Yes, Anita I will tell you my story, thanks for paying attention to my case ^^

So as a child I’ve ‘always’ (since I can remember) been quite anxious. My main problem was a desire to please my parents and have their love and support, I thought that being good person guarantees that, I suppose that I noticed my parents valuing this concept. However, I started experiencing some disturbing thoughts when I was about 4 close to 5 y.o. maybe. These were for example : not being sure whether I love God ( my parents are religious and it seemed to it’s absolutely obligatory to love this being in order to get validation and acceptance from my parents), then after a while wondering whether I will go to hell (reasonably strong anxiety at that point of my life, I remember that even now), not being sure whether I love my own parents.

It looks like lack of certainty was always very big issue for me. It still is. I wanted to be sure that I am good, but just like in case of love towards God or my parents, I felt like I never could be 100% sure. And those thoughts, and every other thought that based on my observation of reality were not helping me achieving safety and acceptance and love of my parents, were triggers of anxiety and fear.

In order to get rid of those emotions, I was talking about them with my mother, essentialy confessing them to her, and hoping that she will assure me it’s all right, I am normal/good and I shouldn’t worry.

That’s what’s been happening for quite a long time but then one day, I think I was about 6, I told her about another one of thoughts that were anxiety triggering and this one happened to make her react impatiently and essentialy rejecting me (in my mind at least).

Thought was I admit somehow disturbing indeed for a 6 year old, nothing too bad though I think.

“Jesus Christ reminds of sex” that’s how I’d translate it. Whether it’s 100% accurate translation or not, thought was connecting 2 tabu issues – sex and religion, profanating sanity which I think made my mother angry. And sex was never a topic in my home, my parents never really mentioned it, as if they were ashamed or scared to talk about it.

Important thing is to understand, that the very reason I experienced those weird thoughts, was to test my mother’s love and support- when she was giving me what I expected, anxiety was reduced and that’s what I wanted. I constantly had to come up with weirder thoughts to test her further. I needed to be SURE (again certainty issues) that I am safe and she is with me.

Anyways, when I presented what was in my mind, her face turned somehow angry, and instead of comforting me, she said ‘go away’. She wasn’t screaming she just rejected me, was angry and dissapointed I think. Then she went out (she was on her way already when I engaged, I did before she left, because I didn’t want to wait with anxiety and fear until she comes back).

And so that was the first and the last when I got rejected.

After that I was very very anxious, being sure that I must be a bad person, a monster. Even my mother couldn’t accept me.

If those thoughts, are mine (and they were obviously) my mother, the only person that I trusted unconditionally, and God himself (whom I offended with that thought) will not love me , because I am evil and bad. I was criyng a lot.

Then she went back and I weren’t talking about it anymore, didn’t want to get rejected again. For some time I was sharing with her my anxiety thoughts (that I called ‘bad thougths’), until one day she told me that I shouldn’t worry about any of these. I don’t know why but it worked for me and for few years I was, or at least it seemed to be the case functioning normally.

Later I don’t know how long it took me (with memory of rejection in mind), I decided that I am never gonna look for support again. That I am evil and i deserve being alone and miserable, and I shouldn’t bother others with my problems. I was very ashamed and feeling guilty since then. About that time I also was viewing my little self that got rejected as very weak and pathetic. I stopped touching anybody, including my mother , I was uncomfortable with them touching me even accidentaly, beacuse I was indentifying touch with being close with somebody, and being closed was threating beacause it was a possibility of getting hurt or rejected.

Also despite being very miserable, I decided that I can’t cry, crying is for weak people and the most important thing for me was not to be weak anymore. I had a very hard time crying. These days I can say that I haven’t been crying for 10 years at least.

Considering that I’ve (since events that I presented) been very miserable and anxious and rough for myself, I think that lack of crying and any self compassinon (just constant criticism) resulted in somehow twisted, extremely low self esteem and ridiculously high level of constant anxiety ( perhaps that’s why for years now I am experiencing psychiatric trauma- connected phenomena called “derealization”).

That’s pretty much my story, I apologize if it doesn’t make complete sense, I couldnt mention about everything cause I’d be writing till 2022 but I covered essential things.

Congratulations if you managed to get throught this, and thanks for your time and attention!

Have a wonderful day <3 !

“-who was it that betrayed your trust and is it the same person or persons who criticized you a whole lot?”

It was my mother who betrayed my trust. She only did that once (since I never let her do it again – I was 5/6 by the time) and it was seemingly trivial, but apparently enough for me to emotionally distance myself from other people and never trust them again.

As for the criticism, it is myself who does that… I think I am doing it in response to betrayed trust. The implication of my mother rejecting me when I needed her support was developing a conviction  that I am a bad person, not worthy of even my mother’s love and support, and being bad person is sth I as a child (and kind of still) was very concerned about.

I am supposed to be an M.D when I finish my studies, huge majority of people consider me smart,good person with big potential, there is a lot of approval nowadays, but I don’t seem to care at all, because since childhood I’ve always considered myself worthless. I acknowledge it is all in my head now, but I dont know if and how I can deal with that… ;(

Thank you very much for your response! <3

Forgive me if there are many errors, I am not a native speaker 🙂

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by James.