Dear Dafne,

happy belated Easter to you too!

Some days are hard to even want to get up & keep going. Especially during the family holidays when everyone reunites at one table.

I am sorry it’s hard for you sometimes, Dafne. Did you spend Easter alone?

I myself am feeling a bit better again, thank God. And it does seem my pain is affected by my psychology and the mental/emotional blocks I still have in me. It’s good to know that I have at least some measure of control of my pain – that I am not completely helpless.

Yes, actually everybody always agreed with how I felt about my father. Most of my family is not here anymore but as far as I remember, they could never get along. Even his own parents were not happy with his behaviour and his difficult character. It always had to be his way or no way. And if not, he got abusive & angry.

My mom was the only one trying to accommodate him, change him, give him too many chances. She denied the reality and sometimes didn’t want to hear my opinion and feelings. I suppose it is because she made a bad decisions in life because she was too much in love with him. It blinded her judgment and later she suffered as well. She might feel like it is her fault not listening to all the warnings around her.

Okay, this paints an interesting picture. So your father was a difficult man, and everybody around you (both friends and family) knew about it and acknowledged it. Everybody except the most important person in your life – your mother.

Your mother was the only one who tent to look away and delude herself that he would change. She not only gaslighted herself, but also you. She invalidated your feelings and your correct view of him (sometimes didn’t want to hear my opinion and feelings).

And she is doing it to this day:

She still pushes me to send him the birthday wishes, Easter, Christmas etc. I feel it’s not right.

No, it’s not right. She is pushing you to expose yourself to his abuse, to endure it. To be nice and loving to a mean and selfish person. It’s not right, Dafne, and I hope you can stick to your resolution to stop availing yourself to his abuse. To stop contact. To stop allowing his toxicity to harm you.

It wasn’t easy for you, dear Dafne, to grow up with a mother who taught you not to have boundaries and not to respect yourself. She didn’t have self-esteem and she taught you the same. Not only by example, but also by encouraging you to disregard your father’s abuse and still be kind to him. And she taught you not to trust your own feelings – because your feelings about him were right, but she dismissed them.

She was his enabler, in a way. She enabled the abuse, even if she herself didn’t commit it. And that’s why I can imagine how hard it was for you, because you must have felt very alone. With an abusive and neglectful father, and a mother who condoned this behavior.

It’s good though that the people around you, both friends and family, saw him for who he is. You said:

Most of my family is not here anymore but as far as I remember, they could never get along.

Do you have family members who are still alive, who did understand you and who you feel would validate your feelings? Because maybe it would make sense to get in touch with them again?

All my friends tell me to forget him. They don’t even want to talk about him. For them he is not worth it. He only wants a child to support him and his vision. So no, Tee I do not really have someone to share anymore.

I see… your friends don’t want to hear your complaints about him any more. They know who he is, and they know he’ll never change. So they don’t want to waste more time on talking about him, right?

Well, I understand them. They probably want the best for you, they’d like you to “move on”. But it’s hard to move on, with all the hurt in your heart. That’s why, if you have the need to talk about him, it would be better not to talk to your friends about him, but to a professional, a therapist. Because your friends can’t help you process and heal the pain, whereas a therapist can.

And I hope that talking about him here on the forum is helping you too, if not to process the pain but at least to understand it. So you are free to talk about him here…

Maybe I should just stop talking and thinking about him? Maybe this will help me to move on faster. Is that even possible?

As I said, when you talk about him, talk with the intention to heal. Don’t talk from the position of a helpless victim (which you indeed were as a child), but from a position of an adult who you are right now.

You are an incredibly empathic and wise woman, Dafne. You are able to change your life. You are able be free from the abuse, because you are able to recognize abuse. You are able to discern what love is, vs. manipulation. You can start trusting your feelings and intuition, because they are right. You can let that wise woman guide you, Dafne.

One of my friends had daddy issues as well but she coped in a different way. Just like you said it. She erased the memory of her father and never spoke about him again. She found a man who actually is much older than her and is happy to be like a father figure to her. He doesn’t mind at all. He understands her pain and wants to take care of her and love her. Is that a better solution for woman with those issues?

Well, it’s okay if they are both happy with this dynamic. If she is a little needy and he doesn’t mind the care-taker role. It doesn’t have to be a child-parent dynamic all the time, but sometimes, say if she starts worrying about something, he might be able to console her and reassure her that everything will be fine. That kind of thing. As long as they both are happy about it and neither of them is frustrated, it’s okay.

It is a time of hope, renewal & of new beginnings. I wish this season will bring us more relief from the emotional and physical pain.

