Dear Seaturtle:

Tomorrow will be the one-year anniversary of your second, 40-page thread (Oct 6, 2023). My first reply to you (on any thread) was a week after, Oct 13 last year. There I quoted you (I will change the boldface part in this post): “I do not know if he loves me for me… what do you love about me specifically apart from others… I don’t feel seen… I am not sure he  sees what makes me special as opposed to another girl… I want him to tell me he loves things about me that make me ME. I want to feel like he sees me… who I truly am… I want to explode and just be like “DO YOU SEE ME“.

I commented on that first reply: “…before reading anything about your childhood and parents, it was clear to me that you grew up UNSEEN… I was one of the loneliest girls on the planet, isolated from the inside.. UNSEEN (with capital letters, as in to the extreme), there was an emptiness within me, a heavy, dark emptiness… The darkness within made me a stranger to myself… What a relief it was/ is, decades later, to start seeing ME.  Interestingly, the more I see, the less my need to be special, unique, as in different or better than others”.

Fast forward almost a year, Sept 28, on this thread (the last date you posted): “What comes to mind now, is that a majorly good person is one with good intentions but doesn’t always get that across… a fully good person is (someone whose) intentions are always pure, never contaminated with bias or selfish wants“.

Back to almost a year ago, you wrote: “My dad would accuse me of planning my showers around avoiding talking to him… he took normal teenage behavior as me not caring for him... he thinks I am selfish and is probably why I have fears of being selfish or narcissistic. It is scary when someone tells you that you are coming across a certain way that is unbeknownst to you, it makes me self conscious about how I do come across, which if I let myself overthink this I become awkward in social situations”.

He accused you of having “bad” intentions, such as the intent to avoid talking to him. He took normal teenage behaviors and accused you of having.. abnormal/ bad intentions behind those normal behaviors. To him, you came across early on, as a selfish person.

Correct me if I am wrong about the following: about some of your behaviors, you know that your intentions were good or pure, or that there was no bad intention behind this or that behavior (past and present), and that therefore, your father was wrong to accuse you of a selfish intent.

But sometimes, you do have selfish intents and sometimes you have negative thoughts and feelings about people (including about me), and it confuses you and disturbs you because you think that your father was right after all.

Problem is that every person sometimes has intentions to benefit oneself, and every person is selfish sometimes. Every person sometimes has negative thoughts and feelings about others. But in your case, any such cognitive incident (selfish intents and thinking/ feeling negatively about a person) is further evidence that your father was right and that therefore, you are- not a normal person who is sometimes selfish etc., – but an abnormal person: a fully selfish, narcissistic person..?

anita

Dear Krish:

You are always welcome. “The truth is I do love my father“- children (of any age) love their parents even when angry at them. Underneath the anger, the hurt, the disappointments.. there’s that early-life love for them. A young child looks up to her father for protection, for approval, for help, and she is eager to please this powerful (in the child’s mind) figure. She’ll do anything for his approval.

A young child deeply values a parent, seeing the parent as a god. Too often a parent does not value the child and will treat the child accordingly. You wrote two days ago: “I feel always let down by my family and always they undermine and disrespect me“- undermining and disrespecting is congruent with seeing you as less valuable, less worthy than others (less worthy than your sibling, for one).

After too many disapprovals experienced by the child (undermined, disrespected), the older child/ adolescent/ young adult gives up on seeking the parent’s approval at times (for what would be the point..?) Maybe this is why, even though your parents were not okay with the marriage proposal, you stood ground and got married anyway.

I think that in general, a better question to ask oneself in regard to a parent, or in regard to anyone (better than does he/ she love me?) is: does he/ she treat me as a worthy/ valuable person (not as less than anyone else)?

My mother felt affection for me at times, and behaved accordingly, but when she did not feel affection (when not under the influence of affection, so to speak), she treated me as if I was worthless (verbal and physical abuse). After such treatments, she was back to affection, at times, but I could not forget the less-than treatments and I could not return her affection. From one point on, I was hurt and angry at her on an ongoing basis, and I felt  guilty for feeling angry at her when she was being affectionate.

On her end, she was hurt by my anger (visible on my face). It is as if she did not understand the workings of a person (not understanding that abuse leads to hurt and anger on the part of the abused, and not only during the abuse, but after).

People of any age need respect/ to be treated as worthy individuals and not as less worthy than anyone else. It is a human need, a very real one.  I wonder what you think of my thoughts here.

Love, light and prayers back to you!

anita

Dear CutieJ:

First I will repeat all that you shared (including some of your exact words boldfaced) in a chronological order of events, and after that, I will add my thoughts:

You grew up in a home where parents fought all the time. Your father physically abused you and yelled profanities when coming back home late at night, after drinking, or when he got extremely angry. You were never able to expect when he was going to get angry, and you were always so afraid at night when he was coming home late. Growing up, you felt desperately lonely, even when you were surrounded by people, and you experienced self-hatred and a low self-esteem.

