Dear Sam:

Here are my suggestions:

1. Set and keep a daily routine that includes exercise, healthy eating, moderate drinking,  and a regular bed time. Don’t demand perfection from yourself regarding your routine: be flexible, not rigid. Evaluate and re-evaluate your routine: see what works for you, what doesn’t work for you and make adjustments.

– avoid over-exercising and extremes of any kind, and keep an attitude of flexibility.

2. Within your daily or weekly routine, put time into the practical aspects of your life, such as finances.

3. Don’t pressure yourself to not date: the more you stress yourself about not dating, the more you will need to relieve that stress.. by dating. Let’s say, you find yourself on a dating app- don’t be alarmed and upset with yourself. it’s okay: you communicated with some guy, fine. Don’t take it all the way to .. let’s say (as crazy as I hope it sounds to you) spend the night with him. Instead, keep it as an online light communication, aimed at the most to get to know him (online) as a potential partner sometime in the future. Same principle as above: re-evaluate and adjust your behavior so to do what works for you, and let go of doing what doesn’t work for you.

4. Practice assertiveness every chance you get, for example, “saying no to spending too much time together” with your good friend who is very social, is you practicing being assertive.

Your father, el patron, he wanted your obedience = zero assertiveness.

Promise yourself that no one in your private life will be your el patron; from now on, you will be the el patron of your life. You decide when you want to socialize and when you want to spend time alone (exceptions possible, ex. your friend is very upset and needs emotional support). You decide who you let into your room and who stays out.. look at all the choices available to you as opportunities to practice assertiveness.

5. Develop your own values: what you believe is most important. Your father valued appearances to the extreme, you can decide what appearances mean to you personally. For example, you probably want to look neat to others, but you don’t want to appear perfect. Or if you fold clothes perfectly for his standard, you can purposefully decide to fold them imperfectly, see how that feels.

When you find yourself doing things his way or so to please him, pause and redirect yourself. Example:

– you are running on the treadmill.. pause, walk instead (“he would make me run on a treadmill because I was a little chubby”).

– you are eating and “hearing” yourself think: I am eating too much, or I shouldn’t eat that, I’ll get fat, or the like, feeling stressed… pause, put the food away for a moment, go to a calm place in your mind and ask yourself calmly: am I hungry right now, is this food healthy for me, did I really eat too much today, and make a choice regarding eating the rest of it or putting it away for later (“he would comment on everything that I ate and if I would gain a little bit of weight he would be sure to let me know (still does)”.

That’s all I have for now. Post back anytime you want to.

anita