Dear Girija:

It is an honor for me that you chose to tell me your real name. (I think the statistical chances that someone you know is reading this is extremely low, so I wouldn’t be worried about it, if I was you). An honor it is. My real name is anita.

I studied your thread and am glad to let you  know that I do have a new understanding, a deeper understanding. I will start with older understanding and develop it to the new:

You wrote regarding your mother: “I once asked her how she felt when she held me for the first time, she said she does not remember much and agreed it may not have been a significantly joyous reaction”-

– looking up to your mother as she held you for the first time was very significant for you, a very joyous experience, yet it meant nothing to her, nothing memorable.

She was “incredibly unhappy and sad” your whole life. She did not experience joy having you in her life.

You wrote about your mother and about life at home where your mother has been the key figure for you: “I never heard any kind words from her…I really have no support… I really feel empty and I have no one… I have no joy left… The emptiness becomes unbearable and I become extremely aware of how horrible my life is”.

When you wrote about people being “too strong, harsh even cruel. No one stops to see where another is coming from”- maybe you meant other people, outside your home, but these were the people inside your home as well. No one in your home stopped or stops to see where you are coming from. Or ever will.

You were not loved at home, no one was there for you, no one cherished you: “When you say loved, I take that as knowing someone is always there for you and cherishes you. I do not have evidence for that”.

Your home was about doing what society expects. The number 1 concern is financial security, not living on the streets. Number 2 concern is reputation, what strangers think. Emotional needs of members within the family are of no importance: “My mom has complained that her parents never truly cared about her. And I think it is a pattern… No one cares about emotional needs. They are all doing what society expects them to do… I have figured out what my mother has taught me- to not try to change your situation as you may lose what you already have. She was afraid of losing financial support so she never left my father and also was afraid of losing reputation”-

Family/ societal tradition is financial survival without love. And so, your mother wakes you up every morning, checks on you from time to time so that you are physically alive, and so that you go to work and earn money (“she is the one that wakes me up everyday. She even checks on me from time to time- go bath, eat, etc. However, I am never able to get her to listen”), and most recently, she saw to it that you buy a life insurance policy with the family’s benefit- your own, your sister and herself. The Priority is Money and your value, in your mother’s mind, is financial.

Like you wrote, it doesn’t mean she is scheming anything. What I am saying is that Money is her number one priority, her main concern. According to her,  “The best future possible was to earn as much as possible so my family does not fall out on the streets”.

Your emotional well being is not her concern: “My mother always took care of us, besides emotional stuff- I thought that was love”- no it was not and is not love. Again, she cared about money, not about your heart, not about your emotional well being.

My very new understanding this morning is regarding what you wrote here: “I see well functioning people like my cousins that are like machines, they do not have love either yet they don’t struggle like I do… None of this hurt my sister or my cousins. I think this is why I feel like I don’t fit in, I am hyper sensitive to everything… How can I know if my expectations from others are too much or if I am being too sensitive for my own good?…. I thought I was either too selfish or too sensitive.. I cannot be around people being fake.. I cannot play along… My constant fear is that I am a raging, emotional and unstable person and that I may ruin my life by trying to change things up or choosing a path different from everyone else”

– something happened early on to your mother, your cousins and a lot of other people you encounter, including many of your co workers: they adjusted very well to the lack of love- they stopped needing it. It is similar to a plant that has lived too long without water, its flowers wilt too soon, their leaves shed, branches fall, and all that remains is a trunk and a branch or two. As a limited plant, a limited human, a person feels okay, stable, as okay and stable as possible and functions according to expectations within the society they are in.

You didn’t adjust that well. Not all your flowers wilted, not all your leaves shed and you have more branches than anyone else. You are miserable because these flowers and leaves yearn for water. You require love. You are not okay with the very, very little (if any) love that is available to you.

Therefore, yes, you are more sensitive than your family members, co workers and many others. And yes, you experience raging emotions and feel unstable because you are more alive than others.

