fbpx
Menu

Tee

Forum Replies Created

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 1,942 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #436043
    Tee
    Participant

    Hi SereneWolf,

    yes I am fine, sorry for disappearing again. I was on holidays and didn’t really have time to sit down and focus for too long. I hope to get back to routine soon and reply…

    Are you yourself doing alright?

     

    #435314
    Tee
    Participant

    Hi Beni,

    It sometimes feels like that I am my mom and my self is this thing I can’t control. And all I wish is that I would not need to care about myself. It would just do what it is supposed to do.

    I think what I meant was that some parts are actually not me, they are someone else. This part’s I send away. These parts often also make me doubt my own boundaries and needs.

    It’s like a part of her in me. I want that part to go away.

    This part is probably your inner critic: the internalized voice of your mother, who is telling you how you should live your life. Also, it seems this part criticizes and blames you for having needs of your own, for not putting your mother’s needs and wants first. It blames you for wanting to have a life of your own, separately of what she wants.

    This part could perhaps be called the “Mother pleaser” (or more generally, the people pleaser): the part of you that feels guilty (and unlovable) for having his own needs and wants.

    I think I had a breakthrough. I can suddenly say fuck off (in a nice way) to people and I say it to everything which appears in my experience and does not meet my needs. Even to myself and I noticed that I can just shake my body like a child which cannot sit still to shake of freeze.

    It seems you had a breakthrough in the ability to say No to your inner critic: when your inner critic (your “Mother pleaser”) criticizes you for not abiding to your mother’s wishes, you don’t feel guilty as you used to, but you tell it to f*** off. You don’t chastise yourself, but you respect your own boundaries, and your own needs. Is that what’s happening?

    My body is very clear about that. It feels like no way. I tried to start a process with my dad but I think he lacks the empathy and curiosity to make me feel save. So I could open up and we could find a way which I can attend.

    What do you feel you need from him so you could attend the party? What is it that you fear the most might happen at the party (if you feel comfortable answering)?

    I think the main thing is that my mum said:” I don’t even know if you attend at the birthday”. From that point on it shifted and it feels too dangerous to risk my integrity.

    Do you feel that was a criticism from your mother? That she was chastising you for not wanting to be at the party (thus showing a lack of empathy and understanding for you)?

    I feel it’s unfair to my dad cause he got in between also I do not know anyone else who could help, my mom has no close friends. I could call her psychiatrist.

    You mean you would like someone (e.g. her psychiatrist) to talk to your mother, so she would change her behavior towards you, and would stop hurting you with her demands and expectations? So you would feel safer around her?

    If so, I am afraid that’s not a realistic expectation, because you can’t really control her behavior. What you can control is your reaction to her behavior.

    For example, if you want to feel safe around her, you would need to be able to set healthy boundaries, rather than expect her to be perfectly compassionate and not hurt you with her behavior. In other words, you would need to stop hoping that she would change – you would need to change so that her behavior isn’t hurting you and throwing you off balance anymore.

    I am not claiming that you indeed are expecting your mother to change, but mentioning it just in case, because that’s often what we hope for: that our parents would finally change and give us what they haven’t given us in childhood. Which is a misguided hope…

     

    #435051
    Tee
    Participant

    Dear Dafne,

    happy to hear from you!

    How is your summer going? I hope you are doing better and that your spirits are lifted a little bit with better weather

    Oh the weather is super hot, even too hot, and I am looking forward to going to holidays and splashing myself into the water 🙂 In fact, I am in the process of packing right now, so don’t have too much time to answer. But I would like to express my appreciation for your kind words, which truly warm my heart. I am happy I could help you and ease your struggles a little.

    I will reply in a greater detail when I have more time, but for now, I just want to say that you dodged a bullet by not staying with your fiance. Because I can see that he was indeed using you as a maid and a care-taker for his (rather spoiled) kids, was restricting food from you, lying about his eating preferences, ordering takeaway for him and his kids, and nothing for you. Also, expecting you to cook for them – so to serve them, and in exchange to receive only breadcrumbs.

    Also, he was telling you to keep a low profile, so not to provoke his ex-wife and make her cooperative with regard to the house:

    He told me to not be too visible to his ex-wife (showing our pictures on social media etc.) so she wouldn’t claim the house.

    Although he already decided to leave the house to her and the kids:

    He told me that his house is for his kids and when he dies also for his ex-wife.

    So he was manipulating you, trying to influence your behavior, although you wouldn’t get anything from the house anyway.

    All in all, he is a very negative, deceptive, lying person, and you are lucky that he left you!

    I must rush now, but will reply in more detail when I get the chance, hopefully soon.

    Till then, take care, dear Dafne <3

     

    #435040
    Tee
    Participant

    Hi SereneWolf,

    Yes. At least for few years. I’m guessing around 3 years and maybe after that something like Slowmading. But I believe slowmading would be better with a good partner. or if I’m already satisfied than just settle down in a good country that we like.

    Slowmading…. wow, that’s a completely new term to me, needed to look it up. It says: ”someone who travels slowly – spending anywhere from 2 to 6 months in the same place. Some slowmads might even spend a whole year with the same home base.” Okay, got it: first you want to be a nomad, then slowmad 🙂

    I believe it’d be more like living my values. And I think I’ll explore myself more while travelling and know my values on a deeper level.

    Okay cool, so you are being true to yourself and want to live in a way that reflects your true values. That’s admirable!

    You’re right indeed. Physically I’m not that scared. On a recent trip I just blindly follow group of friends because they approached me. But later on, at night lot of drinking and dancing happened. I did have some fun. But I know next time I’ll be more aware, my little friend scolded me for that a lot haha

    So you hooked up with someone, after having a lot to drink? Is that what you’re saying? And then your young friend scolded you for that?

    Okay tell me after how long time normally I should tell her? Because we can’t tell someone directly that are you ready for the serious relationship?

    I don’t know if you should specially declare it. In the old days, when I was dating 🙂 it was somehow understood that you mean seriously if you start dating someone. By seriously I don’t mean that you are planning to tie the knot with the person, but to have a committed relationship with no predefined expiry date. So the intention was to stay together for as long as it feels right… and then of course many times the relationship did expire because of various incompatibilities. People did break up. But the intention was to at least in theory have a long-term relationship (at least that was my intention 🙂 ).

