Dear DanDan:

Your original post on this thread was on April 29, 2021, and your last, on March 21, 2022. In your original post you shared that working in Bangalore feels like “the same home, same mentality“, and your goal was to work abroad and to “be independent in a different country. Living by choice and freedom“. You shared that on one hand, you “hate being alone most of the time“, but on the other hand, you “automatically feel low and depressed (around) dull people“.

“I am a weak person“, you shared, and “I get all the energy from people around me, who are more positive and enthusiastic, self-sufficient and bold“. Your dominant mood: “I feel always low for no reason.. I am mostly low and depressed“.

In college you had your first girlfriend. When the two of you were emotionally close, “so close, so much attached“, you felt “too close… something weird, as in something too much (to) handle“. When the two of you fought, you felt “normal and okay“. In regard to your most recent girlfriend, you wrote about her in your earlier thread: “When I break up with her.. I value her and miss her. But when I start talking to her back, I get the stress and bad feelings… This cycle has been going on”, and in your current thread: “When I talk to her, I don’t want her and things feel heavy. When I don’t talk to her, I feel I want her and I miss her“.

A Mother (and/ or the primary caretaker, the adult who is there with the children most of the time) is the most powerful entity in her children’s lives, and it is true for rich families living in a big city, with no debts, and it is true in poor families, living in a remote location with lots of debts.

Early on, you shared that growing up and onward, your mother was “so loving and caring… I know for sure my mom loved all  of us“. But she (an adult) did not have any close, loving relationship with any other adult: “She has complained a lot that dad doesn’t talk at all… She didn’t have a great relationship with the neighbours as well when we were kids. She always felt people judged her… (she had) social anxiety“.

Her only close, loving interactions were with her children, particularly (and maybe only) with you: “She likes me more than my siblings. She always takes extra care of me. Even now. Treats me special.. My mom still loves me a lot. My sister says that my mom is like obsessed with me“.

She talked to you a lot, ever since you were a child, as if you were another adult: “She likes talking… I have listened to her a lot… She wants me to be around her…. She was so fragile and needy… my presence gives her some strength” – the child is always the fragile and needy one, needy of a strong mother to give him strength (to feed him, to help him sit, to help him walk, to show him how to tie his shoes, etc.). It is the mother who is supposed to be strong for her child. But in your case, it was the opposite: she (the mother, the adult) was the emotionally fragile and needy one who looked for a child to give her emotional strength.

But a child cannot be an adult, no matter how hard he tries because … emotionally he is still a child and is in need of a strong adult to give him strength. And so, for a child who is carrying his mother’s emotional needs on his shoulders, so to speak, the weight of her needs becomes too heavy for him. He is naturally too weak to carry such a heavy burden.

In regard to your mother’s love for you, you wrote: “I don’t know I couldn’t handle too much love“- it’s love of the wrong kind that you couldn’t handle, that is, the love of a fragile mother who looks to her boy as her source of strength.

“She was so fragile and needy… I felt so heavy inside, it was too much to me… it makes me very weak, and I feel like crying“- you couldn’t handle her too-much-need for you, it felt so heavy inside and you felt too weak to carry this weight.

You wrote regarding your first girlfriend that you felt “too close… something weird, as in something too much (to) handle“, and in regard to your recent girlfriend: “When I talk to her I don’t want her and things feel heavy“. I think that when you were with either girlfriend,  the girlfriend’s emotional needs felt too heavy, just like it felt with your mother, and this is why you ran away from both. On one hand, you wanted their love, on the other hand, their emotional needs felt too heavy to carry, so DanDan Ran Ran away.

Your recent ex-girlfriend shared only five days ago, July 19, 2022, in her own thread in regard to you: “he said he was confused again about us. Also, that he felt I had extreme emotional needs (I hugged him every day and kissed him every day when he stayed around me) and also he felt like a father around me (god knows what I did that was so childish)”-

– this is you re-experiencing what you experienced growing up with your mother. It is your mother had extreme emotional needs, and she expected you to give her strength as if you were her father.

