Dear Murtaza:

You deleted your first thread, but I copied a lot of it before you deleted it (anyone can do that, simply select, copy and paste).  I just spent hours re-reading much of our massive communication and what I feel at the end of the the reading is different from what I felt at the  beginning of the reading. I think that you and I had an understanding, a meeting of the minds for a long time before I lost my patience with you and ended our communication last year. You were increasingly honest with me over time and this morning, I feel a renewed appreciation of your honesty, and I regret having lost my patience with you. And yet, I don’t know what I can possibly do for you other than be the Fantasy Woman in your Fantasy- the mother figure who holds you and cares for you. I don’t want to be that fantasy woman for you. And I know that I cannot be okay with you living the way you do, aspiring for nothing but being (however impossible) a loved, cared-for baby.

It is clear to me that anyone who underestimates your intelligence is making a big mistake. I don’t know what you or others think about my intelligence, but in my mind- you are at least as intelligent as I am, probably more. You have great analytical/ thinking skills, and you are indeed, as you put it, a “truth seeker”. You are educated, informally way more than formally, and you thought a whole lot about a whole lots of things- there is nothing new that anyone can tell you on the topic of mental health and on many other topics.

The way you are now is understandable when looking at how you came to be, over the years, the way you are now: you shared that when you were a child, your brother used to beat you. Your father didn’t care and your mother didn’t do much to stop the beating. When you were a teenager, your uncle used to beat you while your father was present, “he didn’t even come to defend me”, you wrote about your father. You hid from that uncle in the bathroom as he kept screaming at you, “It was really clear to me that I am alone in this world and no one gonna help me”, you wrote.

You shared last year that when you were a child, you wanted an Xbox, you “used to pray a lot for it.. imagined having it a lot at nights”, but your mother bought your brother a new computer, and his old computer was passed on to you. She told you that the Xbox was too expensive, and that you already hot (your brother’s old) pc, and a phone. You never received the Xbox you wanted so badly, and you “never wanted it again”-  you wanted that Xbox too much and for for too long before you stopped wanting it.

You shared about your mother’s love: “when I said she loved me, I meant when I was a child. I see her sometimes with babies and she is very loving”- you imagine that she loved you very much when you were a baby, but you don’t remember her love. You witnessed her love as a spectator, not as a receiver of her love.

You wrote regarding your mother in adolescence and later: “Every time I do actually take the charge, she tells me that this is wrong. Every time I try to, she judges me and makes me feel like I’m not a man to be in charge. And the times I do good when I was in charge doesn’t feel like anything”- she discouraged you from taking charge. Coupled with you witnessing her being very loving to babies, no wonder you want nothing but to be a baby, however impossible.

“Every time we talk she misunderstands me. She doesn’t respect my opinion”- no wonder that in your fantasy, a mother figure understands you and respects you.

When your mother went out and about, and took you with her, you observed that “she does stupid stuff that attract men’s attention”, and you felt anxiety “for not being able to protect her”. When your father was alive and he and your mother got into fights, you “always fight with my dad for her, and protect her from him.. I always made my dad fight with me instead of her”- you were a fighter before you stopped fighting.

About your mother: “She makes really stupid decisions and me and the whole family take the consequences”, then she feels bad about herself, and the family has to comfort her. “She has a victim mentality”.

Your father died in 2018, and when he died, it was “a relief to us all. He was old man nagging all the time and fighting with us for no reason… my father had a house and retirement and that’s the only things he gave us”.

This is your life in practical terms (last year): “I’m 20, I live with my family… I have no job and I was a student and dropped out. I actually dropped out living as a whole… I got my father’s retirement, so I don’t need money”

This is your attitude: “I don’t think I will ever change my mind about life… I don’t care about myself to try to ‘fix it’… either way I’m going to die so why not make it an easy life for myself.. to suffer less till the end.. not doing anything”- like a baby, easy life, not doing anything adult-like.

Today, May 23, 2021, you posted about your only hope: “only hope that somehow I will be loved without changing”- that’s you insisting to be a loved, cared-for baby, not required to do anything adult-like.

