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Julia

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Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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  • #409846
    Julia
    Participant

    Dear Tee, Dear Anita,

    Anita, you wrote what comes to my mind as I read what I quoted here is that your parents did not enjoy taking care of you and preferred to do something else, something other than attending to you, and therefore, you felt lost in the family, forgotten and forgettable“ – What you wrote might be true for one half of my parents (my father) but my mum definitely always had time or made time for me and enjoyed spending time with me. It was hard and still is for her to give emotional support or talk about problems. Those are ignored and not talked about in our family. So I cannot say I felt lost or forgotten by my family but I remember that sometimes plans were made to do stuff as a family (going to the swimming pool etc.) – so disappointment comes to mind when I think about those occasions.

    I really meant that I was confused that grownups would do dishes, get up early to go to work do sports they didn’t enjoy when they could do (in my childish mind) everything they wanted to, why would they chose this? It could come from my parents complaining about everything, making every little task sounding like a marathon, I don’t know.

    Tee, you wrote „Alright, so if I understood you right, you also judge your parents for being slackers/non-achievers?“ – yes exactly. I mean my dad sits literally at home for over 10 years after losing his job and going into pension – doing almost nothing besides eating and maybe reading and watching television. That always makes me so upset and angry even how one can just waste his life away like this. But who am I to judge, sitting at home in the evening, eating and watching netflix…

    If you were to achieve something special, you feel you would be better than your parents, who are slackers/non-
    achievers/boring/lost in the crowd?“ – I

    – I would, in deed. Because I would have proven to myself that I am different.

    If so, it could be that you didn’t have too much excitement in your childhood, that you didn’t get much stimulation from your parents (in terms of playing games, doing fun things together), and so you felt bored……. and also boring, because they didn’t encourage you to show your
    brilliance, your gifts and talents?“

    -This supports what I wrote to Anita in response. There was definitely a lack of stimulation, I was a clever and creative child and I guess I needed extra input. I remember wanting to go to soccer training when I was 6 and my dad halfheartedly tried to took me to some training location (probably to show me that they don’t train girls). I think he never tried to enroll me or so. Just years later I found out that girls were also trained in the small town where I lived. Another example comes to mind when I was 10 and wanted to take dance lessons. My mum enrolled me and went with me to the first lesson but we were at the wrong gym so I never had a first lesson. We never tried to go there again afterwards. It just stings when I think of this missed opportunities and when I think of other children or friends who were encouraged by their parents to follow their passion and were actually helped. I couldn’t even try to find my passion. It felt impossible.

    So, that that. I don’t think I have anything more to add, I just hope I do better for my kids.

    Julia

    #409709
    Julia
    Participant

    Dear Tee, Dear Anita,

    Tee, you wrote “Well, it seems to me you have an inner critic who judges you for being a “slacker”, right?” – Your are absolute right. That’s the thing I also judge most on other (family members, especially my parents). I rather want to be more “productive” or really “relax” (meditation or yoga comes to mind, a quite bath etc.), not just numb myself.

    You also wrote “Without some special achievement, which would finally prove your worth, you feel… not good enough and unworthy” – I don’t know if it would necessarily “prove [my] worth” (to whom?) rather than just make me something else (than my parents?) than boring, I don’t know, hard to put into words. Without “some special achievement” I feel lost in a crowd, nothing to talk about , forgetable, boring – I’m just writing down what comes to mind.
    Anita, what you described makes absolut sense to me. Even as a child I did not understand, why people / grown-ups just had to do things which they obviously did not enjoy or rather want to do somethings else at the time. I kind of promised myself, I would never put myself into this kind of situations so when such a situation is at hand, where I actually have to do things because there is a deadline or it’s about health etc. I’m trying my best to postpone doing it. I’m finding myself grabbing my phone, binge watching, eating etc. which leads to a productivity (outside of work-life, where I’m very strict to myself and consider myself a hard worker) of about 20 %. Not where I want to be. So I’m open to any kind of ideas to change that behaviour aka my attitude.
    Thank you both so much.
    Julia
    #409453
    Julia
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    I did daydream about being creative and famous but mostly just about being loved/in love or well liked by others etc. Fame even disturbed me in my dreams, it is not something I ever wanted for myself. But still my dreams were more exciting than real life, it’s true.

