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I have not posted in a long time here but days like today reminded me the beauty of having connections at a platform like this.
I don’t know where to start, my thoughts might sound fragmented. I have had an interesting childhood, my parents left me when I was 9 years old with my grandparents. I was reunited with them at the age of 17. That period was really tough. I never had any guidance and just learned to do things on my own. I had the instrumental resources ( financially and otherwise ) but never the emotional support. I learned the true meaning of loneliness as a 9 year old and that went on for the next 8 years. Before the age of 9, my dad was never really involved and my mother practically raised me to the best of her ability, pretty much singlehandedly. I have no complaints with her to that point. Fast forward to the age of 17, I have brother who is on the autism spectrum, my mother suffers from depression ( even though she fails to admit it), my dad lives in his own world and still uninvolved like always.
I am a different person today. In the last few years, I have gotten a chance to reflect on my inner self a lot. I suffer from a form of loneliness that no amount of social gatherings, friend circles can fulfill. You know that saying ” human soul craves nothing more than being seen”. I don’t know if this is a byproduct of my childhood that my loneliness is so deeply seated within me, or my own doing. I crave love and sometimes attention. I have gotten into relationships that didn’t work out for obvious reasons. I would move places if there aren’t enough people ” noticing me”. I would seek love from wrong people ( and I knew they were wrong for me to begin with) but I still gave it a shot thinking that some aspect of them might ” see” me and love me. My mother has her set of problems, dealing with my brother who is fairly young and struggling in all sorts of imaginable ways. She is also dealing with my dad who is a disillusioned ( but a good ) man. She has a lot on her plate. I want to help my brother navigate his school life, I want to be there for my mother. But I can barely help myself. I don’t understand why I feel so alone all the time. No amount of moving cities, countries helps. Wherever I go … there I am. I am a spiritual person. I sometimes reflect on the fact that even though nobody sees me I know God does and there… I often cry looking up at the sky sitting alone. I crave meaningful connections and love and my friendships have been crappy in the past. I never had a say in my friend circle, was always that ” I will do whatever everyone else wants to do” I was bullied for the same reason. I was never assertive. Never had the courage to walk out of toxic circles because of fear of being alone. I never had guidance, or a sense of direction. There was nobody there to guide me and when I grew up, I resented my parents forcing me and trying to mould me into ways they thought were best …so I had my own form of teenage rebellion. I am familiar with attachment theories but always thought of them as pseudo science. I know our childhood is very important but I never realized and still am uncertain if it can impact someone at their core. Initially I thought, it was just my bad habits such as. But now I see it. All of that came from a need for love, attention and comfort. I know my family loves me specially my mom. But even her affirmation of love that I get from her now … is not enough. Isn’t this what I always craved ? She tries to be there for me on some occasions, on others she is dealing with her own familial and health problems, on others she has temper issues. I know i am asking for too much, its not fair to her. But why is her love and attention not enough ? Why do I feel so deeply alone, why do I seek attention elsewhere ? I am always fearful, scared and negative.
I have developed some serious avoidance. I run away from everything, I can stay still in one place. There is a lot of chaos inside me and I keep searching for that stillness. Only time, I don’t feel tightness in my chest is when I sit besides a still lake. I don’t understand what I am searching for and why, why can’t I stay put in one place. I can barely stay home no matter where I am. I always have to be somewhere else. Romantically as well, I feel like nobody will ever see me and appreciate me in my brokenness ( this is reflective of my dating history). I lack gratitude in my life. Its a muscle I have not exercised. I am constantly surrounded by problems but let me assure you, these are somewhat good problems. I just don’t know what to do with my self, how to fix this deep loneliness. I don’t feel fulfilled. I am scared and it translates into my choices ( be it career wise or romantically). I don’t trust myself that I can ” make it” in life and rise above my present circumstances, emotional and mental state. I guess I never had anyone who believed in me growing up and now when my mother or friends try to say… ” you can do it, you are bright ect” it doesn’t click in with me.
I have talked to some people about it. I have sought therapy but the more I talk to people, the more mixed messages I get. I guess everyone only knows their way of figuring out life and most people I know don’t understand what this existential loneliness can be and the remnants that stay with you .. seemingly forever. I am giving this a shot here, maybe some of you can relate to me.
