Dear Javier,

I hope you get at least a partial functionality in your left arm. God speed to you!

I imagine it’s hard being alone, without your family’s support, but what matters the most now is that you find yourself, slowly but surely, putting one foot before the other, living day by day… Things will get better, just keep at it!

Dear ginn,

I always have plan after I quit my job, but once I quit it, I’m too lazy to execute the plan. Probably I need to deal with laziness and procrastination too.

How feasible or realistic is that plan? Earlier you said:

Here’s the repeated pattern, resigned my job to stay at home hoping for doing something bigger to change my life or the world.

If your plan is to do something big that will “change the world”, no wonder you feel overwhelmed by it. Perhaps the first thing would be to evaluate how feasible the plan is, is it just “a pie in the sky”, or it’s feasible but you need to break it down into smaller steps, make an action plan etc…

Dear ginn,

thank you for your kind wishes. I wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year as well!

The list you came up with is great – very well done! I don’t think you are missing anything – those are all great points to develop a healthy and compassionate relationship with yourself. I think they can help you a lot in situations like this:

Another example is when I was working part time at high school, I couldn’t find a joy from it, then I simply did my work and made a lot mistakes. I was so scared that my boss would find out and fire me, so I decided to quit it before he find out.

If you tell yourself that it’s okay to make a mistake, you won’t start panicking and catastrophizing, believing that you deserve to be fired. You can tell yourself that it’s human to make mistakes, and that you aren’t a bad or hopeless person for having made a mistake. You can decide to pay more attention next time, but without feeling bad about yourself.

Or, if you feel your current job isn’t the ultimate fulfillment of your dreams, you can be aware of that and aspire for something else, but you don’t need to rush and quit your job immediately. Instead, you can apply the “Slow down and don’t rush for big goals” motto. Which may mean that you stay at the same job for the time being, while you are exploring your options. You don’t quit impulsively, in a rush, but when you’ve figured out what to do next.

Yes, I feel free to be completely honest and show my vulnerable with my therapists. It just the fees is hard for me to continue with them.

I am glad you’ve got a good therapist, and I hope you won’t need to quit the sessions, because it would be great to keep the momentum going and keep working on your personal goals. Perhaps a part-time job would be an option? It doesn’t have to be a dream job, but just something temporary, that helps you pay for the therapist and allows you enough free time to explore your passions and interests, i.e. your future career options. How does that sound?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Tee.

Dear Canadian Eagle,

in my experience, we can only let go if we have forgiven ourselves and the other person, and learned the lesson from the failed relationship. How do you feel about your past relationships? How do you feel about yourself, i.e. the other person? If you’d like to share some more, you are welcome…

Dear Ryan,

My mother is still quite reserved. I did some Christmas shopping with my father when I was home, and he told me that my mom is typically stressed and sad during the holidays. Likely due to her poor relationship with her parents. To your point, I certainly feel that my mother’s detachment and cool demeanor (at times) led me to believe that I’m not good enough for another.

Yes, because if the child cannot make their mother happy, if she is often sad and depressed in spite of all the love the child is showering her with – then the child concludes that something is wrong with them. That the problem is in them, not in their mother.

One consequence of that is that you don’t feel good enough. You’ve expressed that notion many times before here.

Another consequence of having had emotional trauma is that as adults, we are attracted to people who remind us the parent who hurt is. We hope that this time around, it will be different, and that we will finally get the love we crave for. That’s all unconscious, we aren’t aware of those patterns, but still, the craving for a certain type of person is there.

You started this thread pining for your work colleague, who I believe is a person who reminds you of your mother. You often spoke about her having her walls up and not letting you see her true self. This is what you wrote about her:

She was safe and so welcoming…but only to a point. She would often text and call, and when I was with her, I did not feel like I was not wanted there. Yet, there was a distance between us. Her own “walls” she kept up in this brief relationship. There is much I did not know about her, and much that I was not permitted to know about her.

And then you’ve realized that you yourself used to do the same thing to your previous girlfriends – erecting walls and not letting them near you:

I think what is frustrating is that I see in her what I used to do in relationships:  Fearful of judgement or disappointment, I was unwilling to let my partner in by maintaining or fortifying the walls, so that they never really knew the “real me.” I can see that reflect in her so clearly now. She enjoys her time with me, cares for me, and is attracted to me; however, due to her perceived flaws or fears, she keeps me at a distance, so she protects herself and controls the relationship. This, based on my experience, makes the other person anxious and walking the tightrope to either a deeper relationship or falling and being hurt.

You are now doing the same thing to your current girlfriend – you’re keeping her out and withdrawing. Since she is available and open to you, since she isn’t erecting walls towards you – you aren’t interested. Were she rejecting and pushing you away, you would be interested, I am almost sure about that.