    That’s why I think you’d need to work on your fear of intimacy before you can be ready for a serious relationship (or a potentially serious – because there are no guarantees that things will work out.) It’s not so crucial that you tell her that you mean seriously, but that you know it within yourself, and then act accordingly. That you aren’t afraid to develop those “strings” (emotional and physical bond), so that your relationship has “strings attached”.

    There’s a certain amount of time needs to be spent together. I’m asking how much time and after that asking for a serious thing is appropriate? Because I think being in hurry for that would even scare the good woman.

    I think the best is to let things develop organically. If someone is rushing things and suggests marriage on the first or second date, that’s of course suspicious and a red flag. But no woman (emotionally healthy woman) is afraid of a committed guy, who cares about her and is showing interest. Also, someone who listens to and takes into account her needs.

    So I don’t think you will scare her if you behave as if you mean seriously, relatively soon into the relationship. But I guess your problem is not that you’ll scare the woman with being too eager too soon. But rather you are scared of any kind of commitment (and specially of telling her that you mean seriously), because for you, commitment is tied to many negative things, things you are afraid of.

    Maybe you could write down what being in a committed relationship means to you. For example, it might mean the following:

    – giving up on my needs,

    – giving her the right to hurt me,

    – giving her the right to control me,

    – being seen as a bad person if I have my own needs,

    – being seen as a bad person if I don’t accept her wishes,

    – being seen as a bad person if I change my mind,

    – being seen as a bad person if I stand up for myself.

    Does any of the above sound true for you? If so, those would be false beliefs that you would need to dissolve before you can let go of your fear of commitment.

     

    I was talking to one my friend and then she be like don’t you miss me why you being left me on seen messages. And I simply told her that I have texting manners and I simply don’t like reply 2 text every 24 hours. That’s not how conversation works for me. I don’t mind if you’re busy and don’t talk it’s okay for me. But if you do want to talk have some texting manners first. I guess I did build a boundary there?

    Sorry, I didn’t quite get it: so this friend of yours has a habit of replying late, like 24 hours after you sent the text? And you’d like to receive a reply more swiftly and not have such a delay between messages, right?

    But good thing is that she understood. But I guess in romantic relationship I’d have the fear like what if she doesn’t understand that and take it wrong entirely?

    Well, you always have the option to explain what bothers you and what you’d like instead. You do have the option to express your preferences, set boundaries, etc… what we’ve been talking about recently. This should reduce your fear of feeling helpless and trapped in the relationship…

    I think that’s my biggest priority as of now. Believing in myself. My self-worth. My self-esteem. Because that would help me try to change these some deeper beliefs that I need to change. It would help also protect myself when I need it and almost every areas in my life. And it would also help in the self-love that I really need. I’m finding ways to increase the self worth. Because what’s happening is sometimes I’m also not even approaching the woman that I’m getting the good vibes from and that’s mainly because self-esteem.

    Okay, it’s good that you’ve identified one of your key problems: lack of self-esteem and the belief that you are not good enough, which also applies to intimate relationships. The impostor syndrome, where you believe that some women are out of your league and you are surprised that they would even be interested etc.

    So you’d need to keep working on your self-esteem, on believing that you are an asset, not an a** (similar word to asset, only without the last two letters 😀 ) Ha, this could be even used as an affirmation – provided that you don’t find it stupid or offensive 🙂

    Haha yes. But the thing even from my older friends circle I think I’m the most adventurous and rebel kid

    Cool! That’s why you’ll be nomading/slowmading for the next 3 years…

    Yup hard for me because I don’t like making them feeling discomforted because of me. Even though I’m hurt. But I’m trying

    That’s a reflex from your mother. She didn’t like it when you rebelled against your father, against his abuse. She was trying to appease him, to upset him as little as possible. (Which was very difficult because he was an angry man, who easily exploded with rage.) Anyway, she expected the same from you: to be appeasing, obedient and tolerant of your father’s abuse.

    You didn’t feel loved and accepted by your mother when you expressed your protest, your hurt and anger against your father. Now, as an adult, you probably project your mother into your romantic partners, believing that they would be hurt and upset if you expressed your needs. You believe they would react the same as your mother, who felt hurt when you were disobedient and rebellious towards your father.

    The truth is that if the girl is emotionally mature, she wouldn’t feel offended or threatened by your legitimate needs. Your mother did, but an emotionally healthy person wouldn’t.

    Yes I think I’m getting better at emotional regulation but it’s journey since I didn’t learn how to emotionally regulate myself since childhood

    Yes, the only option for you was to suppress your “negative” emotions (your anger and hurt), and so suppression became your automatic reaction. So now you’d need to feel all of your feelings (remember what Henry Cloud said: anger is a signal, not a solution). You don’t want to suppress your signalling system – because anger might be telling you that your boundaries are being crossed and that you are being violated. So you don’t want to suppress that very important signal.

    But you also want to learn how to respond appropriately, without lashing out and exploding with anger. That’s the task ahead of you: to feel the signal (i.e. feel all your emotions), and then to respond appropriately (in a balanced way).

    Oui madam, That’s why I’m thinking visiting a psychiatrist once, But my sister was like what if they make you start meds even with little to no symptoms. Because obviously it’s business for them. But those meds can have side effects

    Yeah, I am not an expert, but it doesn’t seem to me that you’d need to start taking medications. And if you go to a psychiatrist, I think that’s what they’ll suggest because that’s the main tool they have. I’d suggest finding another psychotherapist, if you feel the need for professional help, rather than going to a psychiatrist….

    One of the main symptoms for me is the very short focus span and low dopamine. He says about impulse regulation I think for me that part is good enough. But yeah tuning out is something more resonating like how I was ignoring my emotions for so long you know. and like you mentioned we’re not our limbic brain during that time

    When you say short focus span, you mean when focusing on work, right? It occurs to me now that if there are suppressed emotions in your subconscious (your inner child), they always want to come to the surface. And so you need to distract yourself with something pleasurable so you wouldn’t feel those unpleasant emotions. So perhaps ADHD for you is a way to distract yourself, so you wouldn’t feel the unpleasant emotions.

    Dopamine is high when we are motivated by a reward. If you feel not good enough, and that nothing you’ll achieve will ever be good enough – then it would make sense that your dopamine is low, because nothing can motivate you. Because every achievement seems futile – if it can never be good enough. Do you feel something like that? Like, the futility of even trying?