    And now life is just life. It is not necessarily boring but just bland. I never invisioned myself having children and staying one place barely getting new experience/see new places but that is how life ended up for me. Don’t get me wrong, I like my life as it is, I probably couldn’t have dreamt it any better. I just wasn’t ready to be a mum and not me anymore. I was planing to study abroad for one year, I just met a nice man and then I got pregnant. Again, this is nothing I regret, I made my choices deliberate. And I wasn’t more happier or content back then. I just tried to get new experience so somthing extraordenary acutally would hapen in my life. Well, it kind of did but different than I envisioned.

    So overall I cannot say that my childhood expectations were too. There weren’t any expectations. If anything than my daydreaming prevented my from actually envision a future for me, which I would enjoy etc. I slowly getting there now but as I described earlier, I lack the commitment of doing more (what I would need to get into a good position).

    Julia

    #409438
    Julia
    Participant

    Dear Roberta, Dear Tee and Dear Anita,

    thank you for your responses and your care. I really appriciate it.

    Tee, you asked “What are those thoughts?” which I might try to avoid when falling into addictive behavior. I tried to take some time and think about it but I guess it just quickly becomes painful or too much, hard to tell. I am in general not a strong person although from the outside it might looks like the opposite. My inner critic… I don’t think I have a loud one, at least my inner slacker is louder. Nervertheless thoughts which I try to avoid can be summarized with: I am not good enough, I could do more, work more / put more energy in my education / start some side business, do more sports, do more for / with my kids, be more creative (it was a big passion during my childhood years) etc. All of these thoughts just kind of overwhelms me and numbs me alltogether. I know I don’t have to do / be all of those things, but I feel like my life lacks something special. I am like everybody else or worse and it annoys me. I am annoyed with my incapability of pull through a plan / an idea – because I am afraid I fail or worse I will quit my plan early on again, proving to myself that I cannot do it. My guess is, I am just lazy. I just do enough. The last time I did more than needed was during Highschool probably. And of course, I got rewarded with a good grade, but in other subjects I did not, no matter how hard I tried (my thoughts around this time, not now, I could have probably done more if I really wanted to). Now I am telling everyone who is asking me about my ongoing master’s degree that I am just putting enough effort into it to pass. I don’t work my butt of. I choose easier courses, I just do what is needed. I don’t even try to understand some things. I just gave up (?). I mean I am almost done and I feel like I didn’t even “earn” this degree…so all in all I am not very ambitious, I have a great fear of failing which is why I find it hard to commit to anything.

    Anita, you wrote “You were able to stop other addictive behaviors because you removed access to the items” – yes, exactly. With the sweets and snacks I could probably try the same. No one snacks at home except me, meaning we don’t keep extra snacks/sweets for the kids in the house (or stuff I eat anyway). Sometimes I manage a week or too (last when I had problems with a teeth), but then before I know it I just buy some sweets/snacks again and I am not sure why. I tried intermittend fasting (you only eat in an 8-hour window during the day) which worked quite well for me to reduce the not-needed-calories-input. I might try this again…sometimes I fall off when I’m sick… It’s like with sports – I had a healty routine of 45 minutes sports in the evening until I had an operation which made me stop for over a month. Starting again is just hard but probably needed.
    I hope my post didn’t feel too much like a monolog.

    Thanks again for all your input and care.

    Julia

     

     

    #409112
    Julia
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    thank you for you reply.

    You wrote:

    “are your ways to deal with anxiety at nights when you are not busy with, or distracted by your kids and husband: you remove your focus from the unpleasant experience of anxiety to the pleasure”

    I can partially agree but this behaviours also show during the day time (when I’m alone), sometimes to “reward” myself even which is absurd because I just don’t enjoy this behaviour aka eating too much sweets, binge watching etc. anymore…But I thought about what brings me to starting going down the path again and again and like you described it probably falls back to anxiety – of being alone (with my thoughts?).

    You asked:

    “Did you have past successful experiences with changing habits?”

    I did but it always came with an abrupt and complete stop of doing something: like the occasional over drinking, the use of social media or some time in the past I even had an addictive and unhealthy habit of meeting strangers from a dating platform i overall did not enjoy but I could not control myself (I was looking for a partner back then) so I cancelled my accounts all together to stop. Also I had an excessive habit of daydreaming – I’m talking about hours over hours going to waste. It all stopped when I met my husband. These nights now and then I’m also finding myself coming back to this routine…

    So it was all in all rather stopping habit than changing. I find it quite hard to stick to a new and better routine (I guess I’m not the only one).

    Julia

Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)