I salute to that, Dafne! To hope, renewal and new beginnings! <3

Ciao SereneWolf 🙂

You’re quite emotionally strong and I admire your resilience to keep moving forward and managing this health anxiety. I hope it pays off.

Thanks, I hope so too!

just today I went to visit kindergarten with my sister and cousin, It’s mainly health checkup day for kids. But even there what I see? Comparison. Literally even for their body not just their smartness.

Was the doctor comparing the kids? Was he/she shaming those who are e.g. shorter and skinnier?

Thanks for the reminder! I appreciate it. But just today I have this uneasy feeling like fr what the heck do I actually want from life? I took a pen and journal notebook but still couldn’t figure out

It seems to me that this event (of kids being compared and possibly shamed?) re-opened a wound in you: that of being compared to others, not just by your parents but the entire society (it wasn’t only my parents, environment around me did play a big part as well. And I think it’s a huge societal issue).

And this maybe triggered a feeling of helplessness? Which made you ask yourself: What do I event want from life?

Because my guess is that the pain of being compared to others, which you re-experienced today, made you slip into the old false belief, which might go something like “There is no point in trying, I’ll never be good enough anyway”. And then in that state of hopelessness, you started questioning what you even want from life, because you suddenly felt weak to go for your dreams… Is this what perhaps happened?

Yes that’s why even good and proud moments feels dull sometimes

Yes, because the core wound (of not feeling good enough) is still there…

Hey SereneWolf,

My grandfather preciously. My grandfather was like in village head group. So he seen lot of people in lot of situations. He did helped lot of people though. But after a while he be like “people are there for their means” when they forget.
And the thing is it impacted me somehow but not on a deeper level. I still believe I should help people if I can and don’t expect anything from them in return. Even gratitude. I’m doing it just because I can and I want to. Even though I been around colleagues who thought that uplifting others means they would stay in lower class

I am glad your grandfather’s belief (that people are self-centered and don’t genuinely care about others) hasn’t affected you too much. And that you still choose to help others, rather than only look for your own self-interest. You are a kind and generous person, SereneWolf, even if you were exposed to this kind of messaging…

As soon as I got in college and more like nearly adult-teenage era I started seeing competition. And it was so bad like I felt all at once and started studying something just because it was considered “In Demand” But I had no interest and on top of that I felt competition from the classmates like they knew what they’re doing and also topping the class. And for the first time ever I had less marks in 2 subjects in my 1st semester. And failed in math in 2nd semester,

Okay, so you were top of the class in your elementary and high school. But when you chose a college which you had no interest in (you chose it only because it was “in demand”, promising good career opportunities and a good salary, I suspect), your grades started getting worse, and you even failed in math. Basically, when you forced yourself to do something you don’t love, you immediately did worse.

I think it goes to show that it is very important for you to do what you love and what is aligned with your values – because that’s where you can really thrive. I guess when you later chose another college, it was something you liked better and which is more aligned with you interests and preferences? And it has now lead you to a job which you really like (how it is going btw? have you finished with onboarding?)

Yes it was may be conditional even though all I thought parents love is always unconditional towards their children but I guess there always some expectations.

Maybe your parents told you they love you and that they do everything in your best interest (my mother certainly told me that), but it doesn’t mean it was like that in practice. If I got a B (instead of an A), my mother was displeased with me and would condemn me for not studying hard enough. Having all A’s was taken for granted (I was never praised for being an excellent pupil), but even the slightest “slip” was heavily criticized. So her love wasn’t unconditional. I didn’t feel loved in those moments, I felt rejected.

I guess you’ve experienced something similar with your father: if you were top in class, he was pleased with you and would buy you presents. If you were not the first, but still excellent, he was displeased with you, right? I guess this taught you that you have to always be the best, otherwise your father won’t be proud of you. His love and validation were very conditional. Basically sending you a message “I will only love you and approve of you if you are perfect. Anything short of that is not good enough.”

But It did impacted my emotional patterns like for giving or even accepting love.

Perhaps it taught you that you need to be perfect to be loved?

Something just occurred to me: your father expected that you be perfect in terms of academic achievements and career success. Whereas your mother expected you to control your emotions perfectly. To always put on a happy face and never show that something is bothering you.

So they both expected perfection from you, only in different areas. You couldn’t be totally yourself with neither of them, and I think that’s why you have trust issues in relationships.

You said:

Kind of yes I guess like trying to perfecting the relationship and my partner too.

