Dear Stepan Pavlas:

It is so wonderful to read the writing of Stepan the kid (“I feel like a kid… write like a kid”). Good to read you going from thought to thought not worrying, if only for a moment, whether you make sense or not. You are welcome here to write anything that comes to your mind, be the kid that you still are at 15!

I read the two threads that you started. I am glad you did. It has been very slow here in the forums lately, but I hope you get some responses by tomorrow. I  know I want to answer the one about what love means.

“I still have a life ahead of me, but if I can be honest, I am scared of the future, I do not know if I will make it that far”- I know you are afraid, Stepan, and I do hope very much that you will make it far. The kid in you who expressed himself with such joy in your recent post is a lovable kid. I want to read more and more from him!

I will be back to your thread Monday morning, in about 15 hours from now.

anita

Dear Stepan Pavlas:

My first question for you was “what do you believe other people in your life are thinking about you: your parents, peers in school, the girl you shared about, others?”- you didn’t answer my question. You didn’t write what it is that you thinks that others are thinking about you, )an example would be: my mother thinks I have a good heart).

Instead you shared that you’ve been having long hair for five years, you are used to it, and you don’t wonder what other people think about your long hair; you shared that you adapt well to different individuals, that you try to get along with everyone, that you prefer peace with everyone, that “do not like disputes, conflict or unrest”, but you don’t do anything and everything so to avoid conflict, and when it is necessary, you defend your personal space. You wrote: “even before I started having these psychological problems, I wasn’t very interested in people.. I didn’t find any reason to socialize… I look for my own, and when I feel the need to get involved, I do”.

My second question t you was to explain a sentence you wrote earlier regarding the word love: “from what I have experienced, I can not assign that feeling to anything else, or anyone else”. You explained that “there never been such a thing I could match the same feeling too. Not a single thing or person”, that is, you never felt loved by anyone. So you didn’t love back anyone.. until you met this girl, but you doubt the nature of that love, not sure about it perhaps (“why cannot it be true that it could be something deeper? Can it be blind love..?”), but it was or is something specie because “we match to each other”.

What I understand from what you shared in your recent post is that you didn’t experience love in your home of origin, or if you experienced it, it was long ago and you forgot how it feels. Maybe your parents tell you that they love you, or show their love in actions, but you don’t feel their love for you, and you don’t feel love for them.

It fits with what you wrote in your original post regarding the girl: you realized that you missed her, told her about it, and “she felt the same way. I began to wonder what it was, and we both agreed that it was probably love. We really discussed it too much”- you’ve been so removed, at 13, from the experience of love, of mutual love, that it took you time to figure out what it was that you felt for her and she felt back for you. You had to discuss it a lot, too much, as if it was a foreign, peculiar and unfamiliar concept- to-love-and-be-loved-in-return.

It fits with what you shared earlier about your relationships with your parents: “we don’t talk much together.. I don’t feel that bond like I love them… I don’t have some sort of deep relationship with them… maybe I don’t want to talk to them… I’d  rather be alone. I don’t feel around them like I have that emotional support.. with my ‘girlfriend’ ..I feel more understood and safe”.

My further input this morning: I am guessing that your parents expressed to you somehow that they don’t like you, that they don’t approve of you, or that you are not okay in their book, not worthy of their attention. Maybe they expressed that they like you like a Thing, not like a Person, like someone that’s just there, not someone that thinks and feels.

Maybe they didn’t like anything that was childish about you, like when you cried, maybe they expressed disapproval of you when you cried, saying something like don’t-be-a-child! Or if you ran around like a child, they were angry and said something like don’t run around , sit down like an adult! Maybe this is why you hate being called a kid.

What do you think?

anita

Dear Stepan Pavlas:

It takes time and effort to know a person, this is why I suggested a long-term communication between you and me. I ask questions, you answer; you can ask me questions about what I meant by saying this or that. This way we improve our communication and in doing so, you get to know yourself better, and I get to know myself better.

“I can’t say anything about myself. If I had to describe myself, I would have to  think for a long time who I am. I’ve never been clear about this. I don’t know what my character is, I don’t know how I affect others, and I don’t even know what they think”-

– it is within an honest, long term communication with another, that you learn who you are, that you become clear about who you are, and what is your character. Within such a communication, you get to know how you affect me because you can ask me, and I will tell you. You get to  know what I think because I tell you, and if I don’t, ask me and I will tell  you.

You assumed I was angry at you for not answering my fist question, but your assumption was wrong. Don’t be alarmed for making the wrong assumption, I made plenty of wrong assumptions in my life. But I learned to ask instead of assuming.

I wasn’t angry that you didn’t answer, I pointed out that you didn’t, that is all.

I understand better why you don’t like being called a kid.

I am wondering, asking, that is: how do your parents act when they get angry at you?

anita

Dear Stepan Pavlas:

Don’t worry about answering properly, or saying you don’t remember- this is not an interrogation, and it is not a test. I am asking you questions so to learn about you, so to  understand you better. So try to feel comfortable about answering my questions. You always have the right to not answer any of my questions, stating that you don’t want to answer this or  that question.

Regarding not remembering, if you want to, when you have the time, if you feel comfortable with it, type away what you do remember from your earlier childhood, anything that comes to mind, anything at all- but without your current interpretations of what happened then. Tell me just the facts, as if you had a camera and a voice recorder, filming those scenes from your past.

(I will soon be away from the computer for a while).

anita

Dear Stepan Palvas:

Benzodiazepines are prescribed for anxiety disorders. In your new thread you wrote: “I have depression with slight anxiety”. I am surprised you were prescribed with an anti anxiety medication, and not with an anti-depressant. You wrote regarding the benzodiazepine that you were prescribed with, that “it will take about a month before it starts doing something”. This is true for SSRI anti-depressants, not for benzodiazepines. The latter have an immediate sedating affect.

Were you prescribed with anti-depressant and an anti-anxiety, two medications?

*Benzodiazepines are recommended only for a short term, a few weeks or so, not long term!

I wonder what is wrong with your liver.

I read your new thread, but will not post there because I can post here, and we can communicate on this thread whenever you want to. (It’s been very slow in the forums, not a lot of people replying, but I do hope that other members will reply to your new thread).

anita

Dear Stepan Pavlas:

The medication you are supposed to take only if you are feeling terribly, that sounds like it should be the benzodiazepine, and the one you are supposed to take every day, that sounds like an antidepressant. Can you check, what it says on the bottle and let me know?

I like it that you started a new thread for other members. But like I said, especially since the pandemic was declared, not many members respond to members who start threads. It is very, very slow here, as far as responding. So don’t feel disappointed if you  don’t get replies.

A month and a day ago, you wrote regarding your parents: “I am starting to realize that they really do care about me”- meaning, you didn’t realize before that they really care about you. Is it that they were too busy to pay attention to you before, that they behaved as if you weren’t there, as if they didn’t see you, didn’t hear you, didn’t notice that you were there (beyond someone to feed, clothe and shelter)?

* I will be away from the computer for about an hour.

anita