Dear Felix,

thanks for sharing some more about your life. It’s unfortunate that your baby sitter forcefully fed you, leading to a traumatic experience. May I ask how your parents reacted to this incident – did they have compassion for you? When you later refused or were unable to eat solid food, how did they react? Were they understanding of you?

Good that you found a way to still help yourself, by drinking water. I think this kind of trauma could even be solved permanently, e.g. by using EMDR or EFT (tapping) techniques. You may look into it…

About your insecurities, you say:

back then when most boys and me are about the same height… i seldom feel insecure.. like i can enjoy life… until highschool starts and every boys get so tall and im in the same height as most girls… that day my insecurity came

I believe your insecurities were present before too, but in a smaller measure, and they didn’t affect you too much. You perhaps weren’t even aware of them. They came out into the light in high school, when you entered puberty and other boys started growing faster than you. You remaining shorter than your peers was a trigger that activated your insecurity.

But I am almost certain that the root of your insecurity goes further back, when you were a child. I wonder if you were criticized a lot as a child? Felt not good enough?

Having read some of your other threads, I see you’re struggling with your place in your father’s company, since you’re not being given any important tasks even though you’ve graduated from university. You’re also criticized by your father for being lazy, not working out, not appreciating his work in the garden… Your mother might have complained about you to the neighbor, and once at a garden party, this neighbor told you something like “come on, try frying the meat, you’ll never learn if you never try”. You felt like being treated like a child. You have this feeling that others too treat you like a child.

This tells me you might have been criticized as a child and given the message that somehow you’re not capable enough, or in general not good enough. If a child is criticized a lot, they fail to develop self-confidence and many other skills, and they may indeed seem incapable later as adults. But it’s not really their fault, there’s nothing inherently wrong with them. It’s just the conditioning and the message that they aren’t good enough that they internalize and start believing about themselves.

Dear hopeful80,

you’re welcome! Good that you discussed the nude photos incident and that he’s on the same page with you – realizing it’s not really acceptable in a committed relationship. You said that after this bit was cleared, you two decided to date exclusively. But then, you started needing more reassurance and asked him 3 more times about this woman. He’s annoyed with that, and probably that’s why his behavior changed and he’s not that enthusiastic about you any more. Is that right?

It could be that after the incident, your anxious attachment style became more pronounced and you started demanding constant affirmation and “proofs” of love. Perhaps you’ve become clingy and insecure, fearing that he might leave you. This could be driving him away, even if he otherwise doesn’t have a problem with intimacy (i.e. if his attachment style isn’t avoidant). You said in relation to that:

I am seeing that I am reaching far more than the other person, always, willing to do more. I often times wonder if it’s for external validation and people pleasing.

It could be also the fear of abandonment, which is at the core of the anxious attachment style. Your anxiety could also be caused by the belief that you’re unlovable, or not good enough, and therefore in danger of being abandoned by the person you love. That might be the reason of your insecurity.

Dear Dandan,

I have had this huge interest in going to a europian company with a job offer and to work there.

[learning German and learning about German culture] created some interest in working in a different country , mainly European country and precisely Germany.

I wanted to go out to get the international work experience. To work with people around the globe. Also to be independent in a different country. Living by choice and freedom.

The above seem like your genuine desires, something that your soul is calling you to do, not something that has been imposed on you by your parents or the society. Is that right?

But then, something stopped you from going after your desires. It’s your fear of being alone and stepping out of your comfort zone:

I didn’t have the guts to move away from my comforzone here.

But after getting the offer, I only can think about negatives. Like how lonely I will get there. I am a sensitive person. My friends also told I might get lonely there.

You changed your mind because of fear. This fear is quite common when we’re about to do something that requires us to step out of our comfort zone. We’re creatures of habit, we like the known, even if we don’t feel good in it. We fear the unknown and the possible challenges that our new circumstances might bring.

Which will prevail – the fear of the unknown or the excitement about the new opportunities – largely depends on the way we were raised. If your parents were fearful and didn’t really encourage you to try out new things, or if they expect from you to always be there at their side and take care of them, you’d naturally be more reluctant to leave, even for a limited time. Maybe you haven’t developed the sense of independence, required to live on your own in an unfamiliar country, and to cope on your own, emotionally, when your family is away?

If you’d like to share some more about the way you were brought up, it might explain better why you have such a hard time giving yourself a chance to experience something new in life.

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

Dear anonymous33,

I hope and pray that the situation in your country starts improving soon, and that foreign help has arrived and keeps arriving.

I share your sentiment of feeling frustrated at people who refuse any protection measures and even refuse to wear masks, claiming they’re harmful and a sign of oppression and suchlike. Unfortunately there are such people everywhere, in every country. I’ve had some debates with such friends and acquaintances on social media, but over time, I’ve realized there’s no point in trying to convince them, they’re so deep in their belief system and end up believing quite ridiculous things and conspiracy theories.

I’m not angry at them any more, but I don’t think I can be close to them any more either, because I’ll always be looking at them at someone who showed a profound lack of compassion for others. And even though I know it’s because of their own fears and unsolved issues that they behave like that, it would be hard for me to pretend that nothing happened and have the same kind of relationship with them that I had before the pandemic.

Dear Elie,

also, how are others wanting to “directly hurt you on their own” – could you give some examples of that?