Your dream/ fantasy, May 2021: “I also dream there is someone who is hugging me while, understand my pain, sympathies with me, hold me, I sometimes imagine myself as a baby, who being taken care, loved, nurtured”.

June 2020: “In the fantasy, the woman is always older and bigger than me.. more like superior to me, and I’m just pathetic and weak in her hands… like a mother and a child relationship.. I need her just as the child needs his mother to nurture me and give me her love and affection and cuddle me.. I’m just someone who she cares for and likes…I feel very vulnerable and weak and I really like that… I  just like to feel weak and pathetic in front of someone”.

You were very pessimistic about your chances of having the fantasy woman in your life: “even if I find the woman (which in the middle east gonna be really hard).. there is 100 things that will come between me and the fantasy.. this is really hard to find especially in a place like the middle east”. One of the things to come between you and your fantasy was/is that you “have this lifestyle (not having a job)”, and women where you live are weak women: “I dislike when I see a weak female not because she is weak but because I know I can’t fulfill her needs. Just telling a female that I don’t have a job, she would respect me less. In fact, she wouldn’t respect me at all”.

You wrote: “Why do you think I like to act weak and pathetic around a woman? I asked myself that and the only answer was because it’s lovely”. You shared that your fantasy makes it possible for you to sleep at night.

Earlier, you did want to get married, “to talk to a female and love her and have sex with her. To have a wife”. You found out that you will have to work at least 10 years before you can get married. You started working for that goal but felt so much “stress and despair thinking that I have to that for the next 10 years just to get a proper money to marry”- so you quit that goal.

You wrote to me in the summer of 2020: “I  like talking to you cause you really pay attention to what I say. You also sound very wise and I like that”, “Thank you, you make me feel very warm inside”. And later, “I feel bad because I’m wasting your time to be honest. I know I’m not gonna do anything about these stuff and I’m just taking your time and energy”, and “the best thing I did was to just quit life”, “I believe that life is going to be worse for me.. the more I get older the more I became more miserable and life gets harder.. I am weaker and more helpless than ever and I don’t think I will ever change, and it can only get worse”, “Life isn’t worth living, it’s not worth fighting for”- somewhere along the way I understood that no matter how long I communicate with you, I will make no difference in your life: I will witness you getting weaker and weaker, like you predicted, making no difference to you.

“I just like coming here and talking to you”- yes, that was my only use in your life. None of my input, my sharing about my life, my suggestions etc.. none made a difference and none was going to make a difference. You just liked talking to me. All you wanted from me was to help you “cry again and feel warm inside” while you keep suffering.

“suffering is inevitable, no matter what I do, I always suffer… I might sound that I’m suffering a lot, but I’m not really”- you are not really suffering… really???

“I don’t have the desire to change… How can I create a desire to change?”- do you want to .. have the desire to change?

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by .

Dear Murtaza:

I don’t know what would  be the purpose of our communication but I feel good communicating with you again, I feel..  an emotional elation of some kind, happy to read from you, happy to write to you.

In regard to your previous thread, it must be under another account, because when I click on your screen name, the only thread that appears is this one.

I didn’t refer much yesterday to what you shared in your current thread as I focused on the previous, but I will refer only to your current thread in this post. In this thread, you established strongly and repeatedly, and in undeniable terms, that you are very, very miserable: the title of your thread is, “wouldn’t be a mercy if I just ended my life” (reads like a very depressed person would come up with this title), and you wrote: “my current way of living makes it impossible to have basic needs” (a person whose basic needs are not met cannot possibly be okay), and you then wrote: “I’m so miserable in this life, I just hate life so much”, and you wrote: “I’m basically dead, what kind of life is this?” and then you add: “if I end my life, I will finally rest, if I really love myself, I would do it”-

– any rational person reading these strong expression would think (I think) that better that you change your life so that you will no longer be so miserable!!!