    Totally agree! I always tried being a “good boy” but no more of that sh*t!
    I’m trynna be more authentic even if I have to be blunt

    Yeah, and you can learn how to be polite and kind in your expression, and yet firm. You don’t need to be rude, and yet, you can keep your boundaries. But of course, that needs practice…

    I’m trying to speak up more though. Like recently again I raised my voice at my father. So I’m back to my hometown because my grandpa is very sick. But I was travelling and it was more than 2 days journey back to home. Even my sister said he’s sick but no need to be in rush. But my father was like what people and relatives would say that your grandpa is sick and you were not with him? And directly I told him that are you worried about what people what say or worried about Grandpa. Silence again.

    Good! You saw right through him – that appearances are more important to him than the real concern for his father – and you challenged him on that. And he didn’t know what to say – which is great! So you did speak up for yourself and refused his attempt to falsely accuse you of being inconsiderate/lacking empathy for your grandfather. Well done, SereneWolf!

     

    #435026
    Tee
    Participant

    Hi Beni,

    I think I had a breakthrough. I can suddenly say fuck off (in a nice way) to people and I say it to everything which appears in my experience and does not meet my needs.

    Very good! So you can say No to the things you don’t want, to something that goes against your needs and your interests. Congratulations, Beni, that’s a big step!

    Even to myself and I noticed that I can just shake my body like a child which cannot sit still to shake of freeze.

    Also, you can say No to yourself. Is it in situations where you would want to indulge in things that you know are not good for you? Or in situations where your automatic reaction would be to freeze? But now you know better and you choose a more mature response, which is aligned with your true self?

    Thanks Tee it really makes a different.

    You are welcome, Beni, I am really glad this is helping you.

    Yes, she kinda knows that intellectually but she has not been able to change it. That’s why I want to stay away atm.

    Ah, she understands that you don’t want to be bossed around, but she can’t help but lash out from time to time, right?

    It’s the other way around I do those things when I can get out of freeze which keeps me comply.

    I mean I seek to have balance and stability but I will have my own strategies and not my mothers!

    Alright, so when you are in freeze, you are kind of depressed, doing nothing, perhaps using drugs to numb the pain? And then when you get out of freeze, you try to achieve some of your own goals, but you feel like your mother is trying to tell you what to do and what to achieve, so it feels like she is trying to control you?

    That would be in line with what you’ve said that you want to stay independent of her, and that refusing to clean the kitchen (i.e. refusing to obey her orders) is a way of maintaining that psychological independence. So perhaps staying in freeze is also a way to stay psychologically independent from her – because you are withdrawn in your own shell and unreachable to her, and so she cannot control you?

    Ah I do such things. Maybe I can hug me more. Meditation is like that.

    Good! I am glad you are practicing some of the somatic tools.

    I think if I can stay in the space I’m right now I’m saved let’s see what happens in the next weeks.

    You said that right now you are in the space where you are able to say No to other people’s requests, if they don’t align with your true needs. Do you think that with this new mindset, you’ll be able to participate in your father’s birthday party? Because earlier you said that you most probably won’t be able to go (My dad turns 60 and throws a big party I made shure I have time and I really want to go but right know it feels like I can’t go). Perhaps this has changed now?

     

    #434858
    Tee
    Participant

    Dear Paradoxy,

    you are welcome. I hope the same for you and wish you all the best!

    If you ever want to talk about learning how to love yourself, I am here. I needed to learn that too, and it only happened well into my adulthood.

    Godspeed to you!

    #434819
    Tee
    Participant

    Dear Paradoxy,

    When you have been put in that situation countless times, you end up hating yourself. But that hate won’t stop me from continuing to work towards fixing myself. That hate I have towards my flaws don’t mean I will give up.

    I stated all these things for you to UNDERSTAND how I feel. Me listing further proof should not be considered complaining.

    I understand how you feel, and I tried to help you stop hating yourself, because that’s possible too. You don’t need to live with that hate and march on, with your teeth clenched, like your father. You can change that basic feeling about yourself.

    What I can do right now is work on my healing. But the damage done has such a deep and strong root that it takes more than just a few suggestions to pull it out.

    I understand that too, and that’s why I suggested therapy. Reading about communication skills – which you have been doing – won’t be enough.

    And I am trying to show you that despite the suffering, it did serve some good. … Comparing that to the severe comments my parents made towards me, I definitely feel stronger than her.

    Yes, the abuse increased your endurance level – so you can take more abuse without reacting, without showing to your parents that it bothers you. But that’s not true strength. It’s the clenched teeth lifestyle, with lots of suppression and negative feelings about yourself.

    Anyway, I do hope you find solutions for your problems, solutions that involve more self-love and self-compassion, and less endurance of abuse.

     

    #434801
    Tee
    Participant

    Dear Beni,

    As I was reading your post, a few things stood out:

    I do not have many impulses to seek help

    I kinda treat myself like she treated me

    I’m quite often in a freeze response

    all I wish is that I would not need to care about myself.

    It sounds as if you don’t like that you have needs, and you also don’t like that you need other people to meet those needs. Because the people that should have met your needs (your parents) haven’t done the job properly: your mother burdened you with her own unmet emotional needs, to which you didn’t know how to respond but to freeze. And your father wasn’t emotionally present and couldn’t meet your needs either.

    I think that’s why you don’t have many impulses to seek help because that was futile in your childhood. You never had your needs met. And so you withdrew into your shell.

    I think about seeking help and sometimes I did as when I did this post. It takes long and at least I talk to people that I do not have many impulses to seek help.r I’d need an online therapist and I somehow need to create space for that person and do not know how. I mean you are supporting me in that way out of goodwill <3

    Yes, you did seek help here, and I am glad I could support you to a degree <3

     

    she beliefs it’s my duty as her child to support her. Yeah, you say the same thing. It’s most difficult do give to people who think it’s their born right to receive and take it for granted.

    I think I want her to really see me and see me equal. I have the same right to choose the task as she does. It’s not really about the task it’s about control and me making a statement that I do not wish to be controlled. I want to be asked what I would like to do and what is needed. I want my support to be valued and not taken for granted.

    Your mother didn’t meet your emotional needs – she didn’t give you what she was supposed to – and yet, she had (and still has) expectations on you, e.g. to clean the kitchen or provide other types of help in the household. She sometimes (when she is upset) raises her voice and tells you (sort of orders you) to clean the kitchen, but you don’t want to obey any kind of command, because you expect to be treated with respect. You don’t want to be bossed around. And so you don’t do it. You withdraw from the interaction, which makes her even more angry (having a fierce look).