You believe you need to work hard on yourself, because you are not good enough as you are. That’s your father’s conditioning: You need to be perfect (excelling in many things) to be loved and valued.

And then you also want to perfect your partner too. Your inner critic is critical not only of yourself, but of your partner too. We’ve already talked about it before. With your previous girlfriend, you got into a dynamic of trying to perfect her. The focus was on her and her flaws. And I think it prevented you from showing her your “imperfect” self, your vulnerable, less than perfect, and yet totally lovable self.

(The reason why you were afraid to show vulnerability could be because of your mother’s expectation to never show your emotionally distressed, raw, “immature” self.)

You are asking:

hurt how many more times until find the right person? Seems scary

Hm… it’s not really about finding the right person. Because you admitted that there was nothing really wrong with your most recent girlfriend, and yet you didn’t want the relationship. You backed off because for you, it’s scary, intimate relationships are scary…

And I think it’s because you believe you need to be perfect, both in terms of career/money earning ability (your father’s conditioning), and emotional “maturity” and strength (your mother’s conditioning).

And that IS scary!

If you believe that intimate relationship requires total perfection, of course it is intimidating. And hard work. And impossible to achieve.

But what if it only took for you to show up as you are? And let her show up as she is? Nothing more than that… no hard work, no pressure, no urge to perfect yourself (or her)…. Just letting yourself be, with all your good and bad sides? Because you are good enough…

What do you think? About adopting a new blueprint/new vision for an intimate relationship?

Dear Paradoxy,

as I am thinking about your situation, two main things come to mind. One is that she is accusing you, unfairly, of making her prostitute herself, and “ruining her self-esteem”.

She told you that she was heart-broken after you asked her if she was a gold-digger, and this made her sleep with a married man for money.

B also told me that she was heart broken and in pain cause of the break up, saying she felt abandoned by me

I’ve explained to you why this is bs, because no heartbreak can cause a normal person to humiliate themselves like that, unless they are traumatized and broken inside to begin with. Her reaction to your offense was disproportionate, and there is no way that a normal person would do what she did. She is blaming you and guilt-tripping you for something she should take responsibility for.

She is also blaming you (and your parents) that you ruined her self-esteem:

She also kept accusing me and my parents of being racists and ruining her life and self esteem etc by discriminating against her cause of her skin tone

First, nobody forces her to stay with you. She is the one begging for a second chance. If she believes you are ruining her life, she is free to go.

And second, at the age of 24, she is an adult, she either has self-esteem, or she doesn’t. And you can’t ruin it for her. Based on how she behaves, it seems that her self-esteem has already been ruined in her childhood and youth. That’s why she could sleep with a guy for money. That’s why she sees herself as a sex object and craves male attention. So again, it is very unfair to blame you for her lack of self-esteem or for “ruining her life”.

To summarize, B is blaming you and guilt-tripping you for something that is NOT you fault. She has wounds and self-esteem issues that predate you, but instead of admitting it and taking responsibility for it, she found someone to blame: you. She keeps transgressing (to use a Bible term), but instead of taking responsibility for her actions, she keeps blaming you. Very unfair. And abusive.

She is abusing you in two ways: one is by her hurtful actions, such an lying, cheating, sexually explicit behavior etc. And the other is by BLAMING you for it. So she is hurting you twice.

Another problem, which makes your conflicts more explosive, is your attitude towards women, which you adopted from your father, and which frankly is misogynist. It would hurt every woman to tell her that “most women are gold-diggers”. Or “women do stupid things, and it’s normal for them.” It is very offensive.

However, I don’t want to put the stress on that right now. That’s another topic. What I want to emphasize right now is that B is abusing you, not only by her actions, but by unjustly blaming you for those actions.

Can you see that?

Hi Beni,

Thanks, I need to hear this over and over.

You are welcome! You are welcome to take your time and reply at your own pace, as you feel the impulse from within.

Mhh, I wonder I actually am sick once a month an now since 3 weeks. Feeling exhausted, last week rather stiff, ill and headache this week more a cold, less dizzy.

Oh… so you’re usually sick once a month with similar symptoms? But now it’s been lasting for 3 weeks, with symptoms ranging from exhaustion, feeling cold, feeling stiff, headaches etc. Sorry about that :/

Could be that your immune system is out of whack. Have you seen a doctor, or you already know this state, so it’s not something to seek help for?

Do I get you right, you put more stress on your back like exercise and now it started hurting?

No, I haven’t actually exercised more vigorously, I haven’t done anything to cause it.

Maybe it is something like a flashback and you are more resilient and stable than you think.

