Dear Anita,

I appreciate all the advice you gave me. I am sorry if I sound like a spoiled brat, that was not my intention. You did open my eyes to certain things, and helped me organize my thoughts to be more confident in my decision. I wish you the best in life too. Thank you.

Paradoxy

Dear Tee,

I have already agreed with what you have said Tee, every child deserves to be loved and cared for and me lacking those feelings made me seek the same comfort in other people.

B told me that my parents and I ruined her life, that she entertained the other men and slept with the guy cause she liked the feeling of not being discriminated against. I had already told her that whether I date/marry her or not is not dependent on what my parents believe, but I did tell her my parents’ general opinion on women, to which she was offended, which was why she broke up in January, leading to everything else. Everyday it is feeling more and more like I am the real problem. Maybe it is me after all. She had told me not to tell my only other close friend that we broke up, but in a weak emotional moment, I told him that we were fighting. She found out and she told me that I lied to her and made her look like a fool. She also said that if I am able to hide her from my parents for two years, then I can also hide a “bitch” from her too (implying that I would cheat).

She said that out of all the fights that we had, the only major one was the one where she cheated, and the one now. That all our other fights were minor and we only broke up now cause of me not being able to forgive.

The times when I was the problem were 3 times, the first one where one of my crushes from high school (who is a family friend so we still talk) asked me about how college life was and whether I cook and stuff and I told her that I cook simple meals like pasta and noodles and she told me that I should cook for her one day. I obviously declined that offer. B saw those messages and couple days later asked me about what I would do if a female asked me to cook for her. And my stupid self completely forgot about the conversation with the girl as I had decided to keep her out of my life by deleting everything related to her (including that conversation). B took offense to that and assumed I was lying and the guilt over the misunderstanding made me suggest a break up, which further infuriated her. Though we did not actually break up then, the tension indicated that we were extremely close to breaking up.

The second time was when she asked me what my type was and I described the type of woman my parents wanted me to marry instead of the type of woman that I wanted, and she was offended because the type of woman that my parents wanted was nothing like her (she still holds on to what I said then despite clearing the misunderstanding). She cried for the night and the guilt from hearing her cry made me want to leave her to remove myself out of her life so that she is not burdened by nor feel pain cause of me, which further infuriated her. We did not break up here either but the tension was still high because I had still made the decision to break up.

The third time was last night regarding my friend, who I told that B and I are fighting, despite her telling me not to tell anyone. And she said I made her look like a fool and that a liar like me can easily cheat on her, despite the fact that she was the one who actually cheated.

The fact that she said that I ruined her life, that I would cheat (despite how loyal I was to her), the fact that she liked how she felt with other men unlike me, all hurt me. Each day she would come back saying that those things were only said out of her anger, which I understood cause in my anger I had called her names, but these names included terms like selfish, narrow minded, brick wall (cause she is stubborn and refuses to listen when I explain) but then recently when she crossed the line too far, in my anger I said that she was a whore (because she was paid to have sex with the man in January), and I also used terms such as bitch as well. This is the first time I went that far in my name calling but I said it out of anger too and I regret calling her those things.

I also had given an example in one of our arguments that if she had crumbled paper in one hand and a clean plain paper on the other, which one would she use to write on, but she assumed that I was implying that she is flawed cause of the men she has slept with (despite telling her that I had forgiven her for her past, but I cannot forgive the one where she slept with another man while supposedly being in love with me. The correct meaning of the example I was trying to point out was to show that I would rather choose someone with less trauma (because she would also cause less trauma), who causes less problems, less arguments, less wrinkles as I write our story instead of someone who has a lot of trauma (which would make her cause more trauma), who causes more problems, more arguments, more wrinkles. But she was offended and hated me for using that example.

