Dear Felix,

you’re very welcome, I am glad you feel heard and understood.

As a 7 year old child i found myself a way with that water… i feel that if i dont found that method, maybe i’ll be more screwed up now… and i feel emotional typing this.

It shows you were a resourceful and smart kid. You solved your own problem when the adults, including psychologists, couldn’t for full 4 years. Thanks to that, you can now eat almost anything, as long as you drink water with it. That’s not a small success! In the next phase, you can try techniques such as EMDR and EFT (tapping) because they are supposed to work with these types of traumas. Look it up if there’s a therapist who applies EMDR or an EFT practitioner in your area and inquire if they can treat a problem with swallowing.

Rest assured you’re not the only one in the world with this problem. There are people who can’t swallow either due to physical or psychological issues, and I am sure you could find them online if you’re interested. But you’re definitely not the only one, don’t worry.

I think the problem of me struggling with my height is due to that my mother always force me to have good grades as a child… as she saw i have weakness in eating and i have to be better at something. And since then, i really dont wanna be left behind. And due to short height, i feel like i’m left behind with “people that i should be in front on”.

It appears you felt deficient, and your mother treated you as there were something wrong with you. You felt like a failure because you couldn’t meet her expectations about eating. Maybe she was telling you something like “I am so sad about you not eating, I worry about your future. What will become of you? At least you should study well and have good grades. If you had good grades, I wouldn’t worry so much.”

I imagine she had this aura of disappointment and worry about you (the opposite of eagerness and having faith in you), which can destroy a child’s motivation. A child’s self-confidence. If you’re a disappointment, why bother with anything? Why bother with school, with good grades, when you’ll never be good enough for your mother. That’s how a child is reasoning. Why bother with sports either… and so you become lazy and unmotivated. You become someone you’re not proud of, neither are your parents proud of.

But it’s the result of how you were seen by your mother. It’s the result of her seeing you like a disappointment and a reason to worry. And then you started seeing yourself like a disappointment too, and behaving like a disappointment too.

How did you do in school? And later at the university? Did you have good grades, or not so much? What did you study – is it something relevant for your father’s business? Is there a position in your father’s company that interests you the most? I am asking because you could help and work beside the employee who’s currently filling that position, and learn how to do it well, so you can take it over sometime in the future.

As you’re helping in the company, you may also be noticing what needs improvement, and can suggest ideas for improvement to your father. What I am trying to say is that if you’re interested in continuing your father’s business, you can start thinking about how to improve it, modernize it, expand it, innovate it etc… you could bring your personal stamp and contribution to the business. You might be surprised how resourceful and creative you are – just like that 7-year old kid who saw a bottle of water!

When you stop seeing yourself as a disappointment, but as full of potential – things will start changing for you. Do you think you can do that? Do you think you can get rid of the “I am a disappointment” label, and put another one: “I am smart, creative and resourceful – I am full of great ideas”?

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