https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd-the-basics/index.s

Dear Christina,

I hope this situation of yours has already been resolved, but if not, then there is something about the situation that is questionable. From what you’ve written, your ‘act’ of kissing a friend of your boyfriend’s on NYE had shamed you into questioning your loyalty to your boyfriend, but your boyfriend thought it was no harms done. You were only doing it in the spirits of the holiday, what was bad about that? But there’s not much information to go on from that since a person’s character can’t be determined from the across the keyboard so there’s only a series of questions that might be helpful in this situation.

Were you ever shamed by people for being a ‘slut’, ‘bitch in heat’, ‘tart’, ‘vamp’, ‘tramp’ and other less than desirous nouns? Being shamed like that can leave serious trauma which causes people to be extra loyal to romantic partner and try to keep minimal contact between them and other people less they were seen as being slutty.

Were you taught that a girlfriend should never touch another male intimately, say, kissing them, even on the cheek, because that’s a serious breach of conduct as a good girlfriend? That teaches girl that they should never engage in contact with other males unless it’s their boyfriend and maybe family, but if they do, then they should be ashame for doing so. Questionable morals and all.

Is your boyfriend somehow pressuring you to be loyal to him because his ex cheated on him? Or did you take his past as an exercise in caution to never, ever betray him by touching someone else intimately, putting the onus on you to never cheat. Thus making yourself responsible for the fact that your relationship might head south should you ever engage in any questionable act, even when drunk. So when you do breach the boundaries of your responsibility in any ways, you are then the bad person in the relationship. That’s a very heavy responsibility which you’ve linked to your self identity.

Basically, there is a certain shame that you’ve linked to yourself in that should you do something promiscuous, even when it’s innocent as a kiss on the ear, that might threaten your relationship in any way, then you are a bad person and should be ashame of yourself. Where that shame comes from is determined in what you were taught as child to teen to adult. Society tend to demoralized females in showing their sexuality in any way so it’s not common to find a lot of females who feel ashamed being sexual since people have shamed them, figuratively and literally, for being sexual. Families and friends also has no qualm about shaming their daughters/friend about their sexuality so you’re not alone if that has ever happen to you. But it’s a teaching to examined closely since it’s detrimental to your emotional health if you keep feeling ashamed, as if you are a slut, every time you do something as innocent as giving a friend a friendly kiss yet deem it as promiscuous.

Good luck.

Dear gj,

If it’s not possible for you to move out of your house and live in an apartment by yourself, as I don’t understand the culture ramification of a female living alone in Indian’s culture, then the next best thing to do is to find a place that you can call your own.

Right now, you are living with a lot of people so from the moment you wake up to the moment where you lay down to sleep, you are constantly interacting with people in some way. And that is very tiresome because that means you don’t much time to yourself to do whatever. Or even if you do something, someone might be watching or interrupting, which disrupts your time alone and can make it seems like you can’t even have your own private time. And your own private time is the time for you to breath and think about things and just relax without having to observe social decorum.

Social decorum means listening to your mother talk, being careful around your work mates, possibly avoiding your grandmother and seeing your sister and father. Do that constantly without break and you become burnt out. Do what while also being influenced by the opinions of those around you and you begin to lose yourself, or at least never have much time to form your own thoughts.

Right now, you are still immerse in your mother’s and father’s expectations for you, especially your mother’s. You are still listening to her thoughts and opinions, which will unconsciously influence you which will in turn make it seems as if her expectations is decent and only following the guideline of your culture so there’s little need to question it. But that also makes it really easy for you to tell yourself that you are a failure for not achieving any of the goals your mother had set out for you, marriage for example.

But that emptiness of yours comes from the fact that you are following your mother’s expectations without ever creating any expectations for yourself. You went to school and got a job in engineering because your mother told you to support yourself with a good job. You are now looking around at marriage because your mother told you that the clock is ticking so you better hurry. You are following someone’s else time-line which is go to school, get a job and then eventually get marry. And after that, you might be following your husband’s time-line of maybe quitting your job to having children. You have not seriously try to create any expectations for yourself, you have only listen to your mother’s time-line. And that’s empty, because that’s not your dream. That’s not just what you might want out of life. That’s not what you are willing to endure suffering to grab hold with your own hands.