Now she is saying that she is only embarrassing herself because she is the only one trying in this relationship and that I am stubborn and refuses to acknowledge that she is trying to change. She said that we broke up over a small reason cause I was always planning to leave her. That is false because when we broke up, we were already fighting about me not being able to give her some time out of my day cause of my studying for exams and when I finally gave her the time, she said that I would rather spend time with my gaming than with her, which pissed me off because she just showed that she was blind to everything that I have been doing for her and I felt there is no point in us having this relationship if that is what she thought of me. Though this would have been one of our normal break ups, the things she did after the break up convinced me to make it permanent: her going to a concert with her girlfriends right after the break up to party (which she knows I am not a fan of cause she gets hit on by men a lot, which is exactly what happened at the concert by a music artist), her going to a resort several hours away to be with her guy friend, hugging her guy friend and his friend too close, her wearing a bikini/revealing outfit (while with her guy friend) and posting it despite knowing that I hated it, going to the beach in another revealing outfit, combined with more arguments with her constantly blaming me for breaking up with her over a “stupid reason”, despite telling her about her mistakes. Each argument was so draining for me that it kept reinforcing my decision to not date her again. She also kept accusing me and my parents of being racists and ruining her life and self esteem etc by discriminating against her cause of her skin tone despite explaining to her countless times that the race is not the issue, it is the influence of the modern society because wicked women exists in all races. Fighting with her is mentally and emotionally draining but a part of me still cares about her. I know that I am an asshole but I thought I tried my best….

All of this just kept feeding my core belief that everyone would be better off without me, and that I am better off being alone.

You said that her compulsion cannot change unless she truly heals and transforms, which I told her and she asked me why I had to break up, why not just give space to each other until she is fully healed, which means she wants us to remain a couple in public but she would not bother me until she is fully healed, after which I could give her another chance to prove her worth. I told her that we are still breaking up but what she said recreated the doubt in my heart whether to give her another chance or not.

My inner child wants her, doesn’t that mean that what my inner child wants is not always necessarily what it needs or necessarily right? So how do I differentiate between what is good for it and what is bad for it?

Thank you for the video suggestion, I will look into it.

Paradoxy.

Dear Roberta,

I am not saying that amazing women like you don’t exist. It is just that unfortunately, most of the young women today are being influenced by all the wrong people on social media today and peer pressure and etc, which leads them to follow the wrong path, and most of them are rebellious too so their parents can’t control them. These types of women continue to rise. It is very rare to find amazing women like you and I am disappointed in your husband for not realizing what he lost, but I appreciate you for sharing your experience.

Paradoxy

Dear Tee,

Even if I am still suffering, that still doesn’t change that their behavior only affected me in the past. I am in college now, in a whole different country far from their influence.

I don’t know how to explain this but the mediocre education that my father received is not even college level. All my father knew was basic knowledge on electricity which he built upon through experience and reading books. My mother was able to go to a nursing school but even that school is nothing compared to the nursing schools of today. I just used community college as the closest thing I could think of that I thought you would be familiar with. The lifestyle that you are familiar with is not the lifestyle my parents grew up in. They are not familiar with teenager issues and suicidal people like we are now. They are just too stubborn and narrow minded to see these issues.

Yes my father had suffered some trauma. But that trauma has made him compassionate enough to WANT to understand, but he is INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING. That is because he still follows the rules and beliefs that he grew up in. That is why he asks me to open up but his inability to understand forces me to never open up to him because all he points out is how my feelings are wrong instead of understanding why I am feeling the way I feel. He suffered a lot of trauma in his youth but he did not become suicidal. He cannot empathize with suicidal people. He literally cannot understand it. You are right about everything else you said, about his beliefs and etc. And yes a part of that logic is imprinted in me too. It’s something that a lot of men agree with. I cannot waste time sulking about my depression and etc. I believe that it is essential to be in touch with your emotions AND know where your priorities lie. It is okay to grieve, but do not let the grieving prevent you from taking care of your responsibilities and dealing with your priorities.

I have already acknowledged that there is a wounded part in me. But what do you expect me to do about his emotional needs and stuff? How am I supposed to change his loneliness when no one even wants to give me a chance at having their friendship? How am I supposed to do the things that this “inner child” wants when I have other priorities that requires more attention? I have been having exams for the last few weeks and I have been focusing on them. I tried my best not to let the break up affect my studying. The way you tell me to heal makes it sound so simple.

Paradoxy

Dear Tee,

“The problem is that we cannot selectively switch off just the unpleasant emotions while keeping the pleasant ones” That’s the weird part. I am able to freely smile and “enjoy” a lot of things without facing any issues. I can even smile and laugh even right now. So is it actually affecting me?