See, if you were content living your life as-is, not being employed or in school, being able to live on the retirement money, spending your time reading, or listening to music or just sitting there..- that would be fine and dandy with me. I don’t believe that a young man has to be employed and go about life according to societal script. But in your case, you expressed such intense discontent that my immediate (and I believe rational) thought is that you need to change your life so to get to a place of contentment where you wouldn’t think that the loving thing to do for yourself is to end your life!

But thing is, you don’t want to change your life. Question then is: what is it that you do want?

I am now looking for the answer in what you already shared… :”I understand, I might sound very miserable, but I do have some good things in my life, there are other aspects I appreciate about my current life”- good things that don’t add up to your life being as miserable as you expressed, there has to be more to the answer, I need to look further (I will continue to quote from you, part by part, and then type away my thoughts, whatever comes up for me, commenting on one part before going to the next): “I don’t have the desire to change, actually I prefer death to change to fit society standard, I see it as the ultimate betrayal, since my personality we are talking about here, not something new, not something changeable”-

– there is a sense of strength there, you find comfort and pride in you being unchangeable.. as if changing would mean a total collapse, a self-betrayal, a giving in and submitting to Society. It is you, the Individual against Society. You will not let Society Win. You prefer death to Losing to Society.

“I don’t want to suffer for nothing, what’s the point of just surviving? I’m just an animal?”- you see a higher purpose in living the way you do, maintaining your unchanging, Individual personality, not giving in to the changes required by Society. An animal will give in to society, but not you! If you give in to society, you will suffer for nothing. If you stand up to society, unchanging- you will suffer for a  higher cause.

* I will take a little break here from my search for an answer to let you know the following, you wrote “I’ve lost it, before I even have it”- this is the exact sentence I thought and wrote in my journal when I was a teenager,  a sentence that in my mind said it all. I never heard or read anyone else say this sentence. I wonder if I shared it with you, and if I never did, it amazes me.

Back to looking for an answer: “what’s the point of love that require me to change?”- you perceive changing as something that is not love, maybe that collapse of self, I suggested before, changing=self-destructing.

“you will have to have a normal life, you will have to work, have dreams, have goals, have hobbies, all by society standard, I might as well just fake a whole persona, just to fit”- it’s the fitting into society that bothers you so much, you perceive a death of persona, of death of self, of the Individual you. There is a principle here that is most valuable to you, a principle that is unnegotiable.

“I won’t change, neither is society”- the Individual vs Society.

“I don’t believe in the self, nor freewill”- I think this means that the self/ Individual, your persona.. is not winning against Society. In the war between you and society there is a standstill, a cease fire of sorts, neither party tot he war is fighting, winning or losing.

“I don’t believe that life is worth living, I don’t believe it’s worth the trouble of fighting”- standstill, no fighting. Life at standstill is not worth living.

“my number one goal is to have the easiest life there is, that means no fighting, no changing, no struggle”- life at standstill.

“I despise society, and his values and beliefs”- Murtaza vs Society, despising the enemy aka society, at a standstill.

“society.. I mean everybody..  on the internet.. normal people.. fall in the same category of hate, I have a history of following people’s ideas and advice, and none of them worked for me, no I don’t feel different, I am different”- Society vs Murtaza, Society is not only the country where you live, the religion, ethnic group, etc., it is Everybody. Including me… hmm.. I am Society to. I am Everybody.

“fantasy, a world where I can get what I need and desire without paying a price, a price I can’t afford”- the price is the destruction of self/Individual/ persona.. the destruction of the highest value of what it means to be fully human.

“I can find.. some of this love, but what do I have to do? Change my whole personality… completely change myself in order to be loved”- to be loved by Society/ any person in the Everybody category means the death of the highest value of self.

“I like to imagine society is evil by nature, the only problem I had was to think otherwise when I was young, I’ve been told lies after lies…

“I already have the best life that I can think of.. the least suffering”- not giving in to Society, not fitting in, means way less suffering than giving in and losing the only thing that makes life worth living after all, the self, the individual who  is free from Society’s lies.

