Dear surfthesky:

Welcome back! This is your 4th thread here. Your first was in May 2020 (age 20), 2nd in April  2021, your 3rd in December 2021, and your current, October 2023 (age 23). I replied to you 4 times, beginning in your first thread, and you replied to me one time, in April 2021. In total, you submitted 4 original posts and one reply.

Here is what you shared in five posts: your mother had you when she was very young, your father left the two of you shortly after your birth and you were in no contact with him since. When you were 4, your stepfather entered your life as a father figure. Two younger siblings were added to the family, one of whom has ADHD, and is very time-demanding of your parents (your mother and stepfather).

While growing up, your young mother was a student in university, and you were mostly raised by your grandparents. You moved a lot, having lived in 3 countries. Your mother and stepfather were very busy with your two younger siblings, and “never had much time” for you, nor were they “really interested in talking.. or just spending time” with you. When they had time for you, they were “very demanding, very strict… criticised” you a lot. During your last year in high school, because your parents were to move again, you stayed with neighbors who offered to take you in, so that you can finish school. It was living with them that you witnessed for the first time, a different kind of relationship between parents and their children.

Back in April 2021, you didn’t speak with your parents for a while, so “to have time to figure things out without their presence” in your life. You ended your one reply back then with: “The need to satisfy them, to show them that I am time-worthy is definitely existing“.

When you were 14, you had a male friend (16) who became your boyfriend/ your first love. At one point during the relationship, you “started having real anxiety problems and simply serious problems” with yourself,  and you didn’t treat him well. He eventually broke up with you. You dated other guys since, but “it didn’t really work out“.

You finished school in 2019 (ag 19), had a “pretty bad knee injury and required some operations“, started studying biology at a university in a different, bigger city “without really knowing what” you wanted. While at university, you started missing your first boyfriend. You wrote  him a letter and he wrote you back. The two of you then had deep talks: he told you that he never got over you, and the two of you talked about meeting again. You were conflicted at the time: “On the one hand, I am really happy just to have him once again in my life. But on the other hand, I overthink a lot. I am scared to get heartbroken again…  I genuinely ask myself: was it fate or is this whole thing one big mistake?“.

As you were conflicted about the possibility of resuming the relationship with your first boyfriend, you were also conflicted about your Major. You realized that “biology wasn’t the right fit” for you, and in your 4th semester, you were “still not sure” what you wanted to study instead of biology.  You wrote: “I can’t seem to decide. And I think the problem lies within me. I keep searching for the ‘perfect thing’. Another thing is that I am always thinking about what other people would think about me. ‘What will I study that will make me super successful? Will they be jealous of me? Will they finally approve me?’ I feel so bad because in one month I will become 21 and I still haven’t figured out what it is that I want… It’s the wanting so much and achieving nothing“.

Next, you decided on psychology as your major, you applied for it in a Vienna university, and you were accepted. Before moving to Vienna, you walked  “the Camino de Santiago in Spain for a month” in Sept 2021. This is what you wrote about that time: “After I got the acceptance and went walking the Camino everything seemed to change. It was the first time I actually started to heal when I was on the Camino; meeting so many different, beautiful spirits… It was the first time since a very long time I felt so good about myself again, laughing so much every day… I wasn’t afraid of people going to hurt me… People actually liked me!“.

After the spiritual journey was concluded, you arrived in Vienna, but had trouble finding a shared flat. You applied to many, but was rejected: “I end up getting rejected, them choosing someone else over me. And I just can’t seem to figure out why; why am I never good enough? I feel like this whole situation triggers all the problems I used to have with myself, just when I thought things were getting a lot better… this is the same as it always was for me: I am never good enough… I am never enough for people to actually like me.., nothing has changed, I am the kid no one wanted to be friends with all over again.. I really don’t know how to become the person I was on the Camino on my day to day life, free-spirited and someone who is loved by everyone. I miss having easy conversations, not overthinking every sentence I say“, December 2021.

Almost 2 years later, yesterday, you shared that for 1.5 years (since abut April 2022), you’ve been in a long-distance relationship with a man you met in the Camino de Santiago in Spain back in Sept 2021. The two of you having time off your respective universities, spent the recent summer together “experiencing ‘puppy-love’..  This love feels very pure and innocent and he makes me very happy, even if long-distance is not easy“. Back in his country, he started his new degree, and told you about girl in his new class whom “he seems to like.. enjoys her company“.

You shared that his is a great boyfriend, very attentive, thoughtful and nice; he puts a lot of effort into the relationship, calls you frequently, visits you, listens to you, you trust him and think highly of him, and he told everyone that you are his girlfriend. But you are jealous in regard to the girl he likes in class.

“Now, why do I feel jealous every time he mentions her?…  I can’t help but feel this jealousy rise up and I wonder why…  Is it because I subconsciously think I am not good enough? As I know that I have often struggled with low self-esteem. Or is it that he is so far away, that I feel things are out of my control?… How do I go on about the situation? Why do I feel so jealous, specifically about this one person?“-

– I think that you feel jealous because you’re thinking that maybe this girl in his class is good-enough and that your boyfriend will realize that by comparison, you are not (good-enough), and that when he realizes this, he will reject you. The fact that he lives physically far away from you, and physically close to her does not help at all.

From my very personal and long-lasting experience of feeling not good enough, being less worthy than others, I can relate to how intoxicating and magical it feels at times when (temporarily) you feel good-enough, equally worthy to others. When a person suffering from this devastating feeling of being less-than/ not good-enough- is experiencing something very different, like when you were accepted to the Vienna University and then went on the Camillo pilgrimage- it feels as magical as..  surfing the sky.. doesn’t it?

I have much more to share, but would like to share it in the context of communicating with you back and forth for a while, if you are willing.

anita