Dear Murtaza,

You also believe that your way of thinking is not something you have chosen but something you were born with

i think this believe is based on a lot of observation and thinking, also science

It’s based on your observation and thinking. And no, it’s not based in science because science has proven that there’s such a thing as neuroplasticity – our ability to create new neural networks in the brain, i.e. new ways of thinking and reacting. You could change your thinking if you’d want to. Literally, your neurons could “fire” in different ways, and your entire thinking and reasoning could change. That’s based on science. But I understand you don’t want to change your thinking. That’s your free will.

You said to anita:

i sound aggressive for a reason, protection, now that you know me, i don’t need much protection

I believe the need for protection is very strong in you. There are more parts in you, including the wounded inner child, however they are suppressed by a very strong protector part (you can look up the Internal Family Systems theory, which talks about different parts of our personality). This protector part came up with this entire reasoning, according to which you’re created differently and don’t have free will to change. It’s a belief system, a mental construct, which serves a purpose. And I believe the purpose is to protect you from pain which you don’t want to experience again. You’ve experienced it in your childhood, and you don’t want to experience it ever again.

You don’t want to work on healing your wounds, because it’s not the “easy way”. It requires facing the pain, healing the wounds, re-writing the false imprints from your childhood. It’s possible. It’s actually how neuroplasticity takes place. But it’s work, yes, and you don’t want it.

I understand you, because there’s no guarantee that even if you heal, you won’t be hurt again. Even if you heal, you still might face disappointment and people rejecting you, which would cause new pain. So there’s no guarantee. Conclusion: it’s easier to not even get into this whole healing business, to not even want it. That’s the easy way.

However, there’s another layer in your protective shield: you don’t want to admit that you don’t want to change. Rather, you say “I am programmed not to want it”. That’s how you protect yourself from guilt. You say you have a lot of guilt:

i feel guilty, guilt is something i can’t endure, i have a lot of it, and i come online to just have less,

So, to avoid guilt, you say “it’s not my lack of will to change – it’s how I am created”. This way nobody can blame you for taking the easy way. You have a really clever protector who covered all bases. But other parts are suffering. Your protector part keeps them suppressed.

Healing is possible, but you’d need to be willing to dismantle the protector, and it seems like you’re not willing to do that, at least not at the moment.

Dear Jack,

really glad that you had such a blissful experience and deep bonding on every level, at it seems. I concur with anita’s words – be good to each other and try to communicate honestly and openly.

Wishing you all the best!

Dear Javier,

that’s very good that you haven’t used drugs in almost 20 years. I am also happy to hear you’ll have a full medical checkup in the following days, including measuring your neurotransmitter levels. That should give them an idea what needs to be mended in  terms of diet and perhaps other aspects.

Have you told them about domestic violence that you’ve experienced as a child? I think you need to be treated for childhood trauma, and for that, there are other, less invasive modalities than ECT. Please talk to them about your childhood trauma, if you haven’t already, because there lies the key to your healing, I believe.

The “dark” hole I was nurturing inside me, all the demons I created, destroyed me and my loved ones, especially my mother. Every day, every moment, I can see the disappointment, pain, and sadness in her eyes. She is hurting with me and most probably blaming herself. I have not only ruined myself, but I have ruined her too.

Your dark thoughts begin with you feeling guilty for everything, mercilessly accusing yourself, and not seeing the origin of your problems – which is in the first 5 years of your life. You have empathy for your mother and everyone else, but not for yourself as a little child who was living in hell. If you want to heal, you’d need to address that early trauma. That’s why I am asking you to please talk to your therapist about that period, so you can receive a trauma-informed therapy.

Dear Murtaza,

You started your thread with the notion that you’re fundamentally different than other people, moreover that you’re created differently – “created in a way that guarantees misery”. This difference is “different personality, different values, beliefs, way of thinking”.

Now you say “i just wish someone tell me this truth, that yes, it is, in this whole stinky world, there is a person that validate me, validate my thinking”

I would like to propose that “you” are not the same as your thinking or your belief system. “You” are more than that.

What is sure is that you’re human, not an animal or an ET. You were born a human baby, and you had the same needs as every human baby and child: to be loved, shown care and affection, to be seen, to be validated, to feel like they’re special and unique.

