Dear Rainbow:

“my shadow self is being exposed..  hypocritical.. people think I’m a ‘good’ person”- but you believe that you are a bad person.

“The only thing that can heal me is acceptance but I am unable to”- Rainbow, you can’t accept that you are a bad person because it is not true that you are a bad person. It is not true that you have a shadow self that is bad.

But there is something else that you need to accept, and haven’t yet (later in this message).

“My shame and guilt are huge”- not because you are a bad person who unintentionally keeps hurting other people terribly, but because as a child you were told that lie in one way or another (that you were a bad girl who kept saying and doing hurtful things).

I re-read your Feb-April 2018 posts, and formed the above thoughts based on my reading. Back in Feb 18, four years after you posted some comments on an internet forum, you were still tortured by the idea that you unintentionally hurt the people who read your comments four years before, imagining that your comments were terribly offensive: “I did not realize the intensity and compelling tone in my words.. I definitely hurt and caused confusion to so many people… I wish I could rewind the past.. Obsessive thoughts that I could make such a huge mistake.. I wish I could take away the hurt I caused people.. if they took offense”-

– we all make mistakes, Rainbow, so you make mistakes too, but not as often and not as big as you think you do. You imagine that a small mistake that you make hurts others in a huge way. Often you don’t make a mistake at all, but you fear that you do, fearing that you hurt someone in a huge way.

Here is an example of you doing nothing wrong but fearing that you did something wrong: “I had made a comment on guilt and maybe unconsciously let people feel guilt of their past”-

– you made an honest comment about guilt, not intending to hurt anyone, having good intention, (you spontaneously expressed yourself).. but then you fear that someone might have felt bad as a result. What I am typing here for you is typed with good intention, to help you with truth as my guide. But there is no way for me to make sure that you (and anyone else reading this) will not feel distress as a result of reading any of my words. It is simply impossible; there is no perfect-way to express myself that will guarantee that no one gets offended. (Readers/ people have thousands of connections in their brains, and everyone has different connections, different over-sensitivities, different triggers, different annoyances, etc.).

It is very difficult to live with such a false burden, the burden of undeserved shame and unearned guilt. Every time you manage to forget the burden and express yourself freely, the shame and guilt catch up with you too soon, trapping you in a prison of  nagging doubt, painful over-thinking/ obsessing.. ‘what did I say that was bad, that hurt other people..?

This burden causes you so much distress, that it takes over your brain and your life: “I worry if some forwarded message has hurt someone’s feelings. It takes me a week or so to come out of beating myself up. I am a talented person but my hyper sensitive reactions prevent me from utilizing my full potential. It takes days for me to get back to normal from my overthinking habits… All my peers are married.. and have a job. How did my life turn out this way?”

This burden, this torture is what is behind some  of your symptoms: “I am suffering chronic pain from three years.. I’ve had migraines and allergic wheezing for ten yeas. I assume the pain could be due to chronic stress and also health conditions I already have” (April 2018).

Earlier in this message I wrote to you that you can’t accept that you are a bad person because it is not true that you are a bad person, and that there is something else that you need to accept. What I believe that you need to accept is that you have grown up with a parent or parents who made you feel very, very guilty. Not because you were guilty but because they said so.

Your parent surprised you each time when she/he accused you of  saying or doing something wrong, and you couldn’t figure out how to know ahead of time if you are about to say or do something that will bring the next accusation, the next time that you will  be made to feel  so painfully guilty and ashamed. The reason you couldn’t find a way to predict that next time is .. that you didn’t say or do anything wrong to begin with. You were falsely accused.

You are probably still living with that parent, at 33, I assume, if you are still living in the same country as before, your home country.

You posted a quote back in March 2018: “Make an island of yourself, make yourself your refuge; there is no other refuge. Make truth your island”- your island cannot include in it the parent or parents who have instilled this burden in you. Once you live apart from your accuser, then you will  be able to do the rest of the work required to remove this unfortunate burden from your brain and life.

anita