Dear Gaia:

“I was very sensitive to criticism”- every child is very sensitive to criticism and every adult is still sensitive to criticism. Some older children and adults develop (over time) what I call the Teflon-ability- nothing, including criticism, seems to stick to them (like cooking an egg in a Teflon pan, the egg doesn’t stick to the pan). This is what you referred to as people’s ability to “shrug is off a lot more easily”.

But even the Teflon people are sensitive to criticism, not liking it.

Put it in another way: just as every child feels pain when falling and injuring a leg, so does every child feel emotional pain when criticized.

I re-read your posts on this thread this morning. I read about the little girl (you) “pulling my dolls hair in spite” and later, as a teenager, pulling her own hair. I read about the girl angry at her mother for “making me less carefree.. preventing me from.. joy”, the girl”jealous and envious of others”- others who seem to have the carefree life you wish you had.

I read about the girl who feels that she is treated by peers with  coldness and indifference while she treats others with coldness and detachment: “peers who treated me with coldness or indifference… others can’t help but feel coldness or detachment from me… people being indifferent to me”.

A girl/ young woman who is “very uncomfortable anytime I have to interact with someone….. in relation with others.. most often I can’t help but feel taken by intense overwhelming uncomfortableness, cringiness, discomfort… being in social environments make me feel sh** with myself”.

When you were very young you thoughts things will be  okay later- way later, when you grow up, but then the OCD hit you at 16, and now.. you are already grown up, but things are not  okay: “I was very young and I knew I was very young and had all the time to develop into  something that would made me proud. Then my ocd hit me.. finding that my mind and my self just functioned in weird, twisted ways”.

My thoughts this morning: there is no doubt in my mind that it will be better for you to no longer live with your mother/ family, but instead- live far away. I understand that you cannot afford it. And that you will soon be living near the university you attend (although home on weekends). What I am saying is that if it was possible for you, it would be a very good idea for you to live far away from your family. Every day you live at home, however detached you feel from your mother, the strong emotions that she brought to your mind and heart (the dread, the repulsion, are such two that you mentioned) these can’t resolve while you are still exposed to the person who brought about these emotional experiences into you.

On the other hand, if you did move far away, you will take that dread, repulsion, intense discomfort, cringiness, anger and jealousy of others- you will take all these emotional experiences with you wherever you go, making relationships either impossible or very troubled.

What needs to happen is you moving away and attending some sort of psychotherapy or counseling so to heal from what your mother did to you.

I understand that you experienced rejection, mistreatment and indifference and so forth from other people, but it is the rejection, mistreatment and indifference from your mother that hurt you deeply and set the stage for you to feel these things about people who reject, mistreat and ignore  you and people who  don’t reject you, mistreat and ignore you. In other words, because she mistreated you, you experience mistreatment from everyone.

My own experience in life, childhood, teenage, up to your age 21 was not better than yours, including severe OCD.

It is from my own life experience that I tell you: it is very possible for you to get better and better, find calm in yourself, a sense of solid identity, a better and better understanding of yourself and others- but you will need at some point to move away and attend counseling. Maybe counseling first, before moving away.

As I re-read your posts today, a few questions came to my mind (so that I understand better), answer them if you want to. I know English is not the language you are most comfortable with, so feel free to use the dictionary as you put together your answers, and take your time doing so. As you can see, I invest a lot of time and energy in trying to understand you. I want you to invest your time and energy to help me understand you better:

1. You wrote: “what caused a huge part of this cringiness is that I did a lot of embarrassing things and SAID embarrassing things”- can you give me examples of embarrassing things you did and said?

2. You wrote regarding your mother: “the reason I don’t like to talk with her is because she go to act like a psychologist trying to make deep heavy sessions out of  people”- can you type away what she says during those heavy sessions: what she said to you, what you said to her, what she said next, and so on?

3. You wrote: “my mother unfulfilled desires or feelings make her feel entitled to project those on us and at times, lash out in a way that repel us”- can you describe in detail how she projects her desires and feelings on you, what did she or does she actually say, and how does she lash  out?

anita