Dear SereneWolf,

Omg yeah It wasn’t easy! and they tried lot of things to make me stay. But I was really stubborn about it and figured every answer to their worries. And still, they’d call me every day for more than two months.

It seems you were pretty resourceful, already at that age. And really self-confident in a sense, because you knew you could make it on your own, without your parents’ protection. The fact that they worried and called you every day is normal I think, because you were a minor when you decided to live alone… so I wouldn’t call that excessive worry.

In fact, I am thinking now that their biggest mistake as parents wasn’t excessive worry (because you sort of gave them the reasons to be worried 🙂 ), but rather, it could be the criticism and judgment that you grew up with. Feeling constantly criticized (e.g. your father was very harsh with you when you didn’t hand him the proper tool right away), always compared to others, perhaps always feeling that something is wrong with you and that you’re not good enough? Like, being seen not with loving, accepting eyes, but with strict, judgmental eyes, who always evaluate you and seek a reason to criticize you?

This seems to me the greatest wounding that you’ve experienced. I’ve experienced the same from my mother. She took my good results at school for granted, never praised me for that, and at the same time she looked for every opportunity to scold me. There was always something wrong with me, in her eyes… and so I grew up with the belief that there is something fundamentally wrong with me. My self-esteem was zero.

Children who grow up being heavily criticized develop the harsh inner critical voice (which we’ve talked about already), but they can also develop the outer critic, as the flip side of the inner critic. According to Pete Walker, the outer critic is our defense mechanism against getting hurt in intimate relationships:

“CPTSD typically include an attachment disorder that comes from the absence of a sympathetic caregiver in childhood. When the developing child lacks a supportive parental refuge, she never learns that other people can soothe loneliness and emotional pain. She never learns that real intimacy grows out of sharing all of her experience.

To the degree that our caretakers attack or abandon us for showing vulnerability, to that degree we later avoid the authentic self-expression that is fundamental to intimacy. The outer critic forms to remind us that everyone else is surely as dangerous as our original caretakers. Subliminal memories of being scorned for seeing our parents’ support then short-circuit our inclination to share our troubles and ask for help.”

The above is the excerpt from Pete Walker’s book “Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving”. It could be that you felt very unsafe and criticized when you showed vulnerability or weakness in front of your parents. This might have given you the message that being anything less than “perfect” means being judged and rejected. It also might have led you to believe that the person you are in the relationship with is there to judge you and criticize you.

You might even subconsciously believe that this is what relationships are all about: competition, who is better, who is more successful, who is more “perfect”. If so, you naturally want to either win in that competition (be the “more perfect” one, and judge the other person for her supposed deficiencies), or you want to leave the competition altogether (not be in a relationship at all).

Would you say this is true for you? I have more to say and I’d also like to answer your questions, but let me know if the above resonates with you?

Dear SereneWolf,

Bună Tee

Is that Romanian? Had to look it up but am still not sure…

You always give great examples. Thanks!

You’re welcome!

It was actually just recently few months ago. I started the swimming classis and after that I told them. So my parents wouldn’t argue with me.

Oh I see, it was recent. What would they argue with you? That you shouldn’t take swimming classes because it’s dangerous?

Heck they’re even worried that I’m letting a stray cat inside my place. They be like she might have diseases and blah blah blah.. I’m like I’ll go to the vet and give her vaccination. So, you don’t have to worry about that. Literally no one in my family grown up with a pet. So I did see that coming.

Yeah, it does seem they are a little overprotective. I wonder how they’ve survived you leaving home at the age of 16 and living alone, if they are so worried about you even to this day? How did they even allow it?

But it’s right I did act like an overprotective, critical father! Not all the time but still…

Yeah, and there might be a similarity with how your parents acted with you (and are still acting with you). Overprotective, trying to control you (although not succeeding), and doing it “for your own good”…

Or is it just like my parent thinks they still have to care about me like even though I’m not a kid anymore…

Yes, it does seem like that… that you tend to behave in romantic relationships a little bit like your parents behave with you…

Striving towards Perfection (specially with Humans) isn’t a wise thing to do I guess… and I tried to make them “perfect” the way I wanted even though at that time I just saw it as a care and concerned about their health.

Yeah, it’s pretty destructive for the relationship if you see the person as “lacking” and try to make them “perfect”. The person feels not good enough, whereas you put yourself in a superior position, and basically judge and criticize them for “underperforming”. Of course, you can say it’s all with a good intention, “for their own good”, but it’s not a healthy, equal relationship.

