Dear Gaia:

No, no, living more is not about doing more, not in my book. There is a saying: we are human-beings, not human-doings. It is about that being- being calmer, not distressed and suffering. it is not about doing more.

“I either am overwhelmed by certain feelings or don’t feel nothing at all. Blank”- the brain/body automatically shuts down when it feels too intensely. So what you experience is the usual, natural.

“I either feel totally blank or like the inner child inside of me is basically non existent, a bit like my soul”- I feel your inner child/ soul as I type these words, and before too. I can see you, in my mind’s eye, you do exist, as a child and as a soul. You are way, way more than a thinking automation of sorts.

It is exciting for me to imagine you seeing this inner child/ soul yourself, seeing you, that is, for who you are!

anita

Dear Gaia:

Let’s look at this bomb: “how much of my youth I’ve wasted and keep wasting”- this is a huge bomb that you expressed before, and it makes you feel very, very, very… very, very, very shitty. And it explodes often and every time that it does, you suffer a whole lot.

Now, I can spend ten hours telling you otherwise, things like: but Gaia, you are so young, you still have decades of life in you, or I can say: well, why waste more? Or I can say: I too wasted my life, or what about people who died when they were babies, they only had a few days… and so  on.

What chances do you think I have to neutralize that bomb so it doesn’t explode with the next vehicle driving over it?

My answer  to my question: zero chances. Because it is not my voice and my words that cause the explosion, it is the voice and words that are already in your brain, lying below the surface, ready to explode when something above ground triggers it.. and so many vehicles trigger it.

But there is a way to neutralize that bomb (and other bombs), only it takes time and work, and you probably need professional help, just like I did and received for two years (2011-2013) and that just started me on the healing path.

I used to say how much I wished I could get my brain out and have a new brain implanted in me,  one with no bombs, oh how great that would be!

Thing is, if you understand what is happening, you will feel better. The bombs will still be there, but you will also feel hope that life can feel and be so much better, and that hope will give you the motivation to do the work needed patiently and persistently over a long period of time. So there will be bombs, but then there will also be hope, and every improvement you experience will strengthen that hope.

Back  to the particular bomb, the thought and very, very shitty feelings involved with the thought of you wasting your life so far: you are correct, a whole lot of your life was wasted and there will be more waste to come. There is great sadness in knowing this, isn’t it, a great pain. Let the pain be, throw clothes around your room if you need to, hit a pillow with your fist, accept that pain because no one can remove it from you, not for long.  I am suggesting this because I have done it myself. Before I accepted this pain, I resisted it, and the turmoil was intense.

Read and re-read these two posts of today, and tell me: is what I posted to you today of any help to you? Your honesty will not be punished, I promise you.

anita

Dear Gaia:

I am glad to read that you promised yourself that once you are financially independent from your parents, that you will seek quality psychotherapy. I have a couple of questions for you:

1. If you are “particularly aggressive.. compared to others, who have a more carefree or fun oriented attitude”- do you think the difference is because you were born with an abnormal brain or do you think that your childhood experience was abnormal, compared to others?

2. “why anger and negativity is my default state?”- do you think it is so because you were born angry and negative or do you think you acquired anger and negativity during your childhood?

3. “I’m not very good at expressing myself in real life especially since my turmoils are very vague and not always easy to articulate”- do you feel that as a result of our communication here, you expressed yourself less vaguely and that I understood you not in a vague way, but specifically and accurately, or not?

anita

Dear Gaia:

In your most recent post you wrote that you believe that your childhood was not abnormal, that you were born an unhappy child (“My childhood experience wasn’t abnormal.. I was already an unhappy child”), that you were unhappy not because of anything that happened in your childhood, but because you weren’t a fantasy character (“I was unhappy because I wished I could be  one of those fantasy main characters”). In other words, your childhood has nothing to do with your current distress, is what you believe.

You also wrote that you can’t recall anything at all about your childhood that will explain your current anger (“I can’t recall a significant thing that should legitimate my anger now”).

And you wrote that you express yourself a lot better in writing than you do talking, and suggested that my input in your thread made it possible for you to express yourself here in writing.

Now my input: I repeatedly expressed to you in your threads my belief that your childhood has a whole lot to do with your years long anger and distress. But you don’t share my belief. I will respect this difference in core beliefs and therefore I will stop repeating to you my core belief: I will no longer try to encourage you to examine your childhood and acquire insight into how I believe it formed you.

Because the only benefit to you in this thread is to express yourself in writing (or typing, more accurately), I do encourage you to keep doing so.

Earlier today, you wrote: “I feel frustration increasing in me and have no  one else to say these things beside on this thread”-  please do say anything you need to say, express your thoughts and feelings, vent, right here on your thread, and every time you do, when I am on the computer, I will reply to you by mirroring you, which means I will type back to you some of what you shared, so you can see that I heard you.

anita

Dear Gaia:

“any input from you about how my childhood affects me now is absolutely always welcomed”- all my input is in these 18 pages of your thread, it’s all there, a whole lot about how your childhood affects you. You are welcome to read our previous communications on this thread, it’s all there.

And according to my input to you in these pages, input that I repeated again and again, I can see how all of that is “enough for you to be like this now”.

I am disappointed that none of my input to you so far regarding the connection between your childhood and your years long and ongoing distress has reached you, it is frustrating to me. But like I promised you, I will not punish you for being honest with me and letting me know that indeed none of my input has touched you. I will not end my communication with you because of that, and instead I am sharing with you honestly how I feel, so it is the two of us expressing how we feel honestly and respectfully.

So I figure it is futile for me to repeat again and again.. and yet again, the same analyses, the same thoughts, the same understanding when all you have to do if you were interested in it, is read it.

Also, I understand how difficult it is to see what we don’t want to see, what we resist seeing.

Like I wrote, do post anytime, I do want to read from you and I will reply to you every time you post, as long as you are respectful to me as I am to you.

anita