During high school, you developed an eating disorder, bulimia, and gained a lot of weight. You also moved to the U.S. during high school and was completely alone in high school.

In college you were still suffering from bulimia, and having food at home was a scary thing for you. Nonetheless, you  lost a lot of weight, but your body has stretch marks as a result, and you feel that your body is not loveable because of the stretch marks.

You made a lot of friends during college, one of whom you shared the same friends group and classes. The friendship with her (I will refer to her as R) developed into a romantic relationship. Two months into the relationship, you found out that R was in a 5 year-long relationship with another girl from her home country (I’ll refer to her as G), it being a long-distance relationship at the time you and R met in the U.S. At one point, R texted G a breakup message and G threatened suicide. R paid G’s rent back in the home country for two months and sent her a postcard wishing her well, and said things like she dreamed of them together, and that she feels bad for giving up on them when the time was hard. Later on, when you confronted her about it, R told you that she said those things to G just to make her come back to senses. and R ended all contacts (with G) immediately.

You and R lived together in the same apartment for a whole year, spending almost 24 hours together. She called you pretty and cute and hugged you a lot, always by your side, helping you out with everything. She taught you how to clean the house, iron clothes, and live a good life. But since the confrontation regarding G, 2 months into the relationship, you were suspicious of her and for 10 months out of the 12 of living together, life has been a living hell for both of you (you and R).

You asked her to get therapy and to post the two of you on Instagram (like she did in regard to G before), but every time you asked, she said she would, but didn’t.

After graduating, the two of you no longer lived together and the relationship became long-distance. There were fights (long-distance fights), and after one of those, she said that she wants to take some time off, and that she felt like she couldn’t breathe. You agreed to take some time off, but feeling hurt,  lonely and obsessive, you ended up calling her and texting her several times, and (at the time you posted your original post), R was at the point that she thinks it is unhealthy for us to continue.

The day after your original post (Wednesday, Oct 2), you travelled to where R lives, and this is what you shared about meeting her: “She picked me up at the airport, she listened to me crying, we talked a little bit about our issue, and we went out and had lunch together. Everything is nice… She told me that she felt like she was emotionally threatened all the time that I cried and yelled saying things like ‘If you don’t do this (getting therapy, posting me on social medias), you don’t love me at all. You never care.’ She said these things are what her parents told her to control her when she was growing up… I thought about leaving early, as she is going to work in-person Thursday and Friday, and I know I will feel extremely anxious those days. She said that she just wants to be clear that there’s no one, and that’s not why it led our relationship to this point. I trust that, but I am scared… I don’t want to be alone..  I don’t want to lose her.. I am still so scared.. Please help..“-

– And now my thoughts (with more quotes) following hours of reading and studying your two posts: when you met R in college, you were in better shape, mentally and physically, than you were before college, but you were still not prepared for a healthy relationship. There were- and are- unresolved issues that need to be resolved before you can have a healthy relationship with her, or with anyone in her place. This is why it’s very important that you will attend quality individual psychotherapy as soon as possible.

You feel hurt and anxious, and I understand that you do. But it is not her doing, it’s the doing of your father hurting and scaring his little girl years before you ever met R. Your hurt and anxiety cannot be resolved within a romantic relationship (no matter how close to perfect a partner may be). It needs to be resolved in a professional setting: psychotherapy.

That R has not been perfect is unquestionable, but no human being is perfect. She had a relationship before she met you, a long-distance relationship at the beginning of her relationship with you. She didn’t end it as quickly as you’d like, but she did end it quite quickly. She was dealing with a suicidal ex, so no wonder she tried to make the ex feel better by telling her (post breakup) that she still somewhat cared. You pressured her with questions, and pressured, she lied twice.

From what you shared, R is a caring person, a good person who cares about the people in her life. And she truly cared and loved you, you said it yourself: “I know; I know she loved me dearly, and she tried her best to take care of me during this one year“.

She loved you dearly for 10 difficult months out of the year during which you “got anxious and emotional over everything… was very controlling over her social group and people she was texting… dumped all my fear, anxiety, and anger on her, and she felt so pressured and anxious“.

“Whenever I brought hard topics up, she would sit down and listen to me, but shut down and just cried“- she cared. She listened to you quietly. Her distress expressed itself through crying after listening to you, not through yelling and accusations.

How did your distress express itself? Loudly: yelling, accusing her and trying to manipulate her: “I cried and yelled saying things like ‘If you don’t do this (getting therapy, posting me on social medias), you don’t love me at all. You never care.’“-

– You accused her of never caring while in your original post, you wrote: “She was always by my side and helped me out with everything and hugged me all the time” (original post). You accused her of never caring because you felt hurt, so you wanted to hurt her.

