Dear noname:

Good to read back from you. After reading your recent post, I decided to do what I often do, go back to your past posts and see if there is something new for me to see. I read a bit of what you submitted every month, beginning with March 2017, just over four years ago. In the following I will be typing out just a bit, a very small part of what you shared through the months and years, using your words, but with fewer quotes than I usually add, so to make the reading more fluid. Please read the following when you feel okay to be reading this patiently.

March 2017:  you shared that your mother was very depressed and your father had anger issues. When you were 8-year-old, he told you that your job (and your sister’s job) was to keep your mother happy.

April 2017: you shared that you were feeling burned out with life and very lonely, and that depression was creeping in again. You noticed children’s mannerisms, their natural curiosity and genuine emotional expressions, and how you, unlike them, were completely spent and forcing yourself through life.

June 2017: you shared that to get close to a woman was the scariest thing in your life, that it brings up in you feelings of worthlessness and makes you feel hopeless with any amount of rejection. You shared that you were very angry with yourself, and that you have a long history of being very angry with yourself.

In July 2017: you shared that you were so desperate for love, “and the hope is what hurts the most”. As a child, you didn’t feel and receive love. You felt then and since the overwhelming need for love. You talked to your mother at the time (July 2017), told her that you “didn’t feel the love as a child, and still have trouble feeling it”. Her response: “She cried a little bit, but admitted that she knew this was true and regretted leaving me alone so much as a kid, and not  hugging or showing affection towards me and my sister.. it’s clear to her how sad I was. She admitted (that) her and my father being inaccessible and unresponsive to my emotional needs as a child”.

August 2017: you shared that your need for love was immediate and overwhelming, too tall of an order to be filled by anyone, and that you were “so sick of just living with hopes that tomorrow might be the day” that you will be loved.

September 2017: you shared that your depression was worsening mostly because of life circumstances beyond your control- your car engine broke, your bike was stolen, and your roommate was to move out at the end of the month, while you were not able to pay the rent on your own. You “never felt cared for” by your parents (italicizing the word felt), and that their lack of love has been the source of your depression.

October 2017: you shared that unlike your coworkers, classmates, everyone around you, you were the one who “consistently ends up lonely”, that you didn’t know how long you can “continue living without feeling love”, that you needed a hug badly, haven’t been held  in over a year. You shared that you have a strong desire to be with people, but when you are with people, you “withdraw pretty hard or just straight up leave to go be by myself”. You reflected that you were in a healthier state of mind when “life was slow, not too many obligations”.

February 2018: you shared that the pain you felt was always lingering, even when you had a good week and when you made progress, that the voice in your head telling you that you were unlovable was very, very loud, and it made you want to “keep away from people”.

June 2018 (the original post of this thread): you shared that no matter what, you still get chronically depressed, and your goal was to look  for a way to “accept the underlying lonely pain that persists no matter what I do… that I’m just going to be sad on a regular basis”, or as you put it in the title of your thread, “Being better at accepting depression”.

July 2018: you shared that you were envious of couples you see everywhere, couples that were enjoying each other’s company.

August 2018: you shared that you felt well the weekend before, so you decided to go back on a dating app, but you were “very uncomfortable with the idea of being in need of love or (in need of) another person”, that you were angry at women who treated you disrespectfully, that you pretend that you don’t need women. Regarding your hope to be loved, you wrote: “It hurts me to have hope”.

September 2018: you shared that you find yourself slipping back into depression for no particular reason, feeling disconnected from people again, that you were not getting what you needed from friends, that a friend you were seeing the most didn’t ask you questions about your life.

October 2018: you shared that you cried a lot thinking about a woman you met in the Fall of the year before, who ended up lying and cheating on you. You felt upset with yourself for “still missing her and wanting to care for her”. You also shared that a month or two before, you felt really good about yourself for 2-3 weeks, “feeling, believing, and acting as if I was a good person”. You then you “tried to start be more  outgoing and dating again”, and (as a result), that really good feeling about yourself faded.

November 2018: you shared that you went through cycles of feeling extroverted and confident, wanting to  invite everyone you meet to your house to hangout, but like clockwork, you got depressed, cut yourself off from people and wouldn’t leave your house.

