Dear Daniel:

Your father was an easily angered, troubled  man and your mother divorced him when you were very young. You didn’t see him since you were 14. You currently live with your mother, your step father and your brother who is now 2, “a spark of light” in your world.

You’ve been struggling with depression since you were 17. You graduated high school, attended college and now you are in your first year in university. You live far from campus and can’t socialize there because you have to take a train home and trains don’t run at night. You are experiencing “isolation, loneliness, anxiety, fear and sadness”.  You “suffer a lot from never having been in a romantic relationship”, from not having many friends, “feeling lonely in my own world” and you believe that “no one seems to understand” you. You play music and you like having deep talks.

You wish you could live independently but you don’t have the money to rent a flat and you feel it would be selfish of you (“I know that it can sound a bit selfish wanting to live on my own”).

I want to understand you and your life situation better, therefore I ask:

1. Why do you think it would be selfish of you to live on your own, how would it be selfish?

2. When your bio father lived at home, and after he left- before your mother met your step father- how did you try to help her through those years, as the young boy that you were?

anita