Dear antarkala:

You are very welcome and thank you for your appreciation!

“I also want to mention honestly that, these days I feel jealous of my extrovert friends and I hate that I do. I love them and I want to see them happy. The fact that I’m feeling jealous is killing me – why do you think I am feeling this way?“- I figure, because you wish that you had it as easy as they seem to have it, wishing that socializing was as easy for you as it is (or appears to be) for them. Anxiety in general, and social anxiety in particular, rains on one’s parade, so to speak.

“I did tell my mother about my boyfriend and she told me he is not good enough for you and I know it unconsciously influenced me…. I lived till 24 with my parents and I am very attached to them, I trusted they always will do the best for me… I don’t know what truth to believe in and how to take a decision. It is making me very indecisive and anxious“-

– she shouldn’t have said it. I suppose she has very high expectations of you and for you, wanting the very best for you. Problem is that the very best for you is to have confidence in your ability to make good choices for yourself. By telling you that he’s not good-enough for you, she’s giving you the message that you are not making a good choice.. and that leads you to feel very indecisive and anxious.

Parents are often not aware of how they come across, and how they negatively affect their children while wanting the best for them.

“I have become aware of this recently and this makes my decision making even harder – what do I trust now, who do I trust now?“- just like I suggested that you take your boyfriend off the pedestal, I am suggesting that you do the same in regard to your parents. It doesn’t mean that you stop loving them, of course. It’s just that you need to do this so to trust yourself to make good choices, to evaluate people correctly, to socialize well, etc., to believe that you are a competent, able adult, no longer a child dependent on her parents for guidance.

Part of taking them off the pedestal is to see that they have made the wrong choices themselves, that they make mistakes too. No one always makes good decisions, no one is perfect, everyone makes mistakes. Don’t expect perfection from anyone, not from your parents, not from your boyfriend, and not from yourself.

I hope that your parents do not generally present themselves as perfect, and never admit that they were wrong, or that they make mistakes (that can make taking them off the pedestal more difficult than otherwise).

“How do you think I should approach this situation. My boyfriend is a wonderful man, I don’t want to weaken him by showing my disappointment but at the same time, the reality that I expect my partner to help me out in social situation doesn’t change – how can I talk about this with him in a healthy way?“-

– first, do not express to him that you are disappointed in his social functioning, that will achieve the opposite of what you want to achieve: he will be less capable, not more. Secondly, identify a very specific, practical way in which you want him to help you, something that’s doable for him, instead of asking for help in a vague way. An example (and this is just an example), instead of saying: I would like you to help me feel more comfortable in the party tonight, say: when I am standing in a group with people at the party, can you stand by my side and hold my hand?

I hope to continue to communicate with you, for as long as you find it helpful.

anita