Dear antarkala:

“It was someone in my extended family… It all suddenly stopped once I hit puberty in my 8th grade“- I hope that this someone in your extended family doesn’t get the opportunity to do to others (other pre-pubescent girls, perhaps) what he did to you. If there is something you can do to protect others from him, I hope that you do what needs to be done.

“I never talked about it to anyone before that but it is only these days I am slowly opening up with my closest friends and I am realizing the intensity of what happened day by day. I don’t think I gave it a name of sexual assault until then… it was for at least a year or more“- keep talking about it, bring it further to the light, as slowly as you need it to go about it.

“As I said, my mother does not know. She just in general says I am too sensitive and overreact to things. This especially happens when I tell her how hurting it feels when my dad criticizes me or when I tell her how my father and grandparents are proud of everything my brother does because he is a guy, how they treat me in front of him as if I am nothing, and that I do not feel respected enough or seen enough or encouraged enough“- it is not true that you are too sensitive and that emotionally you over react.  I know that your mother is wrong on this point even though she’s known you for 25 years, and I’ve known you for only 5 days. Your reaction to your early life experiences is proportional to the experiences.

Adults often forget how they felt growing up, how very sensitive they were (all young children are). So, they unrealistically expect children to be less sensitive than they themselves were as children/ adolescents.

“When I tell her I feel a little different from everyone, that I feel things too deeply and sometimes wonder if I have depression and I am unable to do basic things in life and feel very under-confident – she tells me I am overreacting and too sensitive and should just have more will power and try harder to be more disciplined and achieve the things I want in life“- she is right about the benefit of a strong will-power and self-discipline. If she validated your sensitivity (as being proportional/ appropriate to your life-experiences growing up, she would have strengthened your will-power and self-discipline. She means well, and she’s partly right, partly wrong.

“She never said no to therapy though – she said if I wanted to go, she will support me“- a good thing!

“Completely, yes! I am that friend/ confidant of her. She shares everything with me. I started supporting her as I grew up and pushing her to stand up for herself and even stood up against my dad and my grandparents demanding she should be treated better for everything she does for the family. She gradually started doing that… She always tells me she feels blessed to have a daughter like me and she cannot imagine her life without me“- yes, indeed, your mother is blessed to have you as a daughter. I feel empathy for your mother and appreciation for her resilience through the years, as well as for her work as a teacher. I’m sure that she benefited many children over the course of her career.

Unfortunately, there is a problem here (in the paragraph I quoted right above) that needs to be addressed: it’s not a good thing for a child/ adolescent to be placed in, or to be encouraged to fill in the role of an adult. A child needs to be a child while the adults take care of adult things. A parent is supposed to confide with the other parent/ other adults, not with their child.

It is not the child’s job to teach her mother to stand up for herself, it’s the other way around: it’s the mother/ parent’s job to teach the child. So, what happened in your childhood and adolescence was role reversal, in this regard. A child needs to feel safe at home, as in being with parents who know how to take care of themselves (and of the child). When that’s not the case, the child feels anxious.

“I once remember during an argument I threw a glass of water at my mother’s face in front of my whole extended family and to this day I don’t know why I did that and I cannot get that image out of my head“- you were angry at her. It is difficult to be angry at your mother, isn’t it? It made me feel very guilty when I was angry at my mother. Maybe you were angry at her for not taking care of herself, for not standing up for herself…?

“My school teacher once described me as a lady don to my dad and I once remember one of my teachers telling me my walk is too manly“-

– I had to look up “lady don” (online): “This phrase is often used to describe a woman who possesses qualities traditionally associated with masculinity, such as confidence, assertiveness, and a commanding presence”.

Seems to me, antarkala, that your role reversal situation was that of you being your mother’s.. father, teaching her to stand up for herself, to act confidently and assertively, a parenting job traditionally done by the father in the family. Your mother was.. femininely weak, passive (a traditional female role) and you, for the purpose of helping her/ strengthening her, took on the manly traditional role. So much so, that you even walked in a manly way.

This is how much you loved her and needed her to be strong.. not yet strong yourself, you took on that role.

“(I) could never relate to girls having crushes…  The concept of having kids never appealed to me”– this is congruent with your masculine/ manly role taken so to help your mother.

On March 25, you wrote in regard to your boyfriend: “Initially, I did get thoughts like ‘maybe he is not strong enough’… “I don’t think he is manly enough’“- what this is telling me is that you need to..  finally not be The Strong One, to.. finally have someone else be the strong one, so that you can relax.

Is that what it is?

anita

Dear Lorelei Firefly:

“what made me want to reply was actually a reply by another person. Someone named Anita. They mentioned something about intense long term anxiety damaging the nervous system..“-  this is me, the anita you referred to. I would like to attentively read your post and reply tomorrow, Thurs morning (it’s Wed evening here)

anita

Dear antarkala:

This morning, I will be re-reading all your posts and commenting as I go along, keeping in mind what you shared later, as I comment on what you shared earlier:

“I am a 25-year-old in a serious relationship for around 1 and a half years. My boyfriend is a year older than me and we have been friends for 3 years before we got into the relationship. Both of us moved abroad for our Master’s and decided to take our friendship to the next level since we had similar life goals, values, and interests“- reads like an intelligent, mature attitude and practice on your part: getting into a relationship with a man you’ve known for three years as friends, finding out his goals, values and interests, and seeing that there is a match in these.

