Dear Robi:

“They live in a much bigger house now, where I finally have my own room and a separate entrance –  so in that respect I do get a lot more privacy… they watch a lot of tv and just go on with their day. I do my things“- I am glad they live in a much bigger house and that when you’re there, you have your own room and a separate entrance!

“I don’t hate them… they themselves haven’t had healthy childhood experiences… Communist Romania wasn’t what you’d call the land of opportunity“- my empathy is with them and with you.

“They have no one else but me. Their parents died years ago, there are no more uncles, aunts, cousins who are in close contact with them. They also don’t have any friends. They only have each other… and me“- I am guessing that there are people with the same background as your parents, same age, same location, same Communist Romania history who do have close contact with uncles, aunts, cousins and friends?

Why don’t they?

And why don’t they have close contact with their own son (“The worst part was the fact that we don’t really talk much when I’m there.. There isn’t that much to talk about.. so they watch a lot of tv and just go on with their day. I do my things“)?

I am not blaming them, as in suggesting that they are bad people. I think instead, that they are incapable people, incapable of close contact: true to your mother, more than your father perhaps.

“I do believe there are ways for us to heal and accept each other more“- the extreme lack of close contact between you and your parents for 3 decades, is not promising in regard to creating close contact/ healing between the three of you. But I can’t say it is impossible, I can’t predict the future. Miracles (rarely) happen.

“I see they are suffering on a daily basis..  my mother is stuck on her phone almost non stop scrolling social media – she’s heavily addicted. She cannot listen to more than 10 seconds of any of my stories without getting distracted and tuning out. At the end of my conversation there will usually be no reaction from her.. she just has no idea what I’ve said to her…  My father… likes to scroll his phone too.. quite a lot… Both of them feel miserable most of the time. I clearly see that and I feel sorry for them.. I really do“- there is no close contact between the two of them either. I too feel sorry for them.

“I don’t want to completely cut them off – I still think we can be a family.. as much as we can and know so far“- yes, you can continue to be a family of no close contact, just like it’s been so far. From your description of your mother, it reads like she is truly incapable of close contact with another human being. I remember now that I suggested this to you some time ago, now edited: that your mother offering you money has been her way to express love that she is generally unable to feel or express.

“I believe trying to understand and showing genuine interest in where they came from and what their experiences have been –  this as well is a sign of adulting… Shouldn’t this as well be a sign of adulting?“- I wonder how many, if any, of the uncles, aunts, cousins and others who expressed genuine interest in your parents, were met with your mother’s/ parents’ inability to reciprocate.. and unreciprocated, their interest evaporated.

Think of your past efforts to show genuine interest in your parents. What were their reactions? If they reacted in ways that were harmful to you (made you feel acutely alone, perhaps), then adulting would be to no longer show genuine interest in them (even if you still feel it).

“Going to Romania makes more sense financially, since I would spend a lot less money there“- I understand this point.

“These days I keep questioning if leaving Alicante is actually the right thing to do or not.. I’m so tired, stressed and foggy lately and I don’t seem to know how to choose anymore… I haven’t ‘adulted’ as much as I’d like and it doesn’t feel great. I think I’m doing the best I can, the best I’ve learned so far… The more I learn – the more I see how little I understand. That’s ridiculous“- this is indeed the nature of true learning: the more you learn, the more there is to learn. It is when a person believes they know all that there is to know, that they are.. not learning anymore.

Your indecisiveness, your doubts, it’s a habit of your mind, that’s where your brain habitually goes when you make this or that decision, or soon after, and this is what’s happening now. When you feel foggy, your brain being fried under the influence of doubt, so to speak, repeat to yourself: I made the right decision. And shake the doubts off from your brain, hush them. When the doubts return, repeat.

anita

Dear Kshitij:

You are welcome. I am glad you felt it comforting to type down your recent post. For as long as it is comforting, please type down your thoughts, anytime and at any length!

“I feel emotionally exhausted by having either intrusive or enraged thoughts“- the rage in the thoughts is especially exhausting because the intense anger (rage) prepares the body for physical action (the heart works harder, for one, in preparation to fight), and when there is no action, the preparation lasts so long, heart working hard for so long, that the person gets exhausted.

(I am adding the boldface feature selectively to the quotes): “I had felt this intense grief when I was facing the issue with scholarship and it has remained within me, refusing to fade away. Never in my life I had felt such an intense pain, such an intense grief (not even during the time I was in the worst of my health…)… Hurt because the entire situation was uncalled for, it was because a bureaucrat found it satisfying for their  whimsical reasons to keep my application pending…. that officer deliberately withheld my file”-

– Reads like you believe that it was not a mistake on the part of the particular bureaucrat/ officer, but a deliberate attempt to hurt you, and that the officer found it satisfying to hurt you. What do you base this belief on?

In the above paragraph, you mentioned these emotions: intense grief, intense pain, and hurt, but you didn’t mention anger. Unexpressed, unresolved anger is powerful emotion, it adds intensity to other difficult emotions and make them last.

“I felt a darkness around me… I lost all hopes… whenever I get into a spiral of intrusive thoughts, I imagine myself depressed, I imagine myself isolated, drowned in misery and weeping on my condition“- I am getting in touch with my own lifetime, unexpressed anger, Kshitij, this is why in this post, I am focusing on your unexpressed anger. I am thinking that if you find a non-harmful way to express your anger directly, the anger will not intensify other difficult emotions as well as depression, and make them last for a long time. Maybe you can type down your anger in your next post..? (I intend to express my anger in my next post in my own thread, doing for myself what I am suggesting that you do).

