Dear Matt:

“Is this anger what you mean by her not encouraging me to be assertive?” – yes.

“I make myself smaller than I really am”, you wrote. You do so because you are afraid. Making yourself smaller is communicating: please don’t hurt me!

Expressing anger at a person so afraid is scaring the person even more. Think of a child who is very scared, shaking from fear. Do you go to that child, stand tall above him, angry face, and demand in a loud voice: don’t be afraid!?

No, you go to his height level, relax your face so it has empathy registered on it, not anger, and in a soft voice say: it is okay. You are okay. Everything is fine. And you hold his hand, or gently hug him.

Regarding your rewriting of that paragraph, you wrote that when you try to open up to people about feeling helpless, bored, lonely, they withdraw, and it “makes them insecure about themselves and sometimes angry as with my girlfriend” and “they feel like they’re not good enough for not knowing how to help me feel better”.

My input at this point (let me know if it clarifies anything for you and I will reply further): I suppose your father may feel this way if and when you open up to him about these things because he himself is so scared, he makes himself small. So if you tell him that you are scared and you make yourself small, he may feel very badly because he modeled to you this behavior, and he is very aware of how painful it is to live this way. So better not open up to him. He can’t help you, so what would be the use.

When you share the same with your girlfriend, she doesn’t feel like your father, she feels anger and disapproval of you, not guilt, like your father may be feeling.  Her thoughts would be different from your father’s. Better not share with her because not only is she not helping, but she is scaring you further, increasing and maintaining your fear.

anita