Dear Katrine,

It’s really good to hear. I think it’s partly because of all the stressors that came all at once that really activated those old wounds that haven’t been healed yet. I’ve isolated more stopped eating and sleeping which definitly doesn’t make it easier to recognise when you start reacting to something from the past. My brain been constanly scanning for threats, I have been a lot more aggitated and reactive than two months ago, I am getting better now though.

Yes, his rejection hit you hard. It probably confirmed those false beliefs that you’re worthless and that nobody cares about you. And when X failed to invite you to go for drinks with them, it was another blow and another “confirmation” of this same false belief. It felt like total rejection – not just by him but by your friends too.

But I hope that you’ve realized in the meanwhile that X and Y aren’t against you and haven’t rejected you, but that on the contrary they were supportive and kind. And that the fact that they sometimes don’t invite you to those parties doesn’t mean they don’t like you or think less of you, but just that they’ve figured that you’re not a party person and don’t always fancy going out.

Just a couple of days ago him and Y were talking next to me about new years eve, she said oh you are going abroad, he said that he wasn’t sure anymore. She then said she wants to celebrate with a close group of friends and I fear that they are gonna celebrate together as a group without me. New year’s eve is my birthday and one that activates a lot of old wounds, celebrating without any friends but with my parents and their friends. That is really really hard, being without friends on your birthday and knowing that everybody else are celebrating that day with their friends, is extremly hurtful. And seeing them talk hurts a lot.

OK, so what stops you from celebrating this New Year with X and Y and other friends? Are you expected to go home for holidays and celebrate with your parents?

I’m also mad at myself for the times I had a change to spend time with him, but let my anxiety win. Like the first time he asked me to the bar and I left. He wasn’t flirting with her but I was jaloux and I was afraid that maybe I read him wrong. Or not having a beer with him before the party, or the turkish restaurant, or when he left his hat at my house I really wanted him to come pick it up so we had some alone time, but I was afarid of rejection so just told him that I would bring it to him. I need to forgive my self for not being better at handling my anxiety in those situations, I feel like my anxiety defeeded me.

It seems you’re blaming yourself for the fact that he rejected a relationship with you. You’re blaming yourself for e.g. leaving the bar without saying goodbye, however the truth is that this hasn’t stopped him from being interested in you and wanting to spend time with you. Because after that “gaffe” in the bar, he came to your housewarming party (after which he gave you a long hug), he invited you to a pub after work one evening (where you tasted each other’s beer), he came to X’s housewarming party…. If he really was repelled by your anxiety, or your awkwardness, he wouldn’t have shown interest in you after that incident in the bar.

He would have avoided you instead of seeking you out.

So I am almost sure that he wasn’t repelled at all by your awkwardness. It didn’t stop him at all.

And finally, you even apologized for your awkward behavior and expressed that you liked him. So you’ve attempted to repair whatever he might have misunderstood.

Therefore, you have absolutely no reason to blame yourself. It’s not your fault that he rejected a relationship with you. It’s most probably his own fears and insecurities (e.g. fear of intimacy). But definitely NOT your fault. Can you see that?

Regarding him I’m shifting between missing him (I even tear up and it’s so stupid) and getting really angry with him and wanting to just cut him off and ignore him.

I understand your feelings, Katrine, because his behavior is weird. He is hot and cold, and his behavior is confusing. However, I think that at this point it would help you if you accepted his decision (to not get involved romantically with you).

Accept it, and at the same time don’t blame yourself for it. Because it’s not your fault.

I think if you could change your attitude and not see it as your fault or as a “proof” that something’s wrong with you, it would be much easier to handle.

Because then you could decide what kind of relationship you want with him (apart from a romantic relationship, which he doesn’t want, at least for now). Maybe you’d still like to talk to him when he is in your vicinity? Or maybe you’d want to reply to his message about anxiety, because anxiety is a common topic and you might be able to support each other? (“we have a lot in common and with us both having anxiety we could have been good support for each other”.)

Of course, you don’t have to have any kind of relationship with him, if you don’t want to. But I think it would be much easier for you to handle the whole thing if you 1) accepted his decision, 2) stopped blaming yourself for it, and 3) changed your attitude to one of self-love and high self-esteem, which would make you less anxious and less powerless in interactions with him.

