Dear Kshitij:

You are welcome.

Back in April, you shared (I am adding the boldface feature selectively): “there was a point in my teens when I began to feel as if I had nothing good in me apart from my academics… I have never heard an appreciation or compliment from my father about my nature, about who I am apart from studies. Instead from early childhood, I would get to listen to very harsh criticism and ‘sermons’ (if the word conveys what I try to say) on even the most trivial issues. he would use to presume that in any given situation, I would be automatically at fault. It was like he had a problem with everything I did”.

Yesterday, May 12, you shared: “I am sometimes surprised seeing that a memory which would cause rage to me five years ago has the same sting even today, and I feel as hurt…  Sometimes I just end up having violent rage-filled thoughts that ruin my mood and subsequently my day. No matter how many times I have gone over a past memory, it stirs the same emotions every single time… Almost every day I am stressed out about something or the other… I am stuck in the past… a voice in my head gets louder and louder, which thinks that I am not as good and smart as others… he (father) had literally said that I am not ‘smart’ like the other students” (May 12)-

– Your father truly had a problem with everything about you, including your studies/ academics (not apart from your academics). His Harshly Disapproving, Critical Voice was broad-based, wide-ranging, large-scale, extensive and persistent: he disapproved of everything about you. Including at the time you suffered from your spine disease when harshness was most inappropriate.

No wonder such an extensive, persistent, frequent Harsh Disapproval & Criticism from him led to extensive, persistent, frequent rage within you.

“Rage… hurt.. rage-filled thoughts…No matter how many times I have gone over a past memory, it stirs the same emotions every single time… Almost every day I am stressed out about something or the other… I am stuck in the past“- your father’s Voice is active within you and so is your Emotional Reaction to his voice: rage, hurt, rage filed thoughts and stress.

Your emotional reactions to his voice are humanly natural and normal. it is normal to feel rage when abused, and persistent rage when persistently abused. You are currently residing in a different, far away country (U.K.) from your father, but his Voice is residing in your head. And every time you hear his voice on the phone or in-person during a visit, his voice in your head is energized, and so is your emotional reactions to his Voice, keeping you stuck in the past.

Looking at the title of your thread: Intrusive and Anxious Thoughts, I would add to it: hurt and Rage-filled Thoughts: Intrusive, Anxious, Hurt and Rage-filled Thoughts.

These thoughts are a normal reaction to his Voice (his voice in-person and his voice in your head).

How can you possibly avoid a normal reaction? The only way is to remove the action, i.e., , the threat: his Voice. His Voice has (still) a problem with everything about you. You have to turn down the volume of that voice down and turn up the volume of a different voice, one that says:

Kshitij, you are a good girl, you are a good person. I like you. Whatever you feel, Kshitij is okay with me. I accept you just you are. It is okay, Shitij, to feel angry and rageful, hurt and anxious, it’s all understandable, all normal reactions to abuse.

I am here for you, Kshitij. I am your friend. I will help you turn the volume down on that other voice, so that you have the peace of mind that you so desperately need and deserve.

Shh… hush his sermons, hush his criticism.. hush his abuse. You don’t deserve it, you never deserved it. You were never guilty of it. He was, he is.

anita