Dear J:

I appreciate your post. Based on your posts on my thread on Parents, months ago, this is what I think:

* This may be difficult for you to read, if I am correct in my analysis, or in a good part of it, so just in case, please do something relaxing before you read this… I am worried. It is not easy stuff…

Regarding your tendency to dive into things without thinking about the consequences, I think it is a result of being bullied, emotionally abused by your parents and siblings. You may be diving in without thinking because if you took the time to think, you would be hearing their voices and their voices will cause you to freeze in place and do nothing at all. So you hope for the best and dive in. Maybe you dive in as quickly as possible before they (their voices in your head, at this point) catch up with you, stop you, and rain on your parade. You RUSH so to not be stopped by them with.

You learned maybe in school about pros and cons, listing those before decisions. Problem is, in the reality of your family, only cons were assigned to you. So you dive in before all the cons catch up with you.

You have little tolerance to people giving you advice because the “advice” you got for decades from your family was that you cannot make things work, that you are a failure and “not normal” and such, so when people tell you the cons of a decision you are about to make, you “hear” all the abuse you heard as a child.

No wonder you just want to scream “OH BOG OFF IT’S MY LIFE AND YOU DON’T MAKE MY DECISIONS FOR ME SO UP YOURS…” That is what you would like to say to your siblings and to your parents who either did not protect you from the bullying siblings, or preferred them to you, or abused you directly themselves.

I believe that you have the ability to make good choices. Problem is you believed the siblings, parents (as children do) and you rush, in reality not checking before diving, not knowing that you do have the ability… to choose well. You try to stay one step ahead of … the bullying. The bullying is still happening.

What do you think, J?

anita