Dear Palegazesunnidays:

I want to elaborate on the above and take it farther, sharing with you my own life-experience and growing understanding:

When we are children, we feel most intensely: we feel hurt, sadness, joy, hope, fear intensely. Maybe if you look back at your childhood, you can remember feeling hope intensely? I remember: it felt like the grass was intensely green and the sun intensely pleasant, and the image is of me running excitedly on the green grass under the pleasant sun, running toward a beautiful future that’s just about to happen.

I didn’t remember for a long time how intensely fear felt because naturally, my brain-body dissociated from it as quickly as it could, best it could. Recently, I remembered how my heart beat faster, how spacey and nauseous my head got when just about to be attacked by my mother.

I always remembered though the sadness and guilt over my mother’s unhappiness (which she expressed for hours in most dramatic ways), and I kept re-experiencing this excessive empathy for her, sadness and guilt as an adult, for many years.

As I learn about other people, I find that when childhood was difficult, people keep re-experiencing the same feelings of childhood in new, adult life-circumstances: as adults, we are the same children hurting, fearing.. hoping.

I think that the first time you mentioned guilt was on Jan 24: “A few other things have popped up in my mind.. guilt.. for wanting to leave my previous partners, how can I leave when they need me.. Guilt about hurting them despite feeling hurt myself.”- having re-read all your posts, it seems to me that your original guilt was about wanting- as a child or a young teenager and onward-  to quit taking care of your parents and brother.. that it was about feeling angry at your parents for taking away from you the idea of a carefree childhood (the term stolen childhood comes to mind), and burdening you instead with adult responsibilities. You wanted to leave them all, perhaps, but were afraid that you will hurt them if you leave them.

All the taking care of your parents, your brother and everyone else- may be your tireless and exhausting way to seek redemption: to redeem what you feel is a bad part of you (bad for feeling angry at your parents, bad for wanting to leave them).

On Jan 26, you wrote in regard to romantic partners: “I then end up in a position where I know I want to get out, to walk away, but in creeps the guilt.. It’ll hurt them… so I stay”- I think that this is the story of your childhood (if you substitute  parents for partners).

On that same day, you wrote: “Returning to the aspect of guilt for a moment..  In the last few years.. my parents have continued to visit 2 or 3 days a week.. They’d stay for several hours at a time.. I was frustrated about the time they spent round at mine… I became a bit snappy and sought to escape the house for walks alone when they visited... when my dad fell unwell and the deterioration of his mental health picked up pace, I partially blamed myself for not wanting him and my mum to come round as much as they were, I felt guilty that I’d pushed him away and it was my fault. That guilt still floats in and out of my mind“- here is the guilt about feeling angry at your parents (“snappy” is the word you used) and wanting to get away from them, to leave them and move on to a different kind of life.

Taking care of others, emotionally and practically, in your own words (I boldface the different people you took/ take care of): “I was now supporting my mum and brother at their home and helping with shopping etc., visiting and supporting my dad in hospital… I’d also agreed to be a support worker for my friend’s daughter 2 to 3 days a week, whilst also supporting my own sons at home…  I’ve always been (mother’s) support and my brother’s from a young age… My husband.. I looked after him and our house, listened when he felt troubled, supported him…  My next partner.. I’d calm him when he was angry, listen when he was frustrated.. I helped him find and take part in new activities…  No. 4 .. I supported, I cared, I listened, I helped him with all sorts of difficulties he was having… No. 5.. I listened to him poor out his feelings of loneliness.. I supported him through some tough moments.. I worked as a personal trainer/fitness coach, in a hospital, in a nursery looking after babies and toddlers… working in a special needs school supporting children with considerable needs..“-

– seems to me that all this taking care of others is partly motivated by a desire or a need to free yourself from perceived badness, to become a good person through all these deeds, and to earn your right (as a redeemed person, a good person) to… your own life.

Another motivation in physically helping others and keeping yourself otherwise physically active is to distract yourself from feeling so low with anxiety, suppressed anger and guilt: “I busied myself with going for walks, visiting my parents and cooking them Xmas Dinner, and I threw myself into sorting and tidying around the house, I had a huge desire to be busy… pushing myself to walk, cycle, exercise more, it’s my coping/mechanism for seeking some sense of control…I guess when feeling so low”.

I will close this post with the following thoughts: I mentioned the term stolen childhood. I don’t remember if I read it somewhere. I know that “stolen lives” is the title of a book I once read, a title I identified with because I felt that my life was stolen. I’d say that the majority of my life was kidnapped and held hostage by Guilt. It was a false guilt, just like yours is a false guilt. It was never your job to take care of your parents and brother. It was your parents’ job to take care of you. Your anger at them and the desire to leave them, or at least, to leave the Guilt behind is more than understandable; it is valid and it is natural. If this post makes sense to you, if you want to correct that parts of it that are inaccurate or  not complete- please do.

anita

Dear Palegazesunnidays:

You are welcome!  “I’ve been finding myself snapping at my boys in on occasions in recent months. I feel frustrated and perhaps angry… I’ve not felt as low, muddled, confused, snappy etc. before as much as I do now and over recent months.. in the last few weeks it’s kind of hit a peak and I’m teetering on sinking, and clinging on to make changes.“-  your anger is trying to deliver a message to you, and it’s trying to deliver it loud and clear.

