Dear canary,

My father did send me that message. In fact, the main reason I got bullied was for my body & facial hair. My dad told me that having facial hair is normal, that I should deal with the comments and he believed that not allowing me to remove the facial hair would make me stronger as I got older.

What did your mother say? Did she agree with your father? It’s interesting that on one hand, you were allowed to skip school (your mother allowed it, perhaps without even telling your father about it?), and then you weren’t allowed to remove your facial hair because that will “make you stronger”. Could it be that your mother was too permissive, but not really able to help you deal with your fears, while your father was strict and lacked empathy?

If your father had the last word in a rather female problem of removing facial/body hair, does that mean that your mother didn’t really have a say in your home? And she “protected” you by allowing you to skip school in secret? If your father knew about it, he would have forced you to go to school, without showing much understanding for your anxiety?

I think the outbursts were a mix of things. Unrelated to the bullying, but the bullying was the source of my outburst. For example, I was insecure and did not want to take pictures with friends, or want to be filmed, because the bullying contributed to my insecurity. When my friends would do that without realizing it, I would react and be upset, that they posted a video or picture of me without my knowledge.

Right. Those outbursts were the result of bullying – you didn’t want to appear in common photos or videos, because you felt so insecure about yourself. A part of your insecurity and frustration is that you weren’t allowed to remove your facial hair, due to your strict father. You were forced to “toughen up” in a situation where a more permissive attitude (allowing you to remove the unwanted hair) might have been a better approach. At the same time, you weren’t taught how to become emotionally less reactive and “toughen up” in a healthy sense, by developing coping skills for your fears and anxiety, or by dealing with the bullies.

It seems to me you got poor parenting both from your mother, who was permissive but powerless, and your father, who was strict and lacking empathy. Would you say that this is true?

I was taught that being sensitive and emotional was bad and weird. I tried so hard to get rid of that part of me, but when I knew I couldn’t I learned to accept it. I just don’t feel appreciated for being myself.

Being emotional and sensitive isn’t bad – it’s necessary for empathy. However, being overly emotional and unable to control our emotional reactions isn’t the best. As I already said, it seems to me you weren’t taught how to deal with your fears and anxiety, and then you were criticized for being so emotionally reactive. You were criticized for something that wasn’t your fault.

You don’t need to get rid of your emotional, loving, gentle side, who gets immersed in the beauty of nature. What you need though is better emotional regulation, which will allow you not to be so insecure and sensitive to people’s reactions. And you need to know that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. You just didn’t get the proper upbringing and proper tools….  but you are making up for it now.

Dear Felix,

I’ve tried praising that little boy, it did worked as i’ve stop posting from social media and now it came back due to other people’s actions AGAIN…

You praised yourself for not posting… but when you started posting again, or someone else posted a photo of you, this same wound (of not feeling loved, of believing there is something terribly wrong with you) got opened again. You still need to appreciate yourself (and that little boy) and accept him just as he is, even if he is short and thin.

it really hurts when your no 1 weakness gets exposed like that in social media.

People who know you in person know that you’re short. Your height isn’t something new to them, so it didn’t really get “exposed”, because it wasn’t a secret in the first place. Your friends and acquaintances accept you as you are – they don’t mock you, do they? It’s just your mother who mocks you and doesn’t accept you as you are… and consequently, you don’t accept yourself either.

I feel like i shouldnt have attend that gathering… if i didnt i wont think like this today.

As I said, you won’t solve the problem by hiding from people and being a hermit…

I know i should love and praise that little boy, but it’s just too much for him to bear… it’s suffocating…. Especially when this adult life is so dull. I dont know how i can keep going forward in life with this issues.

