Dear Felix,

she’s not being fair with you because she can’t promise you anything about the future, she’s telling you to wait for 2 years to even start dating, she’s throwing you a bait about some possible (and as you say, highly uncertain) relationship many years from now. It’s one big nothing.

She probably just needs attention, and so far you’ve been her greatest fan, and now as she’s losing it, she wants it back. She doesn’t want you, but your attention and you pining for her. That probably makes her feel better about herself and boosts her self-esteem. It’s her ego, not a real interest in you.

If I were you, I wouldn’t agree on it by any means. It’s just going to end up in disappointment and you being anxious about her for the next 4-5 years.

One of my friend whom i told this situation, she said i should try harder for this girl. She said that god keeps leading me a way to keep contacting with her, and show me a way that i should try harder….

No, it’s not God who is leading you – it’s her who contacted you after she realized she’s losing your attention. As I said, it’s her hurt ego at work, nothing more.

Like i’m on my journey on accepting my height, but due to this circumstances, the insecurities came back……

It’s understandable that your insecurities came back, because a part of you wants to impress her, because she’s making you believe she is interested in you. But as I said, my impression is that she’s not interested in you but in your attention. So the best would be to free yourself from her – to wish her well and go your separate ways. If you’re meant to be together in 4-5 years, it will happen. But right now, it would be a bad choice to stay attached to her.

Dear miyoid,

I don’t know what to do, I feel so much pain when I think about how could he do those things. Maybe I cannot face reality, there is a part of me who cannot get away, cannot move on, and doesn’t want to move on. I both want to get free from this jail I’ve built.

Yes, it seems there’s a part of you that wants to stay in a kind of relationship with the guy your rational self knows cannot give you the love you need. But this other part – your inner child – still hopes that he would. He reminds you of your mother: her love was one moment there, and the next it would disappear. You’re repeating the same childhood dynamic with him. The little girl inside of you is still hoping that “mom” would finally commit to her and never abandon her again. It’s the child’s wishful thinking. You’d need to heal that child in order to move on and be free from your prison…

Hi Murtaza,

So its not about what i have, nor where do i live, no im miserable because of few words i tell myself.

You yourself said multiple times that it’s not about the country you live. I do believe the culture you grew up in contributed a lot to your situation, but you said your problem cannot be solved by changing where you live. Although I imagine that if you moved to a different culture, it would be different, easier…

And it’s not just about the words you tell yourself, it’s about the love you give yourself. But sometimes it’s hard to give love to ourselves because we’re so deprived and lacking. I was like that too. What helped me is to ask for God’s love. God (who in my view isn’t limited to a religion or a scripture) was the first “person” I felt loved me. I begged him to come to my heart and he did. This changed my whole world. It enabled me to love myself and my inner child. It gave me that initial “charge” of love that ignited my ability to love myself.

Dear Luna,

you’re welcome. You say you like his moral qualities, you trust he wouldn’t cheat on you, he’s a gentleman, extremely polite and respectful of others (professors, elders, and his family and friends), more mature than other guys, responsible and generous.

But he’s not respectful of you when he tells you that he is bored with your conversations (“He thinks our words and chats are boring”), or he repeatedly falls asleep when you agree to have a video call, or he tells you he gets bored with a relationship after a while. That alone is a romance killer, and a red flag that something is wrong, even if he tells you he loves you. Do you want to live with a guy who is bored by you?

On top of that come pretty severe differences in worldview: “Our opinions about life and everything are different and we cant discuss society or politics or life issues with each other because we would get upset or disappointed about the way we think.” How wise is it to share life with someone whose way of looking at life is fundamentally different than yours?

You say you tried to break up with him before but he didn’t take it well:

In the end he insisted that the problems started ever since we moved away and everything would be fine if we tried…. He said that his life would be very sad and unbearable without me.

If he is bored with you while in a long-distance relationship, what would happen if you were there, by his side, day in and day out? Wouldn’t he be even more bored?

What’s coming to me is that he might need you to provide him with some sort of security, perhaps a sense of familiarity, without which he might start feeling anxious. If he had a father with mental problems, whom he tried to save, it’s a similar dynamic like he has/had with you. You might give him the same sense of familiarity, which to him feels comforting. But at the same time, he also resents it – he resents being your savior, like he probably resented being his father’s savior. This resentment manifests in him losing interest in the relationship, falling asleep, and doing other passive aggressive things. Do you think this might be the case?

