Dear Ben:

I didn’t read your recent long post yesterday. I read it this morning for the first time, and did not expect such a development, my goodness! The ending of the post, him saying: “Would you let me care for the injury I gave to your heart?” made me smile. I can see (in my mind’s eye) what’s so lovable about him, or a good part of what’s lovable about him: his child-like expressions, like drawing a heart with his hand,  his “slightly impulsive gesture that is part of his character”, as you said.

You told him all the right things. About his boyfriend (or ex?) doing “something crazy”- he didn’t threaten suicide, did he? He talked about seeing a psychiatrist and wanting to change.. I didn’t read anything he said that referred to self-harm or suicide..?

anita

Dear Arden:

Thank you for your kind words and empathy.

“Today I was alone and I’ve opened up a video-call with my mother and we kept what we were doing… when we’re not together, I don’t see being neglected that much and we can have a nice conversation, so it works“- it works for you to be thousands of miles from your mother; it works for me too to be thousands of miles away from my mother (and in my case: no video or any other contact)

“Then as usual, they got angry at each other with her husband…  I found myself listening (to) them being angry, and aggressive at each other. Regardless of who’s right or wrong, I felt how fast all of those feelings were transferred to me. I was like a child, listening to the argument taking place where I am at, and having nothing but to listen and soak up all the negativity. Me soaking up all the negativity doesn’t even help them relax, it just happens. I suddenly felt depressed for a moment“-(1)  this is a valuable testimony to how disturbing it is for a child to witness arguments and aggression between parents, and how it is still disturbing for an adult. (2) I hope that your next video call will not include them arguing (tell her that you don’t want this to happen again while on video, or cut the call short one an argument starts: this is the benefit of video and living thousands of miles away!

“I am realizing how I am inclined to feel responsible for others’ misery… I feel responsible for their pain. I feel guilty, and I cannot understand why that happens“- it’s natural for a child to feel responsible for her parents’ misery and pain. For a child, taking such responsibility brings hope: if the child is responsible for a parent’s misery.. the child can make their misery stop (so the child’s thinking or believing goes).

“About courage, and moving alone: I just postponed how I felt..  I haven’t had much time to be emotional in my last three months. I was so afraid before, when everything was vague. For a year, whenever I remember about this relocation possibility, my hands was shaking, my pulse probably elevated each time. But then when it has happened, I feel so much better than I expected. It just happened all at once. Maybe that’s a good example of how anxiety works“- a valuable example and testimony to how anxiety works, and how you can manage and successfully move through it.

“I was so afraid of losing him for a job or for a better life…  I still get a bit anxious towards normal stuff, like jealousy or being afraid that he’ll stop trusting me or trying and so on. But I guess that’s normal. I just think that way because of how I was treated in the past.”- and now, you have some power, in your current life, to think differently, to act differently and to manage your anxiety successfully, one day at a time.

“I am so glad that you’ve found my words refreshing, I hope that you’ll have more refreshed & happy days and moments“- thank you. Your move to a different country in itself is refreshing to me!

In regard to your post that you addressed to me on the other thread: “As for being passive aggressive, I guess I just mixed those with my toxic thoughts in my head. I don’t show them“- being passive-aggressive is a behavior, not a thought pattern.. so you are not passive-aggressive.

“I remember how bad I can think of some people and not show them that. Then I feel a bit like a hypocrite. Maybe that’s what confuses me and makes me think of myself as a passive aggressive person“- there are reasons why you think badly of people/ why you negatively judge them: envying carefree people is one such reason, the desire to be carefree yourself is behind it. The more carefree you manage to become, the less envious and the more positively you will think of others.

“I guess we need to remember that the sides that we don’t like about ourselves also exist on others, and they do not share it“- exactly! But the more you share with me and the more I share with you, the better people we become.

“Thanks for sharing what you think about this and relieving my thoughts about myself.“- you are very welcome, Arden!

anita

Dear Stacy:

“I feel that my eating issues and health anxiety is objectively hard to live with and be around, as everyone in my life has admitted this to me“-

– your mother and sister are the most influential of the people in your life who admitted this to you, right? But thing is, you did not develop in a vacuum, but through interactions with your family members, and those interactions led to your health issues. Let’s say you end up living with an emotionally healthy-enough man, one who sleeps through the night (unlike your sister who suffers from severe insomnia, yelling at her son in the middle of the night),  a man who (unlike your mother) does not watch Gunsmoke all day, tunning you out.. in these different circumstances, you will have the opportunity to experience much improvement in regard to your eating and health anxiety issues.

“I just really miss him..“- you miss escaping your home life during the weekends with him, don’t you?

“My mom has always loved me in the ways she knew how – cooking for me and trying to take care of me when I was sick.“- amazing, when I used to think that my mother loved me, I thought of these same exact two things as evidence of her (alleged) love.

“She’s preoccupied by her own misery… I know her way of showing me love has been Christmas presents and monetary expressions of love when she can. It’s why Christmas is so depressing for me, I want to fast forward straight through it“- if she truly loved you during Christmas, you would be looking forward to Christmas, wanting Christmas to last forever.