    Isn’t it also about the people pleaser thing why I do that in the end? I’ve been thinking that I am dependent on her (subconscious). Cause I noticed that the things which stress her out like go traveling, working a regular job, not misusing drugs, having a girlfriend are things I struggle(d) creating for myself.

    Does it mean your mother sometimes criticizes you for changing places a lot, not having a regular job, misusing drugs, not having a girlfriend? And you feel guilty about those things. Or you want to please her and achieve those things?

    You say you’ve tried to achieve it in the past, but failed so far:

    I work on meeting my needs. I belief I need something like a family to be able to do a regular job and live at a place for longer than 1 month.

    The things I tried feel failed and I’m afraid if I fail again now it’s too painful.

    These needs – to have a family, a regular job, and a permanent address – seem to be more like your mother’s needs, not your own. I mean, these things might be expected of you, but are they really your needs? You did express you want to have a partner, but maybe a regular job not so much? I don’t know, I am just inquiring…

    When I was taking about meeting your needs, I meant more emotional needs such as self-soothing and self-care. Those are even physical needs, at the level of the nervous system: the need to feel calm in our body, the need to be held and supported and soothed.

    There are various somatic exercises for that, such as self-hug, or placing one hand on your belly and the other on your heart and breathing deeply. Those are basic, somatic needs – to feel safe and calm in our body.

    I think this would be the first task – to try to meet those needs yourself, or find a somatic therapist who can provide that safe space for you – both physically and emotionally safe space.

    You did say you need a hug from your mother. The goal would be to give yourself a nourishing, supportive hug. Or find a therapist who can give you such a hug. With no expectations from you – so that you can simply receive.

    I think such somatic practices would also help you with unfreezing. Because you might first need to feel safety in your nervous system, before you can start dreaming big dreams about the future and what you want to accomplish etc. You need to feel that someone has your back while you go out into the world to explore.

    It’s like creating a safe space, a place called emotional home. Where you can always go back to find soothing and encouragement. Which you didn’t have at home. So you’d need to create it now, and it’s best done with the help of a therapist you trust.

    All I can give is to give space to me and it seem I can’t get enough of it and have no control except that it always works out somehow. My dad turns 60 and throws a big party I made shure I have time and I really want to go but right know it feels like I can’t go. Now I’m creating space for that.

    Actually, when you say you are “creating space” for going to your father’s birthday party, what do you mean by that? Does it perhaps involve creating a feeling of safety in your body as well? Telling yourself that things will be fine, i.e. soothing yourself? What does it involve, if I may ask?

    Let me know if this whole idea of creating a physically and emotionally safe space resonates with you. I am not a therapist, so I am just guessing and throwing in ideas. I do hope it makes some sense though…

     

    #434781
    Tee
    Participant

    Dear Paradoxy,

    No, I was talking about a COMMUNITY with the MAJORITY Indian population, not COUNTRY.

    Okay I get it now. You were talking about the Indian community, where the majority is Hindu, and minority (like you and your family) is Christian or Muslim. However, it wasn’t very clear to me, specially when combined with “thousands of miles” of distance. So I thought: ok, Guyana (or Trinidad and Tobago, or Suriname) is about 1-1.5 thousand miles from Jamaica, so that might fit. So I did rush into a conclusion, but it was partly because you provided a misleading information about the distances.

    And it is true, your words “wrong again” did trigger me, because I’ve experienced this dismissive, antagonistic style many times from you, and I don’t appreciate it at all. You frequently dismiss the things I say, argue, deny, reject my advice, explain why the things I suggest wouldn’t work for you etc etc.

    Honestly, communicating with you is like hearing one big NO. One big rejection. And it hurts. It’s like being punched in the stomach. That’s why I sometimes delayed opening your posts, because I knew there is a high chance of being faced with another rejection, another explanation that I “misunderstood” and why my suggestions wouldn’t work or are even laughable.

    All that done in a rather rude, dismissive manner, telling me things like “wrong again”, or “Do you not get it?”, as if I am some idiot who is not understanding you. When in reality, it is you who is changing position all the time – mostly portraying  yourself as someone with so many faults and hopeless to change anything, but when I tell you that you are complaining and are stuck in self-pity, then you suddenly portray yourself as strong, and “working on those issues. I just haven’t gotten past those things yet.”

    But this what actually happened: When I tried to show you that you don’t lack intelligence, since you were one of the top students in your country, or that you don’t lack skills, since you said you have music skills, you proceeded to give more “proofs” about your lack of intelligence and skills, saying that you don’t even know the difference between veins and arteries and how awful you feel in classes:

    Academically, I can’t even tell the difference between different parts of the specimen. I can’t even identify the difference between the veins and arteries. I know the theoretical part, but I can’t get the practical side at all. Imagine how stupid I feel having to sit in those labs while everyone else is answering the questions but I can’t. I even tried attending extra classes and even had a private session with the specimen and myself.

    You also proceed to complain about your music skills:

    Yes I have good music skills, but they are nothing in the eyes of other musicians. I may look good in front of non-musicians, but compared to my classmates in the music class, my scores were no where close. My sight reading skills are so poor that the teacher had to take me aside from the rest of the class to provide me with private training for it. And that skill is still poor, I barely improved it for the sake of passing the music exam. Fortunately it did not have a large impact on the final score, which is why I managed to get a distinction. I ended up sitting in my class watching as the other kids played difficult pieces while I had been practicing the same song for the past 5 years cause there was no better piece for me. AND EVEN THEN, they managed to play the song better than me. Imagine how pissed I was. So when I see all this “evidence” you can’t blame me for hating myself for the things I lack.

    So when I tried to boost your confidence and tell you that it’s not true that you lack intelligence and skills, you proceeded to give more proofs that you do indeed lack intelligence and skills.

    And now, you are claiming that you are not complaining, and that I used this information against you:

    I am not complaining. I was just listing out the reasons for why I am so bothered because I thought you would understand. I was just adding more detail to why I feel this way so that you could understand me better. I didn’t know that my own words were going to be used against me like that

    The truth is that you were complaining – you were listing further proofs why your original claim that you lack intelligence and skills is still true. You didn’t say something like “yeah I have some issues with understanding anatomy, but I am working on them”. Instead, you said “Imagine how stupid I feel having to sit in those labs while everyone else is answering the questions but I can’t.” Are those the words of someone who is hopeful and is working on issues?