Since you haven’t received that, you concluded that you don’t need it. You disowned your hurt inner child and adopted a belief system, a way of thinking that you identified with:

they did hurt my past self, not me though, the here and now me, thats the real thing, thats the one that can’t be hurt, my past self doesn’t exist anymore, only a fraction

You believe that your wounded inner child doesn’t exist any more, or “only a fraction”. You believe your “way of thinking” is who you are. You also believe that your way of thinking is not something you have chosen but something you were born with – like a software with an error. You believe that most people have a well-functioning software (those are the “normies”), while you have a faulty one. You also believe you don’t have the free will to change it. That’s why you say you’re “created in a way that guarantees misery”. In your view, you’re programmed to be unhappy and thus, you’re doomed.

Although you identify with your way of thinking, your wounded child is still inside of you, and it wants to be loved and cared for:

i also dream there is someone who is hugging me while, understand my pain, sympathies with me, hold me,

Your also wants to be seen, understood and validated:

“i just wish someone tell me this truth, that yes, it is, in this whole stinky world, there is a person that validate me, validate my thinking”

And you want to be special. You make yourself special by proclaiming that you’re different from everyone else, that you’re “differently programmed”, even if this program doesn’t serve you. Yet, it serves one purpose: it makes you feel special. That’s why you don’t want to change, because you believe it would destroy your “specialness”, your uniqueness.

You, as a normal human baby, had the same needs as other human babies. Those needs are still in you (to be loved and cared for, to be seen and validated, to be special). But you came up with a “way of thinking”, a mental construct which tells you you’ll never be able to meet those needs because you’re created differently, with a faulty programming, so there’s no point in even trying. But your idea that you’re created with a faulty program is a faulty program itself!

The only benefit you’re getting from this faulty program is that you believe you’re special, even if it’s in a negative way. All the other parts of this program keep you miserable. The question is whether you want to keep identifying yourself with your faulty program, or you want to see beyond it, to your essence?

Dear Javier,

thanks for sharing some more. I don’t know anything about psychiatric drugs, but anita posted earlier that there are drugs that can be used with someone who has a history of addiction. Are you currently struggling with addiction?

I am sorry that you’re in a bad place mentally and as you said, “living in the past, stuck in the past, stuck with only awful feelings and bad memories. I have managed to program my subconscious mind to only think negative things.”

That’s probably why journaling left you exhausted and too fatigued to have a productive session. They probably shouldn’t encourage people to journal if this only exacerbates their state..

I believe your subconscious mind is stuck in the survival mode, in the old childhood trauma from the first 5 years of your life. I think that’s where your fear of dying and losing your loved ones originates from.

You as a child felt helpless and you feel helpless now. Your subconscious mind is in the same spot, reliving the same old trauma as if it were happening right now. It’s as if the fire alarm were broken and signals danger even when there’s no danger. That’s how your subconscious mind is reacting – like a broken fire alarm, left on ON the entire time.

Your conscious mind trusts the signals from the subconscious mind and believes it’s the entire reality. It believes you’re doomed. In reality, you’re not doomed – rather, you need to switch off the broken fire alarm. That’s how you can stop the subconscious from hijacking your conscious mind.

One way to silence down the broken fire alarm is via somatic therapy, as I’ve mentioned before. But first you’d need to believe that your conscious mind is hijacked and that there’s a way to retrieve it.

Dear Javier,

if you would like to share – what’s the outcome of the psychological evaluation? Were you prescribed medications, or to start therapy again?

Dear kleineBlumealleine,

you’re very welcome. I am glad you’re in a good place in life, having a loving relationship, good friends and financial stability. It means you have a lot of strength and resilience, and the ability to build healthy relationships, in spite of all the hardship you went through.

As for guilt, a child always blames themselves for being mistreated, and believes that if only they change, their parents will finally love them. So it’s natural there’s a part of you who’s tempted to think that. It’s the wounded inner child, I believe.

But it seems you also have a healthy adult part who sees the truth and has compassion for yourself as a child, and for yourself now. This adult part also knows how to protect yourself. That’s why, after having meditated, you came to the conclusion that it’s better to stop communicating with them. You know how to protect yourself, and that’s very important.

So I’d say just stay anchored in that loving, compassionate adult part, and whenever you start feeling guilty and start believing you’re cold and ungrateful – remind your inner child that it’s not her fault and that you’re there to protect her. And remind yourself that they are the cold and unloving ones, and you have every right to protect yourself from their mistreatment.