Forum Replies Created
-
Dear sossi,
I would just like to add that you have been harmed not just by your mother, but by your father as well, because he never supported you:
Meanwhile and unfortunately i have a father who is very weak and will not stand up to my mother. When any conflict arose he would take her side, no matter what. … He wont go against her wishes, its a very twisted relationship and impossible to change.
So I can imagine you felt completely helpless in your childhood – there was no one to protect you from your mother, no one to see your point and validate you, no one to empathize with you. It’s soul-crushing for a child. And you are carrying this helplessness up to this day, and it manifest in your workplace as well. You are being attacked and mistreated, and yet, you can’t seem to do anything to help yourself, to get out of the toxic environment or assert yourself. When you do try to assert yourself, no one really takes you seriously:
Asserting myself. Yes, i think i have said that ive tried, and yet, people just dont want to take it from me. they will from others. There is respect for them, but somehow ive never found the key to respect. no matter how obviously i worked well, how much praise i got from clients, how many hours i put in of extra time or how much money i made for the company…im still treated badly, talked down to at meetings, left out of decisions etc
No one takes you seriously, because a part of you doesn’t believe you have the right to assert yourself. Or perhaps you fear you would be rejected if you would really stand up for yourself. This all stems from your mother’s dismissive treatment, and then your father taking her side. You were helpless then, and you feel helpless now. Only the truth is that now, as a grown woman, you are not helpless any more. Rather, it’s your inner child telling you that you are.
I believe the first thing in your healing would be to realize that there is a wounded inner child in you, a little girl who suffered so much and were never seen or appreciated, and was bullied and manipulated…. and to have compassion for her. To understand that it wasn’t her fault, but it was her parents who treated her poorly.
Just try to give compassion to that little girl, who didn’t get proper love, appreciation and validation. And who is still struggling to get that from her parents and other people. But she actually needs to get it from you, the adult sossi. You need to give love, appreciation and validation to yourself – that’s the only way out.
Dear Felix,
Right now i’m trying to improve my facial looks… may i share about it?
As i feel i have several facial features due to genetics that makes me unattractive.
You’ve already shared about one of your front teeth, which is bent backwards, which makes you feel unattractive:
One of my front teeth’s position is in backwards… so everytime i smile… in the picture it’ll look like i have a missing tooth. I’m a person who tends to complain.. i’m worried that if i get braces later on i’ll complain… because if i really use braces i think the dentist will sacrifice that one tooth (backwards position) to be able to place the braces…. So if i stop before finishing my braces completely… i’ll have a missing front tooth…. And i believe if i stop midway like that.. and i have a missing tooth.. it’ll cause myself a lot of anxiety later on…
Right there you’ve described your problem very well: you are a person who tends to complain and worry about things. You are unhappy with your tooth being bent backward, but you also worry that if you decide to wear braces, you’d be unhappy too. So you are “damned if you do and damned if you don’t”, as the saying goes. With your current mindset, there is unfortunately nothing I can tell you that can help you become more satisfied with your looks. You’ll worry about something regardless.
That’s why, Felix, I can’t help you while you are in your current mindset. You’d need to change the mindset, i.e. work on your low self-esteem, because that’s the only way to stop obsessing about your perceived “inadequacies”.
Dear d85,
In reply to the advice you gave TeaK, thank you for saying it sounded like I took good care of my father. That means a lot.
You are welcome. It does sound like it – you helped care for him, you also tried your best not to get covid and infect either of your parents – that shows you cared a lot.
You’re right, I do think very poorly of myself and have low self esteem. I’m not exactly sure what triggered it, but I guess during childhood there were some upsetting things that happened at home and with certain family members when I was growing up.
The way we were treated as children affects our self-esteem very strongly. If there were some painful and traumatic experiences, no wonder you’d end up feeling less-than and not deserving, or blaming yourself for things that weren’t your fault. If you’d like to share some more about your childhood experiences and the dynamic you grew up in, it might help us figure out what the key problem is and how to go about it.
Dear Anna,
don’t worry about not answering right way – you are busy and have many things going on right now in your life. Congratulations on becoming the finalist in a scientific writing contest and that you’ll have 2 of your articles published, while still being a bachelor. Well done!
Thanks for sharing some more about your childhood and upbringing. It’s great that you have such a deep insight about your relationship with your mother. And also, that you’ve healed most of it and aren’t susceptible to her criticism any more. Her attitude to dating and relationships served you well, but it may be also a double-edged sword.
Namely, your mother was careful not to date until you are old enough, so you wouldn’t get a false idea about relationships, and probably also that you wouldn’t be hurt by people coming and going from your life. That’s admirable. Once she started dating, it seems she immediately found the right guy, because she started dating when you were 16 (10 years ago), and you say she’s been with your step-father for 10 years. So for her, I guess the first time was a charm?
I wonder if this gives you some sort of pressure to follow in her footsteps – to find a stable, long-term relationship right off the bat? She set a very high standard, and you don’t want to disappoint her by being less than perfect in your choice of partners?
when you truly love someone, you’re supposed to do whatever it takes to fix everything which could be fixed before throwing away, right? We can’t be at our ups all the time and if your feelings for the person are real and as strong as you say they are, then you will stay by your partner’s sides for the better and the worst.
This is true – we aren’t supposed to throw people away without first trying to work on our problems. But there needs to be some reciprocity. If we are constantly pushing for the relationship to continue, while the other person is not really showing too much enthusiasm, often checks out, wants to take breaks, and questions their ability to stay in the relationship – then it’s hard to really work on it. There has to be willingness on both sides. Perhaps you were pushing it and wanted to save it partially also because you wanted to meet that high standard your mother set? She was never pleased with anything you did, and maybe this was a way you still wanted to please her (without even being aware of it)?
Just one more observation: it appears your mother and your boyfriend’s mother are alike – both highly critical and control freaks. So perhaps you felt seen and understood by him because you shared a similar experience? You’ve managed to largely heal from it and assert yourself, and you were trying to help him do the same… only he wasn’t ready and it seems he won’t be ready for quite some time…
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 