By that I mean that I know I am loved by my friends and family, I just don’t always feel it or willing to be vulnerable enough with people to talk to them or let them see me when I’m down. I’m very good at being there for people, but it’s rare that I let people be there for me, but they’re always grateful when i do. Other people love to help me because I think it’s obvious that I try not to be helped

I did not know I was loved as a child. I did not feel it. I felt alone, and afraid alot of the time. Afraid my mom would be so sad that she couldn’t take of me emotionally (this in fact happened), and afraid that my dad would get so angry and hurt my mom, or lose his job and then there would be no one to care for me. I remember this fear in my body when I think about it. It made me feel paralyzed from the anxiety.

My current struggles are with life feeling meaningless alot of the time, which keeps my motivation and morale low. Also, feeling afraid that there is no one accessible to me in case I need someone emotionally.

I think my meaning and purpose is to cultivate peace on this planet through whatever means I can. My hope is that peace in my mind will leave me motivated to share this joy with others and help end unnecessary suffering in the world, brought about by wounding from our pasts. The same things I want for myself is what I want for those around me.

I’m not sure what I need right now. To know I’m lovable is still probably one of the hardest things to accomplish. I sometimes believe it then other times I don’t.

Thank you so much Anita for continuing to work with me.

Not suprising but again you are correct. I still have not made it out of bed today it’s almost 3pm. I told myself I was going to go run this morning then do my homework, then clean, meal prep, etc. Once I failed to motivate myself to go run in the cold rain, I shut down and considered my day a failure because I couldn’t accomplish the first thing on my list. Problem is now it’s a downward spiral where I feel like a failure and get stuck trying to answer questions of “why can’t I motivate myself?” And then end up doing nothing the entire day. I suppose loving and empathizing with myself despite not accomplishing my goal for the day is the answer as you suggested.

I think I love myself, until someone makes me aware that im really just shaming myself to get things accomplished. In this moment I’m even angry at myself for not seeing that self hatred dynamic clearly this morning and moving on with my day. Perfectionist tendencies. I think “why should it take anita pointing that out to you for you to understand that you’re not loving yourself. You should love yourself better!” Which is not helpful to actually loving myself. Shaming myself into loving myself makes no sense.

How do I let go of this constant frustration and criticism of myself? It’s difficult because I have people tell me good things about myself constantly and I wonder how long I can keep up impressing people. I’ve got the whole imposter syndrome feeling going on. That i feel like a failure to myself but others see me as talented, strong, and creative. However I continue to think of myself as not good enough. The level of frustration I have with myself grows as I write this. I have no reason to hate myself but continue to do so. Why do I continue to hate myself? It no longer serves me, I know this but continue to do it anyway.

That’s the problem. I rarely experience anger towards others. It’s very difficult for me to be mad at my parents because I know they were completely unprepared to raise me and my sister. I have alot of empathy for them. I continue to find it odd that you focus alot on my mother. I see my mom trying. My dad not so much. When I do experience anger about my childhood he comes to mind much more often than my mom. He was violent, angry, and forgot to pick me up from the bus stop or school many times. My mom was depressed and sad yes, but she at least tried, I could at least depend on her to pick me up from the bus stop and didn’t have to worry about being outside for hours waiting.

I don’t talk to my mom about her feelings at all anymore. And I rarely talk to either one of my parents anymore at all.

I’m angry at myself because I think I’m not worthy. Like I’m not lovable. Yes I get it it was my parents job to love me, they failed, so now what? It’s my job to love me, to be compassionate with myself for not being able to do everything perfectly all of the time.

Thank you for being so patient with me through this process.

What you’re saying about my mother makes more sense than ever now. I understand the focus there.

I would argue however that I haven’t completely stopped the healing process. No doubt it has been difficult and I’m at crossroads right now that will either be empathy for myself or empathy for my mother and father. Could I not experience both however? This may not be you’re intention but sometimes it seems like you’re advising me to hate my mom. I’m not sure if having empathy for myself means hating my mom in the process. I do not hate her but there is anger there that is difficult for me to access at times, out of fear of feeling “bad”. Is there a way to have empathy for myself without hate for the other? Or are hate and anger not neccesarily Interchangeable?

This is very confusing for me to understand what exactly I need. I know I lack self empathy, but every time I’m hard on myself it’s not like I’m consciously thinking about my mom. I’m more so thinking about how I need to work harder at healing. I’m so sorry if this is confusing. I’m very confused myself right now about what exactly I need.

Thank you for reply Anita

This redirecting of hate where it belongs makes more sense and the with me since you put it as “long lasting anger” when I think of hateful people I think of people who lack compassion altogether. That’s what I don’t want for myself. However the fact is that is not who I am, I do have a great deal of compassion just not for myself. The difficult part continues to be opening myself up to the experience of anger, I have done it in the past, yes, but I’ll fall back into old habits and hate myself again then get depressed all over.

In this moment I even lack compassion for myself receiving help from you. I think “13 pages and 190 replies for me to get the point finnaly, something has to be wrong with you” of course this is faulty thinking and I will continue to struggle with it, but awareness of when this is happening is the first step to begin combating the negative beliefs about myself with compassion and placing those negative beliefs where they belong outside of me.

I haven’t filled you in but I have been going on dates for the past month or two and I find myself genuinely more compassionate towards women for the most part. I don’t internally shame women for their pasts anymore because I see them the same as me, searching for connection and looking to get their needs met. Of course I still struggle with trust and being attracted to pain. But I’m more conscious of it now than ever. I chose to keep seeing a confident woman, over a woman with low self esteem who had just gotten out of an abusive relationship. I noticed myself more attracted to the woman with less confidence because I wanted to fix her. I decided to try something different though and stopped seeing her because of the awareness I’ve learned here about my own history. I do believe I’m moving in the right direction, and trying to stop harming myself.

It is unbelievable to me that through our written communication on this site so much has been accomplished. Yes there is much work left for me to do throughout my life, but I don’t even know how to Express to you how grateful i am to have someone as patient and caring as you to go to for help. It brings tears to my eyes thinking about how much love you give everyday to people and if no one else tells you, I sincerely want you to know you have helped me change my life for the better. You challenge me without shaming me, you are an amazing human being. Thank you so much Anita.