Dear Javier,

it’s good to read you had a productive therapy session, with lots of self-reflection and making a kind of inventory of where you are at mentally and emotionally. I am glad it helped you! And it’s also great that you’re going to mass, socializing with people, listening to their stories and how they’ve overcome their hardships. It’s so sweet that you primary school teacher recognized you, and that you opened up to her, expressing your appreciation and gratitude.

To be honest, I have always felt ungrateful towards people who helped mold me.

No wonder, since the most important people who molded you (your parents) did a poor job. Your father abused you, your mother failed to protect you from abuse. It’s no wonder you didn’t feel any gratitude to authority figures, including those who were good and kind, like your primary school teacher.

In a response to Sarah’s question: “How are you protective and caring?”, you wrote:

I always feel responsible for other peoples feelings. Especially towards my family, as I feel responsible for all their pain and hurting.  As a result, I go to great lengths to avoid conflicts, and seldom admit when my feelings are hurt.

In trying to protect and care for others, you suppressed your own feelings and needs. You blamed yourself for your mother’s pain, when it wasn’t your fault at all. That’s what a child does – it always protects the parent, and blames themself, trying to change and become “better”, hoping that this would make the parent happy.

From very early in your childhood, you thought that something was wrong with you, first when your father was beating you, and then when your mother wouldn’t protect you from him. You took responsibility for their abuse and lack of protection, you thought you were bad and deserved it. And then later when you started acting out, you kind of “proved” to yourself that you are indeed bad and deserve poor treatment.

See how it goes? You were an innocent child who took the blame for being abused, believing there was something terribly wrong with you. And you lived your life with that false belief, acting out, doing drugs, not paying attention at school etc.

How does it feel to protect and care?

Honestly, it sucks big time. Because, it reminds me how neglected, hurt and tormented I was. And, I tend to start with the “what ifs”, “I wish”, and “Why wasn’t there anyone there for me”. The more I protect and care about my nieces, the more devastated and anxious I feel. Somehow, I see myself in them, my brittle inner-child that is broken into thousand pieces.  I get reminded of how brittle and weak I really am. A tiny bump in the road will break me.

You indeed were neglected and hurt as a child, and you had no one to protect you. A small child left to his own devices in the midst of domestic violence is horrible indeed. That’s why you feel brittle and weak now. It’s the inner child in you. What you are doing now, with therapy and self-help and sharing here, is you’re strengthening your adult self. Your adult self isn’t helpless like your inner child is, it has resources to help you. So the task would be to strengthen your adult self, so you can defend and protect and care for your inner child.

One way to strengthen your adult self is to understand and accept that it wasn’t your fault that the abuse happened. That you’re not inherently bad and worthless, that you didn’t deserve it. So you stop taking the blame and responsibility for other people abusing you. Specially for your parents abusing you, i.e. failing to protect you. This is how you will start protecting your inner child. If you believe you deserved the abuse, you cannot protect your inner child, and healing cannot happen. Can you see that?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by Tee.