Dear Julia:

I read your recent post and then re-read your previous posts. This is what I noticed this morning that I didn’t notice before: your anger (an understandable, valid anger) about having missed out (all the “missed opportunities”) on what life is supposed to be about- when you were a child and to this very day, anger about missing out on the excitement, satisfaction and euphoria that accompany self-actualization, i.e.,  expressing yourself creatively and becoming fully yourself, living life to the fullest, or close enough to the fullest.

“Thoughts which I try to avoid can be summarized with: I am not good enough, I could do more, work more… be more creative (it was a big passion during my childhood years)“- you placed your big passion to be creative in parenthesis. It’s as if life itself- for you, growing up- was placed in parenthesis and you were understandably unhappy being stuck inside a parenthesis.

“Life is just life. It is not necessarily boring but just bland… lost in a crowd, nothing to talk about , forgettable, boring“- this is how life feels inside a parenthesis.

“Even as a child I did not understand, why people / grown-ups just had to do things which they obviously did not enjoy… I  was confused that grownups would do dishes, get up early to go to work do sports they didn’t enjoy when they could do (in my childish mind) everything they wanted to, why would they chose this?…  It could come from my parents complaining about everything, making every little task sounding like a marathon“-

– I am trying to envision your life growing up: you naturally wanted your parents to be happy, but they were not happy: they were complaining a lot, how life is difficult, a drag to get up early in the morning and go to work, and then on top of that, to do the household chores, etc. I imagine you tried to tell them (tell one or both of your parents) something like: then stop doing these things that make you miserable! Maybe you offered your mother to do the dishes, so that she can be free to do what she wanted to do..  but she refused your help and/ or kept complaining. So, feeling powerless (like you can’t help her to be happy), you were angry at her/ them, and your only way to make yourself feel like you have some power to make a difference, was to promise yourself: when I grow up, I will not do those boring or difficult tasks that would make me miserable!

“I kind of promised myself, I would never put myself into this kind of situations so when such a situation is at hand, where I actually have to do things because there is a deadline or it’s about health etc. I’m trying my best to postpone doing it. I’m finding myself grabbing my phone, binge watching, eating etc… “-

-I think that what’s fueling your “Addictive Personality” as you termed it, is anger at having been powerless as a child to make your parents’ lives better, to some extent or another. The fact that “problems…  are ignored and not talked about in our family” meant that you were angry and upset throughout your childhood. Having been powerless as a child to express yourself as a soccer player or a dancer made you feel even more powerless, more like living inside parenthesis.

I imagine that if you felt some power to make a positive difference in your parents’ lives, that would have made a huge difference in your own life. I wonder: when you think expressing yourself creatively NOW, part of you angrily and exasperatedly protests: Too late!! NOW should have happened long ago!!?

anita