So first and foremost, go find a space that is safe that you can allow yourself free thoughts. A space of your own that you can use to go/sift through every thing that had happened to you so far. You need to examine all the teachings that you’ve learnt so far; from your mother, from your culture, from your peers. You need to examine with a critical eye the underlying ‘why’ to these teachings and why exactly you are trying to fulfill these expectations. You need to ask yourself if these expectations are yours? Are these expectations aligning with what you might want out of life? Are these expectations aligning with the person you want to become in the future? Are these expectations serving you personally or are they chaining you to something you don’t like, but feel you have fulfill? And if you feel anything, name them. Be it anger, sorrow, regret, etc. Name them. And if you start telling yourself that you are not good enough to be doing this, then quietly examine that too. Examine these thoughts, examine where they are coming from and question them why you can’t be enough.

You need to start examining and questioning these thoughts. You need to start asking why and what and whom. These thoughts come from somewhere, but it might not be coming from you. Before taking any actions, understand your why. Understand why you want something or not want something. It could be as simple as you don’t like it or it’s just not you. That’s fine. That’s enough of a reason to do something about your situation. If you’re unhappy, you’ll stay unhappy unless you actually do something. So take action by understanding your unhappiness, understanding your environment and understanding yourself. It will take a long time to do this, so it’s okay if you only have a few small thoughts to go on this journey of understanding yourself. It’ll probably take your whole life, but at least you’ll understand some things about the current you. From those small understanding, you can start something from that, one small action. You just have to decide to do something, you don’t need all the answers.

And above all, don’t fear failure. Don’t fear failing at knowing who you are, what you want, why you do what you do, and more. No one is ever completely sure of themselves, but they do things because they hope to make a difference in this world and often, it’ll fail more than succeed. Yet they still keep at it until they do succeed or they stop, depending on if they realize it’s not what they really wanted. And you don’t really know that you wanted it/wanted something until it either fail or succeed. You don’t know so let yourself fail as often as you need to fail. It’s not a failure on your part, rather, it’s a sign of strength that you know yourself well enough whether to keep going or stop. So fail, then ask yourself what fail, then ask yourself if that failure had given you perspective on whether what you’re doing is something you want to keep doing despite the failure. You’ll endure a lot of suffering trying to reach your goal yet if your goal is worth that suffering, then you have a reason to keep going.

So find that space, find that place and let yourself breath.

Dear gj,

Your mother played a very important role in childhood as it seems she was the one that influenced your actions and expectations of life. And it seemed that she had certain expectations for you, being her daughter, expectations that probably caused you a lot of anxiety and stress. Added to the stress was your need to just have a mother that would hold your hands during your dark hours of being bully and being different, only you didn’t have many people tell you that it was okay to be you, the way you are. That you were left to solve your own problems as a child meant you didn’t have the opportunity to learn good strategies to deal with such stressful situations while learning that you couldn’t depend on the adults around you for support. When people don’t know what to do, they look around them at what other people are doing and simply follow along with that because they don’t know otherwise.

But you’ve also developed resentment for your mother because she rejected your plea for help, yet still tried to tell you what you should be doing. You wish/ed for her support only to receive criticism in return. You wanted her to tell you it’s okay to be you. You wanted her to be a role model that you can ask advice from. You wished for affection from your mother; a pat on your head, a hug every now and then, compliments and care. You wanted so much from this person who you called ‘mother’; only, the result was disappointing. So you look for an outside source for that love, for the care and affection. You look for someone who can love and accept you for who you are.

But the thing is, you can’t wait for someone to accept all of you. That expectation is very heavy because you are expecting them to accept everything that is you, the good and the bad, without complaint, but can you do the same thing for other people? Can you shoulder every one of their burdens, from their sorrow and anger to their woes about life? Can you hold them up in all of their darkest hours, even at the middle of the night, without wanting to scream? Can you be okay with listening and accepting all of their selfish demands without feeling used/manipulated? If you can’t, that’s okay. You’re only human, but you can’t expect another human being to do that for you.

