Dear Sesha:

“In context to my family I do feel very lonely… My father discouraged me in my young age to trust people in general” – your father put you in a very difficult situation (my mother did the same thing to me): lonely- that is, feeling desperately alone- in the context of the family and outside the context of the family.

“I really want people around me who get me and help me…  I want people I can rely on and trust. I want connections that matter to me not only in my best performance“- if people like me only when I perform well… it’s not me that they like, it’s my performance.

He told you: “nobody cares if you are not good in what you are doing” – he is confusing things: when a person is cared for only when performing well, the caring is not for the person, it’s caring for the performance. For example, an employer gives an employee a bonus for good performance: the bonus (at least primarily) is about caring for the employee’s performance, not about caring for the employee as a person. The bonus is about encouraging the employee to repeat the good performance, because good performance means financial profit.

“I really want people around me who get me and help me to grow as a human being. I want people I can rely on and trust” – this is possible for you, just as it became possible for me, coming from a position of lack of trust in people. It’s not that everyone is trustworthy, but there are trustworthy people in this world.

I will be away from the computer for about 5 h0urs. Feel free to post again on this topic (I feel that we are getting someplace with this!)

anita