Dear greenshade:

You wrote today: “I am afraid that I am passing up a great opportunity, that leaving in this way might close some doors for me, and also that maybe it’s my attitude that’s off. No one else I work with seems to struggle with putting in 150% or working holidays. Is this the normal and do I need an attitude adjustment?” –

– it reads like the problem is a combination of a difficult work situation and your life-long significant anxiety. In regard to the latter, an attitude adjustment would be a good start. I will suggest an attitude adjustment at the end of this post. First, let’s take a look at your anxiety and what it is about:

Back in June 2016, at 26 years-old, you shared about your anxiety: “Anxiety is a significant problem for me, and over the years I have manifested it as not being able to stop throwing up (involuntarily), headaches and palpitations. I have fairly recently come to recognize all of these things as symptoms of my anxiety“. You also shared that you were living with your parents: “they need my support + it would be culturally inappropriate for me to live alone in my country“.

In August 2016, you shared: “I’ve posted about recently reentering the work force at a temporary workplace. For some reason, this place is triggering a lot of anxiety for me. People are generally perfectionists here, and everything is a competition… I enjoy the work itself a lot, and it is something I am passionate about, and I wish it could just be about the work”.

In October 2016, you shared: “I started meditation recently; and it has greatly helped calm my mind. All day yesterday, though, I was struggling with panic attacks. I managed to meditate… My mind is quiet, thankfully, but the feeling of heart crushing anxiety is still there… being around (bi-polar, abusive father) triggers a lot of my fears and anxiety... if I’m not loving towards him a lot of religious childhood fear kicks in (when I was a child, I believed disobeying or hurting your parents means you go to hell, at a subconscious level I still believe that“.

In the same month, in a different thread (“Working 9-5”), you shared: “I wish I could leave work when I wanted to and plan my schedule as I wanted. Alternatively, I wish I could stop obsessing over the fact that I can’t leave my office whenever I want”.

In November 2016, you shared: “I do think that being home saps me of a lot of my energy and strength…  even my dad is not saying or doing anything, as long as he is around, I am still fighting a lot of guilt and anxiety as soon as I around him”

In January 2017, you shared: “When things are going well, I get overwhelmingly anxious, like something bad is going to happen IMMEDIATELY or I’m going to be punished somehow. The thought ‘how do I make this good stuff last; I must not mess it up’ starts playing through my head at such a furious pace I get a headache. I also become paranoid that I’m going to say something that’s going to offend everyone when relationships are going well. I end up self-sabotaging because I find the anxiety that accompanies good stuff happening harder to deal with than the pain of bad stuff happening…

“Any change, good or bad, or any event at all could trigger a manic episode for my dad. So, if I had schools’ exams they would trigger it, my birthday would trigger it, and he was most abusive during manic episodes, so I dreaded any life event or change in routine”.

In October 2018 you posted that you recently moved abroad for your master study program. In June 2019, you posted that after 10 months abroad, you were back home, living with your parents. You shared that while away from your parents’ home and country, you had a relationship with a man you trusted, a relationship where you “felt healthy and happy, and loved”. But back home with your abusive father and passive-aggressive mother, you shared: “going back to my life with my boyfriend… feels far off and not real… I am definitely feeling like I had moved backward since coming home”.

In June 2019, you mentioned post-traumatic stress disorder: “I have tried discussing the things that seemed like red flags on a ptsd forum I belong to”.

In September 2019, you shared in regard to your passive-aggressive mother: “I have been letting her know more and more how her behavior impacts me… She communicates her needs instead of giving me the silent treatment for days… She sometimes still says minimizing things, but I am able to stand up for myself with her.  I do still need my own place because that is still better for me and seeing my dad every day is still very triggering for me”.

In the same month and year, you also shared that you were feeling rage and exhaustion living with your parents, and considered moving out of their home, but you were too exhausted to do so: “Don’t have energy-> can’t work-> no salary-> can’t move out”.

In your January 2021 thread “Breaking Point“, you shared that you were living with your mother while your elderly father stayed in a care facility following a manic episode and getting infected with Covid. You oversaw his care but didn’t visit him often, and you felt guilty for it. You wrote at that time: “I don’t know how to escape my life, or to fix things so that they are okay. In my culture, you are the worst if you neglect your elderly parents“.