December 2018: you shared that you were nearing your breaking point again, that two weeks before, you stayed in the house and talked to no one for an entire week, that you go through chronic depressive episodes, recover for about a week, and then restart your downward spiral. You were feeling more and more hopeless every day. The only thing that made you feel worthy was “love or admiration from other people”.

January 2019: you shared that you were grateful to be back to your apartment after spending two weeks around your family, that you saw yourself as needy, that the feeling of being needy was closely tied to your feelings of being worthless and unlovable in platonic and in romantic relationships. You were feeling “the very specific urge to cut myself which hasn’t happened in almost a year”.

February 2019: you shared that in the past couple of months, you’ve been “feeling more balanced, grateful, worthy, confident, and self loving”, and that your depression was much more manageable.

May 2019: you shared that you graduated and hopefully, would be starting a new job by the end of the month, that you were on extremely thin ice financially, that asking for help or for love “always felt like a losing battle”, that you were the only single person out of all your friends, and that you felt that there must be something unlovable about you.

June 2019: you shared that you were providing therapy for  people while feeling worthless yourself, that you didn’t know where or how to find your value and how to let go  of your pain, that getting close to people felt scary, that you felt separation anxiety from people even if you just met them, that the separation anxiety you felt as an adult, you “used to have as a child most of my waking hours”, and that (as an adult) you seek connection, but when you get close to someone, you try to run away.

November 2019: you shared that the August before, you moved out of your sister’s house, and were living with a roommate, that you realized that you were far more emotionally mature than you thought you were, that you have done the work most people don’t do, and that you were scared that you will not find secure attachment with anyone because so many people are so wounded and lost in the world, including yourself. You shared that you were so desperate to feel loved that you would “accept almost anything someone promised me, no matter how foolish”, and that you hated yourself for that.

December 2019: you shared that you had a very difficult week, that you missed two days of work, that you felt terribly unmotivated, that you were “overwhelmed by hopelessness and loneliness”. You shared this: “when I was cutting, I would cut when I felt dead.. cutting reminded me I was alive”. You shared that you desperately wanted “to be held, and seen or heard, but I don’t know how to get these things”.

January 2020: you shared that you were angry at your parents for leaving you alone often, that one time, you were left for 2-3 hours at the bus stop when you were in grade school, waiting for your father to pick you up, that your mother was there physically, but not emotionally. You wrote: “My parents have lip service to love though I did not experience what it actually felt like”.

February 2020:  you wrote: “I am generally uncomfortable being emotionally & physically intimate with people”. You shared that you went to your sister the day before. While you were talking to your sister, your mother continually interrupted you. You ignored her and continued to talk to your sister. You then talked to your brother in law. Your mother interrupted you again. You sighed and rolled your eyes. Your mother then screamed: “You’re always so F*** ing disrespectful!” and went upstairs to her room for the rest of the day. The morning after, she texted you: “I’m not sure why you continue to have an issue with me… I don’t deserve that from my child… I’m worthy of your respect”.

March 2020: you shared: “my mother preaches forgiveness yet won’t ever forgive me… I don’t feel guilty for not talking to my mom, because it would somehow turn into a conversation about what I’m doing wrong in the relationship, there is never an end to those types of conversations unless me or my sister admit we were wrong… the conversation is always criticism of what I’m doing to hurt her and never about the abundance of things I’ve done right… she is always complaining about us and how  we treat her. I’m sick of it and don’t feel like defending myself anymore against her opinions of me”.

December 2020: you shared that you didn’t talk to your mother since March, for about five months, (but your sister at the time was pleading with you to unblock your mother on your phone).

January 2021: you shared that you felt more hopeless than you felt in a few years, that you saw nothing but isolation, that you were able to survive, but surviving seemed hopeless.

Today, April 8, 2021: you shared that you are very stressed with financial survival worries, living paycheck to paycheck, that you will be 29 this month and “have nothing to show for it”, that you had a couple of dates with a woman last month. She asked you if you were doing okay. The question caught you off guard, and you broke down in tears.

My thoughts today: I think that the following did not occur to me until today: I re-read today (and remember having read it repeatedly before), that in July 2017, you had a particular conversation with your mother, where you told her that you did not feel loved as a child, and she validated your experience, telling you that indeed she left you alone a lot, didn’t hug you or show you affection, etc., and that she regretted it, crying. You later shared that she attended therapy, so I was somewhat under the impression that she was no longer the way she was before, when you were a child.