It’s suffocating because your adult self is quite weak, and when the wound gets activated, you’re pretty much completely identified with that little boy. That’s why you cannot soothe yourself. On top of that, you still live with your parents and are exposed to their criticism and belittling. Your mother is doing that to you all the time – she told you you’re only receiving salary because you are your father’s son, not because you deserve it. Now she mocked you again, telling you you look like a girl… You are exposed to this same treatment your entire life. This is how you have been programmed. And you completely believe your mother, you believe her words…

That’s why I told you it would be very important for you to become more independent from your parents, to move to a different place, for starters. I know it’s harder at the moment due to covid, but a part of your healing will definitely be moving away from your parents and sparing yourself from their mocking and belittlement.

Dear canary,

you are very welcome, and I am happy to hear from you again. It was beautiful to read this about you:

I am so sensitive to little things, I constantly get lost in the beauty of the world. I find beauty in everything, especially little things. I have such a deep appreciation for little things that most people don’t really think about. I enjoy thinking about these things, it makes me so happy. I enjoy being emotional too, when I get happy I feel like I am the sun. When I get sad, I allow myself to feel and make art to express myself. I’ve always been doing that. Some people may call me an overthinker, but I don’t consider myself to be an overthinker, I think deeply about little things, and it does not harm me it just brings me joy. Also, this is unrelated to my anxiety because I know anxiety makes me overthink but I was not talking about that.

I also feel like everything falls into place and everything is connected and I love thinking about that!

You are very sensitive and perceptive, and you notice beauty in details. Seeing that beauty fills your heart with joy. You see a bigger picture and how everything is connected, and this makes you happy. That’s so precious!

Now compare that with this:

I was always told that being sensitive, emotional, and thinking about the deeper meaning of things was a bad thing. So I always felt out of place because that is exactly like me.

I’ve been taught that my traits are actually weaknesses, and whenever I see someone that is somewhat like me, being strong and confident, I get so inspired and I look up to them.

You’ve been taught (by your parents, teachers or both?) that being sensitive, emotional and thinking about the deeper things in life was a bad thing. It’s almost like being told that the core of who you are is bad. No wonder you started feeling less than:

I can appreciate every individual and realize that everyone is unique and have their own beauty. But it’s so hard to do that for myself sometimes. I don’t feel special, unique, or appreciated.

Also, it seems to me that your parents and other authority figures (teachers, counselors) didn’t show enough compassion and understanding for you:

I feel like some people in this world get so caught up with themselves and their lives that they forget how to empathize and be compassionate towards others. Some of my past counsellors were like this, as well as teachers, and it was disheartening for me because I realized the world is a cruel place sometimes.

I just need someone to empathize with me and understand me.

In your earlier posts, you said your parents, specially your mother, loves you and supports you. But based on what you said, in your childhood she didn’t really know how to help you with your fears and anxiety. I wonder if your mother too (or both of your parents) somehow sent you the message that you shouldn’t be so emotional and sensitive, that you should just ignore the bullying, sort of toughen up and don’t take it to heart so much? And when you couldn’t, you felt that there was something wrong with you?

Dear Umaz,

you are welcome. I hope you can work on healing the part of you which felt rejected and excluded by your family. The title of your thread is “Am I a narcissist?”. You believed that you may be a narcissist for having and expressing your needs. Is this something you experienced while growing up – that nobody cared about your needs and if you wanted something, you were told you were selfish or even narcissistic?

Dear Javier,

it’s good to read you had a productive therapy session, with lots of self-reflection and making a kind of inventory of where you are at mentally and emotionally. I am glad it helped you! And it’s also great that you’re going to mass, socializing with people, listening to their stories and how they’ve overcome their hardships. It’s so sweet that you primary school teacher recognized you, and that you opened up to her, expressing your appreciation and gratitude.

To be honest, I have always felt ungrateful towards people who helped mold me.

No wonder, since the most important people who molded you (your parents) did a poor job. Your father abused you, your mother failed to protect you from abuse. It’s no wonder you didn’t feel any gratitude to authority figures, including those who were good and kind, like your primary school teacher.