    So when I see all this “evidence” you can’t blame me for hating myself for the things I lack.

    Are the above the words of someone who is hopeful and is working on issues? Or someone who is convinced that they have a reason (or many reasons) to hate themselves?

    So I reject your accusation that I was using your words against you. I was just quoting your words to show you the discrepancy between your claim that your parents’ poor treatment made you stronger and your own words which show pessimism, self-blame and self-loathing (and lack of strength, indeed).

    I am just worried rn cause it is crucial that I get past those issues.

    I do hope you will get past your issues. I hope you believe that you can.

     

    #434760
    Tee
    Participant

    Hi SereneWolf,

    I hope your health is getting better?

    thanks, yes, my knee is getting better, so things are manageable again, and I am really grateful. (praying hands emoji 🙂 )

    Obviously bucket list includes the Worldwide places. Mainly Europe and Southeast Asia though. Some South America and few places in USA.

    Cool! Wow, there will be a lot of traveling then. And all while you are working fully remotely, right?

    Yes like I said intentions matters. And I’m not travelling just for casual sex.

    Okay, so that’s your guiding star, or your measuring rod: intention. So what is the main intention of your travels? You said it is to find your true self:

    During the journey my work wouldn’t be finding love, but try to find my own self. Enjoy the mother nature. Be in the present and know that I’m part of this big ever-changing universe.

    People usually go on a self-discovery journey when they don’t know what they want in life, what their values are, what is really important to them, what path forward to take… If there is a major confusion about themselves and what they want from life. Do you feel you are in the similar position? Or you actually want to live your values – which you already know what they are: freedom, adventure, enjoying Mother Nature, being one with the universe?

    So perhaps this is not a self-discovery journey for you, but a self-affirming journey? Affirming your True Self, and living from it?

    In any case, if you want to live from from your True Self, I guess it would make sense to also work on removing obstacles on being your True Self in intimate relationships. Because that’s where the fear kicks in. Not in the jungle, in a close encounter with a lion, or on an unknown road, miles away from home… but in intimate relationships, with someone who should be so close and so familiar, and yet, they represent a threat…

    Like if I met some girl during my journey we hit it off at first, We kinda start dating and explore places together might even physically involved. But after sometime I’d find out that I’m still not feeling that connection & warmth with her as I’d like in a relationship even If I don’t let my fear of intimacy come in between. In that case what I’d do? Force the connection? Or just appreciate moments with her and move on?

    Well, if you don’t sabotage the relationship (due to fear) but really give it a try, and then it turns out you two are not a good match, then of course, you don’t need to stay with her. You don’t need to force yourself to be with someone who isn’t your match.

    and In that case physical involvement would described as casual sex?

    I think it depends on your intention – whether you only wanted to fool around with the girl, or you had serious intentions but things didn’t work out. When I say “serious intentions”, I mean you want a committed relationship, you are not afraid of it. I don’t mean you need to marry the girl, but you’d need to be willing to be in a long-term, committed relationship.

    If you haven’t healed your fear of intimacy, then I think you per definition can’t have “serious intentions”. And if you get involved with a girl, it would be primarily for fun and some short-term pleasure, in which case I think it could be called casual sex, yes.

    Yes that’s what I’m thinking! Like I believe she will make attached to her yet it would feel so natural. It wouldn’t feel like I’m giving her the control to hurt.

    Yes, and this is a great insight: that you associate being attached to someone with giving them to right to hurt you. That’s a false belief, and probably one of your core false beliefs. Great job detecting it! 🙂

    But more like here’s my lil heart I trust you to take care of it and there would be no fear. Just thinking about making me go full of joy haha

    Again, a great observation: that trust is needed to counter the fear. But also, you need one more thing: you need to be able to protect your own heart – should you need it. So you don’t give a free reign to your partner to hurt you. If you notice some hurtful behaviors on her part, you react, you let her know, you express that you don’t like it. You set some boundaries.

    In other words, you are not helpless in a relationship. You can protect yourself – should you need it.  But you enter the relationship trusting that the person has good intentions and doesn’t want to hurt you.

    Of course, you don’t enter a relationship blindly, you do use your discernment (like you did now, with this latest girl). But you also trust, if things feel right. You are not so guarded that at the first sign of disagreement, you pull up your walls and go into a defense mode.

    So you need a fine balance: to have discernment, but also to trust. And then if there are problems, you talk about it, you express your needs and concerns, rather than suppressing it and pretending that things are fine.

    If you do that, I think your fear will lessen. Because you 1) trust the girl that she doesn’t want to hurt you, and 2) trust yourself that you’ll be able to protect yourself should you need it. Which means that by staying in the relationship, you are not giving her permission to hurt you. So the control stays in your hands – because you can protect yourself from hurt if needed.

    Thanks, and I’m not regretting it. Because I want to be around the woman who make me feel like yeah good woman do exist.

    Good! Glad you didn’t lose hope! 🙂

    I guess at that time I unconsciously just played around relationship game listening to one of my female friend. But I won’t make that mistake again

    Yes, maybe her advice contributed to you playing games. But I guess your fear played a role too – you didn’t want to give an impression that you care too much…

    Clear communication is very important in every relationship. Romantic or Friendship.

    Yes, super important!

    But to update you on that one nowadays I reduced my communication with friends a lot. And I only talk to one of my female friends who is quite younger than me so it kind of also helps because she make me remember my teenage days and what silly and fun things we used to do.

    So she is helping you stay in touch with the adventurous kid in you, who used to encounter lions while riding his bike, huh? 🙂

    Haha that’s what you think for my current “setting”? But yeah something similar I guess

    I think so, yes. But it’s a good feature – to not rush into things. If it’s meant to be, it will be, without rushing it.

    Yes exactly instead just being angry or using the silent treatment. Like I need to express what’s really bothering me.

    Yes! That requires vulnerability too, and it didn’t occur to me until recently. That vulnerability is not only to admit that you like or care about somebody, but also that something they do bothers you, that you are hurt or upset about it.

    Something very important! So does that mean even though I feel like I don’t need that person, Unconsciously just the fear of rejection or want for the acceptance makes me stop being vulnerable?

    I actually stumbled upon a book because of the YT called Courage to be disliked it’s already on my reading list.

