Dear Dandan:

You are welcome. Your recent long post indicates to me that your distress is often acute, and that indeed, for you, “Every single day is a nightmare”.

I believe that your first priority needs to be to lower your distress level repeatedly every day. Do so by  (1) doing daily aerobic exercise such as a fast walk of 30 minutes 1-3 times a day, whenever your distress level is particularly elevated, and/or download an aerobic exercise video to do at home,  (2) when you notice your distress has been elevated while working in front of the computer, get up and walk around, look outside the window, drink water, or hot tea and then go back to the computer, (3) consider downloading  slow pace yoga videos, as well guided meditation audios that start with slowing down and focusing on your breathing.

The second part of my post can be useful to you only if you are calm enough and in the state of mind to consider what I will be posting. Therefore, if you are not calm right now, read the following later, when you are calmer and more focused, maybe after you return from a fast walk (if it is safe).

I will now retell some of what you shared, retelling some of it in my own words (paraphrasing). If I get anything wrong, please correct me:

Your mother didn’t like to be at home with her husband and her children, which includes you. She didn’t enjoy your company, so she distracted herself by watching a lot of TV. She was happy when she left the home, going to restaurants, long drives, tours and movie theatres. For her, home was like a prison she wanted to escape, either by watching TV or physically, by going out.

During your childhood, your family had lots of debts, which caused a lot of stress for your parents, your sisters and you, sometimes you locked yourselves at home, hiding from a debt collector who knocked on the door. One of your sisters attempted, or made suicide gestures at home many times throughout the years. Overall, life was miserable for the entire family of five. But within your stressful life, you had a few passions: crushes on girls, bodybuilding and dancing. (The two latter passions were mostly neglected after high school).

After 2 months away from your very stressful home, while living in a strict hostel during your 11th grade, you were home sick, “thinking about home all the time.. desperate to run away” and go back home. When you succeeded and went back to living at home, during your 11th and 12th grade, you “started smoking and drinking” with older boys, and you cut your hand (“I have used a razor blade to mark cuts in my hand. Plenty of them. Lot of blood”).

After you graduated 12 grade and joined a reputed university for your undergraduate education, you drank and smoked a lot, and you entered your first romantic relationship of three years. When the two of you fought, you felt “normal and okay”, but when you did not fight and you felt “so close, so much attached” to her, you felt “too close.. something weird, as in something too much (to) handle”, something that made you “so much mad”. The relationship ended after 3 years, when you joined a college for your post graduate education.

In post grad you had your second relationship and some interactions with the first girlfriend (“lot of things happened”). The father of your second girlfriend did not approve of the relationship, you talked to him but was unsuccessful in changing his mind. Your parents visited her father and were mistreated. Eventually, the relationship ended and she married another man. You drank a lot, went back to the first girlfriend, but did not want to marry her, and you flirted with women although you were not serious about them. In 2018, you met your third and most recent girlfriend, now broken up.

My thoughts today: earlier, in your second post,  you wrote, “My parents are so loving and caring”. Your parents means your father and your mother. Focusing on your mother, the parent you spent most of your time with growing up, while your father was at work, your statement then means that your mother is “so loving and caring”. Unfortunately, from what you described, this is not a true statement. Her behavior did not express love and care.

“I get zoned out and get depressed for no reason.. I feel always low for no reason”- to zone out means to lose focus or stop paying attention to something, usually unintentionally. I think that as a child you zoned out of the reality that there was no love and care for you. And I think that you felt low and depressed because there was no love and care for you. (Not for you and not for your sister who attempted and/ or made suicidal gestures repeatedly for years).

I understand the stress in regard to having debts and that it was a nightmare, as you put it, for all of the family members. But if there was love and care in the home, the financial difficulties would not have  made your lives a nightmare.

When you were with your first girlfriend and the two of you were close, it felt “too close” for you. It felt “something weird”, something that was “too much (to) handle” because, seems to me- it reminded you (without being aware of the memory), how much you loved your mother and how much it hurt that she didn’t love you back. The hurt and anger at your love for your mother not being reciprocated came back in the context of your first romantic relationship, and it made you “so much mad”.

At this point in your life, at 31, there is no way to fix your problems by fixing your relationship with your mother. Even if she started to love you back at this time of your life, it would be too late because the damage to you was done when you desperately needed her love as a child.

To heal the damage done, you will need to start with (1) acknowledging that it is not true that your mother has been “so loving and caring” (such untruth is keeping you unwell), and (2) grieving this reality, allowing yourself to feel the great sadness, and anger, and whatever feeling comes up at knowing this sad truth.

It is not possible for a child to acknowledge and grieve such truth, but it is possible for an adult. Once you achieve these two goals, you will be on your way for a much better life, a life where you will be busy living and loving instead of zoning out and regretting.

anita