Others are numb, like machines. You are emotional, like a human.

You always wanted your mother’s approval. But what she wants from you  is to be that limited human, that plant-with-no-flowers-no-leaves. You can never satisfy her requirement because the adjustment of becoming limited, less than, had to happen earlier in your life, when you were a child. It can not happen now. You cannot be less sensitive, less expecting, less caring about what is happening. You can’t fake it and you can’t play along.. no matter how much you wish you could.

anita

Dear Girija:

(Do you feel comfortable with me addressing you with your real name or do you prefer I go back to gj?)

This morning I re-read your previous threads, something I didn’t do yesterday, plus just a bit from this thread. I will quote your writings from the beginning of this thread and from your previous threads.

– Please take your time reading this long post. Take your time to let this in.

You wrote about your mother: “She was never those things I was expected to be. She only pointed out I was doing something wrong when did not fit those standards. There was no role model for that”

– your mother sent you the message early on that you don’t fit her expectations but she didn’t show you what you were doing wrong in comparison to what doing right looks like.

She criticized you but kept you lost in her criticism with no way out, no way to correct the alleged faults. You were lost in the land of the Flawed & Incompetent with no available path to the promised land the Adequate & Competent.

You wrote: “When some senior on the team is rude I am not able to convince myself that their rudeness is unwarranted and I keep telling myself I ought to be better but I don’t do anything“-

-You believe the rudeness is warranted because you believe you are indeed faulty and incompetent and he/she happened to notice it.  Next you tell yourself that you  ought to be better. The reason you don’t do anything is … that there is nothing to do, because there is no fault or incompetence to be corrected.

Like any professional you have to learn and improve, true to the seniors in your company as well. But there is no fault and incompetence about you. This is a false core belief, a core belief that is not true to reality.

The procrastination you mentioned and lesser performance on your part is not a result of being faulty and incompetent, it is a result of believing that you are and therefore believing that you will be found  out at any time.

A year ago, you wrote: “I’m not as good as all other tech savvy peers… I still was recognized for one feature I developed yet I’ve had to hear about how slow I am and not up to the standard the industry expects me”-

– but it makes sense that senior tech co workers will know more than newcomers, beginners. But you take this as proof of your inherent faultiness. You focus on any and all supposed evidence of a non-existing faultiness and dismiss all evidence of your existing competence.

This core belief is associated with a deep feeling of shame, which is emotionally painful.

“I don’t feel a passion towards coding when there is pressure to prove myself otherwise I enjoy it when I have a sense of the goal to achieve and also help from peers”- the reason you don’t enjoy many things, feeling that lack of passion and motivation you wrote about, is that where there is shame, there is no passion or motivation.

“I’m afraid to ask for help as I might seem too stupid.. I want to do well but have no motivation and am living in fear and shame”- you are afraid that if you ask for help, they will think or notice that you are faulty and incompetent. You keep living in fear that people will notice what you believe is true, that there is an inherent fault and incompetence about you.

“I still don’t understand how I can believe in myself … and accept my flaws. How do you do it? Know you are flawed and that these flaws are visible to anyone easily if they look”-

– you wrote it yourself.

You live in constant fear of being found out, of your faultiness being pointed out to you.

“My mom says I have everything a person my age needs”- except for the belief of being adequate and competent, a belief a person needs at any age. Without this belief life is miserable.

“the reason I’m so afraid is… that I failed because I didn’t change even when I had to.. I need to change now”-

– You need to change something, but you need to know what it is specifically that you need to change. You are not faulty and incompetent, this is not what you need to change. It is the belief that you are faulty and incompetent that you need to change.

“It always feel like the damage is done and I can’t improve. Honestly, where do I begin? It’s inherently a problem with who I am”-

– the damage is the early life forming of this core belief, which is glued in your brain by emotions of shame and fear. It is very difficult to change a core belief glued so well in the form of many neuropathways in the brain. The problem is not in who you are but in who you believe you are.

