Dear Kibou,

Thank you for your detailed reply. It does paint a little different picture about your relationship with your mother. It appears she was a very loving and caring mother, and provided emotional support to you – up until she got unwell. You said she was your best friend and provided a sense of stability amidst all the moving and “nomadic lifestyle” during your childhood (“My mum has always been the most “constant” person around me“.)

You started suffering from depression before your mother got sick, and it seems it wasn’t because of your mother, but because of your father (was it because he wasn’t around too much?) and because of your school friends.

In your earlier posts you shared that those friends were rude or jealous towards you, but you didn’t hold it against them, rationalizing that “hurt people hurt people”. Btw, now that I know a little bit more of your story, I wonder if you started rationalizing only after your mother got sick and you had compassion and understanding for her, and by extension, for your school mates as well?

Your depression might have been caused also by the fact that you moved a lot in your formative years. You said you moved 4 times by the time you were 7 years old. You moved once at the age of 4, before your brother was born, and then again when you were around 6, before your sister was born. You remember how on the day your sister was born you were alone in the house for a while, everybody being at the hospital with your mother, and you felt alone.

I guess it was a new house, in the new city, that you had just moved to prior to your sister’s birth? You say you don’t remember it with negative feelings, but still, it was another big change for you. In fact, it was the second time in 2 years that you moved house and a new sibling arrived to the family. Both of those are big changes (new sibling and a new environment), and it happened twice for you in 2 years.

Even though you said your mother loved you the same and you didn’t feel neglected even after your siblings were born, these kinds of changes can be hard on a child. You might have still felt alone, but you didn’t have anybody to blame because those were “the circumstances”. Your mother did the best she could, she was giving her all to you and your siblings. Perhaps you did blame your father for causing those moves to happen, or for not being home too much?

In any case, I believe your first depression has a lot to do with the frequent moves and changes of the environment and the circumstances you lived in. You felt neglected a bit, perhaps abandoned a bit, but you couldn’t really express this disappointment to your mother because she was doing her best. And besides, once when you expressed it – when you told her she doesn’t care about you – she started crying. And you were made to apologize. If you expressed your negative feelings to your mother, she would be hurt, and you knew she doesn’t really deserve it either.

Maybe this is why you started getting depressed – because you felt guilty for having those negative feelings. You said you felt like a burden for having those feelings. You didn’t want to share them with anyone, but once you made something that made your parents alarmed – when you swam far out in the ocean, hoping to get a cramp (and perhaps drown?).

That’s when you told your parents a little about how you’re feeling, and they took you to a therapist. But when you blamed your father for your depression, he got very sad (“looked like he was about to cry, a face I had not seen before on my dad”), and you regretted mentioning it. You decided not to share your negative feelings again because it hurts people.

So basically, the message you received from both of your parents was: you make me sad if you express your negative feelings. You mother cried (when you were 7 years old), and your father almost cried (when you were around 11-12, I guess?) The conclusion: If I share my negative feelings – if I am authentic – I will hurt the people I love.

It’s very similar to: “People only want authenticity if it’s according to their own liking”. Your parents could tolerate your authenticity only if it didn’t make them feel bad. You related this belief to a school debate when you had to debate in favor of an idea that you opposed to. It made you feel inauthentic. However, it could be that the core of that belief is related to your family and that you couldn’t really be authentic with them.

Soon after your first depression, your mother got unwell and you needed to take over a lot of responsibilities:

Although it did feel a bit better coming open with my difficulties it was not long till I found myself saying “take a grip” to myself and started to worry about my mum primarily and the rest of the family.

You didn’t have a chance to deal with yourself, nor did your mother have a chance to perhaps help you cope. She got sick and suddenly you lost her support and the only constant person in your life:

I always had my mum thought to count on, and at a time when I needed her a lot (my depression), she was not available.

As longs as I had my mom, I was fine, but when she was not available it really did feel like I had no one. My mum has always been the most “constant” person around me.

With your mom getting sick, you felt truly abandoned, your felt like you had no one:

The sentence “No one cares about me” is something I would start to say early during my early teens. The time when my mum got unwell.

You had to cope with caring for your siblings, and you were also your mother’s only support:

There was no one else there to help, no friends, language barriers so no professional help, my dad had tons of things going on and between the two it was tense at that time, she only had me who she trusted and felt safe to talk to. Doctors that she went to, well they prescribed the wrong medication which made her condition worse.

And given all the other things that happened or needed to be taken care of, I honestly to this day do not see who could have supported her beside me.

You had to become the care-taker, and suppress all of the negative feelings you had, both the old ones and those newly occurring due to your mother’s illness and the new circumstances you found yourself in.

And then another trauma happened: you had to flee Cuba, literally overnight, without much explanation by your parents. You returned with your mother and siblings to Germany (if I understood well?), while your father stayed on Cuba for another 2 years.