What do you think?

Dear humour,

the notion that anger is a useful signal came from Dr. Henry Cloud, a clinical psychologist, who often uses the Bible to explain psychological concepts. In his youtube video “Anger is a signal, not a solution“, he explains that it’s okay to feel anger, but that we should first examine it before we react. So feeling anger doesn’t mean acting aggressively, in ways that hurt others. Not at all.

I’d link the video here but tindybuddha doesn’t like links. But if you go to youtube and look for the title, you’ll find it. I highly recommend it because I think it relates to your situation.

As for the topic of purpose, I also believe that looking for purpose outside of ourselves, i.e. detached from our innermost being, as Joseph Campbell put it, will not lead us to happiness and fulfillment. But we need to be in touch with our “innermost being”, i.e. our true self. And for that, we need to know our values, our preferences and our boundaries too.

Ooops, something happened with formatting, let me try again:

Dear humour,

You’re welcome. I am glad that you don’t mind my prodding 🙂

You’ve said that your go-to emotion is usually anxiety:

Since I have a slightly turmoiled background, I don’t understand the so called “normal” stuff. My go to quality is usually anxiety.

I am anxious in situations that does not require me to be.

So, in situations that would require a different reaction, you still react with anxiety, right?

It occurs to me that among those might be situations that would require assertiveness… I am saying this because of what you wrote in 2016 and 2017, which anita kindly put together in a previous post:

I’ve had a challenge with being assertive because I feel that I might ‘hurt’ people. I take the hurt upon myself without speaking out. Once I am assertive, I get all sensitive thinking I hurt the other person (Oct 2016)

I want to be able to take care of myself and be less of a martyr. I am getting frustrated with regrets, things not turning out the way I wanted it to, my efforts not being recognised, me not able to meet my own expectations, people pleasing. I’ve had enough! (January 2017)

You wrote back then that you’ve got a problem with assertiveness, because you believe that if you’re assertive, you will hurt the other person. So you rather don’t speak out…

This might be still happening at the place your work, when your colleagues put you down, and you don’t say anything. Instead of reacting in some way, defending yourself, you rather contract and the only emotion you feel is anxiety?

If so, this anxiety – which is your go-to emotion – became a guardian to your anger. It keeps the anger (which would be a natural reaction) in check.

This anger would tell you what is acceptable and what is not. It would signal that your boundaries have been crossed. But because you don’t want to feel it, you also don’t know what is acceptable and what is not. And as we’ve discussed earlier, this means you also don’t know what is “normal”, what is a normal reaction in a given situation.

Does this seem plausible? That anxiety may be blocking your anger, which would otherwise signal you that your boundaries are somehow being violated or that your desires aren’t respected?

Dear Julia,

I hear you, and I think I understand what happened. Your parents were the type who did the bare minimum in their life. They complained about everything rather than try to change something. They had jobs they didn’t like, did sports they didn’t like (if I understood that part well?). Everything extra, including taking you to extracurricular activities, was too hard for them.

It seems they almost sabotaged both your soccer training and your dance training, because they only took you once, and since it “didn’t work”, they stopped trying. Your mom didn’t inquire where the proper gym is, so you could go next time. She just gave up immediately. She was probably relieved that she doesn’t need to take you there.

It seems that neither of your parents understood how much such activities mean for the child – they just did what was easiest for them, which was to sit at home and not be bothered. It seems they suppressed their own inner child too, because they never discovered their own creativity and joy of life.

Not surprisingly, you adopted some of their behaviors, such as “doing the bare minimum” with your master’s degree:

I am just putting enough effort into it to pass. I don’t work my butt of. I choose easier courses, I just do what is needed. I don’t even try to understand some things. I just gave up.

You are judging yourself for being like that, and I believe you’re also judging your parents for “making you” like that:

I was a clever and creative child and I guess I needed extra input. … It just stings when I think of this missed opportunities and when I think of other children or friends who were encouraged by their parents to follow their passion and were actually helped. I couldn’t even try to find my passion.

Maybe your reasoning goes something like this: “I am irreversibly damaged by the lack of opportunities to develop my talents and follow my passion, therefore I am destined to be a slacker like you [your parents] and live a dull, boring, mediocre life. Because of you, I am destined to be less than I could have become.”

