Anita,

I have to agree with you, me and my sister are still waiting on our parents. I had this conversation with my sisters boyfriend a couple of days ago, he said the same thing you did about my sister, that shes still waiting on my dad to change. I try to be conscious of this desire for fixing but it is very difficult sometimes. I notice I’m ambivalent about my parents approval, it feels good when it’s there and when it’s not I try not to value their judgment but obviously you cant have one without the other, placing any value on their whatsoever is the same as being dependent on them for my emotional well being, which is a slippery slope I’ve spent most of my life sliding down.

Theres still quite a bit of shame involved in this process of detachment. It’s hard for me because I use my dad’s tools to rebuild my car, and I have had to borrow money a couple times in school from them. I know this detachment needs to happen though, its just hard being somewhat dependent on people for basic needs and also standing my ground when it comes to boundaries. Just being in my dad’s presence makes me anxious and angry, when I look at him I see all of the pain he’s caused me and my family yet I have to swallow that feeling or else I wouldn’t be permitted to be around him because theres no room for me and my feelings with my dad just his.

While you may feel I’m not trying at all with this, I am very much. My current financial situation with being in school is really the only reason I talk to my dad, and believe me i absolutely hate taking help from him. I’ve been resenting him more and more having to directly take care of him this week, it’s making me sick writing this. I did not want to take care of him at all but again I did it to help my sister out.

I became depressed upon arriving at my sister’s house last week, knowing I’m in no position to cut contact with my father at the moment. We never talk anyway unless we need something from the other. I dont see myself as waiting for my dad to heal, I’ve given up on that, however I acknowledge my actions speak differently. I very much pity both of my parents, and I help them out of shame. Of course I want to stop, I’m much happier alone and away from their never ending demands and favor asking. I got kind of angry that you think I’m still trying to fix them, but it’s because I know you’re right, the only reason I want them fixed is so they can stop stressing me and my sister so much. The other side to that is that if I have no desire to fix them then I have no reason to stress. The problem for me Is that I cant see my sister without seeing one or the other in most cases. I really miss when I could drop by my sisters house and have a private conversation about life, now I have to edit everything and dont get to be real because my mom is always around and in everybody’s business.

How to keep myself well while being financially dependent on parents who are not helpful to me?

Yes that is correct my mom & dad are sleeping in seperate rooms right next to each other.

My mom had a restraining order against him after they decided to get divorced last summer, he drug her out of the house (my childhood home) and beat her in the front yard. He got arrested and she stayed in the house until the restraining order was up (august 2017-January of 2018) and then moved with my sister.

My engine in my car blew last year in August about a week or two after that incident, I was without a car until march of this year when I bought a car from my dad and started talking to him again reluctantly.

Anita

First of all thank you so much for thinking of me even when I’m not asking for attention. You have been a direct influence on my healing. You are teaching me how to love myself through your love, despite never having met you I am grateful to have crossed paths with you here and hope to be as insightful as you one day. I just really want you to know that I feel the love every time you respond and it gives me hope. Thank you Anita for being there for me through my difficulties and challenging me.

1. It is still difficult for me to accept that my parents didn’t love me as a child. They provided me with a false definition of love one that consisted soley of basic needs, but as an adult and through your guidance I realize I lost out on love as a child because I had emotional needs that were never met.

2. As far as guilt for blaming my parents, yes I’m still struggling with that, and I realize it is not helping me. It frustrates the hell out of me when people credit my parents they’ve never met for my accomplishments. I typically dont correct them, essentially supporting this belief that it’s my fault for turning out this way. I try my best to sugar coat the bullshit that happened in my childhood, but it still stinks regardless. As a therapist I sometimes compare myself to my clients who may have had “worse” struggles than me, when they’re not really any better or worse just different. When I compare my struggles to others I feel shame.

3. I still struggle with awareness of how my relationship with my parents and mother in particular affects me now. It’s hard for me to make the connection on a feeling level that when I’m on a date for example if I cannot help the woman or make her happy I consider myself a failure. This is probably the wound that presents itself most often and ironically has been the hardest one to recognize in the moment. I struggle with dating because I’m uncomfortable with knowing I may not be what the other person is looking for, so I blame myself for not being enough.

4. I thought I had made peace with my inner critic but apparently not. I dont even recognize some of the subtle ways I shame myself like you wrote above. My inner critic has a very polite way of being a jerk to me it seems. I think my inner parent needs to be assertively empathetically corrective with this kind of subtle shaming because it is so pervasive in my thinking. I have been trying to lately to see that hurt child in me and telling him either in my head or sometimes even out loud that “I got your back no matter what, I will take of you” my hope is that by visualizing my hurt inner child everytime I’m in pain i can eventually grow that empathy to include all of my selves including my present self.