Actually I’ve been examining myself, and it could be psycho-somatic (I always seek possible mental causes of physical symptoms). So I kind of know what might be causing it.

So yeah, you’re right, it’s probably not physical worsening (hopefully!), but more like a signal of something that I am not doing right in my life, a signal of a limitation of mine. And now it’s time to start addressing it.

Is it rather that you wanna see yourself in a certain role in life doing a certain action to validate your existence?

No, it’s not to validate my existence. I had that phase some years ago 🙂 At the time I thought I am not worthy, that my life has no importance, and that I can only make my life worthy if I do something that can help other people. I thought that would “validate” my existence.

Since then I’ve realized that I am worthy just because I exist, simply by having been born, and I don’t need to do anything to prove my worth. However, I still have the need for achievement – not to prove myself to anybody, but to share my gifts and talents – to simply “shine my light” in a more deliberate way, if you will. So it’s kind of the need for self-expression and self-realization in one, you might say 🙂

Yes, that’s it. Thanks for trying.

Okay, let me repeat it here again: you don’t know what your contribution (to the world) should be, and you want to pray for clarity on that.

My comment to that: how about listening within to what you want to offer to the world, rather than listening “without” (to a higher power to tell you)?

If someone does not reply on a forum or the phone within a time it’s easy to feel rejected. … And I noticed that for me it’s hard to accept that my action is maybe not the cause but reminds a person at her vulnerability. My system sees danger if I do not take action I can get into ambivalence then.

It can be painful to not do things. I feel helpless. It’s hard for me to let people wait.

It sounds like if you don’t do things others expect from you (or you believe they expect), you fear that the person might feel rejected, and it causes you pain. And you feel helpless because you don’t want to hurt them, but at the same time, you don’t want to do it either. So you are conflicted. You feel ambivalence, and perhaps you freeze in that neither-nor state, not wanting to do it, but not able to reject it either. Am I interpreting this right?

Thanks for asking Tee. Yes I do things in my pace, time and feel. It is like being a child and I think I need this type of space to flourish.

It sounds like a healthy thing: to allow yourself time and space to flourish, not judging yourself, not rushing yourself, but being like a good parent, or a good friend, to yourself.

Dear Paradoxy,

You are right that my parents did not need to crush the person who is having the suicidal feelings. But they did what they did and I consider that the past, something that I have moved on from a long time ago.

It is not the past unfortunately. The pain your spoke about and the feelings of emptiness and wishing you were never born, which you’ve shared here, are all the consequences of being treated like that by your parents. Your pain is current, it is still ongoing, even if the events happened quite a few years ago.

My father is not highly educated. Both of my parents only had a community college level basic education.

I was referring you what you said that your father has “a highly respected and high-earning job as a marine electrical engineer in cruise ships and cargo ships“. He has college education, as does your mother.

For someone with college education, living in the 21st century, they should know that when a child or a teenager has suicidal ideations, and even attempts suicide, is an alarm bell that something is going on in their psyche and that it should be carefully addressed. Berating and shaming their child in such a sensitive moment, instead of seeking professional help, is to me a sign of wilful negligence, I have to say. Their reaction is an example of severe emotional abuse.

What is worse is that your father had childhood trauma himself. You said:

He was … abandoned and belittled and treated like trash by his own family and distant relatives too, and he was traumatized by an incident when he was 5 where he was falsely accused of stealing 10 cents and was tortured for weeks with physical beating by his teacher until he had to admit to stealing to stop the pain, even though he did not steal the money.

You went on to say:

The trauma from that incident was so severe that I have seen him cry about it even now and he is almost 50 years old. But these harsh situations made him grow his resolve to be better than everyone who treated him poorly, to the point that he was the only person to have a highly respected and high-earning job as a marine electrical engineer in cruise ships and cargo ships, while everyone else had average engineering jobs or teacher jobs etc.

As a result of his severe childhood trauma, your father got better in terms of his career, his professional success, than any other member of his family, or perhaps even a wider community. However, his trauma unfortunately hasn’t made him more compassionate, neither towards himself nor his own son.

He clearly suppressed his pain and marched on, having no time for stupidities like emotions. He was of the conviction that men “do not have time to feel pain. We have responsibilities and other issues to worry about.”

And he believes that those who can’t simply shake off their pain and their trauma are idiots. If you are a man and you can’t clench your teeth in the face of pain and proceed with your responsibilities – you are an idiot. That’s approximately the message he has given you.

Can you see this?

