Hi Anita,

Thanks for the sharing. I feel that I can totally understand how you felt/feel, it is disheartening, yet at least we know we are not alone. One thing tho, how do you deal with your day-to-day life, esp, when toxic relationship entered, or affected, if in your description, I see you are s till in pain of your childhood and my way of dealing with this (not the best way) did not work for you?

The damage is done, of course and nothing in the present can change a done thing, unfortunately. Therefore, understanding where my father and mother came from did not ease the pain in the past. When I was 29, I still cried at night because childhood memory suddenly occurred out of blue……I don’t know how to heal the little girl in the past, but I guess the whole point of understanding where they come from makes the current life easier, for example, at least I can try to do some parents-daughter things with each of them, and I try to spend time with them and care about them as a daughter. My father stopped beating me around 14 years ago, I was around 20. Over the years we still have had a lot of arguments, he still hurt me emotionally in order to keep/control me (weird, innit?), but I can feel that he is becoming weak, and I tend to believe that he has been always weak that violence was his only weapon. It is just sad, but it is what it is.

If you don’t mind me to ask, how is the relationship between your parents and you? I don’t mean to pry, just wonder if non-forgiveness and tolerance can walk hand-in-hand in the reality.

It’s amazing to see that you’ve got the deluded belief of ‘what’s wrong with me’ as me, yet still got the kindest empathy to people, even a stranger like me. It is the bright side of human nature, isn’t it? And maybe negativity survives us from danger and uncomfortable situation, positivity makes us keep going, no matter what. Every and each time a bad relationship ended like this, we, I as well, would find ourselves even more difficult to trust, let down the guard and be open with people, but at the end of the day (I’m still waiting and hoping), it is not worthy to refuse the whole world just coz some damaged people.

How did you cope with your belief rooted from childhood? More specifically, what is your solution to not let the past define who you are?

Thanks for reading

Yuhan