Anita,

I understand how the affirmations should work the way you explained it, without the need for evidence because the belief that i’m worthless is not supported with evidence.

I  asked myself the question who does it serve for me to feel worthless? It only serves to facilitate the cycle of consumption where a person feels worthless>coping with consumption (i.e. drugs, sex, overeating, material things etc.)>effects wear off & the cycle restarts.

I think what i need is to intervene in this cycle with compassion instead of consumption. When i feel worthless is when i make decisions that will continue to support that belief because I lack the compassion for myself to let myself feel worthy, to feel deserving of love, to feel important to others & the planet. Instead i’m very hard on myself and think of myself as unneeded and a drain on others (consumption mindset where i take and am non-generative).

I think above all else i feel worthless because i feel unimportant and disconnected. These intense feelings of disconnection are not unique to me either, society sells us a lie that we are alien from each-other and our planet when in fact we ARE our environment and live in symbiotic relationships with it.

This is where im getting hung up, as much as i’ve read up on buddhism and listened to hours of Alan Watts lectures on this topic of the false sense of self, i could never grasp the concept on a feeling level until lately. I realize that you are as much me as i you, and the trees, and the animals. Being able to feel this non-duality is of course difficult because of our egos. This is leading me to believe i can find this connection i’ve been searching for for so long right here alone with my “self” because i have fooled myself with the help of society and ego into believing im disconnected from this world i live in. I’ve been thinking on this concept more and more the last few weeks, and find that it might be the single most important topic for me to understand.

So i have been thinking to myself how can i live in a way that i’m more connected. Socially i still struggle with feeling like a burden because i cant see the ways in which i give love as legitimate. I forget how good it makes me feel when someone trusts me enough to ask for help. When i’m unaware that being vulnerable and asking for help is beneficial for everyone involved, I wont ask for help. I also forget i’m not alone when it comes to my anxieties and that seeking to help others will help me feel connected and worthy.

I try to conserve and use at little amount of resources i can, but i think i can do more for the planet. I think coming up with a way to care for the natural places i love to visit might be a way for me to live in a more connected way with nature. I love growing plants for this reason because the fruits are a product of love and my connection to the plant.

Lastly i need to check in with myself more often and work on being more mindful of the non-dualistic reality. I think meditation could be good for reconnecting with myself. Reminding my self that feelings and thoughts are just as much a part of me as my arms and legs and my entire nervous system, they are one not separate.

My hope is that through the mind-body connection I can help regulate my mood better and stop going through such intense cycles of up and down. Im sure none of this is new to you, me either, I think with me I need to be reminded of this connection when i feel down, and writing about it here and being able to come back and re read it is a good way to do that.

Anita

I hope all is well and peaceful with you,

I have been running from my feelings for sometime now for whatever reason, by sleeping, smoking, dates etc. However i’m nearing my breaking point again. 2 weeks ago i stayed in the house and talked to no one for an entire week. I go through these chronic depressive episodes and then will recover for about a week and restart my downward spiral again, and i’m sick of it.

I talk to my parents only a need basis, which i explained in the past i’m not in a position to cut complete contact.

I’ve reached the conclusion that the core belief at the center of this pain is a seemingly unchangeable feeling of worthlessness.

I have been seeking my worth in women which has only resulted in me steady lowering standards and feeling worse for doing so. So I think I will give up women for a while until i can really sort out my self worth, otherwise i’m going to keep looking for women who are easy to manipulate which feeds into the feeling of worthlessness. Anytime im alone for more than a few minutes I delve deeply into despair and will either drink, smoke, or sleep. I’ve cut out the drinking last month and just opt for smoking now because it’s less harmful to my body but still an escape mechanism. However, i could still sleep all day if i have no obligations. I don’t interact with co-workers at my internship and do everything i can to avoid talking to people.

On the positive side of things, I have been attending a therapy group for the past month which is helpful and i feel somewhat connected to the other people there but i need more genuine connection than an hour and half per week. Im working out 2x-3x a week. I’m meditating at least 5-10min a day. Also, ill read or listen to philosophy lectures to attempt to expand my understanding on psychology and existential topics.

However, this feeling of worthlessness is so heavy i’m beginning to feel more and more hopeless everyday. I feel i have no reason. I get no feedback from the kids i do therapy with, not that i expect it either, but the reality is hitting me that i chose a career path where the only reassurance that im doing a good job will have to come internally. Having to validate myself is not necessarily a negative thing, just extremely challenging in my current pessimistic state where a “good job” or “thank you” in another line of work might just make my day, with helping people the helper must not get attached to outcomes and right now it would be nice to know i’m not just wasting my time though realistically i’ll never get that reassurance.