If so, he doesn’t really love you for who you are, but for a role you play in his psyche, reminding him of his father. As I said before, your bond might be based on trauma, not on true appreciation for each other.

Hi Murtaza,

i like to say babies NEEDS love, not deserve it, deserving for me requires effort to the part that deserves, how else would you deserve it?

Alright, it wasn’t the best expression: a child needs love to develop properly. You didn’t get it. Perhaps you got conditional love, e.g. your mother was nice to you when you didn’t bother her, when you didn’t express you fears and your need for her love and care and soothing.

i refuse to put my needs at the mercy of other people, and i refuse to be controlled in order to get “love”, to change my values and goals just to pursue an idea

You don’t need to be at the mercy of other people. If you give love to your inner child, you’ll be “filled”, your basic emotional needs will be met. It’s like neutralizing the bad effects of childhood and upbringing, and building the capacity for happiness.

What I am telling you is that you don’t need to suppress the longing of your heart

Ofcourse i do, otherwise i will just need them obsessively, without having them

The true longing of your heart, as a child, was to be loved by your parents. You can fill that longing by being a loving, compassionate parent to your inner child.

You can start loving that anxious, fearful, lonely boy right now

Why did you assumed that i don’t? I already gave him what he want, a life that easy and doesn’t have much pain, he needs things that i can’t provide, things that outside of my control, and i only foucs on what under my control

I know you haven’t given him what he needs, because you believe the best option would be take your own life. A loved and cherished child wouldn’t think or feel that way.

What you actually said about your inner child is that you’re aware of him but you suppressed him (“i was aware of this persona for a whole 2 years, and i leaned that it must not get out, it will cause more pain, and it did, when i saw reality, how ugly it is, i accept this fact, that this persona should always stay hidden“). You’re not loving him by suppressing him. You’re not giving him an easy life by making him stay hidden, by telling him not to have feelings, or hopes or dreams.

he needs things that i can’t provide, things that outside of my control,

Actually, you can provide the love he needs. I told you how to do it: to accept him, acknowledge his needs, tell him you love him, that he’s welcome in your life, and that you will take care of him from now on. You can do that even without a therapist: you, the adult Murtaza, can be a loving parent to the little boy Murtaza. Instead of suppressing him. That would be the path to healing.

Because if you suppress him, you’re just deepening the childhood wound where he had to stay hidden, not to disturb your mother. You’re perpetuating the pain and misery. But if you embrace him, you’re healing his wounds, and as I said earlier, building the capacity for your happiness and fulfillment as adult.

Hi Murtaza,

thanks for sharing a little bit about your childhood. Your big brother and big sister harassed you when they took away your toy, i.e. stopped you from playing videogames, or watching your favorite TV show whenever they pleased. Children can be cruel like that, so their behavior isn’t that surprising, but what I see as a bigger problem is that your parents didn’t protect you, e.g. they didn’t set some rules of behavior for your older siblings, or some rules about when and under what conditions you can watch TV or play videogames. You were the weaker one and your parents just left you at the mercy of your older siblings. That probably left you feeling like they don’t care about you, and that no one cares about you in general, because that’s the experience you got in your family.

When you started experiencing pain in your stomach during the night, your mother probably didn’t soothe you lovingly, didn’t take you in her arms and caressed you (or did she?), but she just gave you a cloth to warm up your tummy and left, I suppose? After a while she was bothered by you and got impatient, and then you even stopped complaining. This was another experience of not receiving nurturing love and care, which possibly could have left you with feeling unlovable, unworthy of love. Also, you were afraid of dark but were reluctant to tell that to your mother, not to bother her even more.

You had to face fear and anxiety alone and suffer alone, without consolation of a parent. That’s the hardest thing for a child to experience – suffering alone, in silence, with no one there to help him. Feeling in pain, both physically and emotionally, probably feeling unlovable, unworthy, and thinking that no one cares about you. Also feeling helpless, because at that time, as a child, you truly were helpless, unable to stop your stomach pain or your fear and anxiety. This could very easily be the basis for feeling hopeless about life, because what’s life if one has to suffer endlessly and their loved ones don’t care about him.