“Now about my problem with father. I think that my relation with him did not make me think that I can never succeed because I could not succeed in having a good relation with him; I gave up on that long ago. I think his problematic behavior ended up showing in my self esteem, in my self worth (remember I mentioned externalization of self worth?)… During the scholarship issue or even before it happened, I think I attached my self worth with this opportunity... my self worth took a great hit and that contributed to my problems as well as my anxiety that went out of my control. I think that is one area where my father’s past behavior definitely impacted me because it had already damaged my self-esteem as a child”-

– What I understand from this paragraph is that currently, and for some time, you no longer hope that your father approves of you: you no longer see your father as a source of self-esteem. You see academic and professional success as a source of self-esteem. Now I understand better why the scholarship application issue was so devastating to you. The officer who mishandled your application, was just about to remove your hoped-for source of self-esteem, which is what your father already did via his sermons.

anita

Dear Robi: I will read and reply in about 14 hours from now.

anita

Edit: – where is her divine love when she is constantly critical of you, snaps at you, and has a very foul mouth?

Dear Robi:

* I am adding this comment after having completed typing what follows. I realize that In asked you more than 10 questions, and it may distress you to be asked so many questions (last you posted you were already quite stressed!) So, please feel comfortable to answer or not answer, read or not read. I would like you to be as calm as possible during this one more transitional time.

You are very welcome, and thank you for your appreciation!

“Recently. Very often I told myself I don’t want to go back there (Romania) because I feel afraid of falling back on the old programming/ on the old patterns etc. In the last 4 years, I’ve spent about 2 to 3 months a year living there. It didn’t really feel like I was disappearing again, but I often felt uncomfortable around my parents“- I didn’t know that you spent 2-3 months straight with them every year. You say it felt uncomfortable, but it didn’t feel terrible? Those 2-3 months per year didn’t hurt your quest of “growing up- becoming adult” (title of your thread)?

Or perhaps the 2-3 months per year felt worse than uncomfortable, but you let the worse slide off from your awareness (just as you let the t slide off from the adult, in the title of your thread, lol)?

“Having their words of disappointment and discouragement is quite literally the last thing I need right now“- What words of disappointment and discouragement have they said to you during the 2-3 months you’ve spent with them in the last 4 years? How did you feel hearing them?

“If I stay here, I won’t be spending time with my girlfriend–  and I understand that her company is the kind of company I want around me. I feel lonely without her“- again, seems to me that living close to, or with your girlfriend is the right thing for you.

“… In order for me to be there (without work) I would have to be supported by my family. I was thinking it would make more sense for me to go there for the period of searching for a job rather than depending on them financially while abroad. I would save money by being there and in many ways it makes more sense.. No?“- you are thinking about going to Warsaw (beginning of June) to look for work, and then to Romania to live with your parents while waiting for a job in Warsaw to materialize?

And your reason is that living with your parents, they will not need to pay your rent in Warsaw before you can pay it yourself?

Are your parents able to pay your rent in Warsaw, and if so, for how long?

I read that it’s 4 days by train to get from Transylvania to Warsaw, so that doesn’t sound realistic. I suppose it’d be your parents paying for you to fly to Warsaw from Transylvania by plane? Repeatedly? I wonder they’ll pay more on air travel for you than they’d pay for rent for you in Warsaw.

“Or maybe I just saw the opportunity to take action and go back and be close to my girlfriend“- seems like it to me.

“Ideally I’d go to Warsaw and find work right away.. that would probably be the best way things could play out“- I think so.

“It really sucks knowing that my parents are in a way, a threat to me. But then again.. that has been very often the case in the past“- it’s the sad case for millions of people, parents being a threat. Amazing, isn’t it. An emotional threat, most often.

“Or maybe until I build a more solid foundation and stronger boundaries I’d have to steer away from them?“- I think so. When you have a more solid foundation, you probably wouldn’t want it destroyed.

anita

Dear Kshitij:

Today is exactly 3 months since your original post of Feb 18. I am re-reading your posts to see if I can add anything that maybe, maybe will be of some help to you.

“I made significant recovery in my physical health by the end of 2022… But, when the scholarship issue came, it shattered me… I began feeling that just when things started to become better, they went for worse… I began to think that its pointless to keep hopes…” (Feb 19)-  you made significant recovery, experienced personal success in regard to your physical and mental health recovery, had some hope for continued success, but when the scholarship crisis happened, you lost that hope and became hopeless, believing that you are doomed to No Success aka Failure (so why try..)

In this belief there is the unrealistic expectation that once success is achieved, it will continue for a long time, maybe forever; no more significant setbacks or challenges.

“I felt that no matter how much I tried, things would always get worse” (Feb 19)- this belief is in the core of the problem.

“When I would use to think as a child that everything is aright between me and him, there used to come another ‘sermon’ or an incident of his bad treatment“(April 18, exactly a month ago)- this is the basis of your belief that you can’t succeed, that you are doomed to failure: you tried to get your father to approve of you, to like you, and you failed again, and again and again, no matter how hard you tried for years!

It is true that you failed to get him to approve of you, but it was a situation where you had zero chances of success because he projected his father into you very early on.

Imagine you try to pick up, not a small rock, but a whole mountain: zero chances of success. A mountain is too big and heavy for any person to pick up. Now imagine, after failing to pick up a mountain, you decide that you will fail at anything and everything you do in life..?!

Q: Is picking up a mountain comparable to getting your father to like you? A: Yes, because your father has never seen you when he looked at you. He was seeing his father all along, and he’s very angry at his father.

When you tried to get your father to like you, you were (unknowingly) trying to get him to like his own father: zero chances of success.

His criticisms of you were his criticisms of his father. He didn’t see you; he saw his father. He placed the wrong mirror in front of you, showing you a reflection of someone else. Please look in a real mirror, and see yourself as you really are, approvable, likeable, a good person who can succeed in spite of setbacks and challenges, such that we all face.

anita