Hello Anita,

I was going through some old notes and found the link to this thread… Wow, I am so surprised to find a reply under this old post.

Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts! I must say that you are right – I was naive thinking that all the pain, and neglection which I experienced in my childhood would be solved by one deep conversation. It was just the beginning of a long and still ongoing work. I had to get back to this topic at different points of my life.

I found out that I suppressed my negative emotions toward my mother. I felt like I kind of ‘must’ love her and whatever she did – was with the purpose of giving us the best living conditions. So I always was saying that ‘No problem! I am good, I don’t miss anything’… I guess I wanted to feel that we have a good, strong, loving family. I wanted to avoid/ignore the fact, that my father does not reach out to me (while I missed him), I wanted to feel a loving connection to my mother (while our relationship was rather rational, with a lot of fear on my side).

At different points of my life, I was visiting psychologists and also a psychodrama group. The goal was varying: to address my addictive behaviors, another time a burn-out at work – but it was just the surface and a lot of work was actually done dealing with my childhood. It was quite painful and the process is not over yet (although I am having a pause right now) – first I was feeling really sorry for my little self, kind of felt the unfulfilled childhood need for love, intimacy and safety. Then I got really angry at her and whenever we met, I felt very-very annoyed with her small actions (which probably was not a big deal but rather was a channel for my released negative feelings).

Now I feel kind of sad about it, as I am not sure about the next step. I always want to be there for her and support her throughout her life, as I believe that she also tried the best she could (but not what I needed the most) – but it’s rather a very rational level. On emotional level I don’t feel that true love and connection (which I feel towards my grandparents, with whom I have a lot of nice, pleasant childhood memories – which somehow charged me with love). I neither feel gratitude and feel that I should – but it’s fake.

I was thinking if we should have another deep talk about it – but I’m afraid to reveal my thoughts and that I will hurt her and she is going through a very rough period for a while now.

I was thinking to accept that this is how our relationship looks like and just keep supporting her in the way I can, hoping that I’ll gain more positive feelings towards her eventually.

This is where I stand at the moment. Will come back with another update in 8 years 🙂

Thanks again for your post, which triggered me to reflect.

All the best,
Denis

Hi Matt, thanks for your interest.

Actually my biggest concer at the moment is to find a balance in my life.

After the break up I started to improve my life in all areas at once: tried to stop smoking, doing sports,

drinking less, consume less weed. It was going well for a couple of weeks and I always relapsed.

I stopped smoking weed, but smoked tobacco. I stopped smoking tobacco, but smoked weed. I stopped smoking

tobacco and weed, but drunk beer every evening. And these combinations were changing constantly, I just couldnt

find the proper one.

I tried to stop everything at once to be able to think clearly, so I invented a “sober November” program for

myself, when I dont consume anything which effects my thinking (tobacco,alcohol,weed etc.). It was a huge fail,

at the 2nd day I got too stressed that I have to give up a lot of my habits and relapsed with everything.

I realised that its not about being addicted to a particular thing, but I have a habit to “reward myself”. I

mean that if I am doing something I “have to do”, like work,study,cleaning(meaning that it’s not necessarily

bringing pleasure for me), after I have to reward myself with equivalent “pleasure causing” activity – drinking

a beer, smoke a cigarette or joint, go to party.

So, I chose a strategy to give up my bad habits 1 by 1, currently I stopped smoking since January 1st, 2014 and

reduced my weed smoking to 1/day(without nicotine) at evening. I also realised that I am not enjoying it too

much, but I am too afraid to think about what to do instead. I mean at the evening at the end of the day, I

know that drinking a beer isnt healthy, so I usually smoke some weed before sleep, but I am concerned about it

as well. But I really feel that I should give it up.

Sometimes I am having huge mood swaps. Sometimes I feel really great, with a lot of energy and good mood.

And sometimes I am getting depressed(especially when I am hangovered),

So, actually all the signs shows that I really need to stop drink in the way I am drinking (I dont drink during

the working days, but if I go out on weekends I always get drunk, regardless if I plan it or not).

I recently also started questioning the meaning of life, thinking about what truly bring pleasure to me (i

started swim, climbing, running and actually its enjoyable), started to be openminded to spirituality, reading

about pineal gland etc.

But in this case I’m afraid that I’ll get too far away from the society i live in and become an outstander.

Most of the people I know live the more standard lifes and seems to be happy with it, doesnt seem to be

concerned about their lifestyle.

At least when I speak to some people, the most common answer is, you shouldnt care that much about this stuff, just do what you like and live your life.

But at this point I just cant, until I find the answers for my questions. I’m sorry, maybe my text isnt well

structured, as I am just writing what I have in my mind.

Just to summerize my main matters:

1. I am not sure how to reward myself at the end of the productive day (usually I smoke weed)
2. If I start my transition into the “clear” myself, searching for enlightment and live a different lifestyle, I am afraid what will happen to my social relationships.

My biggest concern is approaching girls, since my break-up I was meeting some girls and experienced some success :), but it was mainly in parties and I think these girls liked the old “badass” me.

I’m afraid that if I will start to speak about the things which are interesting to me lately (self improvement, sober life, spirituality etc.), they will think I’m weird/nerd. So it would be even harder to find a partner.

These are my thoughts lately.

P.S.: I have wrote some info about the relationship with my mother in the first post. I had some update regarding it. On 4th January, my mother moved to my apartmant, as temporarily didnt have any place to stay at. I’m renting a 1room flat(30 square meters) with a double bed, so we had to sleep in the same bed for 2 months (until her problems got resolved and she could move out). It was very inconvenient, and I had a bad feeling, that the closest person to me (my mother) is staying with me , but I’m not happy about it at all, since we are still are too far away from each other, as she knows nothing about me and what I had experienced and felt.

So one day, I invited her for dinner and told her almost everything about my life, so at least she will know who I am, regardless if she likes it or not. I realised that I am already an adult and can take this risk. It worked out pretty well, she told that didnt know what happened to me and regret if caused pain, I told the same, so we kind of rebuilt or son-mother relationship.

After it I felt like if I had thrown a 100 kg bag, which I was carrying all the time.

I am really interested in your opinion, as it may be more objective than the person’s who know me in real life.

Regards,
Born2Flow