Dear Addy,

you are very welcome, and thank you for your kind words of appreciation.

It does took time for me to start trusting them. I’m guessing I need to loosen up hard grip a bit more

I’ve just come across a video by one of my favorite psychologists, Dr. Henry Cloud, where he explains the connection between empathy and trust. He says (and I agree) that we tend to trust more, and understandably so, to people who show empathy to us, because they understand what we’re going through and aren’t judgmental but rather supportive. The video is on youtube and is titled “Using Empathy to Fuel Trust“.

It seems you had trouble trusting your girlfriends, even though they showed empathy for you. This could be because your trust was betrayed many years ago, with your mother promising to talk to your father and make him treat you better, and then failing to do it. You trusted her and she betrayed you. Also, she didn’t show real empathy for you, but expected of you to have empathy for a bully.  She turned the concept of empathy on its head because we aren’t supposed to have empathy and understanding for the bully, but for the victim.

So I can see how your mother’s inappropriate reaction might have lead to you not having trust to open up to another person, and to guard your heart as much as possible, not to be attacked.

Yes so expressing this kind of negative feelings I just don’t know how to do that well, I don’t feel comfortable and I just try being more sarcastic or just sugar-coat things maybe?

In fact, the best would be if you could work through some of those emotions on your own – because they stem from your childhood wounds. If you have unresolved childhood trauma, it will pollute your relationship(s) as well.

Let’s say you get impatient and angry with your girlfriend about something. Probably it’s because there is an expectation underneath – something you expect from her, which she isn’t fulfilling. The question is a) is it a reasonable expectation, and b) have you communicated it with her? Because she might be doing something innocent, but it is triggering your childhood wound and you feel similarly like you did in your childhood, and you want it to go away. But it’s not really your girlfriend’s fault, but your own unresolved issues. That’s why I said you’d need to solve those unresolved issues first before you can engage in a relationship in a more healthy way.

That does sounds nice, But I don’t really know what kind of person I want to be with or the fact if I want deep emotional intimacy with someone just yet. I just don’t feel like ready for it?

As it seems, you’re not ready for it yet, because emotional intimacy is scary to you. This might change, but for now, it’s still scary.

I think I already did that in my childhood like not in front of my parents but l did that because I knew that it’s wrong but out of respect I wasn’t be able to tell them their mistakes

Alright, so you’re saying that you knew it was wrong, both your father’s and your mother’s behavior, already when you were a child? So you weren’t blaming yourself for your father’s verbal abuse and your mother’s blaming you if you lost your temper?

I think that even if you were a very advanced child and youth, a part of you certainly did blame yourself, and is blaming yourself to this day. How do I know that? Because your inner critic is still very active. He has soaked in and is replicating the words of your father and your mother, two outer critics.

It seems to me that you’re blaming yourself for not being successful enough professionally – which is what your inner critic adopted from your father. And you’re also blaming yourself for being emotionally weak – which is what your inner critic adopted from your mother. So you’re blaming yourself for the same things that your parents were/are blaming you.

That’s why, Addy, even if a part of you knows that they are wrong, another part still believes them… That’s because the child always blames themselves when he/she is criticized by their parents. There’s no exception to that rule. The child in you still blames himself for being not good enough and not emotionally strong enough.

You as the adult Addy would need to get in touch with that child and tell him he’s not to blame. That there’s nothing wrong with him. You, the adult Addy, need to show him love and compassion that neither of your parents showed to you as a child. You need to be a good and loving parent to that boy – that’s how you will heal those childhood wounds. As I said, best do it in therapy.

(Don’t do it to your parents’ faces). – Obviously not.

Once you heal those core wounds (e.g. the wound of not being good enough), you’ll have a different relationship with yourself. You won’t blame yourself any longer, you’ll respect yourself more. And you won’t allow your parents to treat you with disrespect either. You’ll be able to set some basic rules for communication with them, so they cannot treat you the way they have been treating you all your life.