This post is so interesting. I think part of the problem is you’re globalizing. You feel “everyone” is a narcissist, sociopath, asshole etc. This is purely your perception of things …… it’s the way you’re seeing the world.  I get into similar states & what helps is just using some basic logic like this  ” if there are 8 billion people on the planet, what are the chances that all of them suck and I’m the only person that doesn’t suck?”     The reality is we are all a mix of personalities, dispositions & moods. Even people that are generally negative have a good day & positive people have off days. I think your best bet is to dig deeper and try to question your assumptions & change them.  You’ll be way more effective at trying to change yourself then everyone else around you.

Dear Nobody:

Yes, a therapist is a very good idea, only he/she has to be a competent, capable, empathetic, hard working therapist, not just any therapist.

To heal, in therapy, it takes two people: the therapist and the client. Just like in any relationship. For example, you and your mother- impossible to make good out of it: you reached out to her and she rejected you, repeatedly. She didn’t have the heart. You alone was not enough to make that relationship work.

Same with a therapist- the therapist has to be good. I met quite a few that were not until I came across with one who was right for me and that was six years ago. No matter how hard I tried, I was not able to start and keep going on a healing process until I received the help of that therapist. He was honest with me, straightforward, clear, empathetic, he paid very close attention to me. He was hard working- the only therapist who attended to me in between sessions (no extra charge), through phone and email, when I contacted him. He emailed me Homework assignments in between sessions.

It can not and will not be easy, but the satisfying moments will be there, and over time, there will be a clarity of thinking that you will experience, an uncluttering of the mind, a quieting of the distress.

I have so much more to share, but it will not be productive, not all in one share. So I do hope you post again and again and I will reply every time, for as long as you’d like me to.

anita

Dear Nobody:

The very fact that you are worried about evil means you are not evil.  Right? If someone were actually evil, they would be very cruel and walk around feeling totally justified and never once reflect on the question.

It is perfectly normal and natural for a soul born into such rejection to feel as you do. I know because I was not as rejected but I had a lot of anger and hatred buried deep inside — for myself — which I only now at age 50 can begin to see in fuller clarity — we tend to bury self-hatred and project it outward onto others.  I believe that that is what is happening with you, in that your hatred of others is merely just self-hatred projecting outward.  This is again a normal and natural feature of the human psyche: it projects.  Some sages would even say the things we see as trees and forests – the entire field of the physical world – is nothing more than a mental projection, also.  This is written to give you a sense of OK.

I am not a therapist and feel like it might be a good idea for you to find one – a counselor …. someone local to you with whom you can establish a relationship of trust, along with group therapy – because in group therapy you find others with the same issues who can help.  You see, ‘Nobody,’ no one is valueless.  No one. No one is so defective they cannot be loved.  We seem planetarily to be in a serious love-deficit because the act of love and kindness requires vulnerability and openness and well… our society tends to punish those qualities by relentlessly judging and criticizing.

Sadly, it seems you are in the habit of self-judgment and self-criticism.

It can take a long time to turn this around. If you judge every action and thought you have, you will elongate the time necessary to heal.

Though your mother may not have loved you – though she in fact abandoned you – you can — it is possible — learn self-care, self-love and self-nurturance.  It is totally possible.  In fact, some would say, it was in you to take on this challenge:  you can consider yourself to be a brave soul… a person who survived where many would not have, and to ask this question, “Am I evil?” is the first step in asserting I AM NOT EVIL… IT WAS WHAT HAPPENED TO ME THAT WAS.  That is essentially what your question represents.  Congratulations!!! You are already on the mend! You are already seeing the cause of your suffering: utter abandonment.

To focus on what was not, or the past, however, will not change your understanding of who you are. You see, you cannot know who you are because you were ignored! (The only way a person can know who they are is when others in the environment are at the very least approachable, neutral, and able to love, forgive, and be available. Because generally speaking, any person can reflect any and all emotions, and for a person to know that all emotions are OK to have, the environment must also be able to accept the existence of those emotions and the person having them. In today’s world, that is a tall order! These external factors to the learning of emotional peace and calm were utterly lacking for you. Therefore, you cannot know who you are. Therefore you also cannot judge yourself – because you do not know enough to be able to judge! So don’t bother judging!)

The past being as it was, and the real serious benefit to being in a supportive group environment, encouragement for coping with emotions, I humbly recommend that you reach out for help by contacting non-profit organizations in existence for this very reason. That’s the first thing.  Maybe contact social services in your local town or city and ask about non-profit psych help. That’s just the starting point.

Another thing I most strongly recommend:  Pema Chodron’s you tube videos.  Her specialty is learning to accept and be with one’s emotions without acting them out or freaking out about having them.  She teaches a technique of meditation that allows for the emotion (in this case, maybe anger and sorrow and loss and hurt and depression and ….) to arise in a safe space inside, where you can simply be with it, without actually having to judge it or run away from it or act on it.

It is human to have all emotions. Where we get tripped up is when we cannot accept having them – and we do crazy hurtful things when we reject an emotion.  A rejected emotion can press every trigger, result in crazy behavior, and bring us to greater and greater unrest, unpeace, and guilt.  This seems to be the cycle at work in your mind.