“I see her attempts to love me with this“- failed attempts.. (the proof is in the pudding, like I mentioned before).

“I constantly look at other places to stay and you’re right that any other place with a peaceful schedule could be better. My car broke down AGAIN last night. I’m stuck at home physically when this happens, but also stuck because I keep having to put my paychecks into fixing the car rather than saving to move.“- I am sorry that your car broke down again. I am guessing that there is no public transportation in your small town, so you can’t work and save money not owning a car at all..?

“Everyone knows my sister and brother around here…  This is a very small town… I can’t seem to make new connections without them being connected to someone else“- moving far away will be a good thing for you, away from everyone who knows everyone.

I know that your situation is difficult, objectively and subjectively. I hope that it gets better very soon on both fronts.

anita

Dear anonymous03:

I feel fine, tired but fine, thank you for asking. And you are welcome! I appreciate your kind words and your honesty and assertiveness, that you respectfully disagree with me. Coming to think about it, this concept of respectfully disagreeing with a person is not something I ever experienced growing up: disagreement and disrespect were synonymous words! So, thank you for the refreshing experience of reading your post this morning, it is bringing a smile to my face right now!

anita

Dear Arden:

I will be reading and replying to your post here and the one on your other thread Sun morning (it is now Sat morning here). Please take good care of yourself!

anita

Dear Annie:

We communicated Sept 10- Sept 21, 2018, five years ago, almost to the day.

You shared back then: “I had some traumatic childhood experience…  I was a victim of abuse and it started at 6… since I suffered abuse I was scared of anyone’s touch. I couldn’t hug my Papa also. We never shared a hug“. You shared nothing else back then about the abuse/ the traumatic childhood experience you suffered.

At the time, you mentioned a sister, but you didn’t mention any brothers: “I had dreams of doing something for my parents for me for my sister.”

Fast forward to Aug 17, 2023, you shared (in this thread): “They were supposed to be my brothers as per the worldly relationships“. And what did they do to you when you were 6 or 8-year old?  You didn’t say, but suggested, or it reads to me, that they sexually abused you: “Maybe I smiled too much… Give out a wrong hint.. mislead them?.. if I had a normal childhood where brothers act like their normal self I would not have been afraid of people in general“.

You asked a month ago: “What is my fault? May be I smiled too much as a six year old…  I am still asking this 30-40 years later. From the time I gained conscience, I have been trying to figure out what I did wrong. I have not been able to find any answer“.

Five years ago, you talked about guilt: “I am unable to love myself…  I feel extremely guilty…feeling guilty all the time… I feel I am the one responsible for everything happening. No one else is responsible, what should I do with the thoughts. I am battling with them but they are getting louder.”

My input today: like in your case, Guilt (with a capital G) sucked the joy out of my life. Like you, there were times (the longest lasting a few months), when I felt happy (“I was a happy self made girl before I met him. I worked hard throughout my studies and career and I had dreams of doing something for my parents for me for my sister“, you wrote in Sept 2018), but it didn’t last long because it was only a matter of time before Guilt returned to rob me of the joy of living.

In my case, I felt Guilty about my mother’s misery in life and I took full responsibility for it. I believed that I did not deserve peace of mind, let alone joy, unless I made it up to her for all the wrongs I allegedly did to her. Like in your case, these thoughts were often loud and louder. A person feeling this Guilty cannot feel content or happy except during exceptional times (like during traveling), and otherwise, in moments here and there.

My mother told me that I was responsible for her misery, at least for a large part of it, and I believed her. She never cared to tell me otherwise, even though my Guilt was visible and audible, as I did try to make it up to her, and failed.

When I think about your case, having been abused by your brothers, I imagine that maybe you were blamed for it, maybe you were not, but in any case:  no one told you that you were not to be blamed for it, no one told you early on (when you were a child) that it was not your fault.

When a child is abused by a trusted family member, the child naturally feels responsible for the wrong that happened/ Guilty , and without anyone telling the child early on that it wasn’t the child’s fault, the child keep feeling guilty way into adulthood.

“From the time I gained conscience, I have been trying to figure out what I did wrong. I have not been able to find any answer“- as an abused child, you did NOTHING wrong. You were not responsible for the abuse. It was NOT your fault.

But you needed to hear this and be convinced of it as a child. The Guilt has been going on for too long. Guilt went on too long for me too, but the good news: I don’t feel guilty for my mother’s misery anymore. What a relief!  I would like to share more about it with you, but I don’t know if you are even reading this. Please let me know…?

anita

Dear Stacy:

You are welcome! “Once they have me and then discard me“-  they shouldn’t have you in a way that makes it possible for them to discard you.

You’ve been giving men something you should not give, something they have no business having. You’ve been giving this guy the role of a parent, putting him on a pedestal (like a child does in regard to a parent), and presenting yourself as a lesser, as a child needing his (parental) support so that you can grow up and become a capable woman.

If you enter a relationship not as a lesser, but as a capable woman (however imperfectly, however self-doubting), with a capable man (a man capable of having a healthy-enough relationship, which the guy was not),  you will not be discardable!

