Dear Gaia:

#1, you started with “light things, things easier to admit”, which were the following:

1- You had “devastating exaggerated heartbreaks over crushes (you) didn’t even really know”, getting “obsessed with someone” who already had a girlfriend.

2. You felt humiliated in public multiple times, ex.: you didn’t understand a person’s instructions, so he/ she repeated those to you many times, eventually yelling at you.

3. You often “say things that don’t really make sense”, having “words salad” in your brain.

4. You make “very dumb mistakes out of impulsivity or absent mindness”.

5. You had “some serious panic attacks in front of people that were already annoyed with me to start with”.

6. You “twist and observe (your) hair” in public.

7. People asking you “never seem to be dating anyone”, and you having “to admit that (you) never had sex with anyone.

My comments on the above: when a child/ teenager is very distressed and isolated, and as a result she disassociates much of the time, living  in her head, overthinking and fantasizing, instead of interacting with people, socializing- her development is arrested- cognitive and social. It requires a different kind of thinking to fantasize than it does to socialize with people in real life. This is why you find yourself not knowing what to say and do  when in social interactions. You didn’t develop that way yet.

In social situations you find yourself unprepared and you panic- can’t think straight, can’t follow instructions. I had great difficulties following instructions myself. In college if the teacher didn’t speak slowly and in a very organized fashion, I wasn’t able to  understand what she was saying. When reading a text book I wasnt able to understand what i read, so I re-organize what I read into notes, taking hours to be able to understand a chapter.

Distressed and disassociated we don’t develop well, not cognitively and not socially- the two are connected. Feeling incapable to do  things others do well makes us feel inferior. We panic, we get impulsive, filling in the emptiness of not knowing what to say with saying anything that comes to mind and then feeling badly for saying the wrong thing.

If this is how you feel, like I felt, let me know.

#2- your mother told you that you “should hurry up cause time go fast and I’ll miss out on life, gosh it gave me so much anxiety”- it is indeed a bad idea to rush an anxious person. An anxious person needs an attitude of calm and patience, not being rushed!

“Whenever me or my sibling.. had issues or negativity she only make it worse by starting to crying or getting anxious”- again, an anxious person needs the attitude of calm and patience (“soothing or more objective”, like you put it). Your mother’s reactions increased your anxiety, made it worse.

“I may sound mean phrasing it like this”- this is your unjustified guilt, telling you that you are mean when all you are doing is stating the truth. And stating the truth is what you need to do so to heal and live a better life.

#3- your mother said that she wished you and your sibling were closer “instead of fighting all the time, cause she always wanted a sister and she couldn’t have it”- I see what you meant before when you said she made things about her, not about  you, projecting her feelings and her needs into you, not being aware therefore of who you were and what your experience of life was like.

You wrote that she “doesn’t understand ..that her personality can repel people and not bring them close as she wished and that she should be a lot more self aware in her life”-

– wish her to be more self aware in her life, but don’t wait for her to become more self aware ad change her personality. This is very unlikely to happen. As you engage in the process of healing and changing yourself, you will see how difficult it is to change. So no wonder most people don’t- it takes too much work, intention and attention, and too much time.

And so, take on that new life project, not pretending to be this  or that, but setting the objective of becoming your true self over time, developing that cognitive and social ability that has been arrested for years by interacting with others.. cautiously, a bit at a time, slowly.

Your hope is not at home. I understand that you will be there on weekends and that you don’t plan on ever not being in contact with your mother- okay with me. Point is, make a separate life for yourself, separate from your mother. She didn’t help you to become you and she will not.

So find other people, other places- to become your true self.

anita