Dear ana:

You shared that your family consisted of your parents and two older brothers. Your mother and/ or father told you that you were born in spite of a tubal litigation procedure. The “way they usually talked about this” made you feel that they thought of you as “a problem rather than a blessing… a burden“.

“My parents screamed at each other often, fought often and my father beat me often too“.

Both your parents earned a good enough income, but your mother and your alcoholic father were both gambling addicts and spent their money gambling and incurring debts, while you were given secondhand textbooks, clothes and bags.

A whole day spent with your parents when you were 7 and onward, was about being driven to a remote gambling club and sitting alone at the bar with a bag of gaming chips while your parents played the slot machines. At other times, they left you and your brothers with a neighbor while they spent their time and money gambling.

“I remember as it was yesterday“: your teacher at school asked the students in your class “if mom or dad helped them to do homework, most kids said yes, to those of us who said no she told us: ‘Well that’s probably because they don’t know you need help! Why not asking them to help you next time?“. Your teacher’s assumption was wrong because when, following her suggestion, you asked your father to help you with your homework question (“I remember the question and the topic so clearly even after all these years: Who invented the steam engine?”), he angrily threw books off the shelves and screamed at you about you not being able to do anything on your own.

From then on, you did your schoolwork in hiding during the night, when your parents and brothers slept. Fast forward, as an adult, you “find night shifts more comfortable“. As a child, you were often isolated, it changed during high school when you had “a nice group of friends“, but that ended when they went to college, something you couldn’t afford to do. Instead, you chose an educational training program that you were able to afford.

“So, this bring us to today, my mother died three years ago, and I haven’t talked with my father in years, I don’t have a good relationship with my brothers, no friends either. I have a job that doesn’t pay enough… I work from home, and I don’t leave the house unless it’s for something very specific, I fear people… I’ve always had this little dream of owning a modest apartment so I could adopt a dog, but I fear living alone…  All I want to do these days is sleep, I’m always tired…. I can’t stop thinking about bad stuff that might happen and that I’m broken beyond repair. Any tips?”

The homework question was: Who invented the steam engine? I googled it just now, and I am not sure of the answer. Thomas Savery, an English inventor and engineer, invented the first commercially used steam-powered device, a steam pump “which is often referred to as an ‘engine’, although it is not technically an engine” (Wikipedia). So, if his engine was not technically an engine, who invented the first real steam engine, I ask myself.  Further online research leads me to Thomas Newcomen who improved on Savery’s invention and James Watt who improved it further. So… it is not one man who invented the first steam engine, is what I figure.

You asked for tips, not for the answer to your homework question of long ago.  I just googled “tips for social anxiety” (because you mentioned anxiety about being out in public) and a lot came up, whole tips-filled books, like “Rewire your Anxious Brain” and “Thriving with Social Anxiety”.

There is a website, philivoice. com/ 6 tips for coping with social anxiety. You mentioned being afraid not only about going out in public, but afraid of everything, so I googled “tips for anxiety”. WebMD. com/ tips for living with anxiety: “Move your body. Exercise is an important part of physical -and mental – health… Pay attention to sleep. Both quality and quantity are important… Ease up on caffeine and alcohol… Schedule your worry time… Breathe deep. It sends a message to your brain that you’re OK. That helps your mind and body relax”, and more.

Back to the homework question: it was a moment of great significance when you asked your father to help you with this question. If only he looked you in the eye with a smile that said: I am glad you asked me; if only he talked kindly to you and went about looking for the answer with you… if that was the way he (and your mother) treated you on a regular basis, what a difference it would have made in your life!

You asked for tips, here is my personal tip to you: find someone who cares about you, someone to whom you matter, someone who values you, not as a problem, not as a burden, but as a blessing. If you don’t have a person like this in real life, I can be such a person right here, in the context of your thread. Would you like that?

anita