No matter how much you might care about another person, it doesn’t mean you’ll love that person all the time. There might even be periods where you resent or hate them for whatever reasons. In the end, love is a choice. You love a person and then you choose to continue loving them, or you don’t. Passion will fade over time, as any chemical in the brain comes and goes. Yet the people in the relationship can still choose to be in love. Do not let the movies and books delude you into the illusion that love conquers all. Just because you love someone does not mean that person won’t be able to hurt you. People can hurt those they love, at time unintentionally and at times on purpose. So it’s not that love conquers all, but people choosing to love a person because that is what they believe is the correct thing to be doing. They choose to stay. They chose to work on their relationship when all seem hopeless. They chose to be committed to that decision.

Your mother probably does care for you, but she doesn’t understand how to love another person. She probably went through what you went through with her own mother, your maternal grandmother. Many parents tend to embodied what they went through in their childhood with the way they parent their own children. So how she raised you is probably similar to how she was raised. Because she doesn’t know better, that is how she chose to raise you. While that does not excuse her behavior, let it give you perspective that she might not understand how to love another person, even her own children.

But when you add up all those experiences, it can be seen that you didn’t have many good role models growing up. Nor did you have a safety net to fall back to whenever you made mistakes. Then you have your mother’s expectations, one of which is for your marriage. All of that resulted in you developing a story/mantra of you, the person that you are, is not a good person. You are not talented, you are not a good daughter, you are not smart, you are not pretty, you are not good enough and probably more. You continuously tell yourself these stories while also seeking someone to accept all of that. You want someone to save you, to help you, because your mother was not that person. Those are very heavy expectations.

Dear crawford,

There are numerous questions you should be asking about this situation with your friend and one of them is ‘is your friend like this with other people, not just with J’? Is she usually like this with you? When you’re together, just the two of you, is she the one usually the one dominating the conversation? Is she the one who will make certain comments/opinions expecting you to agree with her? Is she assertive by nature, with a too big ego/self-confident sometime? Does she like being in charge/in control regarding your interactions/conversation/meet-ups?

There are plenty of people who like being in control of their situation and that sense of control usually extend towards people. With E, she is uncomfortable around J because J does not withdraw from confrontation like you might do. And E does not like that because she is used to being the one in control, or so the situation portrayed. And it seems J has solid self confidence/esteem since he didn’t flinch under the constant canon balls being fired his way. J threatened E somehow, which means her ego was telling her that she needed to prove herself. But J pushed back against E which led to the sarcasm and put down that ended with teeth induced rotting ‘oh I’m just kidding, you know that’. What you saw was probably them having a barb wired word match to see who was the better person and you got caught in the crossfire. E knows you, and to let out her frustration, lashed out towards you who usually does not push back against her. So no, it’s not you, it was E having a love-hate war with J, if they are actually friends.

The above is only my interpretation to the situation so take it with a grain of salt.

Dear Dahn,

Your parents never taught you the concept of boundaries.

Many Asian culture is entrenched in the concept of ‘image is everything’; that to be a seen as a good person, a person should be humble, polite and kind to others. And that’s a good thing, but it tend to go beyond that in that you are taught to sacrifice your needs and desires in favor of the other person. That’s bad. That teaches children to ignore their personal boundaries when you really should be exerting it. Because when you show people that they have the choice in whether they can accommodate or ignore your boundaries, they will act in a way that benefits them first and foremost, without regards to your well being. So they will have no qualm using you. They have no qualm hurting you, or even understanding that they have hurt you, because you’ve acceded to their demands before so they would have no thought of you declining anytime in the future. You gave them the impression that it was okay to take from you since you never tried to stop them.

Now, it’s not a bad thing to want to be kind to others, but it should never be at the expense of yourself. And when you give all of yourself to others all the time, you’ll eventually grow to resent people for demanding so much of you. Or you’ll feel ‘scared’, which is your intuition sending you warning signals that you are uncomfortable. But since you were never taught boundaries, you don’t understand why you feel ‘fear’ so you tend to ignore it because you feel that it’s irrational. But it’s not, it’s just that you’re not used to listening to your guts when it believes that you should be saying no to someone’s demand. So start with building your boundaries.

