Dear Kshitij:

* The following is a long and comprehensive post and it may be difficult/ emotional for you to read, so, please take your time reading, take breaks when needed, and as always, of course, you can choose to stop and not resume reading.

“I have never heard an appreciation or compliment from my father about my nature, about who I am apart from studies. Instead from early childhood, I would get to listen to very harsh criticism and ‘sermons’.. on even the most trivial issues. He would use to presume that in any given situation, I would be automatically at fault. It was like he had a problem with everything I did and I don’t know why his attitude was like this considering his contrasting attitude towards my younger sibling.“-

– I am now re-reading your original post and onward with the information above in mind, information I didn’t have before. I will be quoting you and commenting on the parts that I will boldface, with the info above in mind. (In parentheses are quotes from 12 hours ago, the above)

“the officers related with the scheme for some whimsical reasons chose to not let my application progress“- for whimsical reasons, your father chose to give you those sermons (“He had a problem with everything I did”, “the most trivial issues“).

“I felt completely shattered because as it felt that things were going good, something worse than my imagination hit me. It would have been so unfair”- I imagine that as a child, you tried your very best to be a good, obedient daughter, get your father approval and avoid his very harsh criticism aka (your word) sermons. Sometimes, when he was nice to you/ wasn’t critical for sometime, you had hope that there will be no more sermons, but just as you thought things were going good, there was another sermon.

” I am sort of tired of ruminating on intrusive thoughts and having breakdowns even though that situation didn’t happen in reality”– that situation (your application for scholarship being denied) didn’t happen, but your childhood need to be appreciated by your father/ to not be criticized, that need was denied again and again, repeatedly, and for years (I have never heard an appreciation or compliment….I would get to listen to very harsh criticism”).

“My intrusive thoughts make me feel as if that situation has actually happened, and it is my reality. I get flashbacks of what I felt during that time, some examples are – ‘nothing ever gets better’… ‘this is so unfair’. I think my emotional state at that moment has left such imprints that they still affect me, making me ruminate over them even though my reality is different”-

– the scholarship application situation triggered the trauma in your childhood sermons situation (lets call it CSS). The thoughts you had as a child, during those sermons were “nothing ever gets better” no matter how hard I try, and this (his very harsh criticism) is so unfair“!

“When the scholarship issue came, it shattered me because of the sheer unfairness of the issues and I began feeling that just when things started to become better, they went for worse… I began to think that it’s pointless to keep hopes as all I got was traumatic setbacks again and again“- the CSS was truly unfair. You did not deserve it AT ALL. It created trauma in you (the term for it is complex childhood trauma, because it’s not a one-time, single event trauma; it’s a many events trauma over a long time, years).

As a child, every time things were becoming better (he treated you okay), you were hopeful, but out of nowhere, things got worse again (another CSS), and you were disappointed, hope dashed. From one point on, you figured it’d be easier to not hope: no hope=> no hope dashed/ no disappointment.

“I personally think that if it’s related to the symptoms of PTSD, it is connected more with the scholarship issue; honestly speaking I had never felt such low, and despair and I almost wanted to give up.“-

– the scholarship issue was not a trauma leading to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The scholarship issue triggered your complex childhood trauma (part of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, c-PTSD).

As a child, you did feel such low, and despair, and wanting to give up, but as children do, you pushed down those feelings so to lower your distress and be able to survive and function, sort of putting these feelings to sleep. So, now, looking back, you probably don’t remember how intensely you felt back then. What happened with the scholarship application situation is that it awakened those sleeping feelings, brought them up to the surface.

“The scholarship issue… brought at the same time, an unbearable mix of emotions like despair, frustration, bitterness, hopelessness etc. I felt that no matter how much I tried, things would always get worse“- I boldfaced the intense feelings of childhood awakened by the scholarship issue. What I italicized is the theme of your complex childhood trauma.