My input today: your anxiety has infected every part of your life as an adult and ever since you were a child. Some of the anxiety symptoms you listed: “throwing up (involuntarily), headaches and palpitations… heart crushing anxiety… obsessing… When things are going well, I get overwhelmingly anxious, like something bad is going to happen IMMEDIATELY… (thoughts) starts playing through my head at such a furious pace I get a headache. I also become paranoid… ptsd… don’t have energy”.

No wonder you’ve been suffering from so much anxiety, being that you grew up (and still) living with a very abusive father and a mother who (1) defended him (“I was taught to believe how he was acting wasn’t his fault, because he was sick and not in control of his behavior… how he was acting wasn’t who he was“), and (2) turned passive-aggressively against you. No child can grow up in such abuse and not become severely affected.

Having read about your father, I didn’t come across a single good behavior on his part. In regard to people who use his bipolar disorder diagnosis to excuse his abuse of his wife and child, I have this to say: people who do not suffer from a diagnosable mental illness can be primarily good people, or primarily bad people. Same is true in regard to people who were diagnosed with bi-polar disorder: some are primarily good people; others are primarily bad people.

In other words, bi-polar people are not all the same person. Your father, appears to me, is primarily a bad person: he repeatedly terrorized you and your mother for decades, yelling at you and at her, demanding that stay put and not move while he kept yelling at you for hours at a time. At one time, he poisoned your mother’s food so to see her sick. And he was never held accountable for any of his bad (and even criminal) behaviors. No one protected you from him.

You wrote in regard to living with parents: “they need my support + it would be culturally inappropriate for me to live alone in my country” – did you notice that the following are culturally appropriate in your country: (1) men abusing their wives and children, if they so choose, (2) mothers abusing their children, if they so choose, (3) parents abusing their adult unmarried daughter until she gets married… if they so choose, (4) mother in-laws living with their married sons abusing their daughters-in-law… if they so choose?

“ In my culture, you are the worst if you neglect your elderly parents” – in your culture (and in other traditional cultures), abusive parents are not the ones who are considered the worst, they are not the ones made to feel guilty; it is the abused children who are made to feel like the worst people, victims of false guilt.

“When I was a child, I believed disobeying or hurting your parents means you go to hell, at a subconscious level I still believe that” – for too many obedient children, living with their parents is hell. No abused child can be … obedient enough to avoid the wrath of an abusive parent, because the abusive parent will always find (an invalid) reason to abuse.

The nature of living with an abusive parent (as a child and as an adult) is that the anxiety does not disappear at times when the parent is not being abusive; the anxiety lingers because the abused knows, from experience, that there will be a next time. You wrote at 26: “even my dad is not saying or doing anything, as long as he is around, I am still fighting a lot of guilt and anxiety as soon as I around him“.

When you lived away from your parents long enough, you finally felt healthy and happy, and loved, finally safe far, far away from them. You even had a healthy relationship with a man for some time, for the first time in your life… but then, you did the culturally appropriate thing and went back home.

In regard to the workplace, in August 2016, you shared about a job you had- you enjoyed the work itself but the people you worked for, or with, were “triggering a lot of anxiety” for you because they were “generally perfectionists here, and everything is a competition“. Fast forward more than 5.5 years, and you are anxious in a different workplace: “my dread and anxiety around my work are growing“. In October of the same year, you shared about a 9-5 job where you were anxious (obsessing) because you couldn’t leave the workplace whenever you wanted-

– I am assuming that you are still living with your parents, that you have lived with them your whole life (minus the ten months abroad), and so, you never really had the opportunity to heal and lessen your anxiety. Living with your parents (now at 32 or so) is serving to maintain or maybe even exacerbate your anxiety, and so, I can’t imagine a workplace where you will not feel significantly anxious. Anxiety is not confined to a place: anxious at home=> anxious in the workplace. Having said this, it is also true that there are very difficult and abusive workplaces where no one should work, inclined to significant anxiety, or not.

You asked in your current thread: “do I need attitude adjustment?“- my answer is yes: you need to stop obeying your culture’s attitude that abuse is okay when it comes to parents abusing their children (as minor age children and as adult-children). It is time to move out and away from your parents (no matter how old they are) and do what is right and just for greenshade.

anita