And now, you are being drawn into the same kind of reasoning. At least one part of you is: the part who is making excuses for your father and saying that the best is to just press on and clench your teeth:

It is too late to be Godwin-the-child, I have a med degree to finish and I am too old to be behaving like a child. I should be focusing on my future career and etc. Med is already a pain on my behind so I do not have the time nor energy to share to Godwin-the-child.

You asked me how to heal. By acknowledging that there is a wounded part in you, your inner child, who is still very much alive and very much influencing you, even if you don’t care to admit it. And then getting in touch with him and his emotional needs, which have been suppressed and dismissed all these years.

Dear Paradoxy,

And due to that level of self control, I am able to lead a much more normal life, with less pain and suffering. It’s just everything is dull now. .. It’s like I literally feel nothing. No pain. No joy. No sorrow. No anger. Its like I am numb to all of it. Do you understand what I mean?

Yes, I do. I think that’s called dissociation. It’s a coping mechanism – how we cope with uncomfortable emotions. It can be okay for a short while, not to get overwhelmed. However it’s not good on the long run, because as you said, you feel numb. It’s like being a robot. You can function and complete your tasks, but you are not really living, because you’re not feeling anything.

The problem is that we cannot selectively switch off just the unpleasant emotions while keeping the pleasant ones – we have to switch it all off. But if we do that, it makes us less alive and less fulfilled.

My father never said that, I actually heard other men say it, but my father said it through his actions.

Okay, so he did send you that message.

Besides you should know it is a common stereotype that society built of us men. Men are these strong unwavering figures that never cry and women are these weak emotional creatures etc. (I am exaggerating a bit but you get the point).

Hmm, maybe it was like that 50-70 years ago in the modern Western society, and still is in other societies and cultures around the world. I don’t know where you live, but in the West, this stereotype is no longer valid.

But I did notice remnants of this stereotype in your writings. For example, you said this about B:

She displayed all the characteristics that I was looking for in a good wife, excluding the stupid things that most woman do, like overthinking and not listening etc, which I did not mind cause I knew it was normal for women.

This is a negative bias towards women: that women do stupid things, and that it’s normal for them. That’s an attitude that you probably picked up from your father, and basically, it’s male chauvinism. You saw B through that lens too. And you actually used it as one of the excuses for forgiving her, because she, as a woman, cannot help but do stupid things. I am not sure if you aware of this bias, but it is present in your writings.

That is the type of view that society has normalized, to the point that women just choose to leave their man the moment they see them cry, cause they see them as weak and etc.

I don’t know of this new “normal”, where women leave their man if he shows tears. For all I know, women are happy to have a partner who is in touch with their emotions. Where did you hear or see that women don’t want sensitive men?

Men should be allowed to feel pain, but it has been normalized that men shouldn’t feel pain. Men have to hide their tears, show a strong face whenever something bad happens. And unfortunately, I am a victim to that too.

It was like that in the old times. You did say that your parents are old school (It is just that their methods are a bit too old fashioned. They are too narrow minded to accept change in life style.) So I guess they’ve brought you up with this outdated stereotype about how a true man and a true woman should be.

And yes, you are a victim of that stereotype, specially the part where you as a man are not supposed to show emotions and vulnerability.

Besides, I do not plan to let anyone see me in my vulnerable state of misery that I am in right now. It is just better this way.

Yes, because your parents told you a man shouldn’t show vulnerability to anyone… But there is no true intimacy, emotional intimacy, without vulnerability. I believe that a good, loving husband should be able to show vulnerability in front of his wife. It doesn’t mean he is weak, but that he has a beating heart and that things affect him.

That is very true, but sometimes, for certain decisions to be made, you need to cut out your emotions. I would not have been able to detach from B if I didn’t shut out my emotions.

Good that you managed to do that, because your pain was really overwhelming. But you yourself said it made you numb. So it’s not a good state to stay in on the long run.

You can’t really heal in this numb state (you said “But now that she used up all her chances and made me break up with her, I am slowly healing.) True healing will only come if you process this pain, slowly but surely, in a safe, controlled environment (in therapy). We can’t really heal if we have suppressed emotions.

Emotions such as fear and love and anger can end up causing you to make the wrong decisions, B being the prime example. Despite knowing that what she was doing was wrong, her fear and love for her aunt made her go along with her plan. Look at where it got her.

Indeed, emotions can cause us harm. If we fall in love with a wrong person, it can cause us harm too. But is the solution not to fall in love at all? Or is it rather that we heal enough, so we can recognize who a good, healthy partner is, and who isn’t?

*correction: it started hurting for no apparent reason