Hello anita,

Thankyou for writing back and your detailed analysis of my posts. That is exactly spot on. I do feel like I am reliving the past and struggle to motivate myself to do healthier behaviours. For example as a child I was often out of the house. I would either be at my friends and helping them with chores that their family were doing, or volunteering at animal sanctuary. Both of those things meant I was quite busy alot of the time. However when I wasnt volunteering or with my friend (or my friends had not wanted to be friends with me as happened later on in childhood) I used to just sit in my room feeling very very alone and sad. Like huge sad feelings and I wanted to escape those.

This same pattern happens now. I am either very busy with work or hobbies or if for some reason I’m not busy e.g I’m feeling very unmotivated and sad then I tend to just sit on the sofa or lie in bed and do nothing. I am both hard working at times and very lazy.

Also as a child I was compared to my richer, more popular, prettier, more talented, socially better next door neigbours, cousin and other children of family friends. I was always found to be less than e.g look at so and so why cant you be like that or see how so and so does that, do you want to do that. Sometimes it wasnt said that obviously it was more just a vibe or feeling I got. Like i wasnt the child my parents wanted to have. They wanted someone better. I also do the same now. Compare my life to others that i know or have heard about and feel like my life isnt any good.

In terms of not reliving that childhood experience and not doing childhood again, what have you found to be the path forward in your own life?

I very much resonated with the following words you wrote about your experience:

all the thoughts and emotions I had were not noticed by anyone, which amazed me  because I felt so strongly, and even stronger because no one noticed. It was like living in  a vacuum, a whole world of thoughts, emotions, fears, wants, hopes, desires, a living imagination.. and all of that trapped by a vacuum that surrounded me.

I like the word amazed as I felt that too. Like it’s like no one ever noticed how I was feeling and my parents would just rather sweep it under the carpet and not know. Or it was turned around e.g “you were always a difficult child” or I was told I was quirky etc and again just not the child they wanted. My feelings or emotions were never ever taken into account. Then I feel guilty now for not liking my parents or wanting to spend time with them.

In terms of living in imagination, yes that was also an escape.  I read alot of books. I remember crying at the end of one of them as it was about the character having friends and I wanted that too. I tended to be drawn to books with strong families, like the Weasleys in Harry Potter. I just wanted to feel safe in my own family but I know it’s not a safe place.  I also used to pretend I had “friends” that were celebrities or something (in my head I didn’t talk to others about them) but we would have imagined conversations in my head. That lasted for a long while in childhood but not for the past 10 years or so I wouldn’t think.

I felt like I walked around with one of those big hand signs like “this is wrong” pointing to my family but no one saw. It makes me very angry and I have been told by others in my life before that I am an angry person.