Dear Zita/ Reader:
On March 2014, you shared just this about your childhood, and enclosed it in parenthesis: “I have had a tough life growing up”. Four years and 5 months later, in August 2018, you elaborated on that sentence for the first- and the last time:
“I have had an interesting childhood, my parents left me when I was 9 years old with my grandparents. I was reunited with them at the age of 17. That period was really tough… I learned the true meaning of loneliness as a 9-year-old and that went on for the next 8 years” –
– I placed in boldface your dominant eight-year childhood and social experience (you were alone, away from your parents) and dominant eight- year childhood emotional experience (you felt very, very lonely). For a 9-year-old, a 10-year-old, etc., a day of being alone and lonely can feel like an eternity. Eight years of alone and lonely are a very, very long eternity for a child.
Notice, you started your description of your childhood with “I have had an interesting childhood”, which indicates your emotional removal/ dissociation from your childhood, viewing it intellectually as interesting.
You continued, back in August 2018: “Fast forward… I have brother who is on the autism spectrum, my mother suffers from depression (even though she fails to admit it), my dad lives in his own world and still uninvolved like always… I suffer from a form of loneliness that no number of social gatherings, friend circles can fulfill… I don’t know if this is a byproduct of my childhood that my loneliness is so deeply seated within me, or my own doing… I don’t understand why I feel so alone all the time. No amount of moving cities, countries help. Wherever I go … there I am” –
– From the age of 9 to 17 you lived with your grandparents. At 17, you were reunited with your parents. You were no longer alone (away from your parents), but the dominant childhood emotional experience of loneliness has already been established during ages9-17. This deep loneliness took hold, and it cannot be relieved no matter how not alone you are, wherever you go, there you are… deeply lonely.
Notice, you wrote that you don’t know of your loneliness is a product of your childhood, revealing a lack of adequate awareness that our childhood years are indeed our Formative Years: your deeply seated loneliness was formed in your brain/ body when you were a child.
Still, from August 2018: “I crave love and sometimes attention… I know my family loves me specially my mom. But even her affirmation of love that I get from her now … is not enough. Isn’t this what I always craved?… Why is her love and attention not enough? Why do I feel so deeply alone”-
– During the 8 years of childhood loneliness, being away from your parents, years that felt like eternity, your thirst for love and attention grew into a monstrous craving. Fast forward, this craving is too big to be satisfied now, in adulthood.
More from August 2018: “There is a lot of chaos inside me, and I keep searching for that stillness. Only time, I don’t feel tightness in my chest is when I sit beside a still lake. I don’t understand what I am searching for and why, why can’t I stay put in one place. I can barely stay home no matter where I am. I always have to be somewhere else… I just don’t know what to do with myself, how to fix this deep loneliness” –
– As highly social animals, to be calm, mentally orderly and settled down, humans have to be together with others. Too much time alone and lonely as children, and we get anxious, mentally chaotic and unsettled. This state of mind gets chemically formed in our brain, reactivated and re-experienced again and again, forever more.
More than 4 years earlier, before you shared the above about your childhood, on April 2014, you shared: “My boyfriend recently left me, and I am completely devastated not knowing exactly where I went wrong. Was I wrong when I asked him if he ever loved me? He never made me feel like I was loved in our relationship, it always felt like he was with me because of some obligation to me” –
-even if he was the greatest boyfriend in the world, he couldn’t have changed your Dominant Childhood Emotional Experience (I’ll refer to it from now on as DCEE)- that of feeling unloved, of feeling (seems to me) that your grandparents took care of you out of obligation, not out of love. As adults we keep re-experiencing our DCEEs regardless of current events and people.
Still, April 2014: “My days go by, just staring out the window, sometimes the despair takes over me so much that I question my own existence. Sometimes I feel so sorry for myself, and it takes over me to the point where I wish some really horrible things upon myself, not knowing how to snap out of it” – more DCEE, reactivated more intensely perhaps, following a breakup.