“This is a negative bias towards women: that women do stupid things, and that it’s normal for them.” I think you misunderstood. I am not saying that women do stupid things, I am saying that women do things that men (I) view as stupid, such as spending hundreds of dollars on makeup and outfits, or when they are dramatic about lots of issues or when some women see their man interacting with another woman for 5 seconds, they are able to be upset for the entire day for literally no reason when all the man probably did is show the woman some directions or something. That is not an attitude I picked up from my father, that is something that I have seen from real life situations. And I only saw B through that lens cause of the absolute foolishness she kept doing. This woman broke up with me just cause I left my phone online on Instagram while I was sleeping. That is the foolishness I had to deal with. And what makes it even more stupid is that she had access to my Instagram account so if I were doing any suspicious activity, she would have known. This opinion of mine may seem like bias to you but it’s really not. I have seen multiple men complain about these same foolishness before I realized this is actually normal. It is normal for women to be overthinking about even the smallest things. They have proven it through their actions. I am not saying all women are like this, but the women that I have seen, the women that I’ve heard other men complain about, have all been like this. Tee, the women today even post sexy photos of themselves in revealing outfits and claim they are doing it for themself. IF THEY ARE DOING IT FOR THEMSELF<, WHY NOT JUST KEEP IT IN THEIR GALLERY???? This is not something that only B did, but other women have done it too. I have heard enough first hand experiences from men to know this kind of foolishness is normal to an extent but that doesn’t mean I will tolerate it more than I should.

“I don’t know of this new “normal”, where women leave their man if he shows tears.” This is quite normal in this world. Even women using divorce to steal half of a man’s wealth has become normalized in the current society. That is why most men live in fear of dating women. I can give you lots of real life stories that I witnessed with women behaving in similar manners. One such experience was when my father brought in a foreigner to work at his company and he found a woman here to marry. They got married and hit it off for a while but then one day, following an altercation, that woman called the immigration officers on him while he was at work. He was then arrested and taken to the detention center, where he cried to his wife and my dad pleading for help to get out of there, but the wife did nothing to help him get out. So my father got him out by sending him to Cuba and fixing his paperwork so that he can return to work at his company again. And they got divorced as soon as he landed here.

Another similar example was my dad’s other friend, who had a girlfriend and a teenage daughter. They were a lovely couple and I always visited them with my dad. One day, the woman got offered a job in the US and she wanted to move there to work but the man couldn’t move because his entire family was here and his job was here too and it would be difficult for him to get another job in the US. However, because she wanted to move to the States so badly, the man did extra work to make the money necessary to send his gf and their daughter to the US while he stayed behind to make more money so he can later join them. But a few weeks later, I found out that the woman got the job in the US (Florida to be precise), broke up with him, and married some doctor in the States, leaving him behind, broken. I can give you more real life examples that I actually witnessed regarding women like these. Therefore, I cannot really blame my parents for having their bad opinion about women when the women they have known are women like these. I don’t know where you live but the men there must be extremely lucky to not have these issues, cause these women are normal here.

“So I guess they’ve brought you up with this outdated stereotype about how a true man and a true woman should be.” If my parents brought me up in the actual outdated stereotype that you assumed them to have done, they would have taught me that men should go out and do all the work while women must stay home as housewives bearing children and etc. That is not what my parents taught me. My parents taught me that women should be treated with respect and love and that women should be allowed to study and pursue their dreams and marry the man they desire and they should be loyal to their man, and the same goes for men too and etc. My parents taught me that when a man and woman become one, they should share their burdens, not force them on one person. The wife should be the husband’s best friend and the husband should be the wife’s best friend and they should work together to make decisions and always be responsible for each other and for their family. They taught me that the man should be the head of the household but he should never shut down his wife and always let her share her opinion regarding things and let her assist in decision making. That is what my parents taught me, and I do not believe there is anything wrong with the things they taught me.

The only reason my parents shut down my feelings is because they cannot comprehend my feelings. They cannot comprehend the pain that a suicidal person is going through. They just use logic instead of emotions to deal with such issues, and they cannot relate to me in any manner or form. So their inability to understand me forced me to shut down my feelings because I would be wasting my energy trying to make them understand. The fact that men cannot show their emotions is something that society taught me, not what my parents taught me. My parents wanted me to express myself but their inability to understand forced me to shut down my feelings instead of telling them. They literally cannot comprehend it. That is why they only saw the humiliation when the church found out that I was suicidal.

Look at all these feminists and other women out there creating an environment where the man has to just endure and never complain until they are completely fed up. Not every women is as mature as you are. Especially nowadays, look at all these young women just going to clubs and drinking and sleeping with multiple men and men sleeping with multiple women and etc. That is the state of current society right now. Do you think these women will appreciate a man who is in “touch with his emotions”? Immature people like these women won’t understand complex emotions. These immature women will only treat the men with emotions as weak men. Their only focus is themself. I am not saying that all women are like this. I am saying that women like this do exist, as shown by the real life examples I told you earlier.