Here’s some links to start:

Setting and Enforcing Healthy Boundaries

https://psychcentral.com/lib/10-way-to-build-and-preserve-better-boundaries/

How to Figure Out What Your Boundaries Are

Books:

Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend

Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Manson

The Power of No by Altucher and Altucher

The Gift of Fear by de Becker (ignore the domestic violence part, too bias)

Good luck.

Dear Rachel,

You are rationalizing your emotional issues. The clue was in the fact you are very intent on ‘fixing’ yourself because you feel that there is something wrong with you, because you were told, again and again, that there is something wrong with you. Starting from your family to your past abusive ex, you’ve been conditioned to become the mood maker, the helper, the cleaner, etc. You were taught at a young age by your parents that if your desired for affection is to be reciprocated, then you must do whatever it is that will please them, even at their cruelest, because they are your parents and you desperately wanted their approval, their love, their care. You were taught that ‘love’ is conditional, that you must be something or do something for someone, for them, to love you. But the thing was, no matter what you did, they never once approved nor validate your right to existence. Your actions were met with scorn while your voice, your thoughts and opinions, were disregarded as nonsense. So you learned to be complacent, never overstepping, because that was the role your parents assigned to you. Because even if they were shouting at you, at least they were looking at you.

Now, you’re looking for a solution to the broken dam that is your emotions. Since your childhood didn’t afford a safe space to explore the human spectrum of emotions, it’s not surprising that you don’t feel much connection to your own emotions. It didn’t feel safe so you dissociated and you never stopped. Due to that, you, and many others out there, view your emotional distress as a problem, not unlike a math problem, to be solve so that you can move on. Because if you can just solve this one problem, then maybe you’ll actually be a normal human being for once, past notwithstanding.

Yet what they don’t tell you is that emotions are highly illogical. People feel first, then think later to which people will justify their actions in a manner that suits them. Emotions come and go, fluctuating from morning to night. You can’t guess what you’ll feel, simply that there will be something. And, your emotions will be with you till your last breath, so melancholia of a kind might be a frequent visitor in all your years. Why? Because even the veterans will tell you that no matter the emotions, emotions will always be one of the most self-defeating facet of human beings. In other words, it sucks. And it’s crushing due to fact that humans judge their life based on their emotions. So no, you can’t ‘solve’ your emotions. Emotions do not have structure, they simply exist inside you.

One of your objective should be to simply let yourself feel, both the good and bad. Since your childhood, emotions has been a heavy thing due to your wish for validation from your parents so you chose to sealed it since it was safer that way. But that is not serving you now as your past abusive relationship is any indication. Let yourself feel and to be okay with it. Let yourself name the emotions as they come, acknowledging them, accepting them for what they are. Let them be not a problem to solve but a human thing. It will be scary in the beginning, but with anything, making yourself do it is how the story/journey begins.

If, after 2.5 years, of seeing this counselor and not feeling like you’ve reached anywhere, that’s a red flag. Though it usually takes a few months of getting comfortable with a counselor, if you feel that even after those few months, your counselor is not listening to you nor helping you examined your life in a way that is eye opening, then it’s time to move on. A counselor’s job is to help their client reframe their perspective of their life, but if they can only offer words that sounds good yet does little to nothing, then you have a listening ear, not a counselor. You are not compel to stay with a counselor if YOU feel that they are not a good fit for you, you can move on to another person and continue doing so until you find someone who can objectively listen, compassionate, and actually help you understand your mental and emotional framework. When you look for a new counselor, look for a counselor that specializes in family dynamics. They should have a good understanding of ‘narcissistic parenting’.

But a warning, you cannot let yourself become dependent on your counselor.

Right now, you are desperate for any emotional connections because you’ve paint your identity in shame, guilt, failure, etc. So maybe a relationship with someone might indicate that you aren’t really as bad as you think you are because they need you for whatever it is you can give them. They NEED you so maybe that means you have worth, right? Nope, it’s an exercise in futility.