The way through it, as I see it, is with serious here and now loving support that encourages you to develop healthy ways of being WITH the emotion without acting it out, rejecting it, and fleeing it.  In short… to be there for yourself as you feel your anger… to love and encourage yourself …. to get at some of those deep wounding memories with the assistance of a kind human being who can hold your hand and be available to you for you and with you NOW … so that you can learn and grow and become essentially your own mother, father, and parent in ways that are healthy and loving.

Just because your mom did not love you… just because she did not seem to care… does not make you a hopeless case, nor does it spell disaster for your life.  It definitely hurts like hell!!! It definitely means a lot of work!! But… this work that your life brought to your doorstep is frankly work we all have to do — because when in history did the world ever accept anger? violence? greed? … there are emotions so deeply rejected no one seems to want to admit having them.  So the world is full of this toxicity because no one is actually owning their homework!!!  Once you really get into the healing process, you can be a leader of the movement calling for humanity to come to peace with difficult emotions – in fact- I cannot think of a better candidate for a job like that!

Be sure as often as you can in the day to wish yourself peace.  Just say, “Peace.” and direct it within. NOT as a command.  But in a kind way.  Like the way an angel would do it.  Just over and over again, “Peace be with you, ___” like you’re talking to a little child.  In this way, you are already starting to model love to yourself — eg, love and acceptance.

Another thing I strongly recommend: no judgment or criticism of yourself.  You have done this so that you could change yourself to become more acceptable and then noticed by your mother, I suspect. Forget her. She was a womb – a biological mother. Not a real one.  So you don’t have to judge or condemn yourself anymore.  You can even be bold and say, “I release myself from ever looking to her for anything ever again. I see that no matter what I do or who I am, she will be as she is: unable to love.  But that has nothing to do with me. That’s her.  Thank God I turned my life around now … that I came to the realization that I am young and can learn love and self-care and kindness, and so be it! That is what I am doing!”

If you keep reaffirming this and then you do something kind for yourself – you take the time to notice a flower even as your mind might be racing, you will have shown yourself love and affection. Also, medication can help with the mental background noise that arises with deep rejection.

Do not act out the emotions, and do not judge them, and do not run away from them and do not resist them. Just watch them with open eyes … like you are on a mountain top and they are below you, so you get a very good clear view of them.  You can see where they came from… that they pass… their effects on the mind (you) and the body (you) and you can then at the same time, be there in open acceptance of this all – healing the body and the mind with that openness and acceptance.

Those are the teachings of Pema Chodron. You can get free help at youtube by searching for her videos. They work! I can attest to it myself.  Just go in trust of the process she recommends, get help from a therapist who can continually reassure you, group therapy to learn how to express emotions healthily, and …. above all…

May you know you are not defective.  You were hurt.  The hurt is over when you no longer need the person who hurt you. The advice here addresses that – doing it is another matter. It is really important that you catch yourself when the mind wants to go to what your mother did not do – and instead, assert, “I do not need her. I release myself from that need so I can learn how to take care of myself, love and heal.”  Over and over again. instead of judging things, just notice what the mind is doing — notice the judgments themselves, and the minute one comes up, “I am OK exactly as I am. I release myself from judgment and allow emotions to arise so I can learn to be with them in a healthy, self-respecting way.”  over and over again.

This is homework we human beings all have in common – meaning you are just another human being struggling with difficult emotions.  That makes you human.

I am also in my own religious tradition(s) praying that you receive the best and finest support, encouragement and guidance, the highest and greatest love, the greatest and most profound healing, and that blessings arise in you so great that you live peace at all times.  Then it can be said that you can teach others who had it ‘better’ than you – but maybe were not as motivated as you to get to the root cause of suffering, which is non-acceptance.

Can you accept yourself? Absolutely.

Must you change? No.

Must your mind change?  Yes.

Must you break certain habits? Most definitely.

Can you do it?  most definitely.

Am I making anything up here or sugar coating anything? No.

There are folks here who offer fabulous advice. Know that there is a forum here where people are compassionate and do care – and if you have to, think of this forum for now as a touchstone of love and compassion until you get together a local solution – and then you will have two sources of love and kindness … and you will gradually come to realize that love and kindness are inside, too, if only you’d been given the chance to share them.

Repeating again: Because you were never given the chance to extend love, you have no idea you are loving or kind.

And because you were never given love, you don’t even know what that really feels like.

Is it reasonable to expect a child to read before learning how to read?  Can you see how self-judgment is so totally irrelevant? If you had parents who heaped love and affection on you day and night and you had these things going on, I could at least understand how you might be self-judgmental. But not in your case.

You can learn that you are and always have been loving and kind.

All you need is water.  There are folks in this world happy to water flowers.

Find them and let them guide you so you can water your own garden in life, with joy and happiness.

Every blessing to you, ‘Nobody,’ for you are indeed a ‘Somebody’ — a radiant light beam of love and light dressed in human clothing.  May the greatest and profoundest truth of you – to which only ‘the Creator’ or ‘the Creative energies of the universe’ or ‘God’ or however you call the Bigger Mystery may testify – be revealed to you … that you can know how limited any parent is in the bigger scheme of the workings of the universe.

With utmost sincerity, love and compassion,

Namaste _/\_ Christine

Dear Nobody,

It has been almost a week since your last post, which made me wondering how has you been doing?… Just a few words to let you know that I am looking forward to your post, and I hope that things are going fine for you…

Rose