Dear gj,

If it’s not possible for you to move out of your house and live in an apartment by yourself, as I don’t understand the culture ramification of a female living alone in Indian’s culture, then the next best thing to do is to find a place that you can call your own.

Right now, you are living with a lot of people so from the moment you wake up to the moment where you lay down to sleep, you are constantly interacting with people in some way. And that is very tiresome because that means you don’t much time to yourself to do whatever. Or even if you do something, someone might be watching or interrupting, which disrupts your time alone and can make it seems like you can’t even have your own private time. And your own private time is the time for you to breath and think about things and just relax without having to observe social decorum.

Social decorum means listening to your mother talk, being careful around your work mates, possibly avoiding your grandmother and seeing your sister and father. Do that constantly without break and you become burnt out. Do what while also being influenced by the opinions of those around you and you begin to lose yourself, or at least never have much time to form your own thoughts.

Right now, you are still immerse in your mother’s and father’s expectations for you, especially your mother’s. You are still listening to her thoughts and opinions, which will unconsciously influence you which will in turn make it seems as if her expectations is decent and only following the guideline of your culture so there’s little need to question it. But that also makes it really easy for you to tell yourself that you are a failure for not achieving any of the goals your mother had set out for you, marriage for example.

But that emptiness of yours comes from the fact that you are following your mother’s expectations without ever creating any expectations for yourself. You went to school and got a job in engineering because your mother told you to support yourself with a good job. You are now looking around at marriage because your mother told you that the clock is ticking so you better hurry. You are following someone’s else time-line which is go to school, get a job and then eventually get marry. And after that, you might be following your husband’s time-line of maybe quitting your job to having children. You have not seriously try to create any expectations for yourself, you have only listen to your mother’s time-line. And that’s empty, because that’s not your dream. That’s not just what you might want out of life. That’s not what you are willing to endure suffering to grab hold with your own hands.

So first and foremost, go find a space that is safe that you can allow yourself free thoughts. A space of your own that you can use to go/sift through every thing that had happened to you so far. You need to examine all the teachings that you’ve learnt so far; from your mother, from your culture, from your peers. You need to examine with a critical eye the underlying ‘why’ to these teachings and why exactly you are trying to fulfill these expectations. You need to ask yourself if these expectations are yours? Are these expectations aligning with what you might want out of life? Are these expectations aligning with the person you want to become in the future? Are these expectations serving you personally or are they chaining you to something you don’t like, but feel you have fulfill? And if you feel anything, name them. Be it anger, sorrow, regret, etc. Name them. And if you start telling yourself that you are not good enough to be doing this, then quietly examine that too. Examine these thoughts, examine where they are coming from and question them why you can’t be enough.

You need to start examining and questioning these thoughts. You need to start asking why and what and whom. These thoughts come from somewhere, but it might not be coming from you. Before taking any actions, understand your why. Understand why you want something or not want something. It could be as simple as you don’t like it or it’s just not you. That’s fine. That’s enough of a reason to do something about your situation. If you’re unhappy, you’ll stay unhappy unless you actually do something. So take action by understanding your unhappiness, understanding your environment and understanding yourself. It will take a long time to do this, so it’s okay if you only have a few small thoughts to go on this journey of understanding yourself. It’ll probably take your whole life, but at least you’ll understand some things about the current you. From those small understanding, you can start something from that, one small action. You just have to decide to do something, you don’t need all the answers.

And above all, don’t fear failure. Don’t fear failing at knowing who you are, what you want, why you do what you do, and more. No one is ever completely sure of themselves, but they do things because they hope to make a difference in this world and often, it’ll fail more than succeed. Yet they still keep at it until they do succeed or they stop, depending on if they realize it’s not what they really wanted. And you don’t really know that you wanted it/wanted something until it either fail or succeed. You don’t know so let yourself fail as often as you need to fail. It’s not a failure on your part, rather, it’s a sign of strength that you know yourself well enough whether to keep going or stop. So fail, then ask yourself what fail, then ask yourself if that failure had given you perspective on whether what you’re doing is something you want to keep doing despite the failure. You’ll endure a lot of suffering trying to reach your goal yet if your goal is worth that suffering, then you have a reason to keep going.