April 2014, regarding the boyfriend: “You might say I am sounding bitter. That is right, I am… Each day I wish I can give that person a piece of my mind and tell him how much he hurt me…If only I can tell that person, how much he has abused and mistreated me… Is it that easy for people to say, ‘Opps I screwed up, I am sorry, I hurt you’ and move on? Sometimes I want to hurt myself just so I can show that person how much pain he put me through… It makes me angry when I read post about compassion and love for the self and forgiving the self after hurting another person brutally. Does my pain not matter? Did it ever matter?… Should I even exist?” –
– more DCEE: anger at your parents for leaving you behind with your grandparents for eight years, and moving on with their lives without you, as if your pain didn’t matter, as if you didn’t exist, as if they never left you behind to suffer brutal loneliness and misery. This anger is projected at the boyfriend unfairly: it’s your parents who left you her behind with the grandparents who didn’t love you, causing you brutal emotional pain. It was not your ex-boyfriend who did that. I don’t remember reading about any abuse by your ex-boyfriend, and you definitely described no brutal abuse by him whatsoever.
May 2014: “I have been doing a lot of reading everything from OSho to Eckhart Tolle to Robin Sharma and I can say now that I am slowly embracing the power of living in my present moment rather than the past. Detaching myself from my thoughts that were taking over me so much few weeks ago has helped me tremendously” – when significant psychotherapy is needed, self-help books cannot replace it. They provide help only temporarily.
July 2014: “I randomly burst into tears out of nowhere, nothing in my current environment triggers the emotions that I can pinpoint. It feels like the anger, hurt is always lurking in the background unconsciously ready to pop out at all times” – this is the DCEE always lurking in the background, ready to pop out at all times.
May 2015: “I get so bogged down by everything going on since so many people depend on me financially. My parents are getting old and almost retiring. They never had a stable income plan. I am their support system, going back to school is something I thought would benefit all of us. I can get a part time graduate degree, work full time so I can support myself and family”. Following that post, I replied to you for the first time: “Dear Zita: I think that it is not fair, not right for a young person, only in mid-twenties, to be financially responsible for parents and others (siblings?) You should be living YOUR OWN life…”. You did not reply.
October 2015: “I tend to shop a lot sometimes more than I can afford. It makes me happy, the colors, the touch of the fabric, the momentary glitter in my eyes when I see myself in the mirror looking gook in a dress… which is often followed by instantaneous feeling of confidence. A friend once pointed out and I took it very personally, that “my shopping behavior is not healthy, I am trying to fill a void perhaps”. Perhaps I am or perhaps I am not, I can’t come to terms with it yet. But the other day I sort of had an epiphany- no matter how many clothes I own, I am never fully satisfied or happy. The happiness last few hours and then turns into anxiety and guilt. Sometimes I feel like I am trying to compensate for something… what that something is … I don’t know” – shopping and wearing new clothes provide only a temporary break from the DCEE, a different kind of emotional experience: happy, glitter in the eyes, confidence!
Notice, the lack of awareness that shopping is about trying to fill a void in you.
December 2016: “I am a 28-year-old female who is practically getting by in life on autopilot. I get up late in the mornings, turn my pillow upside down as I feel anxious thinking about the number of things I have to do. I continue to stay in bed for a few more hours as I have zero motivation to jump start… I feel so lost and confused about everything in life, from what clothes to wear in the morning to my relationships… how do I find myself? Where do I start?… I want to live my life with drive/s passion/s and zest. I want to” find myself” and what I want out of life. I am stuck in this maze of mediocrity” – more DCEE
August 2017: “I am at a desperate point in my life… How do you all find meaning in your life? Recently with the help of a therapist, I was able to unpack that I am going about in life just like a driver of a car who is perpetually driving on a highway without any sense of calculated direction. I am just constantly driving, taking one turn after another but I have no idea where I want to end up…. I am lost, as lost as a human can be…. I cannot bear the anxiety of not knowing where I am heading in life. My brain resorts to random distractions which further takes me away from the ultimate purpose of my being… I find myself distracted by a mundane pointless task that serve no ultimate person, liking watching tv for hours… cannot pick a direction because I don’t know what I want out of life exactly… why do I not know what I want??? What’s wrong with me ??… Just somebody PLEASE tell me how you find a purpose in your life … am I just some sort of vestigial organ created without a purpose because God was like meh” I will create you and watch you be lost and wander” … How do you guys make sense of your purpose and why your creator created you? If you believe in one”.
* This post is not complete, to be continued tomorrow or the next day.
anita
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