Dear Seaturtle:

I am just about to go out for a walk+, so I’ll read and reply Fri morning.

anita

Dear hatata:

“I was never good at making friends“- it’s understandable that you were never good (so far) at making friends because (1) Your mother discouraged you from making friends by telling you that “friends come and go so there’s no reason to pursue friendships, to avoid disappointment“, and by rarely giving you “any money to go out and hang out with.. school colleagues“,

(2) You got into the habit, from an early age, to be “into books and solo activities“, meaning spending time alone. Habituated to spend time alone, you feel  “overwhelmed with people“.

(3) The current friends you spend time with in a bigger group setting use weed, and  “everybody is focused on ‘having good times’, not actual conversations“- people using weed are not likely to be focused and clear-minded enough to have conversations. and you are interested in conversations.

You ended your short original post with: “Mostly after trying to be social I’m just exhausted and disappointed. I’m in the same community for the last three years and can’t name one person I’d call to vent to“- it is interesting that your mother’s prediction that pursuing friendships will lead to disappointments came true.. only it came true because she habituated you to a life without friends (#1 and 2 above).

“How to make friends? Real friends?“- Seems to me that to make friends, you will need to start not in a big group, but in a small group, or better, in a 1- to- 1 context, not when smoking weed, and not spending too much time per visit with others, because you’ll need your alone-time to come down from the heightened stress involved in socializing.

Over time, the intensity of the stress will lessen and you will become more comfortable conversing and socializing. What do you think about my suggestions?

anita

Dear Robi:

You are welcome, and thank you for your appreciation of me! “I’ve spent maybe too much thinking of these aspects that I often feel like I overly analysed the story of my childhood to the point of not living fully in the present moment anymore“- I am all for you living fully in the present moment, aka living mindfully!

“Today I’ve bought my plane ticket to go to Spain. I’m going in the first of March.  New Month, New Beginning…“- – C o N g R a T u L a T i O n S                      and  how exciting…     a     N e w   B e g i n n i n g       !!!!

“Now, tomorrow morning after waking up, I’ll do my yoga, meditate and have an online interview with a Language Academy in Spain. ( Alicante – if you were wondering where I’m going)“-

– About Alicante, Spain: “The area around Alicante has been inhabited for over 7000 years. The first tribes of hunter-gatherers moved down gradually from Central Europe between 5000 and 3000 BC” (Wikipedia). It is amazing that on March 1, 2024 AD, Robi will be flying from Central Europe (Poland) to a place first settled by Central Europeans 5,000 or 7,000 years ago!

“I’d like to become more grounded in these situations, to be less scared of failure and feel less of an impostor. After all, I’ve done it before. I’ve been teaching English for a while and I didn’t suck at it… knowing I’ll have that interview tomorrow – a big wave of anxiety hit me. A wave of nostalgia and false reasoning… Suddenly I’ll miss Poland. I’ll miss the dark, wet and cold days… with the right amount of discipline, awareness and momentum… So, yes, I feel anxious – almost paralysed…  Often my newly discovered sense of courage, the part of me that finds hope and clarity, loses to my older inhabitants that have been the ruling party for much longer”-

– being scared of failure, feeling like a imposter, the wave of anxiety and feeling paralyzed, these “older inhabitants” of your brain-body are neurological- chemical (neurotransmitters, hormones) habits. Intellectual understandings of the whys do not undo such chemical habits. It takes discipline to lower the intensity of the old habits and slowly, with disciplined practice and an attitude of courage, to form new habits.

Notice how instinctively, your brain got nostalgic, as a way to keep you in Poland, so to prevent you from leaving to Spain. Nostalgia.. another mental (neurological- chemical) habit.

“The girlfriend has to stay here for a while. I’d love to be able to take her with me!…She loves (Spain) “- I hope that the two of you will reunite in Spain.. something to look forward to!

“What I’m going to do now, is prepare for the interview. My CV doesn’t even acknowledge I’ve ever moved away from Spain – and on paper, I’ve never stopped teaching English. So now, I gotta make sure tomorrow I look like I know my s****. I know, maybe not completely fair but I’m in a bit of a hurry to get my s**** together.“- Mindfully, being patient with your old habits (they will not just .. disappear), but persistent with the making of new habits… do get your s**** together, I am excited for you!

anita

Dear Worldofwaterwheels:

Thank you for the explanation. I will reply further after you respond to my longer post of today, if you will. Please take your time and if you choose to respond, do it at your convenience, when you are calm enough.

anita

Dear Worldofthewaterwheels:

(I am adding the boldface feature to the quotes in this post): “A study in loneliness and rejection... Lately I feel everything is a rejection… I feel totally rejected by society…  if I really go for something I want.. I get rejected even harder by others, things get even more crazy. It feels like the world is against me. I’m old enough that I don’t even cry anymore, its internalized…I’m so sensitive and reactive to things… I want to write about it and then I think ‘who would want to read that?‘… I write my own ideas down and disregard them, I somehow can’t formulate anything coherently or smoothly, even in art I was never satisfied with what I did because it just didn’t have the right effect. But not being able to turn left or right.. that fear of choice.. it’s mind-blowingly hard.. if I could figure that out maybe something would move forward?“- -Rejected by society, rejected by self