But 2.5 years later, in February 2020, there was no evidence at all of her Feb 2017 impressive understanding, validation and regret, or of any therapy she attended: (1) when  you were a child she talked a lot about herself, fast forward, in Feb 2020, she repeatedly interrupted you, (2) the mother who was regretful for neglecting her boy throughout his childhood and beyond, screamed at same boy for being disrespectful to her in Feb 2020, (3) the mother who left her boy alone, disappearing into her room, behind closed doors for hours, did the same thing Feb 2020,  disappearing into her room for the rest of the day, (4) the morning after, she texted you: “I’m not sure why you continue to have an issue with me.. I don’t deserve that from my child”- as if she did not admit of the very serious emotional neglect issue she admitted to 2.5 years earlier.

And then, in March 2020, you shared that she repeatedly criticized what you were doing “to hurt her”, complaining about how you were allegedly mistreating her, pointing to what you were allegedly doing wrong, wouldn’t stop talking until you admitted that you were wrong.. I don’t remember noticing this before, that she massively guilt-tripped you when you were a child, and still, as an adult.

Now I understand, after all this time, how destructive she has been in your life, not only when you were a child, but still, at least true to a year ago. You wrote in March 2020: “my mother preaches forgiveness yet won’t ever forgive me”- no wonder you have hated yourself all these years: she has wronged you, yet she insists that you wronged her and.. somehow you.. think (and/ or she thinks)  that she needs to forgive you.

I am guessing that your mother’s impressive performance in July 2017, was just that.. a performance, or as you called it perhaps, lip service (“My parents have lip service to love though I did not experience what it actually felt like”, January 2020).

I am sorry, noname, I don’t think  I realized this before. If you read this far, take your time and reply to me when you feel like it, when it is okay for you to reply. And when you do, we’ll take it from here.

anita

Dear noname:

You are welcome and thank you for your appreciation. I did the hours long work today on your threads because you are worth it!

I wouldn’t come back to your mother if I didn’t think that you can get un-stuck if you understand something about her that you did not understand before. What I am suspecting today, that I did not suspect before, is that your mother did not only neglect you emotionally, but that she is actively dishonest with you, meaning, she puts on a show: that time when she appeared validating and empathetic to you (July 2017), and at many other times, I am guessing.

This will explain why an intelligent, educated, persevering, amazing person like yourself is indeed stuck. Again, it’s not her failure to be attentive and affectionate to you, that keeps you stuck, but her (then and ever since), ongoing pretenses and her lies, is what I am thinking at this point.

anita

Dear noname,

I believe there are two ways you could feel loved: 1) one is by giving love to your inner child (being the compassionate parent to your wounded inner child), and 2) if No1 isn’t working because you’re unable to give any love to yourself whatsoever and cannot be a loving parent to your inner child, you could ask God to fill you with love.

Are you religious, noname? Pleading God to fill me with his love is what helped me to get that first “dose” of love and nurturance, which filled my heart and allowed me to start loving myself, little by little. Opening myself to the love of divine parents is what helped me cross that bridge to loving myself.

Dear noname:

You are welcome. It hurts me to read how badly terribly lonely life has been for you, for so long.

“I’m tired of being told it’s my fault I feel this way”- who is telling you this?

anita

Dear noname,

I feel the need for another, not necessarily a partner just another person or people to hold space for my grief. The isolation is my biggest enemy. And I’m tired of being told it’s my fault I feel this way, i just need to change my perspective or do this or that.

When we’ve been so emotionally deprived as children, as you have been, we get stuck and identify completely with our wounded inner child, and it feels really difficult to get out of it. It’s like trying to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. The wounded child needs a compassionate adult to help it process its hurt and get unstuck. This compassionate adult is often a therapist, who can offer mirroring, compassion and understanding to the person, and help the person grieve their losses – everything they haven’t received from their parents and all the pain they had to live through.

With the help of a therapist, you’ll learn how to slowly disidentify from your wounded inner child and see also the adult side in you, the side which is capable of e.g. helping others compassionately, like you are capable of. So strengthening your adult self – which is present but weak – would be very important, and then bringing the adult self into interaction with your wounded inner child, to give it the missing experience of being loved and cared for. That I see as a plausible way to healing.

Do you have a therapist with whom you can do the inner child work?