Because that relationship based on them needing you for your providing them whatever they need is a co-dependent relationship full of conditions of you doing X, they do Y in return. Because that is your identity, a shame of a failure, so what rights do you have to happiness? To a relationship of unconditional support and affection? To people respecting your humanity? Respecting your need and wants? Which would explain the case of your ex. To you, being shamed by someone who is intimate with you in any way (family, friends, lover) is normal; you’re accustomed to that abuse. That was your reality so anything else, anything different is foreign and scary. That’s why you dated someone who abused you, worked for someone who would use you. But that can’t be all to life, is there? Well, even though you are seeing a counselor, you yourself will have to make the resolve to open a lot of doors from the past and face them. But you’ll fall more times than you’d like as you revisit each decision that led you to where you are now. Without a support system, that’s incredibly difficult.

So you’re still looking for someone to depend on, to give validation that your existence matters. You don’t have friends to turn to to complain about this or that. To ask for opinions on this or that. To open up about your childhood and abusive relationship. To just hang out for the simple fact that you like these other human beings. So your counselor can easily become that ‘friend’ for you. But at the end of the day, your counselor is your counselor, not your friend. Their job is to help you make sense of your actions and emotions, not be a friend. They are your confidante, but not an intimate nuclear family. So be careful that you do not become dependent on your counselor in that way. Though it does help to discuss the boundaries of your professional relationship.

Being human, you will face situations in various stages in life where you question your values as a person. Humans are cruel to each other because they fear others, but most especially themselves. So they lash out in some form; some as abusers, some as people pleaser, some turn to an addiction. Humans are more fragile than they like to think. That doesn’t excuse their actions, but YOU have the choice in reaction. You choose how to response. The situation with your ex is a good example. You’ve finally said ‘no’ to her excuses, you’ve put your foot down on extending a relationship was more harmful than good. You acted on behalf of yourself and your emotional health. That’s a victory and a good starting point. You want hope and do have hope for yourself and your future. You are looking at yourself with a little light.

Now, the hard part, which is you keep going. You have to keep trying to wade through the muck with little litter of sunlight because life has an ironic sense of humor that likes to play human as the fool/jester in their tragicomedy. And human has the tendency to focus more on the tragedy than the comedy so that makes it all that much more difficult. With a future that seems bleak and a heaviness that does not dispel, you’ll want to quit many, many times. Life is not lived linearly so it’s best to not have expectations about healing linearly. You’ll have your ups and downs, with the downs so heavy you don’t want to get out of bed. During those times, you have to choose whether to actually give up or rest then begin again. And that’s hard, to keep going. So you ask yourself, what is your hope?

Good luck.

PS, saying ‘no’ is an exercise in and of itself so make sure to practice.

Dear Ella,

Addiction to anything is never an easy room that you can just open the door and leave. But that you want to leave means that you feel that it’s no longer serving you. It’s time to move forward.

The beginning of any new development will be very difficult. You are stepping into new territory and that is terrifying because you don’t know what can or might happen. You have a goal, but that doesn’t make it easy to take one step further to fulfilling it. There will be hours of pain, there will be hours of suffering. The suffering will make you question yourself, it will make you want to quit what you’ve just started. You’ll feel defeated before you’ve even seen the summit of your victory. You’ll struggle because change take long hours of thinking and doing.

But in all of that, remember the reason why you wanted to do so in the first. Remember that you change because you wish to change. And change is done for the sake of yourself, not anyone else.

Your boyfriend might not see the need to change for himself, but if he really does have your best interest at heart, then he will give you his full support. You’ve enter into a relationship because you have affection for him and he you, right? And since the beginning, you’ve supported each other in various ways, right? So this shouldn’t be any different because you are asking for his support regarding something that is important to you. This is important to you. But in the event of him actually desecrating your effort for something that you genuinely want for yourself, is he then really worth your affection when he cannot give you the emotional support you need?

Even then, change is a process that a person goes through alone. Change is the perception of self evolving into something different from what you’ve known of yourself. It is done inwardly then brought out to reality. No one can change for you, you are the one in charge of your evolution. So get comfortable to being uncomfortable. Change is not a bike ride in the park, it’s a roller coaster that goes up and down, sideway with many bumps, sometimes stalling then speeding a hundred miles per hour. Change is not easy, growth is not easy. But you decided for yourself that this is important to you so gather the courage to move forward. There will be days of struggles, but there will also be days of success because regardless of how many times you’ve given up, you haven’t truly given up. You continue trudging up the mountain, one step at a time, because you are doing this for yourself. Because you yourself is enough of a reason.

Good luck.