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* Dear Anonym932: If you would like to tell your story and ask for feedback, you are welcome to do so, here, on this July 2017 thread of 6.5 years ago, or in a thread you can start by going to FORUMS at the top of the page.

anita

Dear Robbie:

“In my country many kids were hit by their parents and It’s considered almost normal, although illegal. Only recently I started thinking more about those events, and I realised that might’ve been one of the reasons why I didn’t trust my parents and the reason why I disconnected myself from not only them, but partly the world around me. Actually I’ve always remembered those events, but didn’t think they meant anything. I was wrong, obviously. I thought that I deserved to be hit, like many other kids from my generation did. I didn’t connect the dots until recently”-

– (1) As I read this, I thought of a book you might write and publish one day, for people of your age (and older), in your country (and in other countries) to read. You express yourself so well, and with such refreshing emotional honesty.

(2) Indeed, physical abuse of children inside the home leads to mistrust and disconnection in the society at large.

“As for my mother, your description is perfect. ‘crazy – not sensible or reasonable. She seems bitter, angry, chronically stressed, perhaps, unaware/ having no insight into herself or into others.. unpredictable, impulsive‘. My mother always took care of others- she had to take care of her siblings so from an early age she took the role of the caregiver. Her mother wasn’t very emotionally available either, she gave her many responsibilities and didn’t give her space to be a kid… She suffered a lot through her childhood, married a man who’s family didn’t like her at all… When she was 24 she had an abortion. My father didn’t want to have a kid… Few years later, I came out – my mother told me she had to trick my father into it. (whatever that means..)”-

– I imagine that growing up, as she took care of her siblings/ others,  she got some positive reward from her mother, however small, and that filled her with hope and excitement, an emotional motivation to keep taking care of others, hoping for more of a reward: for affection and love, and to be taken care of in return. Not having received that greater reward day in and day out, year after year, filled her with anger, chronic, ongoing anger, motivating her to turn against those she was helping (“they never really had a good relationship, it was always very intense“, you wrote about her relationships with her family of origin)

Fast forward, she displays the same conflicted motivations as a mother: on one hand, taking care of you and feeling that hope and excitement combo, as in when you asked for financial help last Christmas (“At first, my mother was thrilled… I’ll give you the money right now if you want“), and on the other hand,  angrily, she turns against you, during the same Christmas visit (“My mother was already acting very standoffish…  She cornered me and started a fight – told me I didn’t care about them and I only cared about myself… she said to me – ‘You’re leaving in 3 days. From that point, you’re on your own’.  She didn’t talk to us for the next days“).

Having a kid (you) was her new hope to receive the love that was not available for her elsewhere. She had to.. almost steal this new opportunity- in her mind-  to be loved (by tricking your father).

“Very often I’ve heard from them ( actually my mother mostly ) things like: ‘please don’t forget us’, ‘keep calling us’ ‘don’t leave us’. ‘We are your parents and we do everything for you’, ‘You can always rely on us’“- growing up, not receiving love, she felt undeserving of it. She kept taking care of others, hoping to become deserving of love. Fast forward, she feels undeserving of your love.. and hoping to become deserving of it by (financially) helping you more.

“Since, she’s been through a cancer, when I was 13 and quite a few health problems. Her traumas are showing in her body“- ongoing, chronic anger involves lots of stress hormones released into the blood, day in and day out, and over time, such do damage to the body.

“but she doesn’t hear it. I am very often worried, and I find it hard to live my own life knowing she needs so much help, but I’ve tried to support her and I see that there isn’t much I can do. I tried helping her become more aware, but it doesn’t always work like that“-

– indeed, it doesn’t work like that. The love she needed as a child was not there for her for too long, so her emotional love receptors, so to speak, got filled with scar tissue (way before you were born). When you were a toddler and a young child, you loved her very much, it was a pure and unconditional love (as it is the case of any young child), but  it was too late for her to receive your love because of that (figurative) scar tissue.

You tried to help her to become more aware, but becoming aware involves pain.. like the pain of removing a scar tissue that’s well embedded in the flesh. I don’t think, from all that you shared, that she can be helped except by a quality, professional counselor/ psychotherapist whom she’d be willing to see.

“My main objective now is to head back to Spain and find stability. I’ll have an online interview on Friday with a language school from Spain, I’ve sent quite a few applications… In Poland I didn’t manage to find a job. I also don’t want to live here anymore, it doesn’t make any sense to me. I hope next month I’ll get to Spain and start working. I hope to use my parents financial help for as little as possible and become financially independent again as soon as possible. What do you think of this?… and I also don’t want to move back with my parents“-

– I think that it’s a good plan for you to (1) not move back with your parents, (2) to find a job and become financially independent again.

As far as moving to Spain, will you leave your girlfriend behind in Poland, or will she be joining you?

anita