Dear anita,

I read an old diary entry that talks of my parents from when I was 19 years old. There I see that my parents made mistakes and that their behavior was not o.K., but I also write that they tried their best and that others had it worse. Also that I was a difficult child. It seems like I had mixed feelings. One day later I write that what I had written one day before was stupid and that it doesn’t help to look at old wounds. That my anger from one year ago was gone and that I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

Maybe that was the time when I started to change from being angry at my father to becoming numb. At that time I also moved to another place to study and I felt very lost.

Hopefully I can grow up someday, but it really feels overwhelming and hopeless. But your idea to look at my early life sounds good to me. Next week, I will ask my therapist about it. But on the other hand, I feel like I have thought and talked so much about my childhood already, but I still don’t get it, still haven’t healed.

Something went definitely wrong in my childhood. My siblings also have problems. When I talked to my sister a while ago, she said she felt like a burden to everyone and insecure. But she has more guilty feelings towards my father, probably because she was her favourite and saw himself in her. My sister felt like he liked her, while I felt like he hated me. And she was surprised about the things he said to me. She also remembers getting hit on the head by my mother only once, while I remember my father hitting me on several occasions.

In general, I feel like I was treated differently from my siblings. I was supposed to understand everything, because I was the oldest. It felt like my father liked my sister, my mother liked my brother and no one liked me. But my brother for example, he was overprotected and now he cannot live by himself. He is unable to make the smallest decisions. He doesn’t talk much, and if people ask him something he answers “I don’t know” or “maybe”.

My parents didn’t look after our needs and our opinion didn’t matter. Discussions were often ended with “period!” and mistakes on my parents part were never admitted during my childhood.

Sorry, I don’t want to pity myself. And I still think that I have a strong side! It is not true, that I haven’t formed my own opinion, but I don’t voice it very often. And I also try to overcome my fears and do things that scare me, like going abroad, or volunteering in playing a big part in organizing an exhibition. My fears were big, but I still did it and it went o.K. So I’m not completely weak, I don’t think so.

Of course, I know that I am far behind everyone in life. It makes me feel terrible about myself. Yesterday, that colleague that seems to have a problem with me made jokes with another colleague about me again. And he spoke about someone else, who was not much older than me, but had accomplished more. It dragged me down and I want to change. But also, at the same time, I think his behaviour is cowardly and I think he is far too judgemental! What is his problem with me? If I make a mistake, he could just come to me and explain calmly what I could improve, so I can learn. Instead he makes his passive aggressive jokes to others. And comparing also doesn’t help… I know all of this, but is still hard for me to distance myself from the opinions others have about me.

Hopefully I will learn with time and therapy will help me out further.

Dear anita,

thank you for your response. I think I will reply tomorrow or so, for now I have spent so much time on the computer. Time to do something else.

I wish you a very nice day!

Dear anita,

I don’t know if I was never afraid of my father. During the time of the confirmation, I was already a teenager, about 14 years old. At that time, I had already disconnected from the relationship with my parents. I did not feel, like they were a good example for me. My mother was overwhelmed with the children and the household and I think hadn’t found her own path.

My father was very stubborn and judgemental. He was not able to take criticism and I, as a difficult child, posed a threat to his self esteem… My mother , I think, followed his lead. So I was seen as the bad one, or that’s how I felt.

I did not really have a relationship with my parents, they did not understand me. I did not fit into their box… And I did not trust them, I did not trust in them to tell them my feelings. Later they kind of gave up on our family… Everyone came home at a different time, to eat cold food by themselves… When I went abroad for a year after school, they didn’t even bring me to the railway station, because they had to work (they had to work, but still? I was going away from home for months for the first time…)

What was I afraid of? I was very afraid of people judging me, that I remember! As a child I felt very ugly and thought people wouldn’t like me because of that (now I feel o.K. with my looks, but am insecure about my personality).

I remember blaming my insecurities on getting bullied in school. Boys told me how ugly my face looked etc. Children threw paper balls at me… I always had the feeling of being different and not likable.

My therapist said, that this makes sense, that I sought the reason for my problems outside my family. That every child wants to be loved subconsciously… I think that I didn’t realize the gravity of my parents influence until later. Once back then (as a teenager), I talked with a friend about my insecurities. And I thought that it came from the bullying, but she believed that it had to do with my father. And I rejected the idea, even though I already disliked my father by then.

Yes, I was very afraid of judgement. And who is very judgemental? My father. He always points out the flaws of others, while not wanting to look at his own. Maybe I was afraid of him? He definitely hurt my feelings and made me feel miserable. But after some time, I wanted to break free from it. I made fun of him and insulted him, but I don’t know when this started.