How do you differentiate between a good and bad partner anyway in this day and age? My uncle and aunt got married in December 2012 and when we met my aunt, she was the most amazing woman that any one of us had ever met. I was like 7 back then and even I was impressed by her, and you know that if an innocent child is able to say you are amazing, that means YOU ARE AMAZING. My aunt was so caring, so loving, so kind and understanding, always taking care of each of us family members, always helping out in the kitchen and taking responsibility and etc. Even my father told the other women in the house that they should learn from her (as a joke). She was a well respected teacher at a high school and was always looked up to by the kids there. But only recently did we find out her true nature. She had rejected Christianity and she disrespected my grandfather who is a priest. She had been emotionally cheating with another man (A TAXI DRIVER!!!!!) while my confused uncle was at home wondering why she was behaving so hostile to him. Everyone knows my uncle as the deacon and the well respected teacher. Everyone knows that my uncle is kind, gentle and innocent (to the point that they take advantage of him to borrow money which they never return). EVERYONE KNOWS THAT HE IS NOT EVEN THE TYPE TO ABUSE HIS WIFE. But this woman divorced him cause he was not masculine enough for her!!!!!! This is the type of woman that exists in society now. This woman is a perfect example of a woman who would leave their man for showing his emotions. Then she married the taxi driver and converted into his religion. She even tried to turn their two kids against their father, but the older one was mature enough to realize what a horrible person his mother really is but the younger one was easily manipulated by treats and other stuff his mother brought. She even forced her own brother out of her family and treats her mother like trash, and we didn’t know any of this until recently cause of how good she was at hiding it. So how do we even tell who is a good partner and who is not a good partner? They can easily hide it from us, make us believe that they are the most perfect person in the world, while hiding their true nature.

Paradoxy

Dear Anita,

My parents may have taken the short cut to make me an adult, but it has shaped me to be who I am now and I am quite satisfied with it to an extent. And other adults have shown approval in my maturity, even their own children who are much older than me behave worse than me. And I also advise other students at this college to make better decisions regarding women and etc. But I don’t know if it was worth it to become who I am now and I do not know if I have the right to be advising other people considering the situation I got myself in.

It is too late to be Godwin-the-child, I have a med degree to finish and I am too old to be behaving like a child. I should be focusing on my future career and etc. Med is already a pain on my behind so I do not have the time nor energy to share to Godwin-the-child. I do have a lot to grow Anita and I will. Eventually I will get past this.

Paradoxy.

Dear Tee,

Thank you for kind words, I appreciate it. I am not sure if I can actually have a fraction of empathy for myself cause the guilt of hurting others always overwhelms me. In some cases it may have been accidental yet I became the reasons that others had to go through a bad experience. That guilt overwhelms me. My ex-crush probably still sees me as that creepy guy that made a humiliating website for her, and the other church members probably sees me as the suicidal kid. That was not the label I wanted to be known for, and I don’t think I can change it. But I was never offered a chance to show my real personality to anyone, so they all pushed me away. The one person who didn’t push me away was B, but here I am. Makes me wonder if I should give her another chance since she gave me a chance too. But I already gave her multiple chances I guess.

“What you call the starting point (your parent’s influence) is like the foundations of a house” I made a mistake, I used the wrong term to define their influence. Their influence is actually minor. The starting point was actually a girl who lived in the same street as me who constantly bullied me. Whenever I tried to make friends with the kids in the community, she would turn them all against me, insulting me, calling me names, making me a laughing stock in front of them. This constant isolation made me constantly on my own. Not having friends and not knowing what it means to be cared for became the starting point for my miserable life.

By the time my parents’ influence on my misery became strong was closer to age 13-16, which are basically teenage years and therefore I associate my parents’ actions as their method to deal with normal teenage rebellion. However, that does not change the fact that they never thought of encouraging the things that I liked, whether it be music or coding or etc. They never let me have a childhood, always forcing me to “act like an adult” and etc. But honestly, I am not interested in stupid adult politics and etc. They make me sit with the adults but I am literally just sitting near them being awkwardly quiet while my parents do the talking. It makes me look more like a fool in front of them cause there is literally nothing I can contribute to a conversation that I am neither knows anything about nor interested in. The constant pressure of needing high scores and everything in order to get into a college to pursue a degree in something I hated drove me to where I am as well. So I do not think my parents are the foundation of my misery, but they do play a role in it.