You see the pattern? Those who don’t want you, you crave for. Those who do want you, you don’t want.

I believe this is all caused by your emotional trauma with your cold and distant mother. I don’t think you’d need to explore further what exactly happened in your childhood (by means of hypnotherapy), since I believe this should be enough to work on in therapy.

I think the wound you’ve experienced is emotional neglect: you mother not showing enough love, appreciation and interest in you, since she was suffering from the consequences of her own childhood wounds. She wasn’t emotionally available to you, and it always felt as if there is a wall around her heart, that you couldn’t get in. She didn’t show you her true self, and she probably wasn’t interested in your true self either.

And so now you are craving to be truly seen by a specific type of woman: a type who is emotionally guarded and unwilling to let you inside of her walls. You want to see her and be seen by her, to share your deepest self with her. But she refuses. That’s what happened with your colleague.

Your current girlfriend is open and receptive, she would like to share her deepest self with you, but that’s not attractive to you.

 It’s been a largely lonely road for me thus far and I do not want to end up alone in life.

I understand, and I hope you too can see why it has been lonely… because of this pattern you are stuck in. You’d need to heal the wound of emotional neglect, inflicted by your mother, if you want to maintain a healthy relationship, where both parties are equally keen on each other, and there is no unrequited love.

Dear ginn,

I would just like to add something else, which I think is important. You said:

Here’s the repeated pattern, resigned my job to stay at home hoping for doing something bigger to change my life or the world.

The desire to do something important and “change the world” is very familiar to me. I had the same desire in the past, and I can tell you that it stemmed from my low sense of self-worth. I believed I needed to do something big, so I would finally feel worthy. It wasn’t a conscious thought, but it was still driving me unconsciously.

Like you, I always dreamed about big things, but never really did any of them (Unfortunately, all the thoughts just in my mind, no actions are taken.)

I never felt capable enough. I felt stuck, like you, between big dreams and no realization. The reason for that pattern is low self-esteem and the need to prove your worth, both to yourself but mostly to your parents.

Dear ginn,

you are welcome.

I know my dad shouldn’t do that, but it’s the way he talks because it runs in family blood (my grandpa).

Our parents often repeat their parents’ mistakes. My mother brought me up similarly to how her mother brought her up… with lots of criticism and very little empathy. Your father and grandfather sound the same…

Even though I’m grown-up now, he still criticises me when I make mistakes. I believe his behaviour has had a big impact on me, slowly accumulating from a young age, and subconsciously has taken a toll on me.

It’s good you’re realizing that your father’s behavior affected you, and still affects you badly. It is what caused your low self-esteem, i.e. the sense that you aren’t good enough.

You say your parents support you in everything (My parents are always supportive for everything I want to do in my life). However, it seems your father has only been supportive if you are winning, if you are strong and fearless, if you are not afraid. But he hasn’t been supportive if you are losing, if you feel weak and afraid, if you feel confused and are lacking direction. In those situations, from an early age, he had no empathy and understanding for you. Although such situations are an important part of life. We are all vulnerable, and the worst thing we can do is to try to suppress or “defeat” our vulnerability.

Brene Brown gave an amazing TED talk on vulnerability (The Power of Vulnerability), please check it out. She explains why vulnerability is so important. She goes as far as to say that “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change”.

Feeling weak and vulnerable is really sucks.

It sucks because you were made to feel weak and useless, and by extension, unworthy of love, whenever you felt vulnerable. You received a wrong message…

Actually I’m learning to stop thinking negative thoughts and allow myself to be weak and vulnerable.

It’s great that you have started doing that!

But when I tell myself that it’s okay to fail or make mistakes, my inner self denies it and tells myself that if you do this way, you can do better because you’re weak and that’s why it happens.

Your inner self is your inner critic, which is the internalized voice of your father. This voice pushes you to be strong, so you would be loved by your father. I think this is its main motivation.

If you start telling yourself a different story – that vulnerability is not a weakness, but in fact an asset and a precondition for a healthy personality – you might notice that this inner critic isn’t so loud any more…

I was overwhelmed by my own emotions and had panic attacks. I couldn’t even control my thoughts and forgot to tell myself I should stop. I guess I need more practice and can’t hope that I will change my mind in a short time, right?

Yes, it takes time and practice to tame our inner critic. You would need to develop a positive inner voice too, as a counter-part to the inner critic. It would be like an inner cheer-leader, or an inner compassionate parent, who has a lot of empathy and understanding for you, specially when you feel weak and useless. Have you perhaps gotten in touch with that voice too?