    The Courage to be disliked. I like the title. Yeah, you might fear expressing yourself in front of various audiences, not necessarily only in romantic relationships. I remember you said you sometimes feel strong anger when talking to some judgmental people, but you don’t dare to say anything. You don’t dare to express your opinion, for fear of being judged. Or disliked. So yes, we need courage in those situations to still express our opinion, even if someone might not like it.

    Understood.

    Glad to hear it! 🙂

    That’s very interesting and I think that’s also has to do something with naming our emotions? Because lot of times I would be feeling lot of different things at the same time so journaling and naming and then acknowledging those emotions?

    Yeah, when we name our emotions, we use our rational brain, which enables us to observe ourselves and not get “lost” in the emotion. Not get overwhelmed. In that sense, naming our emotions helps us to remain cool-headed and not get hijacked by our emotions. It not only gives us clarity, but I think it’s also good for emotion regulation.

    I also took an online CPTSD test again and the score is 38/80
    0-32 = None-low
    33-80 = Likelihood of CPTSD

    So that would suggest pretty low likelihood of C-PTSD. I mean, pretty mild symptoms, right?

    also checked again for ADHD test. It says Mild ADHD but I feel some of ADHD symptoms are quite bothersome

    What are those symptoms?

    I don’t really know much about ADHD, but there is a video by Gabor Mate, a trauma and addiction expert, who talks about ADHD being more a developmental problem than a medical/genetic problem. It might have to do with impulse control and emotion regulation. The title of the video, if you are interested, is: ADHD: The Misunderstood Condition (Eye-opening Insights on ADHD from Dr. Gabor Mate)

    I’d like add to feeling my emotions, I’ve been rationalizing a lot, Like a tendency to disassociate myself a lot, whether through daydreaming or activities. So, I rationalize so much that I reach a point where I don’t know if my own rationalization is a way for me to disassociate too.

    Actually, Gabor Mate talks about tuning out, as a coping mechanism for too much stress in childhood. When the child cannot either fight or flee, and the emotions are overwhelming, and there is no one to soothe/calm him down. And so the child tunes out and dissociates from their emotions.

    And I think rationalization too can be a way to not feel, i.e. to dissociate. Because when we are thinking, our rational mind is active, and we are not in our limbic/feeling brain. So I imagine it can be a way to feel less.

    And also, I have to try to understand much more how I have to feel, than what I’m feeling, because I don’t know what I’m feeling, so any conclusion of “which feelings makes more sense at this moment” would be my feeling right now.

    Yeah, because you were not allowed to feel your spontaneous emotions, specially anger and sadness. You needed to behave and be a good boy. So your automatic reaction is to try to suppress the unpleasant emotion – rather than let it out and show it.

    That’s how you lost a part of your authenticity too – I mean authenticity in relationships. Because you always need to be on guard and kind of monitor yourself to show a “proper” emotion, i.e. not to let out anything “improper”, right?

    she mentioned that this kind of existential crisis that happens is a form of rationalizing — of having to make sense and rationalize my emotions by relating it to others

    Yeah, it’s like the emotion needs to be acceptable to others, otherwise you don’t show it, and you perhaps try not to even feel it? For example, since your parents didn’t approve of your anger, you’ve learned to rationalize that it doesn’t make sense to feel angry, right? And why you shouldn’t feel angry in a particular situation. And I guess as you are trying to come up with the reasons why you shouldn’t feel angry, you start feeling the emotion less, i.e. dissociating from it.

    she told me to feel my emotions when they come, and to not repress myself when I’m feeling upset because “it is better to feel yourself now than build unhealthy mechanisms and hurt yourself and others in the future” and I repressed myself for many many years as you know

    Yes, that’s a good advice. To feel it, not immediately try to suppress it and rationalize it. Allow yourself to feel it – you are not a bad person for it.

    So give yourself the permission to feel all your feelings, without judging them. Of course, you will still know how to control yourself in public, because you don’t want to overreact and make a scene. But you can acknowledge your emotions and later journal about them. Give them space, let them flow, because they are a part of your authentic self.

     

    #434744
    Tee
    Participant

    Dear Paradoxy,

    no wrong again

    what do you mean “wrong again”? You never said which country you live in, only that you live in the Caribbeans. Is this some kind of quiz and you enjoy pointing out that I didn’t know the answer?

    You said earlier that “Christians and Muslims are in the minority here“. I thought you were talking about the Caribbean country you live in, where there is a majority of Hindu population, and those 3 countries I mentioned above came up as a possibility. But no, apparently you were for some reason talking about India, even though we were discussing various ethnic communities in the Caribbeans. And then, when I didn’t guess which country you live in – because you weren’t even talking about it, but about India – you tell me “wrong again”. Really?

    Now you admit that you exaggerated the distance between you and your parents, because Bahamas and Jamaica are not  “thousands of miles away“, but “around 500 miles, with a one-hour time zone difference“.

    That too was misleading because I couldn’t understand how come you are so far away from your parents – where are those “thousands of miles” of distance in the Caribbeans? Well, now it’s clear that there are not…

    Are you familiar with the phrase, hard times create strong men,

    And are you a strong man? If so, then why do you complain about being immature, lacking intelligence, skills, performing poorly left and right, failing exams, not having friends, or being used by so-called friends etc etc?

    I know who I am. I know the good in me and the bad in me. I just hate the bad side of me cause I won’t survive in society if this keeps up. Whether it be my inability to communicate properly, my stuttering, my lack of knowledge, etc. The only good thing going for me is my good morals, but good morals won’t exactly save me in society cause you need to be at least a little street smart to survive.

    You complain that you are unable to survive in the society with all of your weaknesses, and yet, your are a strong man?

    I may fail in my interpersonal relationships and I may be mentally and emotionally unhealthy, but it is not like anyone actually cares about whether I am healthy or not. What society cares about is what I bring to the table. And I am going to bring medical care.

    But how when you complain that you can’t differentiate between veins and arteries:

    Academically, I can’t even tell the difference between different parts of the specimen. I can’t even identify the difference between the veins and arteries. I know the theoretical part, but I can’t get the practical side at all. Imagine how stupid I feel having to sit in those labs while everyone else is answering the questions but I can’t. I even tried attending extra classes and even had a private session with the specimen and myself.

    I am glad that you are so optimistic about medicine and about being a strong man, but then don’t complain about being the opposite. Decide what is true and what is self-deception.

     

    #434726
    Tee
    Participant

    Dear Paradoxy,

    There are some corrupt Christians and Muslims too but the number is considerably small compared to Hindus, but also remember that Christians and Muslims are in the minority here.