Most recently (yesterday), she still cares: she picked you up at the airport, she listened to you crying, she talked with you about issues, had lunch with you, was nice to you, explained to you that the breakup needs to happen not because there is someone else, but because she felt- feels- emotionally threatened by you.

“I trust that, but I am scared… I don’t want to be alone..  I don’t want to lose her.. I am still so scared.. Please help..“- try to see that she is hurt too (and has been for a long time), that she is scared too (she might be scared that like her ex, you will have self-harm thoughts as well), and please help her.

Shift your focus during this visit from your pain to her pain, just long-enough to offer her the safety that she needs. Don’t increase her pain; lessen it instead. Once you do that, you will feel better about yourself. You will feel valuable as someone who is able to help another person. I hope this makes sense to you..?

Like you, at times I too yelled and accused, and wanted to hurt another because of unresolved issues in my childhood. It was very difficult for me to confront this self- centered part of myself, a part that had hurt others unjustly. I forgave myself only after I corrected (and keep correcting) wrong behaviors. And after I adequately resolved childhood issues that needed to be resolved, such as growing up with a mother who, like your father, physically abused me and yelled, getting unpredictably  extremely angry.

anita

Dear Prudence:

You are welcome and you are using the forum well.

“my experiences have been exclusively negative in the real world as well“- would you like to give me an example of a negative experience of dating in the real world: what happened (in some detail: who said what, what conversation ensued, what interactions took place)? I ask because I would like to understand better.

anita

Dear CutieJ:

Please be strong at this time, CutieJ. Even though you may be feeling self-hatred and a low self-esteem at this time, truth is that you are lovable. You are worthy of love and you are valuable! It may take time for you to believe this, but once you believe it, you will have peace within.

“She called me pretty and cute all the time. She was always by my side and helped me out with everything and hugged me all the time. Growing up, I felt desperately lonely even when I was surrounded by people, and my self-hatred and low self-esteem, combined with her kindness and love-bombing, created a very unhealthy attachment to her“- I am wondering why you referred to her seeming loving behaviors as love bombing (a form of emotional and psychological manipulation). Do you suspect or believe that her affection, help and kindness were insincere or manipulative?

It may help you to share about your growing up experience, an experience that I share: I also grew up feeling desperately lonely, with a low self-esteem and with this most problematic inner experience: self-hatred.

“I got anxious and emotional over everything, and I was very controlling over her social group and people she was texting… I dumped all my fear, anxiety, and anger on her, and she felt so pressured and anxious… After one fight, she suddenly said she wants to take some time off, and that she felt like she couldn’t breathe. I was so hurt because I didn’t know it was this serious“- reads like your anxiety fueled controlling behaviors on your part, behaviors that caused or increased her anxiety.

“I obsessed over the thoughts of us every single day. Every moment was so painful. I ended up calling her and texting her several times, and now she is at the point that she thinks it is unhealthy for us to continue. I know that, but I am beyond petrified to think about ending the relationship… I wake up every hour, cannot go to sleep, cannot eat, and I cannot breathe all day“-

– she said that she felt like she couldn’t breathe, and here, you shared that you cannot breathe. It’s anxiety that does that.. not love. Indeed, anxiety is unhealthy to continue.

“I am going to her city tomorrow to end things, but I haven’t bought the ticket back to my city. I’m so afraid to see her lost all the love and interest in me, and I am in a constant fear that she might already have someone lined up after this. I don’t know how to love myself, to be okay with this and move on. I just want to never wake up when I fall asleep. I have no one. I cannot go back to where my family is because of the work situation. What should I do..“- you have someone, well, you have a couple of people with you, here on your thread, real people behind these typed words. And you will have people irl with you again.

You felt badly when you posted your original post, but you will feel better, and you will be amazed, sooner or later, to realize how much better you feel than you felt 13 hours ago.

As far as what you should do, key is to calm the anxiety so that you can operate in ways that make sense, ways that will benefit you.. and her.

I hope to read from you soon. (I will be busy today, so if you post, it may be a few hours before a response from me).

anita

* Dear Soham: thank you for the precious stone metaphor: powerful! I would like to use it in future replies to members.

I like your whole reply, including this sentence: “It is not important what you bear, but how you bear“.

I hope to read more from you: replying to members as you did today, and if needed, if you would like it- starting your own thread🙂

anita

You are welcome, Melinda. Post again anytime you feel like it.

anita

Dear Melinda: I am so sorry for this Tragedy in your life, so sorry for this pain in your mind and heart. I will reply further Mon morning (it’s Sun night here).

anita