Trying to find out the stuff I need to find out so thank you for your answer.

I’ve found when I am comparing or criticizing they often have something that I lack that I want for myself. Fitness or nothingness being notable attributes. Does this person have things that you wish you had?

Yes, that is something I’ve been thinking about. Actually what I yearn for is to be a bit more careless, a bit more relaxed. I am not like a stressful person, I just know my limits, I act careful to the loved ones, I try not to bother anyone and also take care of myself at all times. But I don’t think she cares at all about any of those details. Can you sense anything that I am not seeing here? Let me know, you’d be helping me.

For example, I have been doing these exercises for years without comparing myself to anyone else. But she asked me if I could do one specific pose after all those time, she was able to accomplish that pose so she was asking. I felt like she is trying to let me know / learn where I am at since I’ve been doing and she just started. I sense a need of accomplishment in her mind when asking me and waiting for an answer like “yes, i was able to do that pose after months” which what I gave her.

Thank you for the tips, when I am involved in these types of comparing/toxic feelings, I tend to forget the other party can feel the same way. I kind of feel that she is creating the rivalry, but I am not sure.

Why do you focus on your spirituality? Yes to overcome your anxiety, childhood, etc. but there are a lot of mask those feelings (drugs, alcohol, ignorance of the problem). Why do you want to be better?

Thank you for making me think, I actually don’t focus on spirituality. If i did, I would have done more and accomplished more. I just stayed around where I was and kept myself sane, that was all. I just did what I wanted to do, and didn’t yearn for more, didn’t have any rival on that and just wanted to keep myself calm/peaceful. Maybe now that she brings this feeling, comparison, into my life about something that I’ve only done in a pure way and I am angry because of this.

Hi Roberta,

I don’t think this frenemy will transform, as we don’t have any time to wait for others to change. I am more interested in changing myself so that I won’t feel this way about yoga and her. This state of mind bothered me and I am trying to change it. At least, I am trying to identify which parts of toxicity here belongs with me and not her, and as I identify that, I can maybe change it.

Hi Anita,

I have opened up the forum in the past week and never had the energy to put my feelings here. I hope you’ve had an amazing Christmas and will have an amazing New Years. May the new year bring you so much more peace and happiness.

I’ve had a mental crisis recently where I learned that my landlord is planning to increase my rent by %400 and if I don’t pay that, they will sue me. Just when I managed to have the house to myself, without any toxic flatmates (the last one of them will leave next month), I’ve learned that maybe I will have to move to my mom’s house or something, since there are no rental houses for affordable prices anymore. So I was terrified, depressed, crying all the time. I felt so alone, everybody had something to say, some stuff they could suggest but nobody was actually with me in this. I was all alone, and I had to face this problem on my own. My bf was working a lot those days, so he also couldn’t really support. He was by my side, but he was not saying me that “we would handle this together.” So I felt awful. He was hugging, not saying much about the subject. He was trying to distract me.

I even told him a story of my childhood which I find very vulnerable. When I was about 6-8 years old, I was constantly crying and depressed. I was either with my father in the same city, or with my mom in another city. I needed somebody’s support I guess, I needed them to understand me and maybe care for me. I felt so alone. When I was with my mom, she used to listen to me for a while and tried to support. Maybe she didn’t have much patience but she tried, she was also having depressed times I figured later on. But when I was with my dad, he never had the courage to deal with this problem. Never tried to understand or talk to me about it, as far as I remember. Never even hugged me. He was afraid of his own emotions I suppose, and if he confronted me, he wouldn’t be able to handle them? Not sure. Maybe he just didn’t care since he was fixated on himself. So he always found a place to drop me off, to hang out. He was a teacher, so he knew so many people. He used to find some family who has a child around my age and then I was there, left to hang out with them, play with them. The same scenario used to happen always, I was distracted for a while and then when it ends, I start crying. The family tries to understand me, support me but what can they do? I don’t even know what my problem is, so I probably never explained fully. I think I used to say that I missed my mom or stuff like that. Then finally when I stop crying, dad picks me up. After a while, I learned to hold myself and not cry in front of others, and my parents as well.

When I told this story which I only told you and now him, not even the psychiatrist I saw since I couldn’t handle it, he hugged, tried to comfort me but nothing else. I felt bad since he was not there with me. He just waited for me to calm down, that’s all.

