Dear Doremi:

I am glad you are back with your 10th thread, but I wish you had better circumstances to report. First I want to go over what you shared in the last 7 years, in your own words, almost (I made many grammatical corrections so to provide an easier reading, but kept the meaning intact):

April 2014: “I am a young 20+”, “I am worried about looking weird and making mistakes.. I do my job well, but I am afraid that they talk badly about me behind my back… being underestimate, left out… I am scared of people’s rejection… I will try to go belong in my group without care for people approval, and gossip.

December 2014: “I am 24-25 years old”, “the company.. offered me very low salary based on my age and experience.. and made me the lowest level executive. After..  almost two year, I have proven my ability.. but then I saw someone who is only able to do (way less work), get a higher level executive position, and a higher pay because of their.. longer stay in the company… This company gives me a working visa which is probably difficult to get. I am working in another country.

February 2015: “I.. always want to do more and get a lot of praise from my team members and my bosses. The problem is that my boss who helps me a lot, and is always nice..  never praises me in front of my colleagues, always secretly when we meet in corridor.. I keep trying to show my boss how great I am, and always looking for his approval and attention.. It sounds like a child seeking attention, which can be bothersome to some.

August 2015: I am 25 years old this year and working as a designer overseas. I have a good job, a good pay, make a good living, and people around me keep telling me how lucky I am. The problem is I am not satisfied..  I keep comparing myself and seeing my colleagues being promoted and getting higher pay… I decided I want to set up my own business.. A lot of people praise my talent. The problem now is.. I am afraid.. I want to own my own house, to work from home, have a lot of creative freedom, and make a lot of money as well. But I am really afraid, don’t know why.

March 2016: ‘I am 25..  working overseas in a big company in Singapore. My 3 years contract is almost finished and I am waiting for a bonus. I have a good job.. and life is good. But I feel very bored, like there is no meaning in my life, like I am just a cog in a giant machine. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I applied to my dream companies, such as Google or Facebook, and still waiting for an answer.. I really want change, have a better title, higher salary, and a new environment… My parents won’t allow me to quit my job and be without pay, because they want me to be independent… I started making a blog, writing articles, giving knowledge for free. One and two people respond it with interest, “Great Post”, “Good Work”. But that’s it…I am very worried, worried that I am stuck in my life… I expect too much from myself.

April-May 2016: “Currently I really hate my job..  and want to leave asap but the problem is they hold my bonuses until June.. I have been applying jobs here and there, but I am very afraid with the uncertainty… and worried about so many things.. I am the only designer in my team, so if there is anything wrong.. they are all looking at me for answers, “Why this, why that, I don’t feel the design”,  and a lot of other nonsense..  I am also very stressful and uncertain.

July 2016: “My new jobs pays almost double than my previous job, however the location is a bit far and there is a lot of work.. It is a startup environment.. I feel like I need to do everything because there is no setup and structure on how to do things… In comparison, I was very miserable in my previous job: lack of appreciation, the pay was a bit low, a lot of structure, and they played the blame game a lot. However the place was near my house, and there wasn’t much work to do, so I was able to shut down after 6pm+…  I keep comparing the new job to the old job…I ask myself.. what should I do to not feel stressed out..?

February 2017: “I am 27.. The new company has better pay and better environment, but there is no clear structure here. I have to spend a lot of time explaining the basic process and educate people about every simple thing. The problem is sometimes I become very frustrated when people who don’t understand the basic ideas and start throwing the responsibility around. I was very upset when someone blamed me before… My colleague keeps encourage me to join a big bank because he is also looking (for a new job)… Should I jump for bigger companies or continue working here? I am afraid.

May 2019: “I am so worried about my future and I don’t know what to do. My current company wants to cut my salary, and out of anger I resigned immediately. It was easy for me to get a few job offers last year, so I thought I will be able to get a job easily this year as well.. Long story short, my notice period has ended 2 weeks ago, I’ve been look for jobs around 2 and half months and getting very little results. I am very stressed and my family is also very worried about my future. I am high-income earner so it is a bit difficult as well to get high-paying jobs. I think I will be jobless this month.. I still have some savings, but I have a mortgage to pay.. I am so afraid.. I started some business but the result is very minimal, I am very scared. I eat a lot when I am unhappy and gained some weight. I am scared that I am making a mistake with my life.

Today, June 29, 2021, you shared that at 30 years old, after 10 years of working, you are finally satisfied with your job (“good pay, good company, good bosses, good people around me. I feel so grateful for my job”). Because you have “become bored during Covid”, and for the purpose of increasing your income (in “easy ways”), you learned how to privately invest in stocks. You took a bank loan to finance your stock investments. About three months ago, you also got back on a dating app because your parents wanted you to get married. You communicated on the dating app with two men whom you talked to on the phone. They told you that they are entrepreneurs, that they know how to invest in stocks, and that they had made a lot of money doing so. They told you “flowery words”, that they loved you, and wanted to help you invest.

You followed their advice and invested. They asked you to invest more. You invested more. When you wanted to withdraw your money, you were unable to do so because the investment was held by the government for tax evasion. You then borrowed more money and  added it to the investment. Finally, your cousin’s brother told you that the investment was a scam. Your parents then sold their life savings so to help you, and your uncle helped you as well. You lost 2-3 years of working high-income jobs.

Dear Doremi: I hope that seeing the above on one page helps you see some things more clearly. My thoughts today:

1) Regarding the two men you recently met on a dating app, the two men who scammed you into investing in a fraudulent company (or companies)- it is not clear to me if you were scammed by two men who worked separately, not knowing about each other, or if the two worked together. I don’t know if you met them in-person separately or together, if you had a dating relationship with the two.. nor do I know why you would have interactions that include “flowery words” and I-love-you’s with two men at the same time (?)

Early on in your posts you shared how receiving approval, attention and praise, particularly publicly, has been so important to you (“my boss.. never praises me in front of my colleagues, always secretly when we meet in corridor.. I keep trying to show my boss how great I am, and always looking for his approval and attention.. It sounds like a child seeking attention“). I can see how the two men you met on the dating app made you feel very good paying you the approval, attention and praise that you craved.. ever since you were a child. Craving more of their approval, attention and praise made you vulnerable to being scammed by them.

2) Regarding your anxiety: the word “afraid” often appear in your posts through the years, as well as a concern about being blamed and making mistakes, feeling that you don’t belong in a group, and feeling that you are treated not as well as other. Overall, dominant throughout your 20s, has been your unsettled feeling, anxious, stressed, double-guessing your choices, unsatisfied with the current, looking for something else.. bored..  all this happening at different jobs and life circumstances, including when you were finally satisfied with your job (and regardless of you being a high-income earner, being able to purchase a house, and send gifts and money to your parents for a house in your home country).

The nature of your anxiety and overall emotional experience, seems to me, is much more of a product of your childhood experience than it is a product of your various adulthood experiences. I imagine that you either received too little approval, attention and praise from your parents, and/ or that you were criticized or blamed too much for making mistakes.. maybe not in loud, violent ways, but a quiet, subtle ways. Maybe as a child you did not feel that you belonged, and maybe you felt that you were treated not as well as others. I see all around me (and within me) how adults keep re-experiencing their childhood experience in a variety of adult life circumstances.

You are welcome to let me know your thoughts about the excerpts I started this post with, as well as my thoughts following.

anita