Dear Jisoo,

Mom dismissing my tears when I was a kid

this is emotional neglect – a parent should ask the child what bothers them and console and comfort them, or if necessary, take appropriate steps (e.g. if the tears are related to being bullied at school, talk to the teachers, or if the tears are related to sexual harassment, take action as well). You crying frequently and your mother dismissing it shows she wasn’t attuned to you, she didn’t have empathy, or she was purposefully refusing to see the problem because she didn’t want to confront it.

There was always the pressure to get 1st rank as my parents were very strict w.r.t to studies. I was always a 1st ranker but parents never appreciated it much. But when I loose even few marks, I would get scolded and beaten.

This is a big pressure for a child and sends a message that you’re not good enough if you aren’t Number 1, if your performance is less than perfect. They had high expectations of you and would punish you if you failed to meet them. And when you performed well, they didn’t appreciate it, they took it for granted. The result could very well be that you didn’t feel good enough and worthy of love if you didn’t perform perfectly.

These two together – emotional neglect and expecting perfection from you – could definitely lead to feelings of being unworthy of love, being not good enough.

Your husband didn’t make you feel unworthy, it seems like you had a healthy and mutually respectful relationship, but after his death, the old trauma got triggered. Maybe because subconsciously you experienced his death as “abandonment”, even if it wasn’t his fault, and your old feelings of being unworthy of love resurfaced. Does this explanation resonate with you?