“I’m left feeling like I wasn’t woman enough for them and that I was a child they didn’t take seriously“- you entered relationships as a lesser, as not enough.

“I’m left feeling like I wasn’t woman enough for them and that I was a child they didn’t take seriously“- you entered relationships as an (incapable) child.

“I’m still in complete shock that my ex lied to me about even wanting to stay in contact…  I’m still at square one – just complete denial and inability to accept what’s happened“- I think that the complete quality of what you are experiencing (including the extreme pain, in the title of your thread), has to do with a child (you) being abandoned by a parent (him).

If you perceived the two of you as adults, neither your denial nor your pain would be complete and extreme.

“Today, the 22nd is also the anniversary of the first day we met in person“- it seems like such an important date for the child who met her.. (2nd chance of a) parent for the first time.

“It’s discouraging to know that half of my suffering is due to my own insecure narrative coming up trying to find closure“- I think that in regard to this breakup, more than half of your suffering is due to you entering the relationship like a lesser, a child needing a strong parent.

* If the relationship continued, at one point on, you’d have realized that the emperor (this guy who you admired so much) has no clothes (he does not deserve your admiration).

“It’s also discouraging to know that if I don’t rectify these things in myself, my grief and pain will be for nothing and bleed out onto the next person if they ever come along“-  the rectification and stopping the bleeding need to be about (1) entering a relationship as an equal adult, a capable, and imperfect woman, (2) entering a relationship with a capable and imperfect man.

* I add imperfect here because a young child sees her parent/s as perfect, needing to see them that way, and whatever goes wrong, the child sees it as a consequence of her own imperfection, still holding the parent in the position of perfect. A healthy adult, sees her parents and herself.. and everyone else as imperfect.

“I will look for him in everyone else, and I will tell myself again that I was able to entertain and attract someone of high value but that once I show them love, the chase is over for them and they get bored and turned off by the REAL me“- (1) an abandoned child will desperately look for a parent in everyone she meets, (2) an unloved child believes that she, as well as her love (for her parent), are worthless. (3) the REAL you is worthy and lovable. It’s just that you don’t yet.. really know it, do you?

“And you’re right – my mom doesn’t really try to connect with me… the only connection I want is to be heard by her and I don’t see it “- no efforts to connect with you, no efforts to hear you= no love for you.

It was very, very difficult for me to think that my mother did/ does not love me. WOW! What a concept. But it’s true. And not because I was not worthy of love, but because she was/ is unable.

“I think my mom and I would have a better relationship with each other if I were happier and if she were happier“- she told you repeatedly that only money and health would make her happy, didn’t she? She didn’t tell you that you could make her happy, did she?

“She’s been so annoyed and disappointed in me for how slowly I’m taking this breakup“- you would have taken this breakup much quicker if she loved you.

I am sure she has some caring feelings for her children once in a while… well, I am not sure, I am thinking that likely most mothers do, but the proof, as the saying goes- is in the pudding. If you were a loved child, Stacy, you wouldn’t have entered a romantic relationship as a child desperate for love.

“She needs me to be okay so she can feel okay, and sadly I see myself in that. The enmeshment you mentioned playing out right there“- I think that it is you who have needed her to be okay (which she isn’t and hasn’t) because for many years, as a child, you needed her to be okay enough to love you. On the other hand, she needs you to not bother her.

Like I mentioned above, I couldn’t believe that it was even possible that my mother did not love me. I imagined that she did. I interpreted some of her actions as loving when they were not, or not necessarily so. Similarly, maybe you interpret the fact that she complained about you taking the breakup too slowly as evidence of her love, when truth may be that she simply doesn’t want to be bothered by you mopping around & such.

It is a very, very difficult concept for a child of any age, to think of a parent as unloving. Yet, reality is such that too many parents are indeed unloving. Not because they are evil, not necessarily.. but because they are UNABLE to love, not their children, not anyone (maybe some love their pets, but not people; others may “love” strangers that they admire or characters in the movies or in politics and such.. just not the real people in their lives).

“I definitely don’t have the money to move out still but I’m hoping to get there. I have two part time jobs and they just aren’t cutting it, especially with no health insurance. My medical bills and medication are a problem, on top of constant car repair bills. There are talks of me hopefully getting full time at one of my jobs after December if their budget allows it and I can get health insurance then. This would change my life“-

– I hope that you do get the job, and I hope that there is somehow a way for you to move out sooner. Maybe as a live-in, part time caretaker on an elderly person where you can live in a QUIET home.. your health may improve for that alone! Two days ago, you wrote: “In fact as I type this, it is 3:41 am and my sister is arguing with my nephew in the room next to me. So when I need to sleep, the house is loud and chaotic“- this (being in a loud and chaotic home, not being able to relax/ sleep)  is bad for your health.

“I’m hoping to find a routine outside of this house and also without my sister. She gets hurt if I don’t include her in my plans by myself.“- can you give me a couple of examples of plans you had to do by yourself that your sister felt hurt about?

anita