Dear lk09,

good that you knew about his crush and could talk it through with him. I could see your sister’s reaction in a bit different light now, because she might have been concerned about you, to be in a relationship with someone who behaved rather foolishly with her, knowing that she was engaged. Perhaps she wasn’t motivated just by jealousy but also by real concern that you’re getting yourself into trouble with this volatile man. Has he apologized to her for his behavior? Has he done anything to mend the situation and assure her that he has serious intentions with you and something similar won’t happen again?

Dear noname,

I feel the need for another, not necessarily a partner just another person or people to hold space for my grief. The isolation is my biggest enemy. And I’m tired of being told it’s my fault I feel this way, i just need to change my perspective or do this or that.

When we’ve been so emotionally deprived as children, as you have been, we get stuck and identify completely with our wounded inner child, and it feels really difficult to get out of it. It’s like trying to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. The wounded child needs a compassionate adult to help it process its hurt and get unstuck. This compassionate adult is often a therapist, who can offer mirroring, compassion and understanding to the person, and help the person grieve their losses – everything they haven’t received from their parents and all the pain they had to live through.

With the help of a therapist, you’ll learn how to slowly disidentify from your wounded inner child and see also the adult side in you, the side which is capable of e.g. helping others compassionately, like you are capable of. So strengthening your adult self – which is present but weak – would be very important, and then bringing the adult self into interaction with your wounded inner child, to give it the missing experience of being loved and cared for. That I see as a plausible way to healing.

Do you have a therapist with whom you can do the inner child work?

DearlpkR09,

I don’t know if this is a coincidence, or the Indian man Dpk, who in  the meanwhile changed his profile name to Kpd, is actually your boyfriend?? Because his story is incredibly similar to yours – in all of its elements, only seen from his perspective. It would also explain why he is so obsessed with getting your sister’s approval. This man, Kpd, had a crush on the older sister and expressed it to her (while under the influence of alcohol) even though he knew she was engaged at the time. After several months he realized he didn’t like her at all because she was bossy and dominating, and even started detesting her. About 6 months later he started dating her younger sister. The older sister created a “ruckus”, for his unethical behavior, and turned all his friends against him. They all started saying it was wrong of him to pursue the younger sister. He started feeling guilty, asking for breaks in the relationship, and now recently has broken up with her for good.

If this is your boyfriend who’s asking for help here, that’s fine, however it would be important that that’s cleared – whether it’s him or not.

Dear noname,

I believe there are two ways you could feel loved: 1) one is by giving love to your inner child (being the compassionate parent to your wounded inner child), and 2) if No1 isn’t working because you’re unable to give any love to yourself whatsoever and cannot be a loving parent to your inner child, you could ask God to fill you with love.

Are you religious, noname? Pleading God to fill me with his love is what helped me to get that first “dose” of love and nurturance, which filled my heart and allowed me to start loving myself, little by little. Opening myself to the love of divine parents is what helped me cross that bridge to loving myself.

Dear Neverdyed,

you’re welcome. No need to worry about popping up only when you need help. That’s what this forum is about – people asking for help, and then others hopefully answering if they feel they can help in some way. That’s different than being in a relationship, where constancy and dedication to each other is important.

Back to that pattern, if I can’t recall where it stems from in my childhood, would you suggest “persuading” myself to believe that I’m innocent?

Perhaps the pattern has to do with your mother accusing you of being selfish, and you believing her? I remember we talked about it a while ago…  Try to list everything you feel guilty about in your life (perhaps you can share some of that here), and then we can see how it may be related to your childhood.

Yeah, many things in this world don’t seem fair. But if we focus only on the bad stuff, we can lose our minds.

It can’t all be bad, it can’t all be just so random. I am die hard atheist, but that doesn’t I don’t accept the idea of things we do not understand. I simply refuse to see it as some playground for a higher being.

I believe that too – it’s not all bad, and probably it’s not random either, at least I hope so. What we can do is do our best and then hope for the best. There are many factors we cannot influence, many things that can go wrong, that’s why we need hope. That’s why I am talking about hope so much… because without it, it’s so hard to move ahead.

There is a saying in Russian, “A dog is only mean when it lives a shitty life”, which is true in part. I’ve had a bad 5+ years and I feel like a beaten dog right now.

I agree with that saying. But it’s not just the last 5 years that’s been bad for you, but a lot of your childhood and youth. And this is what really determined you and your life experience now. You’d need to work on those childhood wounds, Felix. I know you’re seeing a therapist, so that’s cool. But anyway, you’d need to meet that boy and start to love him, to love yourself, in  order to truly move forward.

You say you don’t know how to love yourself:

I don’t know how, considering I hate my self quite a bit, but I will learn.

You’d need to get in touch with that inner child who was abandoned and neglected, and love him. Give him the love he deserves. Because I guess you do believe that little boy deserves love? He’s your way out and your strength, Felix.

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

Dear Neverdyed,

good to hear from you! I’m fine, thanks.

My boss showed up looking upset, and I guessed it’s because of me even without obvious reasons.

I said again because I often think like that, and now I wonder what I can do to improve the issue in addition to find out why I tend to act like that.

First, it’s good that you’ve noticed it, and also that you’ve noticed it’s a pattern that comes up in similar situations: that you’re blaming  yourself. It most probably stems from your childhood, because the child always believes it’s their fault if the parent is unhappy or upset. With your boss you feel the same, because he’s an authority figure, so he evokes similar feelings of wanting to please him and get his approval, or avoid his judgment. He might have been upset because something totally unrelated to you, but you took it on yourself, believing it’s your fault.

What you can do is be aware of the pattern, and also work on understanding the family dynamic that led to this pattern. How did your parents made you feel guilty, even when you were completely innocent? You’d need to understand that it wasn’t your fault and refuse to take the blame on yourself.

I will compromise, but to a point.

That’s good – keep your minimum  standards, because otherwise you won’t be happy.

I am asking the universe to help me find something, but I am not expecting anything.

Dare to expect and hope. The universe might have something really good in store for you!