’s criticism either. Your mother told you to take your father’s criticism silently and “maturely”, so basically she never challenged your father to change his approach. My father never protected me from my mother’s criticism either. That’s why the damage done by my mother was much bigger than it should have been. Because my father allowed the abuse and didn’t say anything. I think something similar happened to you too?

And sometimes I think how self-confident, fearless and full of hope kid I used to be. Because of the criticized father and my inner criticism over the years my self-confident and self-esteem is still quite low, and it did affect my career and relationships quite a bit. So I still have to work on my self-esteem and self-confidence.

Yeah, and I think there is even a difference between self-esteem and self-confidence. Self-esteem is a basic sense of self-worth (which doesn’t depend on any skill that you possess), whereas self-confidence is related to various skills we have. Say a professional athlete may have a lot of self-confidence that they are good at sports, but once they get injured, they may feel worthless because their self-esteem was based on their skills and not on a deep inner sense that they are worthy as a person.

Perhaps you too feel self-confident is some things, but what is missing is a deeper sense of self-worth, of being worthy simply because you exist?

Yes I believe I can resonate.  Because those lines hits me. As you know in my previous relationships, I wasn’t being my true self and shielded my heart.

Right.. and it seems to me that you’re very cautious with relationships not only because of your father’s (and grandfather’s) criticism, but also because you weren’t protected enough by your mother. So relationship might seem like a very scary thing, where no one is on your side?

Okay so I’m not sure if my subconscious mind believes in that but I’m sure that my conscious mind doesn’t believe competition in the relationships. It was mostly fear of judgments, criticism and inability to express my emotions properly.

Okay, you’re afraid to be judged by your partner. So to protect yourself, you rather judge her and make her seem deficient, so to feel less vulnerable? Like, you first judge her before she can judge you?

This part could be true though. Conscious and subconscious both levels

Okay, so you don’t want a relationship to be a competition and a power struggle. You hate it. And that’s why you’d rather not go into it. But the problem is that a part of you believes that relationship is a power struggle. Or at least that being in a relationship means being judged, criticized and hurt. That you can’t show your weaknesses, or even your spontaneity (like dancing while cooking lunch) without being criticized. Right?

And if you approach relationships from that vantage point (which is a vantage point of fear), then I think it’s better not to date. Because you’ll likely get more of the same. But if you work on slowly dissolving that fear, on realizing why it’s there and then dissolving it… that’s when you open yourself to a different kind of dynamic in a relationship. To a possibility of a healthy relationship.

That would be my answer to your question whether you’re ready to date (You think I’m ready? Or I still need lot of healing even to start dating someone?). I think you’re ready to date if you can let go of some of that fear of judgment in the relationship. We can talk more about it, if you’d like to…