In a response to Sarah’s question: “How are you protective and caring?”, you wrote:

I always feel responsible for other peoples feelings. Especially towards my family, as I feel responsible for all their pain and hurting.  As a result, I go to great lengths to avoid conflicts, and seldom admit when my feelings are hurt.

In trying to protect and care for others, you suppressed your own feelings and needs. You blamed yourself for your mother’s pain, when it wasn’t your fault at all. That’s what a child does – it always protects the parent, and blames themself, trying to change and become “better”, hoping that this would make the parent happy.

From very early in your childhood, you thought that something was wrong with you, first when your father was beating you, and then when your mother wouldn’t protect you from him. You took responsibility for their abuse and lack of protection, you thought you were bad and deserved it. And then later when you started acting out, you kind of “proved” to yourself that you are indeed bad and deserve poor treatment.

See how it goes? You were an innocent child who took the blame for being abused, believing there was something terribly wrong with you. And you lived your life with that false belief, acting out, doing drugs, not paying attention at school etc.

How does it feel to protect and care?

Honestly, it sucks big time. Because, it reminds me how neglected, hurt and tormented I was. And, I tend to start with the “what ifs”, “I wish”, and “Why wasn’t there anyone there for me”. The more I protect and care about my nieces, the more devastated and anxious I feel. Somehow, I see myself in them, my brittle inner-child that is broken into thousand pieces.  I get reminded of how brittle and weak I really am. A tiny bump in the road will break me.

You indeed were neglected and hurt as a child, and you had no one to protect you. A small child left to his own devices in the midst of domestic violence is horrible indeed. That’s why you feel brittle and weak now. It’s the inner child in you. What you are doing now, with therapy and self-help and sharing here, is you’re strengthening your adult self. Your adult self isn’t helpless like your inner child is, it has resources to help you. So the task would be to strengthen your adult self, so you can defend and protect and care for your inner child.

One way to strengthen your adult self is to understand and accept that it wasn’t your fault that the abuse happened. That you’re not inherently bad and worthless, that you didn’t deserve it. So you stop taking the blame and responsibility for other people abusing you. Specially for your parents abusing you, i.e. failing to protect you. This is how you will start protecting your inner child. If you believe you deserved the abuse, you cannot protect your inner child, and healing cannot happen. Can you see that?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by Tee.

Dear Umaz,

you’re welcome.

I briefly mentioned that I was feeling sad the night before he flew. I said that I felt disappointed that he didn’t think to invite, he immediately understood and was even looking up last minute flights for me.

The fact that he understood your feelings and searched for last-minute flights tells me that he didn’t really want to exclude you on purpose. It also seems to me that when he told you he wanted to protect you from pain, it’s probably because he really didn’t want to burden you with the heaviness of going to a funeral, specially since you can’t speak the language and wouldn’t be able to communicate with his family:

he later told me he didn’t want me there because he wanted to ‘protect me from the pain’ and ‘it’s hard work translating the language for me’ since I don’t speak their language.

 

He’s an amazing person and he would never hurt me intentionally. But I still feel betrayed and made me realise that he doesn’t really see me being part of that part of his life. Am I reading too much into this?

If you know he wouldn’t hurt you intentionally, and his not inviting you was because he didn’t want to expose you to unnecessary trouble – then it could mean you’re being too sensitive and overreacting, because the situation is somehow triggering for you. Have you perhaps felt betrayed and excluded in your own family?

Dear Umaz,

i thought my boyfriend would invite me to the funeral. I feel let down because he didn’t even consider it

Have you asked him if you can come along, and he rejected you? Because expressing your desire, your need or preference is key for honest communication.

he left already and it just feels like it’s not a good time to create any issues so I haven’t really said much and asked to drop it. he says he feels really guilty for not inviting me.

Does it mean you’ve expressed your disappointment (though only mildly) once he left, and then he started feeling guilty for not inviting you? Or he brought up the topic himself?