* I’ll try to clean the above from all the excess print:

Dear Eric:

“Yes, I’ve been suffering from all these matters“- you’ve been suffering a lot and for a long, long time. I wish that your life so far was not filled with so much emotional suffering. But reality is that you’ve been experiencing deep emotional pain for a long, long time. You keep mentioning your short height… imagine all that pain in a short height, that’s a lot of pain in every centimeter.

Next time you look at yourself in the mirror or in a picture, look at your height differently than before, with new respect: respect for every centimeter of your height that is strong enough to carry the weight of so much emotional pain, and still keep your body upright.

I wish that someone would give you a hug right now, a sincere, affectionate hug, and say to you: I can feel your pain, I can feel how deep it is, and for so long. I wish I could take it away from you. I want to help you.

“Generally, people would label a short person, messy family situations, lesser financial status, etc. as more inferior to them“- most people think of some other people as inferior to themselves for the reasons you mentioned and for other reasons such as race, nationality, mannerisms (like the way a person eats.. or what they eat), not to mention handicaps of all kinds. Few people in comparison feel that everyone is equal to themselves.

“I keep getting mad and try to hit myself if I expose these weaknesses to people. Because I don’t want them to look at me as an inferior person“- it hurts so much to be thought of as inferior.

“Most of my parents’ friends gave me that kind of look (that judging look) when my parents told them I’m their child. And it hurts. I know they must’ve judged my height.  I always get this kind of first impressions, and I hate it. It’s not my fault“- whenever people give you a judging look for what is not your fault, they are treating you badly. And their bad treatment hurts a lot.

“I don’t want them to look at me as an inferior person. I keep getting mad at myself if I failed to conceal my height or failed to hide my family situations. I want to them to label me as an average person that’s not inferior to them“- if you successfully concealed your height and hid your family situations, there will still be people who will think of you as inferior for other reasons that you didn’t conceal, reasons that didn’t even occur to you. It is the nature of most people to think of some other people as inferior to them. Tall people are thought of as inferior for being too tall, too skinny, too heavy, too clumsy, too … one thing or the other.

“Social media always causes me to feel insecure, like people could post about how big and happy their families are… a pic (of) average/tall bodies, hanging out with their cousins“- think of this: just like you posted pics where you successfully concealed your short height, other people post pics where they successfully conceal what they feel inferior about. The person in the pic smiling with many cousins who are also smiling may be concealing the fact that his cousins are treating him badly much of the time.

I wrote to you that I think of you as an interesting person, and you wrote,  “You really think so?“– yes, I really think so!

“Personally, I still feel like I’m a boring person, added up with my weak communication skills, insecurities and social anxiety makes it even worse“- when you do communicate well (as you do here, on your thread), you are very interesting. This means that what’s inside of you is very interesting when communicated. Your insecurities and social anxiety make you very interesting.. but I would like you to be less interesting in these two ways (less insecurities, less anxiety).

“Although I only do gym now, deep down I feel so happy that I found a character in myself. Something that I do like most average people do, And I’m hoping to find more”- this is your positive attitude, it makes me feel proud of you, reading this! And that you found the character in yourself that I already found within you!!!

”Tbh few days ago… I had to help with washing the plates and etc. I never done that before, I even felt useful when I did that, like I gain an ability which might be useful when I have my own family. I could help my wife“- it is very, very important to feel useful. You need more of these moments and instances of feeling useful.

I can imagine you, in my mind’s eye (you described how you look many times, so I have an image) and I can see you and your wife working together in the kitchen: you are washing the dishes, she is drying them with a towel, or the other way around, while the two of you are talking about… I don’t know…

* Eric, if you read this post quickly, please read it again slowly at another time. Read one part only, then at another time, read another part.  Give my words a chance to sink in and take hold.

anita