Dear Anita,

yes, thank you. 🙂 I would like to continue our conversation.

“You stood up for your mother for years, being nothing less than a hero, for her sake.” – I hope so, although I do know that I have caused her so much worry over the years because I still cannot let go of the past and forgive those girls. I am so insecure that it is harming not only my mental but also physical health. Somehow those girls always found the way to make me “the bad one.” And I believed them, I still do. I feel guilty even though I never did anything to hurt them. I did vent to a couple of my other friends about them and that is the thing I worry about the most – like venting is worse than their actions towards me. But since they would not listen to me and stop when I asked them to, I needed to let it out somehow. I never discussed their personal lives or secrets, but I did complain about their behavior instead of confronting them more than once until they understood. It eats me up inside that I came out a worse person than them – if they didn’t have anything to say about me, they would make things up so that they could argue with me and win.

Thank you, Anita.

My mother taught me how to stand up for myself, but my father is a people pleaser and always told me to be quiet and to not start any arguments. I was afraid of him for most of my childhood and teenage years. So, I never stood up for myself. My mum even wanted to call my neighbor’s parents, but I would not allow it. My neighbor’s parents thought she was the golden child, spoiled her rotten and I knew they would defend her. I didn’t want my mum caught up in my problems, so I told her that things worked out. If my neighbor’s parents were to react badly and started a feud, my dad would blame me and my mom and accused us of being too sensitive.

Dear Anita,

wow, thank you! Your response is very insightful and you are right.

“the opposite of wild is tamed“ – this hit me so hard, I cannot tell you how much;

“and you didn’t pay attention to other girls who also did not belong to the popular-with-boys group of girls, including the girls who were mocked by the popular girls.” – Quite the contrary, to be honest…I had a group of friends, we were all deemed physically less attractive, all of us more chubby than skinny and less “fashionable”. This is why I was even more disappointed. The girls in this group were all wonderful, funny, and fun to be around, but none of them had a boyfriend. They expressed similar experiences. They were good enough to laugh with (and at), but not to date.

“I crave hugs and kisses”- you feel that craving, it is not completely tamed.  I imagine that this craving does not show at all in your facial expressions and behaviors (?) – This, I honestly don’t know. I am a hugger and my female friends always hug me. There was one incident in high school, where a male schoolmate was celebrating his birthday one day and we all went to congratulate and hug him. He was happy to hug my attractive friends, but seemed shocked and disgusted when I went in for a hug. He barely gave a proper hug back. Since then I am afraid to give another boy a hug. It is also weird because people in high school described me as a very warm and compassionate person.

I have one more strange situation that I cannot understand: in sixth grade, when I was normal weight and not yet affected my no-sex/affection talk at home, a boy told me he likes me. I immediately panicked and was convinced that he was mocking me to get a laugh out of his friends. Even at that age (10,11..), when I was not concerned about my looks and physical affection, I could not understand how someone would like me. That was the first time I experienced this weird feeling and I would experience it every time while talking or spending time with another boy, whether it be in a group conversation with our friends or randomly meeting a schoolmate in the college hall. I was severely bullied in primary school by girls only, so I cannot understand why I’m always more afraid of boys.

Dear Anita,

1. You wrote: “I feel constant shame”- shame in regard to not having been in a relationship, or is there other shame, shame that originated in your earlier childhood?

Both, I guess. My parents were never affectionate with each other and boyfriends were not allowed in my teenage years. We never talked about romantic feelings and we never, ever talked about sex or romance.

2. You wrote: “I would like to take care of me for a change, instead of me always being the support and the ‘psychologist’ for other people”- when did your role of being the support/ the psychologist for other people start? Have you been a support and psychologist to any of your parents?

I guess it started in school. I was always the responsible child. My dad is a very strict man and we were not allowed to make mistakes. So I never made the, I never had a “wild phase,” I never dated, I got good grades, I also never expressed my anger. Other parents knew that I was responsible and told me to look after their children at parties, etc. Later, in high school and college, people always came to me for advice, but never asked me how I was doing. I was like the on-call therapist.