You are right about everything else you said. But have you ever wondered, if others would even realize that you are not in the room anymore? Like you are basically invisible to them. They do not realize you exist until something relevant occurs. Have you never wondered, what difference would it make, whether u exist or not? Is ur existence actually causing trouble for others or would they appreciate never having met you?

It was my mother who said my behavior was humiliating for them. My father tried to understand but he is the type of person that constantly tells me that suicidal people are idiots and etc. And regarding the school friend, it’s okay to be worried but sometimes it’s better to do nothing than doing something especially considering how delicate suicidal people are. I told her that I am fine and not to tell anyone and that is the exact thing she did. She refused to go along with my wishes and look at where it got me. In a bigger mess than what I was already enduring. All she did was give me more reason to kill myself. But I am a Christian who believes in hell and etc. I would rather spend a 100 years suffering on Earth than an eternity suffering in hell. Yes I understand that authorities should be notified but most suicidal people wants some help, but I did not ask for help cause I knew I was not going to kill myself. The least she could have done is trust me/ respect my wishes, especially after I told her that it was just a feeling and not something I would act on.

“Children can sometimes be very cruel.” Her brother was no child. This happened in Grade 10, between ages 15-17. He is the son of the deacon at our church. He is like one of those kids who actively participate in church activities. I feel like calling him a child is an understatement. He was perfectly aware of what he said, but I do factor in normal teenage foolishness, but he was still aware. We were almost adults, he obviously knew what he was doing even if its not with a mature mindset.

Each experience shaped this “house” of mine. Like I stated before, this self hate started with the girl who bullied me, and the combined impact of my parents and other experiences influenced me to believe in this core belief of mine. But the thing is, I knew that this core belief of mine was wrong, but I still continued to believe it, cause I wondered, what if I went back in time to the day I was born and just killed myself as a baby? All these experiences would never have occurred. No one would even realize that something is different about their lives. My existence means nothing to anyone. Even my father has pointed that out to me. Whether I exist or not, the world would continue on, so what is my purpose anyway? That was when I made helping people as my purpose. To be the reason that other people are happy. I adopted other people’s happiness as my own. Watching other people be happy made me happy. I couldn’t be happy myself so might as well seek happiness in knowing others are happy. Otherwise I would just be hollow, someone without something to live for. B was my something to live for. But what do I have now? I am back to my hollow self, desperately trying to glue the broken pieces of my empty shell. Even homeless people on the streets have something to live for. But I have just accepted death. If death was an actual figure like the grim reaper or something, I would gladly come and hug him like I just found my long lost friend.

I am well aware that all my thoughts are wrong, but it is just how I feel, the thoughts I have, the things I wonder. I hope you understand.

Paradoxy.

Dear Anita,

I will try to get individual therapy. But I doubt I have time as it is exam period currently and med is a pain right now.

“Your months-long torment is like rottenness in your bones, is it, Paradoxy?” And yes the months long torment is like rottenness in my bones. It is deteriorating my mental health and emotional health. I have noticed that I am becoming colder, but only towards B.

“You want to teach her in her 3rd decade, post her formative years, do you?” Yes I wanted to teach her to be a good wife in her 3rd decade. I thought that I could fix her by pouring out all my love to heal the scars that she had but my love was not enough.

“So, mathematically, statistically, you wouldn’t be motivated to consider another woman.” Yeah you are right, I would not be motivated to find another woman. And I said that B is a 100000x better than most woman because I observed other people’s relationships, conversations, etc and generally, the women were all annoying, but some were dating multiple men while others were using the men for their money and etc. And in other cases, the men were the problem, as they wanted sex and the lack of being sexually satisfied triggered breaks up too. I only found few proper couples that I am actually quite jealous of to be honest. The guy living next to me started dating around the same time as me and he seems to barely have conflicts with his partner (she is a med student while he studies econ).

The key phrase that you missed is that I said that she is still the best compared to MOST of the other women that I HAVE MET. So technically it is not a fact, it is just an opinion based on my observations.