My mom also talked about him in a bad way for the first time. She told me that since he is not that active regarding this crisis, maybe I should observe him more. She made me doubt him and after that, I was also a bit weird to him. I kind of stated that I felt so alone, meaning he wasn’t that much of a support. I actually wanted him to say stuff like, “you can always move in with me”, “we’ll do it together”, “I would never let you move out of this city”. These words comfort people, distracting never works! I hate distractions when I am in a crisis, I guess I learned that it’s never the right thing and who am I even kidding?

But then after a while, 2-3 days later when he is not as busy as before, he got what I felt. He supported and said, “if it all comes to there and we cannot find a solution, you’ll move in to my house.” I was relieved, and then I moved on thinking about solutions with a more calm mind.

The problem still exists, but now that I heard him say these which apparently meant a lot for me, I feel calmer, and better. After a few days of crying, being depressed I woke up with 4 cold sores on my mouth. It was terrible and I actually saw how much it affects my health and my body. A few days of crisis made my body react this fast.

But the fact that if he didn’t say those words, I would be worse now terrifies me. I am so dependent on his emotional support, and words. And also extremely surprised to see that my body had something to say as well about this stressful and depressive days. She didn’t like it apparently, and now I am healing my lips.

Hi Anita, I hope you feel nice and content today. I sometimes feel selfish for writing here and expecting an answer. I don’t understand how can you help so many people with compassion, over and over again. It must be tiring sometimes.

Something got into me. If I would have beliefs, I would say that the evil eye did it or something. Yesterday, after working well for a couple of hours, I felt exhausted. Then it was like my barriers couldn’t protect me from bad thought loops. I was all vulnerable, and the thoughts were all attacking me. After I got outside and went to my BFs house, my body felt all the worries and I was suffering. I cried and then tried to get back to normal, but then it started again. All the evening it was like I was too tired to control my mind, self-sabotaging thoughts, and doubts about what I do and what I’ll do. I felt worthless. My BF had to work a little extra, but I felt like he was texting somebody or something like that. I was full of doubt about everyone. I had nothing valuable in my life. I even wanted to cease to exist, cause it was painful to be there, be anywhere. I thought of my ex-boyfriend at some point, I felt like he would understand. But then I let that thought go cause it wasn’t rational, I was just kidding myself, he wouldn’t understand. Or even if he would, he would harm me.

It was like my childhood all over again, I tried to distract myself the whole evening. BF did help, but my mind was attacking him without him knowing it. Then my dreams were also self-sabotaging. I was jealous of him because he was hanging with a confident friend of mine. I was not in control.

I’ll try to let these self-sabotaging hours and mind go today, I’ll start meditating/yoga again. It was like my mind was contaminated and these were all the side effects.

I also realized something yesterday, I am sceptical about everyone and everything. I feel good with my BF cause he is honest and he doesn’t exaggerate stuff. But when I listen to somebody, I always know that they might add, omit and exaggerate the stuff they’re telling. I guess this is tiring. Even when I overshare or share the normal amount of information about myself, I started to feel like they could harm me or their thoughts even, can harm me. I must never let anybody get jealous of me, my job, or my relationship or get the wrong thoughts about me. I even thought this contamination of mine could’ve happened because I told an old friend about my work permit application earlier yesterday before I got that bad. It was like, she had the wrong thoughts and that contaminated my mind.

Dear Anita, I hope you’ve had a great week.

Yes, I shouldn’t take the fact that I don’t feel guilty, at least rationally, granted. I can feel guilty for not helping, being a slave to him but I know that’s not rational. So I try to correct that feeling. And being abused for years and so on, mom tries to help me in that regard. She told me that I was a good kid, with no problems they had to deal with and no drama. I was living my teenage years silently, so they didn’t have to make so much effort like they did with my big sister. As they always tell, my big sister was a suffocatingly hard child. I was the opposite.

I am getting a better understanding today of how much your father hurt and harmed you.

