Dear Kibou,

it’s okay to respond whenever you feel like it, without feeling obliged. I do like it when people respond, but the relationships here are not the same as relationships with one’s friends and relatives, so no need to feel obliged. It’s okay to write only if you feel like expressing yourself and sharing.

From what you’ve said, it appears one of your core wounds is your unmet emotional needs, and feeling that you’re a burden if you express those needs at all. You were there for others and didn’t expect, or didn’t dare to expect, that others would be there for you.

When you comforted your mother when you were just 2 years old, the child doesn’t do it because they have developed empathy at that age, but primarily because they fear that their own existential needs won’t be met. If something happens to your mother, you as a small, helpless child wouldn’t be able to survive on your own. That’s why a child tries to do everything in their power to comfort the parent, to make the parent happy, so the parent could continue to take care of them. It’s a coping mechanism, a survival mechanism for the child. If you help your mother the best you can and don’t represent a burden to her, there’s a greater chance that she’d take care of you, and that your own survival would be ensured. That’s how the child’s mind works, unconsciously.

So I believe you became an empath, i.e. attuned to other people’s needs, out of necessity. You too had needs but you suppressed them, basically to survive. When you got a little older and when the thinking brain started developing, you probably started rationalizing why those other people (your parents and siblings, later your friends) can’t really be there for you when you need them – because they are hurt people, you told yourself.

This continued for many years, where you’ve tried to help various hurt people whom you met on your journey. You would involve in “deep conversations” with them and offered to be their shoulder to cry on. This was your way of bonding. You didn’t ask for much in return, just that they keep in touch. When they wouldn’t, when they would ghost you, that’s when you finally felt hurt and abandoned.

I also understand now that some of those people might really be wounded (suffering from social anxiety, as you said), that’s why they would often ghost you. But also, many of your relationships seem to be long-distance, with people whom you didn’t spend much time with in the first place, since you do move a lot, so that’s also something to consider. It’s good that you’re now better able to set boundaries and not feel the pressure to reply immediately, but to honor your own needs and timing.

It’s also great that during your group healing sessions in 2020, you could allow yourself to change the dynamic from always being a helper to asking for help yourself too. At first you were sharing your painful experiences with a smile on your face, not wanting to be a burden, but then the group members made you realize it’s okay to be needy. They encouraged you to ask for help. That’s a great progress.

You said you’ve done most of your healing with the theta healing modality. I don’t know much about it, I’ve just checked it now a little, and it seems it works on uncovering one’s false beliefs. Does it work with emotions too, and how?

When you do feel an emotion, it’s good that you can name it, but it might be good to also stay with it for a while, without immediately rationalizing it and trying to get rid of it. Try to see where it’s coming from and which need of yours hasn’t been met. Try not to immediately explain it away, telling yourself that yes, you’re hurt but the person who’s hurt you is hurt too. Because by doing the latter, you immediately overwrite your own pain with empathy for the other person, while your own pain and your own need remain unaddressed.