There is love and he is independent, kind, career-driven, supportive, puts in the effort, and he is a wonderful person: “We love each other very much and are independent, kind, career-driven… he is not stopping me from being myself and he in fact supports me..  He puts in that effort and tries to talk to all of my friends… he has a wonderful personality…  he is a wonderful person all in all“.

“Coming to the issue, though we have been in a relationship for more than a year, I always felt something was missing since the beginning“- to thoroughly understand what is missing in the relationship, you have to first understand what is missing within you.. something missing that you brought into the relationship. Understanding the latter, will give you an accurate understanding of the former.

It will not be easy to explore that which is missing-within because strong emotions are involved. If you see the need for such exploration and are willing to do so, to some extent, here on your thread, please do and read what’s next in my post:

“I have always been a misfit. Cannot point out one reason but I have had my share of experiences in life – I experienced sexual assault as a kid through years which I think wired me differently, my younger brother was a pampered kid majorly because he is a boy and I am a girl, I don’t think I got enough validation from my dad… My mom says I am too sensitive and hints that maybe I am overreacting – sometimes I wonder if I am just too weak and use my trauma as an excuse... my mom was anxious and worried quite often… I remember my mom telling me many times that she lived in fear, and never had the courage to speak up and voice her concerns or opinions out… if my mom spoke out in a social situation, my dad always used to criticize her after coming back home… whatever my mom says, my dad will criticize her… Imagine my mom living with that for 26 years!“-

– I selectively boldfaced the above because I will be asking you questions, in this post, only about the boldfaced, as part of the exploration I mentioned above. Of course, you don’t have to answer any of my questions, and those you choose to answer, you are welcome to answer only to the extent you are comfortable with. (I will not be asking you questions that in my mind are too distressing to answer):

1) How long did the sexual assault period last, and how long after the beginning of the assault, did your parents become aware of it? How did they respond?

2) Did your mother (or your father) minimize the assault, saying that you were over-sensitive to it, that you emotionally over-reacted, that you used it as an excuse?

3) You lived at home, with your mother, for 24 out of the 26 years of her marriage to a man who discouraged her from speaking up, from talking about her feelings, her opinions, etc. Did she turn to you as the person with whom she expressed herself, giving you the role of a friend and confidant?

4) How were you a misfit at home, growing up?

anita

Dear  antarkala:

It occurred to me, this one point, so i thought I’d let you know what it is before replying at more length tomorrow:

“he will never be satisfied.. Whatever I did or spoke – my dad would tell me I did something wrong”- this means that he is not likely to approve of your choice of a husband, whomever the man, and if you wait for his approval.. well, it is not a good idea to expect his approval, to wait for it.

anita

Dear antarkala:

You are welcome. “When I feel jealous, I tell myself I don’t deserve to be a friend. How do I approach this?“- (1) tell yourself the truth: that what we people feel is not our choice; it is only our vocalized words and actions taken that are subject to our choosing.

No choice (such as in feeling jealous)= no personal responsibility (no valid guilt).

(2) apply an empathetic attitude toward yourself. Imagine a little child who was jealous of other children, would you frown at the child and berate him/ her for feeling jealous, or would you gently ask the child what is bothering her, what’s behind the jealousy?  If you uncover what’s underneath your jealousy, you’ll find some old hurt: it’d be easier for you to feel empathy for yourself for hurting (underneath the jealousy) than for the jealousy itself.

“I want to understand where my social anxiety is coming from and how to overcome it“- the first society in a person’s life is the family one is born into. If a child was anxious in the context of that first, mini society, the child is likely to grow up to be anxious in the bigger society. For example, a child may have gentle, fair and loving parents, but if the parents are often anxious, worried about things, and the child notices it..  their anxiety naturally passes on to the child.

“I understand how what my mom told me influenced me… She told me, I just moved to a new country and I am taking this – decision in a mentally weak state, out of loneliness in the new country“- your mother had a good point there, a valid concern. From what you shared about your boyfriend though, he reads like a gentle.. non-dangerous guy at all, so you were not in danger with him.

“No, my parents do not present themselves as perfect“- good job on their part!

“I believe a marriage is not just about wife and husband but also about both families. I also keep thinking, if I marry my boyfriend, how compatible are our families? My parents are getting older as well and they need company, we don’t have close ties with relatives and I want the family I marry into to bond well with mine. – Is it too much to ask?“- no, it’s not too much to ask, and it’s in your rights to ask for this. Therefore, before you consider marrying a man, get to know his feelings about both families being part of the marriage, and if the two of you have a meeting of the minds, get the families together so that everyone can get to know each other.

Till next time we talk, take good care of yourself!

anita

Dear Going Through Life:

You are very welcome!

My sentence (“But these feelings were not as strong throughout the 3 months..”) explained: feelings don’t stay the same, they change every day, so, let’s say you catch her at 12 pm, she’s busy, otherwise occupied, and she sounds like she doesn’t have any feelings for you; you catch her at 6 pm, she is not busy, had a hot shower, listening to romantic music ..and she thinks of you romantically. Feelings change over the course of weeks and months as well.

“I need to first clear in mind if I want her as a friend right now given the long distance or ask her if we can reconnect romantically. Whenever I have the answer clear. Ill surely text her“- good plan!

“I agree with this approach and at this point I got nothing to lose but I don’t want to come off as desperate, so I am just trying to frame the right message which conveys what I feel in my mind and heart. Not good at writing or expressing my feelings, lol“- you can put together a first draft for a message, here on your thread, and I’ll be glad to give you editing suggestions.

anita