Dear Jess:

Our life stories are similar in some ways. The first thing that got my attention is this similarity: “My mother was always working and she’s always compare me to any kids she thought better“- I can’t tell you how devastating it was for me. I felt sorry for my mother for working so hard physically and for being so miserable, and I wanted to help her… but she never appreciated my efforts to help and compared me unfavorably to other children: how useful they were, how helpful they were, how proud they made their mothers… It broke my little heart.

“I can’t help but feeling like a useless person with no one at all… I felt like I was never good enough“- this is how I felt as a child and most of my adult life: useless very alone and never good enough.

“my father was a drug addict and he’s only around like twice a year and whenever he did, he’d only yell and cursed us all the time“- here we have some similarity and some differences: my father was addicted to other women, my mother divorced him when I was five or so and he used to visit quite regularly (a couple of times a month for a while, something like that), but when he visited the whole time my mother was talking with him and I just sat there, not saying anything.

“my father ran off with a huge debt on our shoulder and we were kicked out of the house“- my father didn’t pay spousal or child support but he didn’t run off with a debt either. With no financial help from him, my mother worked very, very hard.

“my father would always find a way to text me threatening messages of how he will find me and such. I was always afraid at that time, afraid that I will run into him and always looking on my back when walking, I guess that causes me anxiety that stays till now“- it was my mother who threatened me, and I was afraid of her. It caused me anxiety that stays till now. I had no choice but to run into her because I lived with her. I say lived, but fear sucked the joy out of living and all that remained was existing. Daydreaming, when my mother was out working and I was alone, about a different kind of life helped me survive.

“I didn’t even go to his funeral“- I didn’t go to my father’s funeral.

“I wasn’t paid equal to my workload and that made me feel like a big failure, and I can tell that my mother was disappointed in me for not making more money.. my last ex cheated on me and dumped me just like that one day“- it would have helped so much if your mother was appreciative and proud of you for working hard. The external reality (the employment context and romantic relationships context) would have felt not as bad (and you would have recovered much quicker) if your childhood and ongoing internal reality (your mother’s attitudes) was positive and supportive.

“I’m forever stuck in the same loop on my own. At this point, I’m always depressed about life and scared every day that I will die alone as a failure“-  I too was forever stuck, often depressed and anxious. But the good news: I will  not die a failure… just as I wasn’t born a failure.

I was not born a failure even though I was not born with a bag of money tied to my little body, or with an educational certificate or with a job promise. Similarly, I will not die a failure for not leaving behind money or educational certificates that I didn’t earn, or jobs that I didn’t have.

I would like to talk with you more about not living or dying a failure.

anita