“If I decide to follow society, what will mean work, marry and have kids.. those will mean I have to take a lot of sh** from people, follow a lot of rules that I don’t want to.. I will be deprived of my free time and have to put a lot of work and do a lot of stuff I don’t want to do, just no… I had to go against everything I was taught.. to live this alone, to create your own values and beliefs, your own way of thinking, your own philosophy.. to check every information you hear, to re-think.. “- the epitome of Individuality: choosing your own, individual values, beliefs and philosophy, evaluating what you hear and read, taking nothing in without filtering it through your analytical thinking, considering it true or untrue. (Murtaza the truth seeker).

My summary for now: I feel a new appreciation of you, I see you as more than the baby I mention before. I am surprised I didn’t see it before.. how strange. I guess societal judgment is indeed very strong- you hear about a person refusing to work, one automatically gets judgmental, one gets an attitude. I wasn’t aware of my attitude before, not as I do now. Free from that attitude, as I am in this moment, I see you differently. I will end this post now as I am quite speechless.

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by .

Dear Murtaza:

Take your time. I understand not wanting to post messages that are too long. I should follow suit. When I post long messages, they are more likely to include mistakes such as in my recent post to you, I wrote in my 7th paragraph: “-good things that don’t add up to your life being as miserable as you expressed”, I meant “-good things that don’t add up to your life being not as miserable as you expressed”.

Better that we keep our posts shorter and single-topic as much as possible. So, you are welcome to not aim at a comprehensive reply addressing everything I mentioned. Address one thing at a time, whatever you choose (we can address this or that other topic or point later on, re-reading previous posts if we want),  and please write as simply and clearly as you possibly can.

Edit: coming to think about it, will you pick up one topic or one point from your most recent post and present it in your next post. Next, I will reply to your next post only (not to the previous)?

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by .

Dear Murtaza:

“I know you don’t wanna share your personal life”. Sharing about personal life is not only in sharing of details such as age, place, number of people per household and so on. I will give you an example of a very personal sharing that is of much greater value than the factual details:

You wrote, “seeing me as a baby didn’t hurt much.. it kinda did hurt me, especially coming from you”- my heart melted a bit when I read this, because you wrote “especially coming from you”- it made me feel special that you care what I personally think, that you think of me as special in this way. It is a hunger to feel special, to feel valued for being me.

And it made me want to make you feel special too, wanting to tell you that I did not think of you as a baby.. and I didn’t when I submitted the first post to you today: appreciating your adult individuality, your admirable motivation to create your own values, your truth seeking.

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by .

Dear Murtaza:

This is the most beautiful post… let’s promise each other to seek the truth here together, to tell the truth and seek it, with no agenda other than that. I am happy you started a new thread, so glad to be communicating with you again. It will be way better this time!

The second sentence you quoted above, it was not a result of strictly rational thinking, it was from the heart, and being so, I trust it to be true. It is 1:54 am your time, isn’t it? Good night, Murtaza.

anita

Dear Murtaza:

You shared yesterday, May 24, that last year you “had mostly bad days”, but “luckily right now I’m on my good days… right now I’m just not suffering much… right now I could say that I’m contentment with myself… I might dislike life when bad days come, but right now I feel at peace, what I always wanted and valued, and I know for a fact, living normally would mean less of this peace”.

Three weeks ago, on May 1, you had a bad day: “I’m so miserable in this life, I just hate life so much.. I think if I end my life, I will finally rest.. I’m stuck here.. I don’t think it matters anymore, nothing is, even making this post”- so, that was just one bad day, not a dominant experience,  I mean, you have days when you like or love life, days when you feel free (not stuck)?

You also wrote yesterday: “I always appear online very pessimistic but there is a good side too, a side I can’t show unless you see me in real life”- (a) On May 1 (the quote above), when you were typing the post, were you very pessimistic or did you appear more pessimistic than you actually were?  (b) At some time after you submitted that post, away from the computer, on that same day- did you feel better, less pessimistic?

By the way, I was born in and grew up in the same time zone as yours, about 14 hours drive from where you live. When I was your age I still lived there. (Now I live about 16 hours away by plane).

anita