Dear miyoid:

“I can feel guilty for not helping, being a slave to him but I know that’s not rational. So I try to correct that feeling“- this is what Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is about: correcting feelings by thinking rationally.

“mom tries to help me in that regard. She told me that I was a good kid… All the compassion I’ve received was from my mom“- she did help you. My mother repeatedly told me that I was a bad kid, the worse. Too often, there was hate and no compassion in her words and behaviors toward me. I can see how your mother was different from mine.

You wrote regarding your father’s abuse: “I ignored all of it because I knew how hard he was brought up… never loved in a genuine way and always praised for external status. … And now I see that I was doing more than what I had to do by being so understanding. A child shouldn’t be that much understanding to their parents“- exactly! For so many years, decades, really, I invested my time, my thoughts, my feelings: all of me was invested in efforts to understand my mother: how hard her life was, how terrible her childhood, how much she suffered…  And all along, it was as if I didn’t exist in my own life, as if she was Everything and I was… nowhere to be seen, or heard.

“I have a different point of view here, I think he wouldn’t dare to jeopardize the persona by behaving students badly. I see narcissistic features all over him“- your point of view is the correct one. Yes, it makes sense that being narcissistic, he was invested in a persona/  a mask.

“My mom had to get 5 abortions before me, and this was all my dad’s fault…“- I got angry at your father reading this, very angry. And I felt empathy for your mother. In the past, when I read about your mother,  I projected my negative experience with my mother into yours, and therefore,  I was inclined to interpret your mother’s behaviors negatively. Now, I can see that my projections were inaccurate. Now, I view your mother much more positively and empathetically than I did before.

“After all those years, dad got sick. And he had to have 10+ operations around the bladder…“- almost reads like karma, doesn’t it.

“I was living my teenage years silently“- no more living your life silently!

“I was afraid to communicate… I didn’t know how to express what I want, I got scared and I felt like I didn’t have the right to ask for more“- it is time (and you have the right) to communicate, to express and to ask for more!

“I always knew my ground…I got used to staying on the right place, respecting the other person’s boundary silently and not asking for much thanks to my dad.. I feel incredibly scared towards my relationship. I am very dependent.“- it is time to explore another ground, another country, to no longer stay in one place;  to no longer set your life aside so to accommodate another person’s preferences… to set yourself free, best you can, from your father’s abuse!

“I received an email from the migration office. Migration office accepted the company’s request and now they will wait for me to apply for work permit…  Dreaming, thinking, planning“- I like reading of a dreaming miyoid, voicing her dreams, planning, taking action… exciting!

“Thank you for appreciating me Anita! Thank you!“- you are welcome, miyoid: you are very worthy of my genuine appreciation!

anita