    You are talking about a country in the Caribbeans, with the majority Indian population, right? I’ve just looked it up, and it could be Guyana, Suriname or Trinidad and Tobago. While you study in Jamaica. That’s why you said your parents live thousands of miles away, right? (“I can’t do anything without fearing them, even though I am thousands of miles away from them”). I was under the impression that the distances in the Caribbeans are not so huge, but they are, obviously 🙂

    You will barely find any corrupt activities of the sexual nature among us, which is one of the reasons why my country has one of the lowest divorce rates.

    Okay, infidelity leads to a higher divorce rate, that’s for sure.

    I believe it is a cycle, where my parents’ insult decreased my confidence, and the lack of confidence caused me to screw up my communication skills and actual work skills, and the lack of those skills provided a reason for my parents to insult me, and so the cycle continues.

    The cycle had its starting point somewhere: in your childhood. They call the first 7 years of our life the formative years,  because that’s when the building blocks of our personality are formed. Our parents have a major impact in the formation of our personality. That’s the foundation of the “house”, which we have been talking about before.

    After that, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because you feeling not good enough and unworthy makes you perform worse and have worse interpersonal experiences, which in turn have a negative impact on your studies, as well as your social skills and whether you feel rejected or accepted by your peers.

    And it grows like a snowball – we are getting more and more “proofs” that we are unlovable and incapable, which is cementing those false core beliefs. But it all starts with those formative years, where our parents play a key role. What happens later are the consequences of those formative years.

    I have been trying to learn it for the last 3 years and I still can’t get it right. I can’t even cut an onion properly. … I can’t even tell whether I used too much seasoning on the food based on the taste?

    I was also a late bloomer when it comes to cooking. At 19, I didn’t know how to prepare a single meal. But I can tell you – not “feeling” it and being insecure about the taste has to do with embodiment – with the ability to be present in our body and feel all the sensations. And with trusting ourselves that we can make it right (get the taste right).

    You’d need to be in touch with your body and your feelings for that, and you lack that. You are suppressing a lot. So believe it or not, you’d need to learn to feel all the feels if you want to be a good cook. One side-effect of healing would be improved cooking skills 🙂

    I can’t even tell the difference between different parts of the specimen. I can’t even identify the difference between the veins and arteries. I know the theoretical part, but I can’t get the practical side at all.

    Yeah, I am familiar with the problem: being good at theory, but sucking in practice (in driving skills, for example 🙂 ). Again, it’s the embodiment thing. If you are too spaced out, all in your head, of course you can’t know what’s going on in the body.

    Medicine is a very visceral thing – you can’t master it from the books only. When we are separated from our body (like you are – suppressing your emotions, not wanting to feel certain things), we can’t really be good doctors, God forbid surgeons. So again, healing would help you be a better medical student as well.

    I am not defending my parents exactly, I am just acknowledging the truth in their criticism.

    Oh you are Paradoxy. Let me give you an example. This is what you said about their emotional abuse:

    The emotional suffering they put me through has forced me to be the most mature for my age among all my cousins so I am definitely grateful for that as well.

    You excuse their emotional abuse and are even grateful for it, because it supposedly made you more mature than your peers. At the same time, you refuse to see how their emotional abuse negatively affected your self-confidence, communication skills and e.g. the ability to make a good impression at interviews.

    You refuse to see the negative impact of their upbringing and are even grateful for the abuse they’ve put you through, because it supposedly had positive impacts on you. Which is like saying that drinking poison didn’t really harm you – on the contrary it had a positive impact on your body. Which is called self-deception.

    This is why I am saying that you are defending your parents and refusing to see how they have contributed to your present-day problems. Instead, you are blaming exclusively yourself, claiming that you would have been the same person even with different parents. Which is not true.

    So you are washing them free from all responsibility, and even claiming that their abuse did you good. Which as I said, is severe self-gaslighting.

     

    #434690
    Tee
    Participant

    Dear Paradoxy,

    There wasn’t as much damage as we expected, especially since Jamaica has a lot of mountains so my campus was pretty much safe.

    Happy to hear about that!

    I am not saying that only Caribbean people are involved in immoral activities. But activities similar to cheating on their partner and other similar immoral activities appear to be higher among the Caribbean community. My community has its own set of corruption, usually religion-based or just plain politics of turning people against each other and stuff and financial cheating. One guy got murdered right in front of his kids cause he was a businessman who managed to steal a 20 million dollar diamond from another businessman.

    Okay, so perhaps it can be said that the Caribbean community is more prone to sins of sexual nature (lust, adultery), while your community more to sins of financial nature: greed. And creating division among people (“turning people against each other”), which to me would be like sowing seeds of division and conflict, rather than love, mutual respect and understanding.

    I am not as good as I wanted to be.

    Your main problem is the belief that you are not good enough. Which affects your self-confidence and your communication skills, as well as the impression you make at interviews (The others managed to get into good colleges due to their interview skills and other test scores for the college).

    You believe you are not good enough because your parents believe you are not good enough. In fact, your father sees you as an idiot and has seen you as such for a long time. You can never be good enough in the eyes of your cruel, strict, judgmental father.

    When a child and a youth believes they are not good enough, all kind of learning difficulties can ensue, and even self-sabotaging behaviors like drug abuse and alcohol. If you are constantly under pressure to perform and are severely punished and criticized for not performing well enough, it naturally diminishes your capacity to perform, both at school and in what you actually like: music.

    In this last post, you keep berating yourself, being stuck in the “woe is me”. And refusing to believe that change is possible.

    I was trying to help you see that you don’t need to stay stuck, even if you physically still depend on your parents. That you don’t need to stay stuck mentally and emotionally in that bitter place. But you keep pitying yourself, defending your parents and staying stuck. And it’s a rather tight mental loop, almost a box, which cannot be opened.

    Because you have an excuse for everything and you change your stance as needed: When you need to defend your parent’s parenting skills, you portray yourself as wise and mature – because that’s supposedly a proof of their successful parenting. But at other times, when you want to “prove” how inadequate you are, you portray yourself as stupid and immature.

    The end result of our every discussion (i.e. the message you want to convey) is that you are bad, they are good. And there is nothing that can convince you of the opposite.

    I wish I could help you open that airtight container. But I realize I can’t. And I don’t want to run around in circles, trying to help you, when you actually want to (at least for now) stay stuck in self-blame and self-pity, and are refusing to look at the real causes of your suffering.