“this fear of judgement runs really deep… my goal in writing here was not just to ‘fix’ things at work but better myself as a person.. it makes me feel like a failure when I disappoint those around me”-

– the core belief of faultiness and incompetence exists not only in the context of your work life but in context of you living at home with your mother.. who instilled in you this core belief.

“I’m most happy when I’m by myself and calm”- because there is no  one around you whom you allegedly harm by your alleged faultiness and incompetence, no one  you are disappointing, no one you are displeasing, and no one who is allegedly thinking how faulty you are.

“I feel really powerless as a person, so I try to avoid challenges and don’t think I can face them… somewhere deep inside I’ve decided I won’t be able to handle things going bad”-

This core belief keeps you very scared because you don’t believe you are competent to face difficulties, to face tough times. This core belief is far reaching and encompasses everything in your life outside the few breaks you get when you are alone, being by yourself. Maybe being by yourself listening to music.

In summary of this post: the good news is that it is possible to change such a deep rooted, far reaching core belief. The bad news is that it takes a lot of time and a lot of work.

Do you know of people who deeply believe something that you know is not true, maybe certain religious beliefs? If you do, then you know that it is possible to deeply believe something that is not true.

In my life experience, I have never come across a woman in her twenties (and you are only 23) as intelligent as you are. I have no way to measure your IQ and am not qualified to do so. What I am referring to as intelligence is your insight, your curiosity, how far reaching your thinking goes. You are also a very honest person, honest with yourself, willing to look at reality, willing to examine it. You are a very evolved person this way, not rigid and limited, but open and capable, competent. As a matter of fact, I have never met a person your age who is.. more competent than you.

-Enough for now.

anita

Take your time, Girija. I will soon enough be gone from the computer until tomorrow morning, about 20 hours from now, so I wouldn’t read your next message until then. Also, you are welcome!

anita

Dear Girija:

I am looking forward to read and reply to your recent post (and to anything you may add to it) when I return to the computer in about 17 hours from now.

anita

Dear Girija:

You are welcome and thank you for your kind words of appreciation!

“I have read in many places that you attract the same type of people until you learn the lessons you have to. Do you think that is true?”-

No, I don’t think it is true except for certain circumstances, such as.. if you go to a bar at 10 PM and the bar  has the reputation of heavy drinking going on in there starting at 8 PM, if you attract anyone there, it is likely to be someone drunk.

As far as what you shared earlier, that you met men who had girlfriends, becoming friends with them not knowing they had girlfriends, later getting jealous- I don’t think it means you attracted unavailable men.

“Do you think changing my core belief would help with these fears too?”- yes, I do. Changing your core belief that you are incompetent (“That I may not be able to handle life.. that I won’t be able to handle all of life’s surprises”) will take away most of your ongoing fear, aka anxiety. Believing that you are competent will be like… having a competent, capable person with you at all times, so that when a problem occurs, this person will know what to do and will take care of what needs to be taken care of-

– and that someone will be you!

I wrote to you that it takes a lot of time and a lot of work to change this core belief. Your response was: “I am ready for it, this plant needs some water”-

I want to talk with you about that water, what I mean by it. The rest of this post will be about that water that you need.

You wrote: “there used to be times when I mentioned how I felt to my mother and she used to just move on to something else as if I had not said anything. It used to make me feel invisible”-

You know that you cannot see your face unless you look into a mirror, be it a glass mirror or.. water in a lake that act like a mirror. You can’t see your face without a mirror because of where the eyes are located.

When you mentioned how you felt to your mother and she ignored you as if you didn’t say anything to her, she took away your mirror and you didn’t see yourself. Whatever it was that you told her, was lost.

Like all young children, you loved your mother deeply and wanted nothing more than to please her. You were not angry at her (that came later). But she wasn’t a mirror to your love of her, she ignored it and so, you forgot how you felt for her then. It was lost to you.