You weren’t warmly received in Germany (“Our arrival back home was messy and disappointing.”) I remember you shared that when you returned to your old school, your old school mates hardly wanted to communicate with you. So you lost at least one close friendship from Cuba, and arrived to a cold and unfriendly place, which was your “home country”.

I see how the trauma accumulated over time, and how it was difficult for you to even be angry at anybody, because no one did anything wrong, and yet you suffered, and your needs weren’t met – due to the “circumstances”. Perhaps your parents’ decisions had brought about those “circumstances”, but anyway, there was always some excuse, some reason why things are bad and no one is to blame – which led to your rationalization. And specially with your mom getting sick, you needed to rationalize a lot, and suppress your anger for suddenly losing your childhood and having to care for your siblings and your mother (at least emotionally).

I will stop here, because this post is long already, but these are my thoughts for now. I’ll wait for your reply before writing more.

Dear Murtaza,

that believe is based on evidence and a lot of observation

yes, you’ve grown up surrounded by people who were sending you this message, and maybe even the whole society sent you this message. You don’t know anything else. But somewhere in your bones, in the depth of your heart, you know there’s something else. You know that something is wrong with the belief system you grew up in. That’s why you’re writing on various forums, searching, probing… and that’s fine, don’t give up your search!

all this, suggest that i at least think differently from you, and you might have a trouble understanding

In fact, your thinking is not that different than mine, because like you, I wouldn’t be able to settle if I’d need to deny my need for love. I wouldn’t want to change the core of my being so that I could please the society. Because what if the society’s beliefs and a view of love is distorted, and not you?

However, there are aspects where our thinking differs, and it is in the notion of free will. You don’t believe in freewill, I do. If you believe you’re a victim of some programming, and you can’t change the program, then you’re doomed. However, if you can change the program – refuse to believe in certain limiting ideas – you can be free. You have the free will to believe differently, to step out of the “matrix”.

But, you might find it extremely difficult to start believing differently, because this might mean that you need to go against your family, against the norms of your society. This might mean “fighting” and “struggle”, which you absolutely don’t want. You want the easy way, because you saw it around you when growing up. The easy way is to accept those norms and live according to them. And forget the longing of your heart.

i actually have a somehow a decent life, an easy one, one that i don’t have to do anything, one that i live by my rules in it, not other people rules,

Would you care to explain that a little? You have a decent and easy life, you don’t have to do anything, and yet, you don’t live by the society’s rules. How is that possible for you?

Dear Murtaza,

of course i do, im human after all, i desire love and have normal emotion, almost, i don’t understand the need to say such obvious facts.

What you said previously suggested that you felt fundamentally different, because you said:

i was created in a way that guarantee misery

You weren’t created differently, nor are you sentenced to misery forever. Your experience growing up probably involved a lot of rejection, but you decided it’s your fault that you’re so needy. You wanted love but couldn’t get it, perhaps you were even judged and reprimanded for wanting love. That’s why you started believing that there’s something wrong with you, that you’re created in a wrong way (i was created in a way that guarantee misery).

At the same time, you don’t want to change to fit your parents’ and the society’s expectations. You believe that you can only receive love if you change to fit the society’s expectations, and you don’t want that. If the society expects you to relinquish love and become “tough”, then you’re right in not wanting that. So I understand your resistance to change.

my number one goal is to have the easiest life there is, that means no fighting, no changing, no struggle, no people that might make my life harder,

my mother always takes the easy way, its a deep problem that takes root in my teenage years

If you would like to talk more about how your mother took the easy way, you’re welcome.

so i can have what i need ? i don’t think so, i mean i can understand why i have this, but whats the point if i can’t satisfy a bits of it?

You can, if you’re completely honest with yourself and admit your legitimate need for love, without blaming yourself that it’s wrong for you to need it.

Dear Murtaza,

thank you for answering, you said some really interesting things, for example this:

i also dream there is someone who is hugging me while, understand my pain, sympathies with me, hold me, i sometimes imagine myself as a baby, who being taken care, loved, nurtured,

Well, did you know that we all dream about that? That you’re no different in that respect from the rest of humanity? Every baby and every child longs for being hugged and understood and comforted and held. But so many children don’t receive it, which causes trauma and all sorts of problems later in life. It seems to me you haven’t received that love and nurturing, and this might be the basis of your feelings today.

But please know that in that longing, you’re no different than the rest of humanity, than the rest of the people in your country.  Only many of them might not be showing it and admitting it. They might have hardened their hearts to that love and seek something else to compensate for it. Perhaps you don’t want to compensate for it, because you know that all compensation is fake, it’s not the real thing. It’s not the true love that you long for – true love that you know, at least in your dreams.

im glad that you are asking, but can you tell me why? what’s the point ?

So I can know you better and perhaps help you see some things, e.g. that you’re not that different, and that your longing is valid.

Dear Murtaza,

i was created in a way that guarantee misery, i won’t change, neither is society

i just wished i wasn’t so different

Do you have some physical or other disability that makes you feel different?

