Dear anita,

I hope it was o.K. to ask about not writing in third person. Like I said, I want to try to assert myself more, speak up more. So this was a little experiment. Because I learned that people will only respect you more, when you speak up for yourself. I want to do more of this in my life, so I wanted to start here.

Maybe stumbling in the dark and feeling crazy is what I feel, when I try to find out what others want. Then I try to act in the way it is expected, but it leads to bad decisions. So from know on, I have the intention of listening more to myself.

Yesterday I was watching a Youtube video criticizing the Youtuber “hidinginmyroom”, who talks a lot about his personal life, very bluntly, sharing very personal details about his life. So I guess I was looking at the criticism and applying it to myself (I often do this – take criticism for others and ask myself if I’m also guilty of it). Even before watching this, I had worried a little about it. Sometimes I get paranoid. I’m not completely decided if I want to delete this or not. The conversation with you has helped me a lot to see things clearer. It also helped me in my times of distress. Just sometimes I think: whoever reads this will think that I am crazy.

Today I also chatted with my sister. She is now away at a seminar for her job. My father apparently immediately worried that this company is not serious. So I joked to my sister: “Have you been brainwashed and joined a cult yet?” and after she showed me some pictures of her room I said “I see you haven’t been kidnapped yet”. So we talked a little bit about my father. He is worrying all the time and he can drive you really crazy. He is the kind of person that would tell you everything that can go wrong, one day before you have a surgery. I recently noticed that my grandmother is similar. We are not very close, but whenever we talk on the phone, she tells me about all the murders that recently happened in my city…

Anyways, I guess this could be the source of my irrational, fear-based thinking. My sister also told me that she feels often guilty and has a hard time saying no. She also feels guilty, when she is not listening to my father enough. Conversations with him are more like a speech, where he doesn’t react so much to what the other person has to say. He has no friends… I feel kind of sorry for him.

Unlike me, my sister liked my father as a child until puberty. She also didn’t feel hated by him and he didn’t say such things to her like he did to me. But she was also his favourite. He was always on her side and even read books to her. My mother once said something like, that he was somewhat jealous of me when I was first born, because I got so much attention?

Sorry, I just wanted to respond quickly, but it got very long again.

How are you doing today? Is your leg better? Have a good day away from the computer!