Would you say that this is close to how you think and feel?

If so, the solution would be to stop blaming them, to know that you’re not irreversibly damaged, and that you can still start exploring your talents and your passion. Even if you’re now a mother and have less free time, you can still play with your own creativity.

You can take a dance class, or whatever seems exciting. You can find time for yourself, even if it’s just once a week, to PLAY and have fun exploring your creativity. Your creativity is not lost, it’s just buried a little and needs dusting off. So nothing is irreversibly lost, it’s still in you.

But you’d need to stop blaming your parents and forgive them for being “slackers”. And not expect them to change. Instead, give yourself permission to play and have fun and do the things that they haven’t encouraged you to do. Take yourself to a dance class, and have fun! 🙂

What do you say?

Dear humour,

motivated by anita’s latest reply to you, I would like to ask if you’re okay with me “prodding” and trying to look a bit deeper into what’s bothering you. If you don’t feel comfortable, please say so. If you would like to explore it a bit more, let me know. I will respect whatever you prefer at the moment.

Dear humour,

I am definitely after more happiness, fulfillment, career success and so on but I either don’t know what to do to attain it or I don’t know how much is enough.

OK, let me ask you this: you know when you’re hungry, right? And you know when you’re full, when you don’t need more food in your system? If so, it means that you’re in touch with your physiological needs, such as eating, sleeping, etc.

However, it seems that you’re not in touch with your emotional needs. You are in touch with the needs of others – and you like to help them (I am grateful for my ability to be of help to others). However, you don’t know what YOU yourself need.

For example, do you need a hug, do you need to be talked to nicely, do you need to be seen and heard, do you need to be respected, do you need to be acknowledged…. all those are our core emotional needs. And it seems you have suppressed them in the course of your growing up, because you felt you needed to meet the needs of your family first.

Because the child – a capable, intelligent and strong child – believes that he can help their parents feel better, make them happy, make them less sad, or make them less angry… The child believes he has that kind of power, and so tries to meet his parents’ emotional needs, instead of his own.

In fact, he suppresses his own needs. He says to himself : “I’ll be fine”, “I don’t need much”, “I shouldn’t disturb my mother with my problems, she is so burdened”, “I shouldn’t make my mother any more sad, she is so weak and fragile”. Etc etc.

You see? You focus all your attention on your loved ones, and almost completely disregard your own needs. And it has been going like that for years and years…. The result is that you don’t even know what you need, or what you want.

I am definitely after more happiness, fulfillment, career success and so on but I either don’t know what to do to attain it or I don’t know how much is enough

Before you can actually set some goals for success and fulfillment in either professional or personal arena, you would need to get in touch with your core emotional needs. You would need to turn your attention inwards, rather than outwards.

We can talk about it more, if this resonates…

Dear farnaz,

you’re welcome!

i am stronger now and i prefer to be alone than in bad company

You’re right! Better be alone than get involved with bad people out of desperation.

i have a question for you , how many of people who you needed to forgive for any reason are still in your life ?for me most of them gone for good .

Well, my mother is one such person. She is very critical of me and likes to blame me while refusing any responsibility of her own. As I have been working on myself, I’ve put up some defenses and boundaries, to protect myself from her. About a year ago I complained about a physical pain I had, and she accused me of being a hypochondriac and used the opportunity to send some more criticism my way. So she used my vulnerability and my honest sharing to hurt me. That’s when I decided I’ll never again be vulnerable around her, and I’ll never again expect any empathy from her.

But we do stay in a superficial contact. In fact we rarely speak nowadays because I live in another country, and I mostly speak with my father on the phone. So our contact is minimal but it still exists.

I’ve also forgiven my father, who was her enabler and failed to protect me from my mother’s toxicity. But he hurt me much less than she did…

And I’ve also forgiven a relative of mine, who is a fun person to be around, but sometimes doesn’t care about other people and only cares about her own needs. But I don’t want to lose a friendship with her, so I decided not to expect much from her, but to enjoy her company when we meet once or twice per year.

I actually don’t believe people who were deceitful would stay once you saw through them.

Yes, deceitful people don’t like to be “seen through”. Fortunately I’ve never had experience with deceitful people, only with very critical people (my mother). But in both cases, we need to set boundaries to protect ourselves…