But I don’t understand it myself, I am confused about my childhood. As a teenager, or maybe a little earlier I rebelled. But maybe as a child it was different? I remember, when I was maybe around 10 years old, I did see the confirmees one day. And I said to myself: I will take a break from this religion thing until I become a confirmee myself. Religion to me was like a duty, like a burden. There came lots of rules and prohibitions with it… It was very black and white from my fathers side and overly emotional (similar to evangelicals) from my mothers side. It just wasn’t my thing. My parents never were able to show me the good side of it. And it was seen as a problem, that I resisted.

But it also means, that for a time, I followed the religious christian rules like my parents. Maybe at some point, I also cared about their opinion? I cannot connect the dots myself…

What did I respect as a child? I respected my cousin, the daughter of my fathers brother (they don’t get along: while my father chose the religious route, my uncle was part of the socialist youth organisations of the GDR and married the daughter of an activist. There was always competition between them, they even compared us children).

My cousin and I lived far away, but we wrote letters to each other. I looked up to her, wanted to listen to the same music as her and watch the same movies. She also worked as an Au Pair, one year before I also worked as an Au Pair, just in a different country.

There was also my grandmother, but I also only saw her during some weeks in the summer.  She knew everything about plants and lived a simple life. My grandmother was a farmer and lived by herself in an old beautiful house after her husbands death. The holidays there are some of my happiest childhood memories. She taught me how to milk a goat, we harvested potatoes and raspberries together. We went hiking together at the nearby forests and collected mushrooms. The paths and other things had special names like “snake path” or “moonlight lake” (it was just a pool with duckweed on it, but it seemed so magical). She also had all these sayings… She called her best shoes “sunday-afternoon-take-out-shoes” or said weird things like “don’t be such a coward, let me hide behind the bushes!”. I wanted to become a farmer like her. And I still think at simple life in nature would suit me most! So yeah, writing this out I can feel how much I liked her.

I also found role models in TV shows or music groups. For example, I liked this TV show “Buffy the vampire slayer”, about a girl that was fighting against demons. Earlier I also liked Sailor Moon, where girls also fight against evil. Both shows were disliked and forbidden by my parents. By the way, I followed my parents rules more when I was younger and stopped watching Sailor Moon. But with Buffy, my cousin recorded the show for me and I watched it secretly.

And with music, I also liked strong female figures (or that’s what they appeared to me) like the Spice Girls or Destiny’s Child. They sang songs about being independent and strong….

Yes, I think my worldview was formed a lot by television and music, I was looking for role models and my parents didn’t really offer one?

Not sure if this will make more sense to you? Sometimes I get confused myself. And I realize that I am a living contradiction…

Dear anita,

thank you for your response.

Today I was feeling a little better. Yesterday I decided to go to this mentoring thing, after I had almost canceled the program last week. I took part in the group activities and such and even though I felt stressed, it was o.K. Even though I was socially awkward, I felt accepted.

Today was also o.K.. I worked on my stuff for class for a few hours and even had a small chat with the janitor of the dormitory. Last time I saw him, he also didn’t respond when I said hello, but today it was more normal again. It made me feel better. I feel much calmer today.

But at the floor where I live I still feel awkward. I kind of feel like a bad person. But I know I am not a bad person, I just have a lot of self-improvement to do.

Yes, In my childhood I stood up for myself more. But I don’t know if I publicly rejected the religion of my parents? I told my friends about it and I also told my parents. But I still was confirmed, even though I told my parents that I didn’t want that. Once in confirmation class the pastor (I refused to get confirmed by my father) said that confirmation was a free choice and I remember this ironic feeling I got… I also took part in religion class instead of ethics class, even though after a certain age you were supposed to choose for yourself.

In my childhood I was also more included in church activities. I went to the children’s church choir and to sunday school. But after we moved to another place, I stayed out of these things, except the confirmation and religion class in school. And we also had to go to church every other week But after I got older I stopped going to church, if I remember correctly.

So I still caved to my parents wishes. I remember how I felt like my will was “raped” (a strong word, but that was really the word I used in my head for how I felt back then). In my therapy I understood better, that my feelings weren’t valued in my family. My resistance wasn’t valued and seen as a bad thing. They didn’t really talk to me or ask me about why I was not interested in religion anymore.

My therapist also said that she cannot “feel me”, that I describe everything more in a rational way, without showing feelings. And that I keep my feelings bottled in. Last week, when I almost canceled the mentoring program, I felt angry at myself and humiliated. Then I smashed a glass against the wall, also my cell phone and a shoe… It made me feel a little better, but then I regretted it again, because my neighbours probably heard it and will think even worse of me…

Yes, it seems I mostly get angry or aggressive over smaller things… But I don’t insult people or curse like in the past.