    I wish you well, Paradoxy, but most of all, I wish you real healing.

     

    #434642
    Tee
    Participant

    Dear Paradoxy,

    I am glad you are safe and sound! I also hope that your friends who remained on Jamaica are safe too.

    According to the news, at this moment the hurricane has already left Jamaica and is continuing towards the Cayman islands. One woman has died, unfortunately. But according to reports, the devastation wasn’t as huge as on Carriacou island, which was completely flattened.

    I understand your mother wanting to protect you and get you to safety – it’s a very natural instinct. Of course she cares about her child’s safety. In extreme situations like these, where your physical life is in danger, it is only normal to get you out of the harm’s way, which she did.

     

    You say your parents believe that almost every Caribbean person (or at least those they know) is morally corrupt:

    They rarely find any Caribbean person who has not done immoral things.

    Most of the people they know have slept around or are involved in some kind of immoral drama, so they naturally develop a stereotype for them and attribute their behavior as part of that person’s culture.

    It was interesting for me to read that there is corruption and immorality in your own community as well:

    another guy falsely accused my mother of revealing his secrets but my father was able to figure out the accusation was based on manipulation and false information cause my mother never did anything that she was accused of.

    my dad used to be the treasurer of the community and he was responsible for handling the money affairs as well as another guy and both of them were accused of stealing community money but he was able to prove to them that the person who was actually taking the money from the treasury was a third guy, who just so happened to be the one who started the accusation in the first place.

    Nobody challenges my father because he knows what is right and what is wrong and will not participate in any corrupt activities or get himself involved in the politics of manipulation like the other men.

    My father stepped down as the treasurer cause he doesn’t want to get involved in the community politics after that incident.

    It seems that some community members are involved in lying, cheating, stealing and making false accusations against innocent people. And it seems it’s not just one isolated case, since you talk about “politics of manipulation”. And your father decided to step down from his position, because he didn’t want to be involved in such corrupt politics.

    Which tells me that not only Caribbean people are involved in immoral activities, but also those in your own community.

     

    I would like to go back to what you’ve recently said about yourself:

    I am just an embarrassment to my parents cause of all my stupidity and awkwardness and inability to talk to people and etc. Maybe it is just me. My lack of maturity, my inability to be of use to my parents, can’t even help them with their chores/work, my lack of intelligence, my lack of skill in anything, or the fact that I am a complete idiot. While the other kids became mature and responsible adults, I just became an immature idiot. I may be the best among my cousins, but I am still immature in the eyes of my parents since I will never be good enough compared to other children my age.

    I have accepted my flaws, but society won’t. Cause society still requires a certain level of maturity,which I still lack.

    You claim that you lack wisdom, intelligence, maturity or any skills. However, throughout the course of our conversation, you said very different things about yourself. For example:

    You have expressed that you are considerably wise, not stupid:

    I always told her that if she is unsure, she could ask me for any advice as my father’s wisdom was passed down to me over the years that he taught me.

    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.

    I am not stupid enough to use their love as a role model.

    I am not dumb enough to just blindly believe what B showed me.

     

    You have expressed that you are more mature than your peers:

    I cannot deny the fact that all of this treatment shaped me to be a better man than most of my peers morality-wise.

    My peers may be happier than me and enjoying life and etc, but I am definitely glad I am not doing their foolishness, like smoking weed, drinking alcohol and sleeping with a bunch of woman and etc.

    my obedience has kept me from going in the wrong direction like the guys here with me. I won’t do anything stupid or get involved in any wrong activities.

    The emotional suffering they put me through has forced me to be the most mature for my age among all my cousins so I am definitely grateful for that as well.

    Their wisdom still taught me to be a good man to the best of my ability.

    If it weren’t for him, I would just be some immoral idiot like my “friends” but instead I am known for my honesty and care.

     

    You said you were on of the top students in your country, which makes you rather intelligent:

    We were all scoring very high in exams and getting into prestigious colleges and getting high salary jobs. Even I was one of the top students in the country at one point, and so are others from our community. Each year, there is at least one top student that is from our “emotional abuse” community.

     

    You said you possess respectable music skills:

    I have studied music for 10 years and have taken the exams up to 6 levels out of 8 with scores in distinction, and my guy friend definitely knows my level of skill regarding music.

     

    So this tells me that a part of you doesn’t believe that you lack wisdom, intelligence, maturity or skills. On the contrary, it tells me you believe you possess all those qualities. But sometimes you seem to forget it, or you view yourself from your father’s perspective, who sees you as as an idiot, no matter what you do. (He cares enough to ask about my issues, but once I tell him my issues he just treats it like I am just being an idiot.)

    I am the way I am cause of my father, both the good and the bad. My father is the one who taught me to be caring and loving, even though I never got it from him. If it weren’t for him, I would just be some immoral idiot like my “friends” but instead I am known for my honesty and care, and even taken advantage of cause of that nature. These idiots know that no matter how many times they hurt me, it won’t change the fact that I still care. That is my stupid weakness.

    It seems you take some pride in being so care-giving to those “idiots” who don’t deserve your help? It seems you feel better than them.

     

    #434592
    Tee
    Participant

    Hi Beni,

    I want to correct something I said in my latest post:

    It does seem to me that your attitude towards helping her is a defensive stance – you withdrawing into your protective shell and not wanting to be “used” by her, for fear of getting emotionally overwhelmed and overtaken by her. I think it’s a bit of an overreaction, but I understand where you are coming from.

    I said it’s an overreaction. But if it is a freeze response (“I draw a line. My body draws a line”), it’s not conscious – it is what your body and your nervous system do automatically. When you are in the freeze response, your rational mind isn’t “online”, so you cannot really control your reactions. So I just wanted to clarify that, because I don’t want to sound as if I am blaming you for being overly reactive. The freeze response is not your fault – it’s an automatic reaction when we feel in danger.

    There are techniques to get out of the freeze response, which include moving our body. I am sure you have looked into it already, but here are 3 really useful youtube videos, by psychotherapists that I respect a lot:

    This is what it’s like to be in freeze” and “Unfreeze yourself“, by The Holistic Psychologist channel, and

    Are you stuck in freeze mode? How to turn off the freeze response“, by Therapy in a Nutshell.

    I hope it helps, if you’re not already familiar with it.

    Have a nice day yourself!

     

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 1,942 total)