“Feeling held back. Guilty for wanting to go and do things on my own.. Frustrated and angry – with my parents, within all my relationships.. the need to escape and feel free and the guilt“- the anger’s message, as I hear it: Palegazesunnidays needs to live her own life, for herself; not for her parents, not for a partner, not even for her (teenage) kids!

When is Palegazesunnidays’s turn, when is she going to have her own .. sunny days?

“Guilt that if I did some of the things I wanted… I would hurt them, hurt their feelings“- if you don’t do some of the things you want to do, you will hurt those who do love you.

“I am a good person and good people don’t hurt others, don’t leave, don’t walk away“- you are indeed a good person, so please: don’t keep leaving you, don’t keep walking away from you.

“When I left home to move in with my husband, my parents were always popping round… I remember when the relationship with my partner ended, he said ‘your ex (husband) warned me they (my parents) don’t leave you alone’“- your person, your life, is not your parents’ property. They shouldn’t get to decide what to do with you for the rest of your life, or theirs.

“I bumped into A whilst shopping today. He apologised…  ‘I’ll try to make some time for you’. I felt angry, and saw it for what it is“- what it is, as I see it is a man trying to get his needs met.

I wonder if now is the right time to get quality counseling, so to help you at this time of increased self-awareness and challenge?

anita

Dear Palegazesunnidays:

The long waiting lists for free counseling in the U.K. are part-evidence of the unfortunate current global mental health crisis we are in, isn’t it?

“I am trying to do my best to work through things myself“- excellent! You are welcome to use the forums in a self-help context for working through things.

“I have been reading through some of the blog articles on Tiny Budda and there were a couple that resonated with me“- what I read from the articles you attached-  reads as if you wrote it!

“I’m have become more acutely aware of feeling angry on many occasions in the past and have suppressed it, not allowed it to speak. However, more recently I am finding it really difficult to suppress“- no need to suppress anger, only its expressions (“I’ve been finding myself snapping at my boys in on occasions in recent months”, Jan 28)

“and I guess I have become more aware that it’s been trying to tell me something very important. I have found myself wanting to know what it’s been wanting to say and I now understand“- excellent! Anger like any other emotion has a valid message, or messages for you: something that you need to change for the benefit of your own (and others’) well-being.

“I’ve have been thinking a lot over the past week about how to go about changing things so that I prioritise myself, show myself self-compassion, self-care..  I need to learn to say no, and to set boundaries… And I need to remain aware of my inner child“- you are on the right track!

“I need to learn about unnecessary guilt too“- this was a huge, long-term struggle for me and I would  like to help you with it, in this context of self-help.

“I felt I took a step, all be it a very, very tiny step in the right direction on Sunday”- a tiny step shared about on tiny buddha is just right..!

“A texted me Sunday morning ‘Do you still want an early cuppa?’. I wrestled with saying yes/no.. after sitting with it for 20 min or so, I texted him and said, ‘No thanks. I’ve got my climbing course today (which I had)…Hope you have a good day’. I enjoyed my walk and had a great time..”-  well done, Palegazesunnidays!

The next step sometime along the way would be perhaps to say no to him without having to explain why. The key in this process of change is to patiently take one step at a time and congratulate yourself for it: no step is tiny when you are moving in the right direction.

anita

Dear Palegazesunnidays:

Of course I don’t mind you sharing this with me: I am glad that you do, you just made me day with your latest sharing! And.. I am proud of you too for taking these small, yet big steps (no step is small when it leads you in the right direction): congratulations for the steps you took most recently!

When I read this: “I’ve also been looking at, and trying to work out what my values or principles are as that’s not something I’ve really considered before and an article I read mentioned things feeling out of kilter when you’re not living by your values. I guessed that my anger etc. has also been trying to tell me that I’m not living in tune with values which I’ve possibly repressed??”, I immediately remembered that I did work on values and principles in therapy more than a decade ago. It was part of DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy), I remembered worksheets my therapist at the time gave me to fill in as part of my homework assignment. I still have them.

If you go to dialectical behavioral therapy. com/ distress tolerance/ actions based on values, you will get a sense of what I am referring to. I can look for the paper worksheets that I still have, if you would like me to, tomorrow morning (in about 20 hours from now). Let me know, and I will find them and share them with you in the morning.

anita

Dear Palegazesunnidays:

You are welcome! I wasn’t aware that the website I mentioned had a book for sale. I didn’t and I don’t recommend that you purchase any book or any material from that website (I am not familiar enough with it): my intention was to give you an idea of what the work is about. I will look for the paper forms I have in the morning and will get back to you.

anita

Dear Palegazesunnidays:

It is very possible that I will be removed from the forums today, and since we communicated for a while in regard to your exciting reclaiming your life process (your words), I don’t want to just disappear, so I am here to say my possible goodbye, and ask you to please keep moving forward, keep reclaiming your life, one step, one day at a time!

anita