Dear Kennisha:

In May of 2014, five years and eight months ago, you were 18 or 19 at the time, you wrote this: “It seems that no matter what I do I just can’t win. My life is a continuous mess that seems to get bigger and harder everyday. For as long as I can remember I’ve always been someone’s second choice or the person no one cared to listen to… Now, I have this fear of opening up. I can’t handle commitment because there’s always this fear that someone’s going to let me down. I’ve stopped challenging myself, my passions seem like distant memories, and now I’ve become bitter. My bitterness has given me a deep hatred for the opposite sex, anger, and so much regret… My life has been miserable for as long as I can remember. It seems it’s only going to get worse…I don’t know what to do with myself”.

Dec 29, 2019: you wrote: “I was always an outdoor person, willing to explore, meet people, and see things I never saw before. I used to laugh all the time, there literally wasn’t a day where I wasn’t laughing, I was so kind, caring, and compassionate to others. I actually gave a damn at one point. But now I feel like a shell of myself. Broken and in bed all day everyday because interacting with people is so risky…I just feel so lost and empty, angry, and confused..Part of me wants to do something about my situation but I’m afraid of committing to anything. It feels like a literal box tightening around me when I commit to something – I end up sabotaging the situation because the fear gets too great..I feel hopeless, like I’m put on this earth to fight for something I find so hard to believe in – myself and my future… Any advice for a lost soul? Please?”

1. It is interesting how our memory goes, May 2014, you wrote: “My life has been miserable for as long as I can remember“, 5 years and 8 months later,  you wrote: “I was always an outdoor person, willing to explore, meet people… I used to laugh all the time, there literally wasn’t a day where I wasn’t laughing”-

– what it probably is- there were times in your life, when you were younger,  that you were happy, laughing, and exploring life, but those times were few and in between those times there were longer times of misery. At least, this is how it was for me. But we forget, we forget the misery times, put together all the good times, like in a film, and come up with a memory of always-have-been-happy.

2. That joy you remember, that is youth, the energy of youth, joyful and exploring life. When we get hurt as children, that joy disappears and we no longer want to explore life. We feel hurt and anger at those who hurt us, that anger expands to more and more people we encounter, some of whom hurt us more.. some we hurt. But that joy doesn’t die, it is massively hurt, but it is still there, inside.

I would like to communicate more with you, over time. Maybe, just maybe I can help you just a bit in making 2020 a better year for you a year of that joy and the motivation to explore life come out from deep inside you, where it is hiding.

anita