Hey there,

I too wanna be normal haha! I have been depressed and well, I can’t reveal all the gruesome details. But yes, I have had all issues, Identity crisis, existential crisis, childhood trauma, suicidal thoughts, over-eating issues, premature hairloss, and maybe, even some chronic health disorder. I too feel lonely, hardly any connection with my parents. They just seem to care about me enough to avoid any inconvenience for themselves — and that they call love haha! Well, what are we to do about this situation of ours?

Look, I don’t know anything about you, I probably think that I know how you feel, but I could be very inaccurate too. Ignore this if you find this useless.

So my friend, the truth probably is, that there is really no psychological security for us, no one to depend on, no one who really cares about how we feel and really wants to see us deeply get better than to show outward facade of order. If you have someone like this, well you already are luckier than me. But now that we deeply realise that we are alone, what are we to do? How do we improve ourselves? How do we get out of this rut that we have pushed ourselves in?

You know, maybe because we felt that help exists, or that others are not lonely and we are, we haven’t really tried to ask ourselves what can we do despite being terribly alone. Maybe this realisation of the fact that we are alone, and people wouldn’t want to associate themselves with us unless we are in a better place emotionally (really from my observation, the so-called happy people seem to avoid inconvenience at all cost, even within my blood relations) would bring its own strength in us to do something about ourselves. Maybe realising that our psychologists/counsellors have done nothing to solve our problems but to give us false hopes would enable us to find our answers ourselves.

And probably in realising that there really isn’t anyone to depend on, we would want to do something about our situation despite this fact. Maybe we lose our strength in finding someone to latch on to. I really don’t know what would work for you. But clearly spending time with yourself and trying to understand yourself better wouldn’t hurt right? But how can we do it if we are constantly trying to find others who can make ourselves feel better?

I really hope that both you and I get better

Take care

• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by Kartik.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by Kartik.

Hi Eve,

Maybe too late now, but I hope you are doing well. I have recently been going through something like this myself. Really confusing to be honest. People say follow a certain steps to love yourself, set goals etc. Really none of that shit seems to work.  It just feels like I am fighting an endless battle with myself trying to love myself. Interestingly, all the counselors and psychologists think that by fighting this battle with yourself, you will learn to love yourself eventually as a part of you will over power the other part. I think all of this is just encouraging neuroticism.

Recently, through my explorations, I have learnt a new way to resolve my internal conflicts. Basically goes like this, having an insight out of self-understanding and that very insight brings the dissolution of conflict (something similar to what has been communicated by J Krishnamurti and Buddha — Being a light to oneself). Now while reading your article, I kind of had some insights about my (and probably yours as well) situation. It seems to me that we often think we have a lot of time in our lives, and facing the fact that we are getting old and would die one day brings more stress and anxiety. But the truth is our time is passing by, and yet we are faced with this tremendous self-conflict and disorder. How do we understand this disorder so fully that we free ourselves from it immediately so that we aren’t wasting any more life energy living in conflict?

Let’s see, I think I lack self-love, because nobody really taught me how to love myself. My father was emotionally abusive. I don’t think he intended to be that way, but he had become one. In the culture where I come from, it is considered to be a favorable thing when a kid is scared of his father, as then, the kid stays in control and doesn’t just do whatever the hell he/she likes. I was beaten with belt/slippers, shouted on as well. And then, when I wanted to cry, because my mom was to weak to see me cry, she would cry in return and emotionally black-mail me to stop crying. And if my father saw me crying, well then I was legit fucked! He would shout at me even more until I stopped crying! You see, I became a master of suppression! There were reasons that I continued suppressing my wants and my needs you know:

I.) Probably because suppressing my feelings kept me safe from the wrath of this maniac I called my father and also kept that one weakling (my mother) happy. This way we could all pretend that nothing was wrong in our family and we are/were a happy family.

ii.) Suppressing my desire to hang out with friends seemed to help me study better. Studying better meant better reputation among classmates and teachers. Finally, the love that I wanted!! But then, studying more, becoming more and more perfect became my ambition, and in this ambition, I ironically, isolated myself more and more from people. Also, in this ambition for excellence (fueled by the need for love and respect from people),  I further suffocated myself until I achieved perfection. You see, I turned against myself lol!

Honestly, it is very complicated. But I hope that through this self understanding, I would eventually be free. I don’t know honestly. Really, I personally feel that self love should be something natural. A dog knows how to take care of itself. So does a kid (cries everytime it experiences inconvenience, not caring whatever the hell adults face lol!). Somehow in this demand of meeting externally set standards, we seemed to have become excellent at suffocating ourselves. Maybe all we have to do is understand ourselves, than to suffocate ourselves further with the pressure of loving ourselves to achieve some results. Because it seems like if we are striving to love ourselves, then we are fighting ourselves, and then inturn, maybe not loving ourselves.

Take care 🙂