Dear Kibou,

thank you for sharing some more about your life.

Honestly speaking, some of the things I wrote in this reply, were simply done because of the things inquired in your replies. I do not mind sharing, but I also do not know as to how they matter to have been mentioned.

The reason I asked you about Japan is to try to understand what makes you happy. You said that thinking of Japan makes you smile, and now I understand that it’s related to Japanese cartoons that you liked very much as a child, and also to a Japanese friend you met while living in Cuba, whom you remember fondly, but lost connection with (These moments were shared with people dear to me, which with all I grew more apart with my constant moving and lack of communication.)

I guess Japan brings back pleasant memories of having a good friendship, feeling connected to someone, perhaps feeling like you belong. That’s something you rarely felt, since you and your family moved a lot. You shared how after you returned to your birth country, after 7 years in Cuba, your old school mates hardly wanted to associate with you, and that was very painful. (I had people pretend they did know me, or avoided me or neglect me upon returning; that is one of the things that left scars behind.)

You’ve also mentioned that you always excelled at school but didn’t really care if your performance dropped. However, when your peers started to laugh at you when you didn’t perform at your usual level, you stopped slacking off. Perhaps you wanted to be more approachable and more similar to them if you drop your performance, but it didn’t really bring you popularity, on the contrary, it brought you their judgment. Am I guessing this right?

You said something interesting about that experience:

I never blamed anyone for their behaviour, since I knew where they were coming from (many people share what’s on their heart with me and I do ask sometimes for clarification.) How to express I am hurting from other’s behaviour, while knowing their story has been hard for me; they are not bad people, they are hurt people who are more prone to hurt others and need time and healing themselves to change not so pleasant behaviour.

You’re saying that already at that age, as a school girl, you understood that they behave in hurtful ways because they are hurt people, and so it was difficult for you to be hurt about their behavior. That’s a pretty mature understanding for a teenager. I don’t know if yourself came up with that explanation, or you were told to be understanding towards people who hurt you because “they are hurt too”.

But what you did there was a rationalization: “I shouldn’t be hurt, offended or angry because these people themselves are hurt. I need to understand them and perhaps even forgive them”. Is this what you were taught by your parents, or how did this thinking formed in you while you were still quite young?

You also say you’ve healed the hurt from those betrayals:

Now I have found a stories for each drifting apart and value for each friendship I made. It still hurts those kind of experiences but those scars have healed if that makes sense.

Since you’re still suffering from a sense of abandonment, and loneliness, I wonder if you truly healed those wounds or have in part rationalized it?

You also say:

I tend to understand and empathise with others and logically understand how others weren’t possible to be emotionally there for me.

It is the same kind of thinking you displayed as a school girl: you understood your friends logically, but that doesn’t mean your wound isn’t still there. The wound happened when you were a child, and the inner child in us feels hurt and angry and betrayed. It’s still inside of you, but now covered up with layers of compassion and understanding. I’m not saying you haven’t done a lot of healing – because you have, obviously – just that there might be still some work to be done around healing the wound of abandonment, betrayal etc. And I guess this wound didn’t start with your school friends, but earlier.

You said something really important:

During the darkest time of last year, I wished there was somebody who would put me first, who would prioritize my needs first, but at the same time I knew that is not love (not meant in a romantic way).

This is the inner child in you speaking: “I wish there is somebody who would put me first, who would prioritize my needs”. It’s a legitimate need of a child, and I believe this need wasn’t met by your parents properly. So you’d need to heal your inner child and give it love and attention, and also allow it to express anger and disappointment at those who didn’t meet her needs properly. You cannot heal the abandonment wound without first getting angry (in a safe, therapeutic context) at those who abandoned you.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by Tee.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by Tee.