In a healthy relationship, we accept the person as they are – we don’t try to change them and mold them into something that we would like them to be. It doesn’t mean we need to tolerate and accept some of their bad habits, however fundamentally we don’t try to change the person to be something they are not. It’s like we look at them with love and acceptance, not with a measuring stick that says “not good enough”.

But it’s right I did act like an overprotective, critical father! Not all the time but still…  And after that I get exhausted and give up on the relationship.

Yeah, no wonder, because it’s like you’re in a war with the person, trying to make her do what you think is right for her, and she wouldn’t… And maybe you think she doesn’t love you if she resists, if she has different priorities and preferences than you? And so you conclude it’s not worth the trouble because things can’t be the way you want them to be?

External environment could be the big reason as well not just my friends but like everywhere I see it just that all be like it’s lot of mind games and complex – not like clear communication as it should be. So yeah it’s like a confirmation bias

Yes, it seems some of your friends tell you you need to “play the game”, which makes it look like some kind of competition, like who is going to outsmart whom… Whereas a healthy relationship is not a competition, but a loving and supportive co-existence (or something like that, I can’t think of a better definition now 🙂 ).

The way I perceive my past relationships. Like Did I even had a healthy relationship before that I’m longing for it again?

So because of these reasons, I just feel more hopeless and I just feel not excited for dating. Not more than Maybe just some time spending and physical pleasure.

I imagine you haven’t had a healthy relationship so far, because of those emotional wounds and programming that stem from your childhood. So no wonder you fear more of the same… But what you’ve experienced so far isn’t what a true relationship looks like. Trust that you too can have a healthy relationship, but you’d need to heal some of your patterns before that’s possible.

And yeah what about you? Did you celebrate valentine week?

Well, not particularly, I did get flowers from my husband. But we’ve never really paid attention to that date, so I don’t consider it important. But we do have a very good and strong relationship, and that’s what matters most 🙂

Dear norit,

I am very sorry about your father passing and you finding yourself in a very difficult situation.

It doesn’t always feel safe to leave her at home as she will fall over, or injure herself and not realise, or leave the oven on, among other things.

If your mother is dangerous to herself, is there a possibility to place her in an elderly home? Because it is a lot to ask from yourself and your brother to sacrifice your lives for your mother – when she doesn’t want to do anything to help herself, and is in fact denying that she has a problem.

I know it’s hard to do that with a loved one, because we naturally care and feel guilty for not helping them. But in this case, you’re not really helping her – because what she would really need is help with becoming sober. But she doesn’t want that, she wants to keep destroying her life.

What you’ve been doing so far is trying to soften the blows and minimize the consequences that she is inflicting upon herself. But unfortunately, you’re ruining yourself in the process too, and the result is a lose-lose situation for everyone involved, specially for you and your brother.

That’s why I don’t think it’s sustainable to keep caring about her, in a way that she dictates the rules and you’re just trying to do damage control. It’s exhausting.

Please do to seek help, perhaps first in a support group for families of addicts, like Brandy suggested. They may give you useful information about how to cope better and find a more sustainable solution for you and your brother.

Wishing you strength!

Dear Helcat,

I am glad that you feel heard and not alone in this.

I wish anita were more open to feedback and others’ point of view… hopefully this will change in the future…

I wish you all the best too, Helcat. And I appreciate your thoughts and prayers (insert praying hands emoticon here – I don’t know how to do it, the only emoticon I can produce is a smiley 🙂 )

Dear SereneWolf,

I wish I could tell you I am feeling better, but I am not unfortunately… I’ll let you know if there’s some progress finally…

Yes I know but his mother is good natured and nice with me. So I’ll try to present this matter clear and calmly as possible. Because another thing I noticed is that I think she’s the main decision maker, her husband is naïve and he’s mostly saying yes to her. It’s actually funny to see them talking sometimes

Okay… if you share about your own childhood and your own experience, that might have some weight and she might consider it. Also, you can say that nowadays children spend too much time on the internet, and it’s not good for their health, so actually nowadays parents should encourage their children to go play outside and not try to keep them indoors.