I am too! I’ve actually always known this, but I am acting like it now. Before, I ignored all of it because I knew how hard he was brought up, as far as I know, he was never loved in a genuine way and always praised for external status. He was brought up to be a narcissist and also my sister was like that because his mother also took care of her when mom worked. They didn’t took care of me, I was mostly with my mom’s mom or at some child schools. And now I see that I was doing more than what I had to do by being so understanding. A child shouldn’t be that much understanding to their parents, maybe. A side of me thinks that everyone should be that understanding, to everyone. And I see not-understanding, intolerant people a bit selfish. But maybe that’s wrong. I am at a phase where I question this, and maybe since I tried to correct my boundaries, my parent-understanding behavior has also affected by that. When I think about how some parents behave, and how some teachers neglect or behave badly to some children, I remember my own memories. And I feel angry towards them, especially to the teachers.

so he didn’t get to the arguing and making them feel bad stage because of time constraints

I have a different point of view here, I think he wouldn’t dare to jeopardize the persona by behaving students badly. I see narcissistic features all over him, and he was an idealistic teacher. He was the best, they all loved him. Everyone that knew him outside of school knew that he was kind of hard, but he was the best in his job. Everybody thought that he was one of the most intelligent, intellectual man around. But at home, he owned us. He especially owned my mother, and even though he loved her and wanted to have her before their marriage, afterwards he just behaved her like a furniture. Over the years, he was afraid of losing her so he acted bad, weirdly enough, he lost her.

I’ll mention something really personal but since this is in another language, I trust the anonymity. My mom had to get 5 abortions before me, and this was all my dad’s fault. And one day, my mom getting scared again because of the operation, told my dad to get a vasectomy since it’s much more easier and with no risk. My dad refused, told that “nothing is definite, if I get that operation, who knows what would happen?”. Mom complained, “but you’re making me have a much riskier operation for several times?”. Dad refused, and replied, “it’s not the same.” I cannot imagine how rejected and worthless my mom might have felt. I also have that “worthless” feeling inside of me when I am behaved badly. After all those years, dad got sick. And he had to have 10+ operations around the bladder and so on and it makes me think, he refused to have that tiny operation around his penis and then he had to suffer a dozen on the same area. Although, if he didn’t refuse to have vasectomy, I wouldn’t be here writing these words.

– as a child, you experienced so little compassion- almost none (?)- from anyone. Instead, you experienced anger, rejection and misunderstanding. You were misunderstood.

All the compassion I’ve received was from my mom, and from some teachers, I guess 1 or 2. I always loved my teachers, but I was afraid to communicate so I always knew my ground and didn’t ask for much. I got used to staying on the right place, respecting the other person’s boundary silently and not asking for much thanks to my dad. And now I am trying to overgrow out of that habit. And as for “misunderstood”, I feel like I wasn’t understood at all. Cause I didn’t know how to express what I want, I got scared and I felt like I didn’t have the right to ask for more. I should be okay with what I have. I am still, today, afraid to ask for more.

seems to me that he treated his students well because they were the reason he got paid as a teacher, they were hissource of money while you and your mother took money away from him. This is another reason why he treated them well, but not you or your mother. What do you think?

He got a weird relationship with money. He liked to act like he had none, but he always cared for his car, his own needs only. He didn’t like giving it to us, we had to act very economical and we did so. Although my sister refused that, she wasteful at times and I’ve seen that. I’ve seen how hard mom tried to support her after the divorce and that’s why I got more economical and started earning some money around high school cause I had to help mom. I knew how stingy was dad, but mom always tried to tolerate him. I was a normal kid with normal working parents, but I lived like a poor child a bit.

And your second post was the most positive respond I got from you, and I felt even more encouraged after reading it. Thank you for appreciating me Anita! Thank you!

As I write these in a cafe, I got emotional at some parts but I kept myself and my eyes still, I received an email from the migration office. Migration office accepted the company’s request and now they will wait for me to apply for work permit. It may be approved, it may be rejected. But either way, this is a big step and over the past few months, I realized I want to do this. But I want to do this to prove myself to everyone, this is the feeling I get. In my child, teenage and now working years, I’ve always seen other people getting to places they don’t work enough for. And I waited and waited, now I have this chance to prove myself to them. I am not sure if this is right for me to feel, sounds a bit like rivalry. Although I have to accept it and apply, that’s the final decision. However, I feel incredibly scared towards my relationship. I am very dependent, again. And since I know he is a bit hesitant to “distant-relationships”, I feel even more discouraged. But I have to tell him at some point. I wish there was a way to make him try hard for us like I would do.

I even talked with my boss to discuss how often I can visit my country and I would be able to work hard for a month and then visit here every other month, maybe work remotely for a week or so. That way, I would be able to be with him and handle my business here apart from that company as well. Dreaming, thinking, planning.. Not sure if it’ll work. Going to do more yoga to relax my mind and if I cannot take it and feel that desperate, I’ll go speak with the fortuneteller lady again.