Dear Inquisitive Soul:

You shared that when you were a kid, everything was handed to you and done for you by an overprotective family and no father figure. You were happy drawing and playing, being creative and having fun with other kids in the neighborhood.

When school started you learned many things but you were not good at some things, like playing ball, “always picked last when playing team games”. You remember crying after a basketball match because you didn’t touch the ball the whole game. Sometimes other kids made fun of you and picked on you. Some kids and teachers admired your art skills and that gave you a sense of acceptance and approval.

At one point your mother asked you if you wanted to be signed up for art school and you said “no” even though you knew you would enjoy it. You said “no” because you were afraid of what other people will think about your art, afraid of not being good enough at it.

Your grandmother “had a somewhat controlling personality” and discomfited you (made you feel uneasy and embarrassed), and you tried to be a “good boy” so to avoid her comments. Somewhere along the way you stopped doing your thing (drawing/ art, playing, being creative) “because of the discomfit feelings”.

You found “some escape” (from the discomfit feelings of unease and embarrassment) in video games, and when you discovered online gaming, you indulged yourself in it “for years upon years”, hooked by the competitiveness aspect of it. You believe that online gaming filled your void, made up perhaps for your “insecurities, and bad experiences from the pat where (you) were made fun of”.

At one point you had money troubles because of expensive health problems and you decided to stop “wasting (your) life away”. You got a job as soon as you finished school. At work you were competitive, wanting to “prove (yourself) worthy.. always aiming to climb the ladder up to the top”, feeling “‘endangered’ when in the presence of other more knowledgeable people”.

“when I had so much money.. and all  my needs and spending were covered a small euphoria stage happened but then.. I was really unhappy.. A vicious cycle of self-hatred and destruction has begun there- not  only I hated myself there but also others to a certain extent”.

You then got yourself together, moved out (of your family’s home?), living in good terms with your family, and “got rid of people with bad energy and influence”. In your view, you are “in a really good spot right now”, but you “despised other people because of their inability to get their lives together.. not respecting them”, and to this day you have “a strange habit to pick on others’ undoings or simply stupid stuff they do, like ‘Why you don’t do X instead of Y? It is so simple, you must not do this’ etc.”.

You imagine that you would be a horrible parent because of being so critical of others, afraid you will be critical of your own children, and “that’s one of the reasons I’m avoiding any relationships… afraid it could be toxic”. At times, when you got back to your “passion for creating stuff”, you felt genuinely happy, and as a result, you were “a better and more understanding person”.

You want to stop chasing, stop the “more money or career chasing”, and you have begun “to learn things anew”, but… “I don’t feel like I’ve healed. Most of the time I’m alone but I believe I’m on the right path like never before. I don’t share my endeavors with closer people in my life maybe because I’m afraid of being criticized or made fun of?.. something to do with the wounds of the past.. can’t really connect with others + afraid of sharing my deeper thoughts?”

My input: you are safe here, in communication with me: I will not criticize your thoughts or your feelings, and if I mention your behaviors, I will not mention those behaviors with a critical tone.

More of my understandings: you received some admiration for your art skills by teachers and kids, and you enjoyed being creative- during those experiences, you felt a positive excitement, a joy, and you felt motivated to create more and explore life. In between the excitations, you felt calm and content.

When you were picked last last for sport team games, when other kids picked on you and made fun of you, and when your grandmother criticized you- during those experiences, you felt a negative excitement, an unease, fear and shame and/ or anger,  and you felt demotivated, you withdrew and were not inclined to create and to explore life. The unease of those experiences, the negative excitation spilled to an ongoing anxiety- a slow, enduring unease.

Humans, like other animals, are more reactive to negative experiences than to positive experiences- if a deer is resting calmly, and a lion approaches, the deer will immediately feel great fear and escape the lion fast. On the other hand, once it escapes, it will take the deer a long, long time to return to calm. If the deer is approached by a lion ten times a day, the deer will not have enough time to relax in between the near-attacks, and anxiety will take hold.

Another topic: when your mother asked you if you wanted her to sign you up to an art school and you told her No, she accepted your No. She wasn’t aware that you were afraid to be criticized for your art. She also didn’t realize and/ or  didn’t stop your grandmother from criticizing you. This means that she was not close-enough to you. If she was close-enough to you, she would have noticed your fear. If you felt her closeness, you would have told her that you were afraid.

You weren’t close with your grandmother, trying to escape her criticism by being a “good boy”- you put quotation marks there because you were faking being good just so to escape her criticism. You were not your authentic self with her.

You wrote: “I don’t share my endeavors with closer people in my life”- meaning your mother, grandmother, I assume.. thing is, they are not close-enough to you, haven’t been for much of your childhood.

There was no real connection between you and the adults in your young life; fast forward to adulthood- you “can’t really connect with others”.

“I don’t share… because I’m afraid of being criticized or made fun of?”- yes, because it happened in the past, and we are all afraid to experience more of what already happened.

You mentioned the “wounds of the past”- as all humans, starting as children, you too needed to feel valuable to other people- to the adults in your household, and later, to teachers and kids in school. Feeling valuable to others is a necessary requirement for mental health. When you felt invaluable, picked last, made fun of- an emotional injury has taken place.

You then tried to heal that injury (of losing the sports competitions in school, for one) by successfully competing/ winning in the context of online gaming, and later, in the contexts of the work place and making more and more money. A temporary euphoria followed some of these wins, but the wounds of childhood kept bleeding into your life-experience, cutting that euphoria short, and replacing it with a “vicious cycle of self-hatred and destruction”.

Your “strange habit” of criticizing others for their choices is not that strange at all. Think of it as a coin: one side of the coin is your experience of being criticized by others;  on the other side of the coin is your experience criticizing others. Your grandmother who criticized you- she too was criticized by others. It is very common for people who were criticized a lot- to criticize others.

“I began to learn things anew. But I don’t feel like I’ve healed. Most of the time I’m alone but I believe I’m on the right path like never before”- it reads to me that you are indeed on the right path, the path of healing from those wounds from the past, the path of better understanding and learning, the path of freeing yourself from much of the fear that held you back so far.

anita