Dear canary,

I am sorry you aren’t feeling better. But I think it’s a very good decision that you chose to take fewer classes, since having the full load has been super stressful and only contributed to your anxiety.

I would like to go back to something profound you said last October:

It’s hard to live life when you feel so inadequate compared to others, but whenever my family, friends, strangers, reassure me and remind me how special I am, I feel so much better. I realize that whenever I feel inadequate, I need to bring the attention back towards myself. I need reminders of who I am and what my strengths are. I don’t need others to validate me and agree with me.

Indeed, you need to tell yourself that you are lovable, worthy and good enough – even if you suffer from anxiety. What you need is self-acceptance. Your parents didn’t understand your anxiety, their message to you (even if they didn’t tell it in so many words) was to be ashamed of anxiety, to not speak about it to anyone, and to pretend that everything is fine. And if you can’t pretend, then something is terribly wrong with you.

I believe what you need most is to accept yourself fully and completely – together with your “weirdness” and anxiety and all of  it. Only when we accept ourselves with our flaws, can we change. That’s a paradox that Carl Rogers was talking about: “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”

You have learned to judge yourself, because your father judged you when you were a child (for being skinny, for being too sensitive, for being anxious…). This imprint of “I am not good enough” stayed deep within you. It can only be countered by self-acceptance : “I am good enough, even if I have all these weaknesses. I am precious, I am lovable. I am worthy.”

On your other thread you said you are angry at your ex boyfriend because he told you hurtful things:

He insulted me, disrespected me, and treated me very poorly. He insulted me and the insults still linger in my head. I wonder if he really meant that. I wonder if he actually thought I was ugly, or if he was just projecting onto me.

When we don’t love ourselves, the insults hurt much more. A part of you probably believes what he said, e.g. that you are ugly, and another part of you is angry at him. It’s a battle inside of you. If you loved yourself enough, his words wouldn’t be so damaging for you. It’s like there is a wound, and he puts a salt on that wound. If the wound weren’t there, his insults wouldn’t hurt so much. You wouldn’t have the need for him to apologize in order to feel better about yourself. You would feel good about yourself even without him apologizing.

It doesn’t mean he is not guilty for being rude and disrespectful. It’s just that you would be able to let it go more easily. Does that make sense?