When she criticized you, it is something you saw in the mirror, a person worthy of criticism.

Over time, during your earlier childrhood, you got an image in that mirror, an image that is hugely distorted, an image distorted by a distorting mirror, your mother. You don’t see the loving, innocent, eager to please little girl that you were and instead you see someone faulty, worthy of ongoing criticism.

Needing water, in this context, means needing an undistorted mirror, a mirror that will show you accurately who you are.

When I wrote to you earlier the paragraph:  “In my life experience… I have never met a person your age who is.. more competent than you”- all that I wrote there, I claim, is a true image of you. That was an accurate mirror showing you an accurate image of who you are.

Problem is core beliefs are formed in early childhood and a child’s mother is powerful in that formation, she is the mirror. To look into an accurate mirror, you have to abandon the distorting mirror, to no longer look there. To do so, you have to go back to your childhood and see for yourself, that you were an innocent, good little girl who loved her mother completely and then betrayed by that mother.

You can’t change your incompetent core belief by achieving anything (all achievements will be dismissed sooner than later) because the belief was formed before you achieved anything.

This is why it is necessary to go back to the time before you achieved anything and see yourself the way you truly were then, at that time.

anita

Dear Girija:

“I tend to want to make sure everyone around me likes being around me… I needed people to like being around me”- the mirror in your mind is showing your mother not liking being around you, this is what you keep seeing, seeing her not liking being around you.

Isn’t it true, that she didn’t enjoy being around you?

anita

Dear Girija:

By the way, your replies in other threads are amazing, exceptionally intelligent and insightful not only for a person in her early twenties but for any age!

“I feel a little overwhelmed by the recollection so I wrote it here”- what we are doing here is overwhelming, the emotions that glue those core beliefs, they are overwhelming. This is why this kind of work should be done in the context of psychotherapy, over time, with a capable therapist, both the therapist and you working hard, over time, persistently, patiently and gently.

(Problem is many therapists did not resolve their own relationships with their mothers and so, they are unable to be helpful to the client after a certain point, not being able to help the client examine a reality the therapist herself didn’t yet examine!)

In our communication here, whenever you feel overwhelmed, take a break and come back to the thread whenever it is that you are ready.

“My mother did not enjoy anything. I feel bad for her. She was a prisoner…this is part of the system so she never realized it”- your hope is not in understanding her, explaining her and the system, feeling empathy for her. Your hope is in feeling empathy for the child that you were.

“My mother did not enjoy anything” and that included you, she didn’t enjoy you. The baby and young child that you were smiled at your mother, reached out to her again and again, but she didn’t smile back at you.

What you needed so to see in the mirror that you are a good girl, that you are likable, that you are okay- was to see her looking at you with a smile.

You asked her what will happen if your father lost his job, she told you: “we will just have to kill ourselves”. Next, you “looked shocked”-

– seeing you shocked, scared, did she feel empathy for you, saying to you something like: oh, I am so sorry, no.. we will be okay if he lost his job, I will take care of you, we will be okay-

-no, instead of empathy, she felt anger at you and used the opportunity to hurt you by adding guilt to your fear (“oh aren’t you the one that is always yelling about wanting to leave, why are you scared now”).

This is what I meant by betrayal, she betrayed the girl who loved her and trusted her, and she did so at times intentionally, as in the example you gave. She wanted to hurt you and then proceeded to say what it took to hurt you.

Therefore, really, the system doesn’t matter, her childhood doesn’t matter, these don’t matter to the context of you-and-her. What matters is that you trusted her and she hurt you at times intentionally… and did not apologize for having done so, later, did she.

anita

Dear Girija:

You are welcome.

“I have simply tried to get her perspective. Sometimes she just says ‘you are simply looking to fight’-“-

– her perspective is something like this: my life is difficult, this is how difficult it is: …. (feeling relief as she expresses it), don’t add difficulty to my already difficult life, don’t bother me.

That is all.

anita