I don’t mean for this post to come off so pessimistic either. Even though i feel awful physically & emotionally, I have been trying on my own to figure out how to love myself through this hard time. I’m honestly unsure about how to feel worth, the only things that make me feel worthy is love or admiration from other people. However, i know that is not sustainable. I want me to be that source of love for myself so that i can escape this feedback loop of feeling worthless and acting in ways to support it. The few times i did feel like a worthy human being, my solitude did not seem like a punishment, instead i felt privileged to spend time with someone like myself.

Other people tell me i’m loving, warm, and easy to connect with because i’m honest and vulnerable. However, there is something in the way of me perceiving myself in that way. I have perceived myself in a positive light in the past so i know its possible. I honestly just cant remember how. I feel acceptance of the part of me who feels i am worthless would help and then accepting that i can’t accept feeling worthless. I know relief from this madness is right around the corner if only i had some guidance.

Thanks again Anita

I have found it so difficult to find community outside of my family I was raised in. Even though we were poor my moms family was always close, not that I felt connected then either, but I always had a place to go for a meal. For the past few years creating community has been a primary focus of mine and something I intend to continue when I can drag myself out of school.

I go through these cycles it seems of feeling extroverted and confident wanting to invite everyone I meet to my house to hangout or for a meal. Then like clockwork i get depressed and cut myself off and wont leave my house. I have a strange anxiety right now that if I leave my apartment something bad will happen. I feel trapped in my life. I’ve been waking up recently with nothing on my mind except graduating. It shouldn’t be this hard to go to school, I get frustrated with higher education because it is designed to replicate and maintain the social hierarchy that is in place. It’s not designed for a working individual to complete without accruing massive amounts of debt. I guess I’m just mad at myself for not having better relationships in my life, I cant help but think sometimes if I had a girlfriend who i lived with that we could pool our resources and i wouldn’t be so stressed all the time.

Thanks for listening to me vent Anita, I’m not sure there’s anything more I needed right now other than to be heard. I took off the rest of the week from my internship because I simply cant do therapy while I feel this numb.

Yes that rush of feelings is exactly as you put it, an urge to help my mother. These feelings when dating used to get me motivated to take care of myself, now since they are not present with the woman I am currently seeing I’m not doing my best to take care of myself. I’m not eating, oversleeping, and avoiding people. I get easily overwhelmed by the smallest tasks. I feel exhausted from going to classes, working for free at my internship, trying to feed myself, having little money, trying to keep up with daily living tasks like cleaning my apt or grooming myself. Even trying to schedule “fun” into my life feels stressful. I haven’t left the house since Friday morning, and It has been a beautiful weekend outside and i cant get myself to go exercise, or hangout with friends. Thinking about dating is stressful, what if she grows bored with me and leaves? Thinking about my future is nerve racking too, what will I do after graduation? Do I even want to be therapist anymore?

I don’t feel at peace right now, and its keeping me from enjoying life. I feel as if I shouldn’t be overwhelmed because I’ve been busier in the past and got through it, I’m just struggling to find anything that motivates me anymore. I’m no longer motivated by dating, or sex, friends, competition, helping others, etc. The only thing I want right now is to feel more than numb.

Thank you for reply Anita

This redirecting of hate where it belongs makes more sense and the with me since you put it as “long lasting anger” when I think of hateful people I think of people who lack compassion altogether. That’s what I don’t want for myself. However the fact is that is not who I am, I do have a great deal of compassion just not for myself. The difficult part continues to be opening myself up to the experience of anger, I have done it in the past, yes, but I’ll fall back into old habits and hate myself again then get depressed all over.

In this moment I even lack compassion for myself receiving help from you. I think “13 pages and 190 replies for me to get the point finnaly, something has to be wrong with you” of course this is faulty thinking and I will continue to struggle with it, but awareness of when this is happening is the first step to begin combating the negative beliefs about myself with compassion and placing those negative beliefs where they belong outside of me.

I haven’t filled you in but I have been going on dates for the past month or two and I find myself genuinely more compassionate towards women for the most part. I don’t internally shame women for their pasts anymore because I see them the same as me, searching for connection and looking to get their needs met. Of course I still struggle with trust and being attracted to pain. But I’m more conscious of it now than ever. I chose to keep seeing a confident woman, over a woman with low self esteem who had just gotten out of an abusive relationship. I noticed myself more attracted to the woman with less confidence because I wanted to fix her. I decided to try something different though and stopped seeing her because of the awareness I’ve learned here about my own history. I do believe I’m moving in the right direction, and trying to stop harming myself.

It is unbelievable to me that through our written communication on this site so much has been accomplished. Yes there is much work left for me to do throughout my life, but I don’t even know how to Express to you how grateful i am to have someone as patient and caring as you to go to for help. It brings tears to my eyes thinking about how much love you give everyday to people and if no one else tells you, I sincerely want you to know you have helped me change my life for the better. You challenge me without shaming me, you are an amazing human being. Thank you so much Anita.