This occurred to me because I’ve recently seen a cartoon about old and new trends. One of the illustrations shows the Old trend: mother pulling her son back to the house because he’s been playing too much outside, and New trend: mother pulling her son out of the house, while he is glued to his smart phone 🙂

No. Not really. Because I even told her about my hypothyroidism, and she took it well. And in past there was times when even if I have a headache, she’d get really worried.

But as far as I can remember I didn’t tried to regulate her moods.

Well, if in the past she got worried about you for even as little as headache – that’s a lot of worrying. Remember, what matters is what happened in your childhood – that’s the imprint you’re living with – even if now she’s not worrying that much. What did you do when she’d get worried about your headache, do you remember?

I mean which mother doesn’t worry about her kids? So it’s obvious that she is worried sometimes and yeah in the past I tried to hide things from my mother because I was scared that she’d be worried because I was still just a high school boy going in wilds…

Sure, that amount of worry is understandable, and since you were doing some really wild stuff, it’s sort of obvious why you didn’t want to tell her… But you also mentioned that she was worried when you wanted to learn how to swim, in a swimming pool with an instructor (if I remember well?). That’s a bit of an excessive worry, in my opinion. How old were you then?

So I was thinking about emotional enmeshment, which I suggested as a possibility last time, but based on everything we’ve talked about so far, and how you behave in relationships, I don’t think this is the case with you after all.

Because like in relationship I care too much and even if they’re little careless about their health or things that affect them or make them worry it makes me worry 3x times more and I can’t focus on my things.

You’ve talked about this before – that you get “overprotective” i.e. controlling when you try telling your girlfriend that she should eat healthier, or have better sleeping habits. From what I’ve understood, you don’t just tell her “you should get more sleep, staying late is bad for your health”, and then sort of let it go, but you turn into this drill sergeant who is pushing her to eat healthier, sleep healthier, etc. That’s the same drill sergeant who sometimes turns on you (in the form of the inner critic), and sometimes on the people close to you (in the form of the outer critic).

So it seems to me that the “care” you show towards your partner has this overlay of criticism. And so you turn into this overprotective, critical father, who is watching his “daughter’s” every step, trying to “improve” her. You get so focused on her and her problems, that it consumes you completely and you can’t focus on your own life.

I think this type of dynamic is not emotional enmeshment, but more like that you’re focusing too much on her and her “wellbeing” (but in a bad sense, like an overbearing parent), and then you’re frustrated when she doesn’t want to take your advice. This then is frustrating to you and you rather give up, i.e. leave the relationship.

What do you think? Does this sound plausible?

Oh and kind of a funny thing happened on valentine’s day. One of my friend’s doctor proposed me… It was really bold move for her.

Yes, it was! But you know you don’t need to accept her marriage proposal, right? 🙂

But to be honest I’m not putting up any high expectations. Go on a date, get to know her a little bit and then maybe something…

Exactly! No rush… If she wants to rush things, please know that you have the right to say No. Even if she doesn’t like that…

Dear Katrine,

Only now that someone spoke up, she is also being harassed by my manager.

Oh wow – the person who reported the head chef is now being harassed by your manager? Do you mean the top manager, who is friends with the head chef? Or your immediate manager (who was punched in the face recently)?

I can still get mad at him for the way he’s acting.

Yeah I can imagine, because it is annoying… However, I am thinking that it might be easier for you if you actually accept that he is like that – awkward and unable/unwilling to talk to you (actually I am not sure how to characterize him, so this is best I’ve got). But anyway, I think it might help to accept that he is like that and to stop expecting a different behavior from him.

I don’t necessarily want to compare him to your sister, but with her, the best “cure” is to stop expecting a different (kinder, less selfish) behavior from her. If you know what you’re dealing with, it’s easier to prepare and get through it. So I am thinking that perhaps if you stop expecting him to be different, it might actually help?

We are gonna plan to go out and do something when our schedule allow it and I’m really looking forward to it.

I am so glad!

I will continue to look for a therapist and I will finish reading the book Pete Walkers book about Complex PTSD.

Great! Pete Walker’s book is on my list too…

Dear Helcat,

thank you for clarifying, I understand it now… I am sorry you had to go through that. You did go through a lot of trauma growing up. I am glad that eventually, social services did get involved.

I also understand why it was triggering for you that anita was so shocked when she heard about your trauma, when it wasn’t even the entire abuse that you went through. It is upsetting… But I hope that you’re feeling less upset about it now?