Dear Sesha:

I will be reading your posts from the first to the sixth and comment:

“I got very anxious and paranoid of how other… people…  perceived me. I could feel the change in…  the behaviour of others…(I) became so tense and nervous around people” –

– in this emotional state when around people, it is impossible for anyone (1) to accurately perceive how other people perceive you and, (2) to accurately interpret their behaviors. Even in a much calmer state, people misinterpret others’ behaviors!

“It feels like nobody can handle my oddity” – you think that others think that you are odd, but you are wrong, at the least, not every person thinks that you are odd. Most people are not at all thinking about you because they are busy thinking about other things, many are busy thinking about what others (including you, Sesha) are thinking about them, and some are busy thinking if others are thinking that they are odd!

“I wish that I know how to find silence in my head. I am trying my best to train mindfulness and also to take care of myself by meditating, eating well and go outside” – I hope these non-pharmaceutical strategies to calm down work for you. There is the option, if necessary, of psychiatric medications, such as the SSRI anti-depressant drugs that are also prescribed for anxiety.

“I think people kind of felt offended by me” – like I said, for as long as you are too anxious around people, you are not likely to accurately interpret their reactions to you. A person may be offended by someone else in his/ her life earlier in the day, and you inaccurately think that the person is offended by you. The tendency when too anxious is to take everything personally, as if other people’s behaviors are all about you.

“Even if my parents love me and would give everything they have, they used to be very demanding and discouraging at the same time. But they changed… I want to emphasize that my parents aren’t bad people, but they grew up that way and didn’t know better how to educate me” – young children naturally look up to their parents as if they were gods. The reason: they feel safe being dependent on perfect, all-good, all-loving, all-capable gods than they would if they were aware of how imperfect their parents really are.

In the exceptional case of healthy-enough childhoods, older children gradually learn to perceive their parents as humans. When childhoods are not healthy-enough, the child grows up into an adult who keeps looking up to the parents as if they were gods. The reason: the child, now adult, never felt safe enough to see the parents as humans, and he/ she still needs them (or any one of them) to be gods.  This tendency stands in the way of the adult-child healing because the more you see your parents as perfect, the more you see yourself as imperfect. To see yourself as you really are, you have to see your parents as they really are.

In your thread, you were quick to protect your image of your parents, but in reality, if you see them as they really are, you will not hurt them, because your image of them exists in your head, in the distance between your two ears, and your parents don’t occupy that space. What’s happening in your brain is your private business. You don’t have to share it with your parents.

“I am also very envious of her life and compare myself very often with her, because we grew up in the same circumstances, but she seems to have her life together… She doesn’t want to have any negativity in her life. I am somebody very negative and unbearable” – in families, even though the circumstances are often very similar for two siblings, the strong tendency (unless the family is healthy) is for the younger sibling to take the opposite role to that of the older sibling. A common example: if the older sibling is rebellious, the younger sibling is likely to takes the obedient role. In your case, if you were considered the “negative and unbearable” sibling, then your sister is likely to have taken on the role of the positive-and-bearable sibling.

“Many times, they just stand up and go because they can’t bear my emotions and my intense moaning… I couldn’t bear those emotions and regulated them in very destructive ways… Those intense emotions are scary and terrible for others too… I get very clingy and vulnerable. I want that people don’t leave me alone… Therefore, people feel suffocated by me…  I feel like I am acting like a child” –

– I am trying to get a picture of how you actually behave when overwhelmed with intense emotions, and I don’t have enough information to have a picture. You mentioned “intense moaning“, which means that you make intense sounds of pain and suffering (?) Maybe you cry loudly, or for a long time, I don’t know. Maybe you beg people to not leave you. It will help me to see the picture I need to see if you describe what I would see and hear if I was there, while you regulate your emotions “in very destructive ways“. What do you actually say and do during those times?

“What should I do then to get the comfort I need to calm down those intense emotions? Like you said alone the emotions intensify but in such an unstable state I can’t seek comfort in others” – you already know about mindfulness, meditating etc. (“I am trying my best to train mindfulness and also to take care of myself by meditating, eating well and go outside“), and I mentioned the possibility that psychiatric medications may help. To give you a suggestion that is more specific to you, I will need to have the picture I asked for in the previous paragraph. If you feel comfortable enough to give me that picture, please do.

anita