“it makes me anxious because I feel a lack of control that scares me about how things will go”- growing up, you weren’t able to control your father’s behavior, you had no control (no matter how hard you tried) over the CSS, which happened again and again, no matter what.

“my intrusive thoughts have again begun to consume me, and I am having a breakdown everyday because of them. I’m trying the strategy but isn’t doing much help” (March 25)- your intrusive thought are a combination of your father’s accusations of you and your thoughts about his accusations.

“I visualise myself… weeping in a close room shutting myself from everything else with no desire to do anything for self-care” (April 10)- this is probably what you did as a child, how you felt back then.

“Sometimes I feel as if I am getting depressed even though everything is going well right now“- because your child self knows that everything that is going well right now, can turn upside down anytime with another sermon.

“I am not able to get why I am imagining myself in such depressing scenarios now?” (April 10)- because for the child-self within us lives in the past. For the traumatized child-within the past is still happening.

“From early childhood, I would get to listen to very harsh criticism and ‘sermons’ (if the word conveys what I try to say) on even the most trivial issues. he would use to presume that in any given situation, I would be automatically at fault. It was like he had a problem with everything I did and I don’t know why his attitude was like this considering his contrasting attitude towards my younger sibling” (April 10)- assuming you are the oldest, or oldest girl among your siblings, it is possible that when you were his one and only daughter, he projected someone he hated into you, a woman who abused him (maybe his mother, maybe an aunt who took care of him, maybe an older sister, maybe a combination of these), and proceeded to punish you for.. what someone else did to him when he was a child, or a teenager, way before you were born. This kind of projection and is what’s behind a lot of childhood abuse cases.

By the time his other children were born, you already took the role of the hated-one, so your siblings were free of that one role, or maybe they were free from the extent of that role that you suffered from.

It so happens, that I was the target of my mother’s hate sermons/ tirades, she projected people who abused her as a child (way before I was born) into me and proceeded to punish me for what they have done (the common theme behind child abuse). As a result I suffered from (and was diagnosed with) Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. In her angry tirades, she accused me of intentionally hurting her feelings and making her want to die. My intrusive thoughts were about causing her to die. I’d have a thought (thought A) and then an intrusive thought appeared:  this thought (thought A) could kill her. Next thing I did was a compulsion to neutralize the supposed death causing thought, ex. knocking on the table 3 times , turning around one way a few times, and then the other way the same number of times.

anita

Dear Kshitij:

You are welcome! I am thinking that your father projected his father (with whom he was very angry for many years) into you- not because you deserved his anger (not at all!), and not because your behaviors (and maybe even your looks) were more like his father than your siblings’, but because you were first-born. He has been holding his anger inside him probably since he was a child. When you were born- his first child– it was his first opportunity to express his long-held anger, to let it out, at a child that belonged to him (an easy target).

This is what abuse is about. my mother did the same to me, as I was too first born.

“One reason he acts differently towards my younger brother is because he probably sees himself in his personality, he finds a similarity“- excellent insight. For one, he didn’t project his father into them (this was your  “job”, unfortunately for you). If he expressed affection for them over the years, it means that yes, he probably projected himself into them.

“Now, when I live abroad away from home, he tries to get close to me and acts very cordially; but the more he tries the more I get repelled“- I too felt repelled by my mother over the years, because she did to me, in principle, what your father did to you.

“Since childhood I would use to ruminate over incidents of his unkind treatment and that happens even now when I think about a past situation or hypothesize about a future confrontation. It leads me to rage fits at times… back when I was a kid/teenager, there used to be times when I would be filled with rage, despair and frustration and I would cry myself to sleep“-I ruminated too, I was anxious too about the next time she’d rage at me, so I would ruminate about what I might have said or done wrong to bring about her next rage.

And I felt rage myself, rage at her, which I held inside.

I’ll answer your questions in the last paragraph, best I can, tomorrow morning (in about  14 hours from now).

anita