So find that space, find that place and let yourself breath.

Dear gj:

You wrote about your extended family: “Had it been legal to know the baby’s gender, they would have aborted her. People still look at girls as a burden financially”

– so a girl is born-> financial burden; a boy is born-> financial benefit. Correct?

– if I understand correctly, traditionally in your area, the parents move in with their adult son and the son’s wife, not with any of their daughters?

If your mother didn’t predict moving in with you once you get married, she does see you and her as well as your father and siblings as one financial unit for as long as you are not married. This is clear to me because she told you: “we are not rich you will have to try to get the best job/ marks possible, otherwise something terrible will happen… my entire family on the streets..”-

– your mother placed on you a huge financial responsibility, suggesting that if you don’t get the best marks and best job, “something terrible will happen”-

She put great fear in you. Great fear kills motivation, interests, passion. Fear does that.

Looking forward to your reply.

anita

Dear gj:

“I have lived in fear all my life”-

– question is what to do about this fear, how to lower it, contain it, manage it better, so that there is space in your mind and life for some joy, curiosity, desire, drive, motivation.

Once the fear was established that you would be hurting your family if you get bad marks or don’t make enough money (“if I fail, it would also hurt me family as I saw myself as the one to support the family financially”)- it doesn’t matter that later, or so far, they didn’t need your financial help because the fear was already established and the future cannot be predicted.

Your fear regarding finances is that you/ your family will be without money. A child doesn’t distinguish between herself and her family, the two are one unit, in her mind. And as you live with your family, sleeping in the same room with your mother and a sister or two (I don’t remember), I question if still, you don’t see yourself and your family as one unit.

If you lived away from your family, on your own, and if you felt that you are not responsible for them financially, do you think that you will feel less fear, as having only one person to feed, clothe and housed, you, that is and no  one else?

anita

Dear gj:

I don’t think there is anything wrong with wanting to get married for the purpose of financial security. After all marriage everywhere involves this very thing: becoming one financial unit, a financial team, adding financial security to each other.

What would be wrong is deceiving a potential husband by being dishonest in any way. It will also be wrong to choose a man who you dislike or disrespect. The man you choose has to be one you like and respect and who likes and respects you, the two of you sharing similar goals for the marriage and working as a team, helping each other financially and in other ways.

I would say, find ways to reduce your ongoing fear, aka anxiety. There is a lot of literature on how to do it and I believe on the Home Page here, under Blogs, if you click Mindfulness, you will find some helpful articles. The well known ways to reduce anxiety are daily walks, other exercise, yoga, guided meditations and so many more practices, choose the one that suit you best.

And do your best on the financial front to minimize your chances of ending up hungry or homeless, and providing for yourself adequately. I imagine that moving out of your family home will be a step in the right direction. Your fear was born in the context of your family of origin. Better … move away from the birthplace of your fear.

anita

Dear gj”

You wrote in your recent post: “The emptiness becomes unbearable….I am afraid to leave my house”-

On the first page of your thread you wrote: “My mother was never open or vulnerable- she always had a stereotype of what a city girl should be- strong, fearless, social, etc. I have never felt comfortable in my own body. Always felt in any social situation like I should not be there. But I never heard any kind words from her”-

I would like to understand this paragraph: do you mean that your mother acted strong, fearless and social, or did she try to act these ways but failed?

Did she expect you to act these ways by copying her behavior, and if not, who was supposed to show you how to be a city girl?

Also, what do you mean by never feeling comfortable in your own body and what do you mean by “I never heard any kind words from her” in the context above?

anita

Dear gj:

So you had no chance of success. No way for a person to behave in certain ways without being taught by someone. As a child, your mother expected you to learn in a vacuum, without being shown. And to top the absence of her teaching you, that is, to top the fact that you had no way to learn, she criticized you for.. not doing what was impossible for you to do.

There is no failure when the chances for success are zero. I suppose there is such a thing as failure to recognize a non-failure. In other words, better now really accept, take in the fact that you didn’t fail socially.

You wrote that your mother “never took our side”- someone should take your side! Be that someone.

anita