Dear Paradoxy,

I am well aware that all my thoughts are wrong, but it is just how I feel, the thoughts I have, the things I wonder. I hope you understand.

I do understand. I understand what a childhood with emotionally abusive or neglectful parents can do to us. That we end up feeling hollow, because we believe that no one cares, that we don’t matter to anybody, and that our existence is futile. Or even worse, that our existence causes pain to others, like you have learned to believe.

What I notice is that you seek excuses not only for your girlfriend, but also for your parents too. You would rather blame your school friend who informed her parents about your suicide attempt, than your parents who reacted in an absolutely uncaring way, berating you that you caused them humiliation, instead of stopping to ask themselves what is bothering you.

But that’s how our child’s mind works: the child always blames themselves, not the parents, because that’s a survival mechanism. The child needs to believe that if only he/she behaved better, the parent would finally show them love, or be proud of them. This happens even with children who are severely abused – the child never blames their parents.

So when you talk about your parents like that, claiming that “their influence is actually minor“, you are in your child’s mind. And when you speak of yourself as a failure and a nobody, you are in your child’s mind too.

If we had good, loving and caring parents, the bullying we’ve experienced from other kids wouldn’t have such a great impact on us. If your parents “woke up” after your suicide attempt and sought to understand you – to listen to you –  you wouldn’t have felt even worse about yourself, and even more solidified in your belief that you are a burden and that you cause pain to others. The deacon’s son’s bullying wouldn’t have had such an effect on you, because you would have felt supported and consoled by your parents, rather than attacked.

Your parents were indeed the key factor in the formation of your personality, and in your ability to take the hits (the bullying, the cruelty) of your peers. Since you didn’t have a soft spot to fall on – a safe haven in your own home – the bullying felt much worse and cut much deeper than if you had caring and supportive parents.

So please consider that there are two parts in you: one is the adult part, who sees things more clearly and realizes the negative effect of your parents (as well as the negative effect of your girlfriend on you). And there is the child part, who wants to protect both your parents and your girlfriend, blaming yourself rather than them for your emotional suffering.

Here are some of the examples of your adult mind, talking about your parents:

They are too narrow minded to accept change in life style. To accept a different method to handling situations. They have never listened to me. Always discouraging me from what I wanted to do. Even this med career was their fault. I never wanted this. I wanted to do music or computers.

They never thought of encouraging the things that I liked, whether it be music or coding or etc. They never let me have a childhood, always forcing me to “act like an adult” and etc. … The constant pressure of needing high scores and everything in order to get into a college to pursue a degree in something I hated drove me to where I am as well.

The main difference between my sister and I is that she received too much freedom and I received too less freedom. … And that freedom, I will never get, as even now I am controlled by my parents’ desires, and when I try to go against them, they install me with the fear of “what if I am wrong”.

The career path to become a doctor gurantees that I will be successful in life especially since I can handle the work load to a degree, but will I be happy doing this? Probably not. Though I like helping people, I don’t think med is the best way for me to help people.

There were moments like guilt-tripping and other similar circumstances where they would manipulate me into doing what they want without complaining (my father is a pro at psychology, and he is so rigid that everyone, whether it be his own boss, his friends, or our own relatives, knows that he should not be messed with because he always speaks the truth and can put anyone in their place by using pure logic).

Everything that my father taught me was logically correct, but I was wise enough to know that there are exceptions to the wisdom he passed to me. I did not let his opinion about things completely blind me,

Here is your adult mind, speaking about how hurt you were by your girlfriend:

Yes, I already considered this and it is obvious that she was suffering from the trauma. But now that trauma is also mine. How can I help to heal her when her own actions created my own trauma? How can I help remove the splinter in her eye when I have a log in my own, which she technically put? But despite that, I put aside my own suffering, and tried to help her as much as I could. For the last 3 months, I shut down my own pain and loved her as much as I could, but the severity of the issue was eating me from the inside.

The things that I hate about her are the things that torment me. I have not slept properly in the last 3 months. I have been going through a depressed phase of just wanting the pain to end, whether it be through death or amnesia or something… The relationship with B has ruined me for the worst.

You also realized that you are actually looking for excuses to take her back. This realization came from your adult mind:

I AM THE ONE WHO IS STILL IN LOVE WITH HER DESPITE EVERYTHING THAT SHE HAS DONE. I AM HERE RANTING ALL THIS BECAUSE I AM SEARCHING FOR AN EXCUSE, A LOGICAL REASON MY MIND CAN ACCEPT, TO FORGIVE HER AND TAKE HER BACK.

In your writings, you are switching constantly between your adult self, who is aware of the severity of the pain she (and your parents) inflicted upon you. But then you quickly switch to your child self, who is seeking excuses and wants to take her back.

When you are in your child self, you are neglecting your own pain (I put aside my own suffering), just like your parents neglected your pain.

So in fact, you are doing to yourself what your parents did to you: disregard your pain, your emotions, your feelings. You tell yourself that you are causing others pain, when in fact they (your parents, your girlfriend) are causing pain to you.

Can you see this mechanism?