Regarding my parents, the emotional abuse was just based on the fact that I have always felt alone and abandoned. I felt like a burden to my own parents, a waste of time and money. They have never listened to me and they always forced their way on me, always claiming that the path they have laid out for me is the best option for me. They force their family tradition on me, not even letting me date who I want to date (but I guess they have a point considering what just happened).  But overall, dating is out of option for me which is why I had to secretly date B.

My father raised me the way old fashioned people brought up a man. So that means I have no room for emotions and etc. He always wanted me to think like older people despite being still a child, and that made me never get any chance to enjoy my childhood (I had no friends anyway so them preventing me from enjoying my childhood barely changed anything). We were poor too so I never got to enjoy things other kids got to enjoy, but I did not mind cause I understood the value of money and that I should not waste it on things like video games and etc. But my parents still tried to let me have some fun. My father bought me a second hand PS 2 which was the first time I got to experience gaming but that only lasted for a few months cause he eventually hid it to let me focus on studying but by the time I found it again, ants had already destroyed the hard drive. But anyway, I do not see my parents as a bad people for the pain they caused me because with the bad things, they have done some good things but I always understood the reasons for the bad treatment. However, there were moments like guilt-tripping and other similar circumstances where they would manipulate me into doing what they want without complaining (my father is a pro at psychology, and he is so rigid that everyone, whether it be his own boss, his friends, or our own relatives, knows that he should not be messed with because he always speaks the truth and can put anyone in their place by using pure logic). Everything that my father taught me was logically correct, but I was wise enough to know that there are exceptions to the wisdom he passed to me. I did not let his opinion about things completely blind me, but it guided me to make even better decisions than he did, but I still have a long way to go as shown by the current situation.

My father suffered a lot in his childhood, worse than me to be honest. He was the oldest among the three children but that means he got treated the worst too. He was abandoned and belittled and treated like trash by his own family and distant relatives too, and he was traumatized by an incident when he was 5 where he was falsely accused of stealing 10 cents and was tortured for weeks with physical beating by his teacher until he had to admit to stealing to stop the pain, even though he did not steal the money (the teacher hated his father because he was a priest so that anger was redirected to him). This event was so horrible that ever since that day, whenever something goes missing, people would instantly be suspicious of him, even to the point of accusing him of teaching his brothers to be thieves as well. The trauma from that incident was so severe that I have seen him cry about it even now and he is almost 50 years old. But these harsh situations made him grow his resolve to be better than everyone who treated him poorly, to the point that he was the only person to have a highly respected and high-earning job as a marine electrical engineer in cruise ships and cargo ships, while everyone else had average engineering jobs or teacher jobs etc. He is also a devoted Christian, always telling me to trust God as his God never abandoned him when everyone else did and he never went against his Christian principles which I respect and follow too but I do not like it when he muddles up family tradition with Christian principles.

Please do not view my parents as horrible parents, as I am their first child anyway so their poor parenting is understandable. My father was harsh in hammering in foundations in mathematics and other disciplines, but now I realize that hammering in that discipline has considerably helped me academically as well as making me wiser than others my age. I think they tried to correct their ways for my younger sister, but that caused her to become a spoilt brat who always fights them and have her tantrums to get her way (She is 10 now by the way). The main difference between my sister and I is that she received too much freedom and I received too less freedom. My parents still think I do not know what freedom means. They think I view freedom as the ability to do anything, right or wrong, but in reality, I view freedom as the ability to not be limited by other people’s judgements and opinions etc, while also being aware of the line between right and wrong. And that freedom, I will never get, as even now I am controlled by my parents’ desires, and when I try to go against them, they install me with the fear of “what if I am wrong”. The career path to become a doctor gurantees that I will be successful in life especially since I can handle the work load to a degree, but will I be happy doing this? Probably not. Though I like helping people, I don’t think med is the best way for me to help people.

My parents have influenced the core belief that  I am the source of pain for others, but they are not the main influencer. They have behaved in ways that made me feel like a burden to them but that is just a starting point. The real influence came from my own peers.

I made a website to confess my feelings for my first crush in grade 9, which became a publicly known thing for which I was made fun of for a while, and I felt like I humiliated my crush and that I was a burden to her. We have barely ever spoken since then.

Later I made a pressurized vessel as a bomb to kill myself (which I told u about 4 years ago), for which I also became known for after I injured my arm from the explosion to the point where my classmates made fun of me by asking me about information regarding making bombs. This suicidal behavior caught the attention of my church/school friend who I spoke to about my depression and my suicidal thoughts and I specifically told her that it was just a feeling and I do not plan to act on it anymore and she should keep it between us but she told her parents about it, who told the church about it, who called my parents regarding the issue. My parents felt humiliated by that experience and was very angry with me, making me feel more of a burden. I could not forget that betrayal from her and I cut ties with her then.