It seems you’ve experienced rejection a lot, and last time it was by someone called antina.

she ended up ignoring me, when she knew that i don’t wanna change

How did she want you to change?

Dear Ishita,

if I understood well, you excelled at school, at all subjects but sports. But you loved outdoor games, so you participated in them, even though you were treated badly by your batchmates who “didn’t feel you fitted with them.”

I was good in studies always and other things too, so I never used to allow myself to be bothered by not being too good at sports.

But I remember how I used to feel trouble sleeping at night during those interhouse sports selection days

Because I used to feel really anxious during that time and used to feel that the girls(who used to be mean to me) are actually way better than me in that game.

Was there a selection involved, like only the best players were selected to play for a team, and you weren’t selected? Or how did it go?

In any case, it appears you were very anxious for being rejected and criticized by those school mates of yours, who didn’t want you on their team, I suppose?

But since you were still excellent at other subjects, you didn’t allow this to ruin your self-confidence completely (I never used to allow myself to be bothered by not being too good at sports.)

However, when the time for college entrance exams came, you had bad luck and hurt your leg, and were 2 months behind others in preparations.

And thanks to a few toxic friends(i didnt know the concept of toxic friends then, so I never really tried cutting contact with any one of em during that period, and it had impacted my preparation A LOT negatively) , they had a very negative competitive nature.. I used to feel that I am so behind on the syllabus that I would never make it.

Your school mates would probably report to you what’s going on in classes, maybe telling you how super competitive is, how they have to work hard, and if you’re behind even one week, not to mention 2 months, you’re doomed to fail. Is this what was going on? You started to fear that you – the best student in class – would now fail and be left behind.

This is where your anxiety really started to kick in, because now it was about your whole identity, not just about one side of you, which is sports. You said earlier that being “the smartest kid in the class, being really fast” was what defined you, what you identified with. It seems to me you based your self-esteem on it. If it turns out you’re not super smart after all, that you’re just average and there are other, smarter kids than you – then it means you’re nothing special. Is this how you were viewing it?

At the same time, you say:

during my school life, my education was moreof, something that I pursue because I enjoy it and their wasnt really any pressure on me, neither from my family nor my own.

You didn’t feel pressured by your parents to perform well in school. So it’s not that they made you feel bad if you weren’t a straight-A student. Learning came naturally to you, you were smart and enjoyed school, and good marks were a natural result. You weren’t pressured by your parents.

But somehow, when the pressure of competition was introduced, you suddenly became self-conscious and started questioning yourself. It’s like this new, competitive environment made you aware of a harsh world out there, from which you had been  protected till then, and suddenly, you lost your place in it. If you’re not the smartest kid in the class, then what are you?

It appears that this confusion lasts till this day. You did say that you understand you worried too much back then:

I wish I could go back and tell the 17 year old self ,how it was ok to let go, because there are bigger things waiting, and I will get it anyways( because now, when I am in college , I see an entirely different picture , to what I used to imagine then, and its so much better)

But it appears you’re still struggling, cannot find your place, cannot regain that self-confidence you had as a child. At 17 you started believing you’re not special, and you still believe it. Your feeling special is linked to your school performance, it seems to me. I believe you would need to disentangle the two, and realize you are special, regardless of your academic performance. How does that sound to you?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Tee.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 3 months ago by Tee.

Dear Umm,

Sometimes, I just don’t know whether it’s my fault, or things I say, to make him feel this way. I’ve been trying to assure him that I love him, and I guess it isn’t enough for him to let go of his insecurity.

It’s not your fault, it’s his insecurity and lack of self-esteem that make him react like that. And no amount of your love and reassurance can heal his insecurity – only he can do that, if he’d be willing to work on it in therapy.

Can you accept that it’s not your fault? Or there’s a part of your that still believes that you might have contributed to it? Sorry for probing, but I think it’s very important that you’re clear about it, not just for your relationship with him but for your other relationships too (you mentioned a female friend treated you badly, so I wonder if there’s a similarity there? Not suggesting there is, just that you be clear on it).

Dear Umm,

it appears your boyfriend is very insecure of himself. For one, he’s easily offended by what people say about him, and even more that that, he’s bringing up your ex-boyfriends and male colleagues you used to hang out with in the past. He seems to resent you for having been in those relationships or friendships. He’s jealous of those men, and compares himself with them, because he’s insecure of himself. When he says “he knows his worth”, I guess deep down he has a very low self-esteem.

He said his past relationship with his ex-girlfriend was very toxic, as in going to his social medias and told him to delete any girls that she did not like. I am not sure if because of his toxic past, it affects him and he brings it up on me in this relationship.

His ex-girlfriend seems to be even more controlling than he is, but unfortunately his behavior doesn’t seem to be very far from hers. I don’t think she is the reason for his present-day behavior. Rather, it would be his personality and his own unresolved  issues. But the point is that his behavior is toxic too, and unless he changes, I’d say it’s not worth it.