On the same day, she shared: “I have met his mother… She is a bit underconfident in things because of a complex. And maybe the care and love she required from an active partner was missing“- underconfident… like a child, and missing an active partner, she has been reaching out to her son for her emotional needs.

A year and three months earlier, in April 2021, you shared in your thread regarding your mother: “She had complex and insecurities during my childhood… She isn’t matured enough to support my sister’s issues back then…she doesn’t have the energy to turn things around, solve issues of sister or the family. She wasn’t capable of that.. so fragile and needy“-

– she was too much of a child (insecure, immature, weak, needy) and therefore, she was not capable of being a mother to her children, not emotionally.

“I have been like a counselor for many issues since my school days, also for the fights between my mom and dad…she has relied on me a lot” (February 22, 2022) -you were like the adult in the home, a counselor to your mother and a counselor to the two of them when they fought.

“When someone shows too much of emotions , emotional needs.. so fragile around me, it makes me very weak and I feel like crying“- when someone shows you love you feel as if it is your mother needing you too much.

A year and three months earlier, in April 2021, you shared in your thread regarding your mother: “She had complex and insecurities during my childhood… She isn’t matured enough to support my sister’s issues back then…she doesn’t have the energy to turn things around, solve issues of sister or the family. She wasn’t capable of that.. so fragile and needy“-

– she was too much of a child (insecure, immature, weak, needy) and therefore, she was not capable of being a mother to her children.

“I have been like a counselor for many issues since my school days, also for the fights between my mom and dad…she has relied on me a lot” (February 22, 2022) -you were like the adult in the home, a counselor to your mother and a counselor to the two of them when they were fighting.

“When someone shows too much of emotions , emotional needs.. so fragile around me, it makes me very weak and I feel like crying“- when someone shows you love you feel as if it is your mother loving you in her weak, needy way.

The psychology practice. com: “When adult relationships do not provide adequate emotional and instrumental support to the parent, he or she may look to a child to provide that support. The child becomes a parentified child“.

psych central. com: “A very subtle way to create damage in your child is to turn that child into your parent. This process is called parentification, not to be confused with parenting. Parentification can be defined as a role reversal between parent and child… Emotional Parentification: This type of parentification forces the child to meet the emotional needs of their parent… This kind of parentification is the most destructive. It robs the child of his/her childhood and sets him/her up to have a series of dysfunctions… In this role, the child is put into the practically impossible role of meeting the emotional and psychological needs of the parent. The child becomes the parent’s confidant. This can especially happen when a woman is not having her emotional needs met by her husband. She can gravitate towards trying to get these needs met from her son”.

healthline. com: ” When a child is parentified, different levels of hurt develop depending on the degree of parentification. Some possible symptoms in a younger child include: Stress and anxiety. Constant responsibility beyond what a child is capable of coping with can lead to stress and anxiety… As a teenager, symptoms may show up as: Inability to connect to their own feelings… Self-blame and guilt.… Loss of childhood. A sense of having lost out on their childhood can lead to feelings of anger and depression…  Substance use. Teens may learn to self-medicate in an effort to dull the unpleasant emotions they feel… Parentification goes counter to the parent-child roles we typically expect. This role reversal can have both short-term and long-term consequences that may be painful, but help is available through mental health professionals and support groups.”

On March 21, 2202, you posted your last post: “So much has been happening but i feel better now. No urge for drinking alcohol now. I haven’t drunk since then and feeling much better. I have also become strong emotionally… And many things have been happening between me and her as well. She has become more mature and stronger emotionally and so am I.. We both are changed people now, not emotional or feeling heavy like before“-

– but by July 2022, less than 4 months later,  the feeling heavy returned. It will take intentional effort over time, with some professional help, for you to lighten that heaviness, to loosen that parentification, so that your anxiety level overall lessens to the point that you are able to participate in a healthy, long-term intimate relationship.

anita

*I noticed that a few paragraphs in the post I submitted yesterday were repeated: I was in a rush and didn’t edit the final draft adequately before submitting. (Yet, these repetitions do not take away from the integrity of the analysis).

anita