Dear aphroitte1,

I’ve became so distant because finally after so many years I realized my worth, I gained small self respect and confidence and I am braver that before. And I know that bothers him. Because I am saying no to his bad behaviour and that will be the deal breaker for him. I am just happy that I am self conscious now about a lot of things and I am not blind and thinking oh, he loves me. No, he doesn’t. Even if he did in some point, his love hurt me. It was not that love that will make me grow, be happy and healthy. And I want that for me. My priority is being myself and happy and finally with peace.

I am so happy that you’ve realized that he doesn’t truly love you, and that you won’t be allowing to be treated with such disrespect any more!

I’ve always fantazised about having kids with him etc. but growing kids with someone so close-minded and patriachial who doesn’t respect me and love me the way I should be loved would be equal to murdering our kids. I don’t want my kids to see unappreciated bad love in front of them and to think that is okay. I want to be the cycle breaker in my own parents patterns and in my love relationships.

This is also a huge realization! You want to break the cycle of generational trauma, you don’t want your children to witness an unhappy marriage, where the father doesn’t respect the mother and treats her poorly. I applaud you for being determined to change the course of your life for the better, to stand up for yourself, to not tolerate lesser treatment, and by doing that, to also show a good example to your future children.

Your boyfriend was indeed not just treating you poorly, but it was almost emotional torture, e.g. the situation you described on the New Year’s Eve 2 years ago:

it was day before new years eve, first of all he didn’t call me to say that he had arrive home safely, secondly he was delaying the answer about celebrating and he just said okay we are going to make something up tomorrow. He knows that I am not that type of person who would make plans 5 to 12 because it annoys me and it was also frustrating because my parents were asking me where we will be celebrating and I couldn’t give them an answer. So fast forward 31 December came and he slept till 4 p.m. i was waiting for him to get up. So when he texted me that he is awake I immediately asked him okay what are we doing tonight? He became angry saying I am so annoying without patience, crazy and always wanting to fight and ruin everything.

You were rightfully frustrated about 1) his not letting you know that he arrived safely, 2) his refusal to make any plans, even though it was already last minute, 3) getting angry at you for urging him to make a decision already, since it was just a few hours before the New Year’s Eve celebrations were to begin.

That’s just one example of how he blamed you for something he has brought about. He told you you were crazy and impatient, although everybody in your shoes would be impatient! You said that something similar happened whenever you planned to go out with him:

he would always like for every going out or event delay the answer or giving me unexplained answers or ignoring me so I can become angry and he would shut me down with we are not going out now because you are so impatient. That made me sick to my stomach and I still remember the feeling how he made me feel crazy for feeling upset.

He would delay the answer, give you vague answers, or ignore you altogether. When you started getting impatient and frustrated, he told you he won’t go anywhere, out of spite. And that it’s all your fault.

That’s clear emotional abuse. And also, victim blaming. He as the perpetrator blamed the victim. He used to tell you you destroyed him mentally, you ruined his life, and “go destroy someone else’s life”.

Also, he had no respect and appreciation for you, and he mocked you in front of your friends. When you complained about it, he called you dramatic and crazy, and called you other derogatory names:

In those rare times we would go out, he would be mocking me in the conversations or if we were with friends instead of being by my side I would always feel like he is making fun out of me. And If I wanted to comfort him he would say that I am always dramatic, we would fight for hours and hours and none of our fights are solved actually. I feel like i cant Talk with him about anything. He doesn’t understand me or he doesnt care. He just made me insecure and crazy. And he had that freedom to call me whatever he wanted and to be very cruel towards me with words that he never should’ve been with me etc.

You wanted love and respect for him, you even got into fights because of it, but to no avail. It just made things worse, and in the end, he made you feel it’s all your fault and that there was something wrong with you. You were sinking deeper and deeper into insecurity…

I am so glad, aphroitte1, that you’ve decided to turn a new page in your life. That you have realized your value, and that it is not you who is the problem in your relationship.

What I believe would be also useful is to allow yourself to grieve:

I was so unappriciated and I am so sorry for myself he made me think that all these years he made me think everything it’s my fault. It never was. Maybe he is not capable of love or he is totally incompatible with me.

I get shivers by thinking of this. It was disgusting.

Awful. Just awful reminding me myself of these things. It’s catastrophic and I can’t understand why he was and still doing this to me if his intention was never to truly be with me.

This relationship was very harmful to your mental and emotional health, to your sense of worth and self-esteem. You’ve been traumatized by it. I think it would help you if you would acknowledge that you’ve been through a lot of mental and emotional abuse, a lot of pain, and to have compassion for that aphroitte, who at the time didn’t have the strength to resist and stand up for herself. Just be with her, see her, embrace her, soothe her… I think it would help you heal more quickly…