Later, when your uncle would beat you and your father would allow it, it just reaffirmed your experience from childhood when you were harassed by your older siblings: being harassed and helpless to stop the harassment, and being at the mercy of others, who had the “right” to harass you simply because they were older. It could have given you the idea that the world is cruel and unfair and arbitrary, and you don’t want to take any part in it, because it just causes you suffering.

The girl you liked, Noor, probably showed you more care with that one gesture of putting ice on your foot, than your own mother. You felt that’s true love – someone caring about you and your well-being, and not letting you suffer.

As a child you used you imagine that you were hurt by your loved ones – which is what actually happened: you were hurt by your loved ones. Only in your fantasy they would love you eventually, but in real life, they wouldn’t – they hurt you and they didn’t care too much about your feelings. You didn’t even dare to wake up your mother when your stomach hurt (or when you were thirsty but afraid to go get water in the dark) because you knew she would be disturbed.

This is what I am seeing from what you’ve described: you suffered a lot as a child and no one cared about you (except Noor and perhaps some random people who were nice to you – like that pharmacist recently). You saw glimpses of love and care, but 99% of time love was suffering (because those you loved didn’t love you back) and therefore, love is “too unreal” for you, and you end up apathetic, unwilling to live. Because what’s life without love…

you know im sick and tired of being the blame, no matter how much arguments i provide, no matter how much reasons i give, its always my fault,

It’s not your fault that you didn’t get the love and care you deserved. It’s not your fault that you were harassed. It’s not your fault that you were afraid of the dark, and that your stomach hurt. None of it is your fault. You deserved to be loved and cared for and comforted, you deserved to watch your favorite TV show. Your needs and desires were completely legitimate, but they weren’t taken into consideration, you were trampled over. None of that was your fault. You deserve better.

Hi Dee,

There is one instance that occurred while I was in high school that did leave me feeling a little indifferent and not supported by my mother. I had an appointment with my primary doctor when I was 16, where I expressed to my doctor that I was experiencing a lot of anxiety and would be interested in receiving any kind of help for that. My mother essentially brushed this off when my doctor relayed this information to her, and asked me if I really needed help.

Yeah, this doesn’t sound supportive at all. She dismissed your feelings and asked you if you really need help. I can imagine that you were expected not to need help because “I never really “needed” any emotional support so I don’t think I received it.”

All children need emotional support from their parents. There must be a reason why you thought you don’t need anything?

I don’t know, hard to explain I guess I would say I had a fear of everything for a long time, I was very not open about things that I felt or thought. This has carried into my adulthood but not as severe.

So you had fear and anxiety for a long time, and yet, you believed you don’t need emotional support from your parents. Perhaps you would have needed their help and support, but you thought you shouldn’t bother them because they had enough trouble with your brother? (I saw your discussion with anita on your other thread) If so, it’s not that you didn’t need it, but you suppressed that need. And then when you finally reached out to your doctor at the age of 16, sharing about your anxiety, your mother brushed it off as nothing. She wasn’t open to hearing about your problems, and it probably only confirmed your belief that you should suppress it, that you shouldn’t bother her with it. Do you think this is what might have happened?

And then food could have easily served as comfort, as a distraction from painful feelings that you needed to suppress, and from fear and anxiety too…

Hi Murtaza,

Thank you for replaying teak, i should say that i needed validation to know that im not those things, but i thought about it and validate myself

You’re welcome.

As for the rest, I don’t want to argue or discuss further – you have a cemented opinion, and that’s it. I should say though that if you really had an interest in healing, you would find a way to scramble for at least one session, since you do have your father’s pension and seem to live a fairly pleasant life. It doesn’t seem like money should be such a huge problem for you, and even if it were, you could always get a temporary job to earn enough for the next session. But you don’t want to. And that’s fine, it’s your choice.

True self exists – because I’ve experienced it. It’s our essence. It’s pure love and compassion and willingness to help, and faith and trust and lack of fear. It’s also where our unique gifts and talents are stored. That’s what I was referring to, not your wounded self.