Then several months later, her brother pointed out to me what a loser I was and how nobody cared about me. And I realized he was right. I spend my recess times walking around class looking for a friend to hang out with but there was never any who wanted me. This further drived me down the depressive spiral as I felt abandoned by everyone. Not to mention the constant insults I kept getting from my peers. There was no actual bullying, just some hurtful things that I felt were true and I did not have a smart mouth to talk back to the things they said.

Later on, I had a geography project to do with 3 other people with one of them being a well known girl for being a role model student for others. The assignment was quite simple but I tried to convince my group to make the project different from everyone else, but we ran out of time, and 2 of the members had to leave for another class and the girl started crying as we had run out of time but the teacher gave us some extra time to finish the work but her friends started to berate me for causing her to cry and I felt responsible for it because it was my plan that caused the issue. I stayed behind and completed the project with the girl but the pain of being criticized by everyone there was too much for me and I had to get out of the class before anyone saw my tears cause I knew it would just be more humiliation for me and no one cared anyway but unfortunately, one guy and some family friend students saw me crying and asked what happened but I kept everything to myself, crying in silence for being a burden to others.

In grade 10 I started talking to a girl who I started developing feelings for as she showed me compassion and friendship when no one else did. I came by so often and my drastic change in mood and behavior was so noticeable that her friends knew that I had a crush on her. Eventually I confessed my feelings for her, which she rejected but a few days later she said she had feelings for me too but then next day she changed her mind cause she knew her parents would disapprove. So I felt sick cause I felt like I humiliated her in front of her friends cause that’s how obvious it was that she was my crush. But then she told me that she told her parents about me crushing on her. That added to my depression cause her parents were friends with my parents and they just stopped coming to our house from then on (the mother comes by nowadays though but they stopped back then) and it made me feel humiliated in front of her parents for feeling the way I felt, combined with the fear that my parents would find out that I had feelings for her.

Weeks after that, I started searching for online friends and I met with a Muslim girl who I talked to for a bit and we sort of connected and we instantly fell in love with each other. We talked for several weeks before my parents found out and made me break up with her. I grieved for a while cause of the pain but in that time, she moved on to another guy and I took pretended to be someone else to ensure she was happy, which she was. The new guy treated her way better than I could and it made me realize how worthless I am. How worthless my love was. And I had caused her unintentional pain by breaking up with her cause of my parents.

Then later, I fell in love with another online girl but this one was a rebound, where I felt feelings for her as a coping mechanism to the breakup but that relationship became a toxic one as I was the one constantly pouring out my love while she just took the love and never returned any. She even broke up with me one day, went on a date with another guy, then got back with me the next day. Sounds similar to you? Lol. I eventually realized the toxicity in that relationship and I left her as I felt like trash being with her and I felt unlovable and that my love was worthless to her.

Then I met another Muslim girl who I talked to daily and eventually fell in love with. But my parents caught me again but I lied that I was not in love with her. But a few days later she ghosted me. So now I was back to square one again. Abandoned and forgotten.

I got in touch with my first online gf again and found out she broke up with the guy and she was no longer in touch with her other friends. So we talked for a while and eventually reconciled. But then she broke up with me, despite how much love I poured out to her, and she said that she just did not want to date anyone right now. Then later I look at her status to find her dating another man, who treated her poorly anyway and then she ghosted me too. Leaving me there, alone.

Few months later, closer to my birthday, I used my computer skills to track down the other online gf who ghosted me. I found her and she told me that her parents forced her to cut ties with me, which I understood. I asked her if she wanted us to continue our relationship and she agreed. But that did not even last a week. She ghosted me again. So now I was right back to where I was. Abandoned, alone and forgotten.

I am grateful that those online relationships did not last cause I doubt I would have been able to maintain it, and it did teach me things about relationships to an extent. But the pain it caused me drove me believe that maybe I am not cut out for anyone. And the other experiences prior to that added to the depression and the belief that I am a burden to others. And combined with my Dark Energy influence, being the source of pain to others became the core belief of my existence. God’s failed experiment, I call myself. Ironically my real name is Godwin but in reality I am a loser.

Paradoxy