When growing up, I wanted to be confident and strong, but I felt weak. I thought being loud meant being strong, so I cursed, like some people I admired on TV.

Later, in my early twenties my thinking changed again. I wanted to not play the victim and take responsibility. Because other people’s mistakes were out of my control, I focused on my own mistakes. But I think I took it too far. I tried to be friendly and forgiving and pleasant. I also felt that I was bothering others when talking too much about my struggles. So I tried to keep these feelings to myself, because I felt that people only want to hear positive things. During that time, I also felt disconnected with people, even my friends, they didn’t mean so much to me on an emotional level? I thought things like: “they are a valuable person and I have to appreciate them” about them. Only in the past years I was able to feel a connection to people again. Now I have a best friend who accepts me with all my flaws and we can talk very openly about our problems and feelings and support each other.

But I also lost a lot of confidence when I wasn’t able to build a stable career. It made me feel terrible about myself, but I also didn’t take much action to change the situation.

Even as a child I was very insecure though, but it is true that I stood up for myself more.

Dear anita,

thank you for your reply and sorry that I didn’t reply back earlier. I needed some time away from this forum I think… And I also thought that I was doing better…

And I want to leave the story with K behind me, finally…  So I made a new thread. And I also think the title of this thread is not how I would want to think about myself any more. Even though I am very flawed.

I will look through our thread again. You gave me lots of good advice there! And maybe it will calm me down more.

Hopefully one day, the opnion of others will not matter so much to me anymore and I will become more confident and calm.

I also wish you well! I hope you have been good since the last time we communicated!

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

Dear anita,

I understand what you mean. Yes, it is hurtful to make these experiences, I feel the pain too. It is never o.K. for anybody to take advantage of ones weaknesses. It is never o.K. to lie to someone, to get something out of them. You and I and nobody deserves to be mistreated like that!

The man from the dormitory told me all this misogynistic nonsense and mistreated me, but somehow I was still worried that I might have hurt him. I realised that what he was saying was wrong and that he wasn’t that intelligent (he called himself a genius… I could almost feel sorry for him, if he wasn’t such a douchebag!), but still I wasn’t able to kick him out of my life for so long!!

After the experience with K. I feel that I can see things clearer now. Or maybe because of your help and therapy. But maybe I had to go through all of this to finally get the wake up call!

Dear anita,

yes, it sounds very similar to my experience. I think we didn’t learn those things in our childhood, so we had to make those bad experiences and learn it the hard way. But the good thing is, we can seek help and get better. Best we can do is to be patient and compassionate with ourselves. You seem to have come so far on your healing path and are now able to help others. Your advice was very helpful to me. Others would have judged me. And I also judged myself the harshest (still do often, sadly).

I don’t want to give people the opportunity to take advantage of me anymore. So I want to take things a lot slower, when meeting new people.

And about hurting others: I think if we get hurt ourselves, it will not become a healthy relationship. It should be balanced, I think. Even if your partner was the nicest person in the world, it is o.K. to say no to them or say goodbye to them. In theory, I know a lot of things…

With a person who might not be trustworthy, it is even more important to establish boundaries. Because then they will not be able to take advantage of you. In my last coversations with K. I was able to set better boundaries and so things went better for me. I feel better about myself, better than I would have felt if I would have caved to his wish for him to sleep over.

My feelings do matter, I think I have learned that now. Sometimes I wanted to help people, when I didn’t really have time or was overwhelmed myself. And then I said yes to things I didn’t want to do. I tried to help, but my heart wasn’t truly in it. So in the end it became a negative experience for both people. Better only say yes when I truly feel good about something. And it’s o.K. to say no. I am hoping to live more by these resolutions, but it will probably take some time to put them into practice and I will likely make some mistakes along the way.

Dear anita,

yes, I won’t let K. back into my life again. Today I am feeling unhappy about letting myself get used by these two men. Sometimes I even wonder, if I should have reported the first one! What he did was really not o.K. It was definitely abusive in his case…

In any case, I don’t want to let something like this happen to me ever again. I think I have become clearer already about what I want and that I don’t have to please everyone. And that I should value my own feelings and wishes more. If only I would have learned that sooner. But at least I know better now…

Thank you anita, for helping me in this process of learning and for always being patient with me.  It his helped me and therapy is also helping me, I feel.

Dear Tony,

thank you for your reply.

Yes, you can always work on yourself, even though it is not always easy. You can also work on your relationships, but in some cases, it’s better to walk away!