Dear Felix,

you’re welcome. You say you’ve had trouble swallowing since you were a child. Do you remember (or have your parents told you) when it started happening first? Is it related to one specific incident, or it has developed gradually?

It’s understandable you don’t like to eat, since it causes you problems with swallowing. But I don’t think it has any effect on your height. Your height was probably caused by your genes. How is it in your family? Are your parents/grandparents/siblings also of a smaller height?

If you like to brag about things and show people how good you are, it indicates there’s an insecurity in you, a lack of self-esteem, and you need other people to affirm that indeed you’re good and worthy. If you were more sure of yourself, you wouldn’t need so much outer approval. It doesn’t make you a bad person, not in the least. It just means that in your childhood, you didn’t receive enough validation and appreciation, and that’s how your insecurity developed. I still think there must have happened some kind of rejection, even if ever so slight.

For you, it’s painful and unbearable that you cannot brag about your height. Somehow you associate your worth with your height. Short height – low worth. Have you been teased a lot about your height? Or you saw that some taller guys have more success with girls, or something like that?

You know how some girls attach their self-esteem to how thin they are? Well, it seems you’ve attached your self-esteem to your height. It’s pretty unfortunate because you can’t do much do become taller, a miracle won’t happen. So you’re stuck. However, if you could attach your self-esteem to something else rather than your height – you’d suddenly have a number of possibilities how to feel better about yourself. Your situation wouldn’t seem so hopeless any more.

If you could say to yourself: I am good enough and lovable and amazing and special – just the way I am – life could be so much better.

Dear Maria,

you’re welcome. I am glad you acted quickly and already found a therapist and had your first session – that’s amazing! I hope you’ll be able to get the clarity and support you need in dealing with your issue. Write again whenever you feel like it, I’d be happy to hear more from you. <3

Dear Kibou,

thank you for sharing some more about your life.

Honestly speaking, some of the things I wrote in this reply, were simply done because of the things inquired in your replies. I do not mind sharing, but I also do not know as to how they matter to have been mentioned.

The reason I asked you about Japan is to try to understand what makes you happy. You said that thinking of Japan makes you smile, and now I understand that it’s related to Japanese cartoons that you liked very much as a child, and also to a Japanese friend you met while living in Cuba, whom you remember fondly, but lost connection with (These moments were shared with people dear to me, which with all I grew more apart with my constant moving and lack of communication.)

I guess Japan brings back pleasant memories of having a good friendship, feeling connected to someone, perhaps feeling like you belong. That’s something you rarely felt, since you and your family moved a lot. You shared how after you returned to your birth country, after 7 years in Cuba, your old school mates hardly wanted to associate with you, and that was very painful. (I had people pretend they did know me, or avoided me or neglect me upon returning; that is one of the things that left scars behind.)

You’ve also mentioned that you always excelled at school but didn’t really care if your performance dropped. However, when your peers started to laugh at you when you didn’t perform at your usual level, you stopped slacking off. Perhaps you wanted to be more approachable and more similar to them if you drop your performance, but it didn’t really bring you popularity, on the contrary, it brought you their judgment. Am I guessing this right?

You said something interesting about that experience:

I never blamed anyone for their behaviour, since I knew where they were coming from (many people share what’s on their heart with me and I do ask sometimes for clarification.) How to express I am hurting from other’s behaviour, while knowing their story has been hard for me; they are not bad people, they are hurt people who are more prone to hurt others and need time and healing themselves to change not so pleasant behaviour.

You’re saying that already at that age, as a school girl, you understood that they behave in hurtful ways because they are hurt people, and so it was difficult for you to be hurt about their behavior. That’s a pretty mature understanding for a teenager. I don’t know if yourself came up with that explanation, or you were told to be understanding towards people who hurt you because “they are hurt too”.

But what you did there was a rationalization: “I shouldn’t be hurt, offended or angry because these people themselves are hurt. I need to understand them and perhaps even forgive them”. Is this what you were taught by your parents, or how did this thinking formed in you while you were still quite young?

You also say you’ve healed the hurt from those betrayals:

Now I have found a stories for each drifting apart and value for each friendship I made. It still hurts those kind of experiences but those scars have healed if that makes sense.

Since you’re still suffering from a sense of abandonment, and loneliness, I wonder if you truly healed those wounds or have in part rationalized it?

You also say:

I tend to understand and empathise with others and logically understand how others weren’t possible to be emotionally there for me.

It is the same kind of thinking you displayed as a school girl: you understood your friends logically, but that doesn’t mean your wound isn’t still there. The wound happened when you were a child, and the inner child in us feels hurt and angry and betrayed. It’s still inside of you, but now covered up with layers of compassion and understanding. I’m not saying you haven’t done a lot of healing – because you have, obviously – just that there might be still some work to be done around healing the wound of abandonment, betrayal etc. And I guess this wound didn’t start with your school friends, but earlier.

You said something really important:

During the darkest time of last year, I wished there was somebody who would put me first, who would prioritize my needs first, but at the same time I knew that is not love (not meant in a romantic way).

This is the inner child in you speaking: “I wish there is somebody who would put me first, who would prioritize my needs”. It’s a legitimate need of a child, and I believe this need wasn’t met by your parents properly. So you’d need to heal your inner child and give it love and attention, and also allow it to express anger and disappointment at those who didn’t meet her needs properly. You cannot heal the abandonment wound without first getting angry (in a safe, therapeutic context) at those who abandoned you.

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