Dear Hannah:

I am glad you posted. If you would like to elaborate on the following, please do and I will respond:

1. How does your family judge you and how do you judge yourself (“My family haven’t completely rejected me, but I know they judge me. I judge myself”)?

2. What was in that journal your father read and shared with other people (what a shame, a betrayal of you)?

3. What is haunting you about your last moment with your mother?

anita

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Hi Anita, thank-you for replying. I’ll elaborate below:

1. Based on my experience of growing up in the cult, I know that people who leave are seen as foolish. I know that my family see me as ‘too emotional’; acting on impulse without thinking things through. I know this because they told an ex-boyfriend of mine and he then told me. When I started to leave the cult, my mother wrote me a letter expressing how upset she was and how she didn’t understand why I was leaving. She felt that I was choosing a very difficult life for myself. In the past, I have been excluded from events because I no longer attend the religious group. Some people I knew from the cult removed me from social media sites. I judge myself because my moral compass was built around the teachings of the cult. For the most part, I see that some of these morals are not beliefs I uphold anymore, but I still feel ashamed when I am around my family, and I would not admit certain parts of my life to them because of this.

2. In the journal I wrote about how I was feeling and some of the people I was dating. The cult I was part of does not agree with sex before marriage and I had written about having sex with the guy I mentioned before who I am obsessing over. It felt very humiliating for my father to read this and share this information with my family and his acquaintances. He used what he had read in the journal as justification for kicking me out of the house; although he was already bagging up my possessions when he found the journal. This is another thing that hurt me deeply. He bagged up all of my things whilst I was at work and left them on the doorstep for me to collect. He has never apologised or acknowledged how hurtful this was. He has never attempted to contact me.

3. Losing my mother was one of my biggest fears. She had cancer for six years and the fear of losing her was constant during that time. She was scared and hurting and I wanted to make things better but I couldn’t. When she didn’t say that she loved me back it made me feel that maybe she was disappointed in me and that maybe she didn’t love me. I felt that maybe I could have saved her in some way; I had nightmares for months afterwards involving me trying to save her before time ran out.

Creating the list was a good place to start.

The next step might be to separate the trees from the forest. Viewing the list as a whole would be overwhelming for anyone while dealing with one issue at a time is very doable.

I found it helpful to identify how each bullet point might be influencing the story you are telling yourself and how that story might be influencing your experiences. Next look for any cognitive distortions – all or nothing thinking, black and white thinking, generalizing… (google cognitive distortions). The practice here is to learn to notice and become mindful of ‘unskillful’ thinking, not to judge yourself for that thinking – that would unskillful ?.

The goal here is to learn how to become the master of your story vice allowing the stories to master you.  This process will bring you to the end of the beginning… uncovering the real issues that are keeping you stuck and not feeling “good enough”. Identifying the issues that you can work on and create real change.

I would bet that the question of “good enough”, what ever that is, will disappear as you become more skillful. You will also discover that you can create “peace of mind” even in a tempest.

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Hi Peter, thank-you for replying. I will definitely look into cognitive distortions. I relate to what you said about ‘all or nothing’ and black and white thinking. I do feel that I have created a very sad story in my mind that I keep reading over and over and now feel will hang over me for the rest of my life. I certainly think having some processes that I can put into practice would be helpful for me. At this point in time, I am aware that not everything in my life is terrible; I am coping, I am ok, but I often feel very overwhelmed, especially when I am on my own. And I have unhealthy coping strategies as I mentioned above.

First and foremost Hannah, you have self esteem issues. You don’t believe that you are worthy. When promoted you think its because you are the only option. Reclaim your dignity and people will respect the gal in you. Stop stress eating because it aint gonna help, you will just add more problems in your life. And on the part of your parents, don’t stress yourself gal because you have tried your best to prove them and they still don’t appreciate you. My parents also hated me because i never go to church despite the fact that they are religiously Catholic. Sometimes its better to go your own way so long as it makes you happy. There is nothing bad with not doing what your parents expect you to do. But your main problem Hannah is self-esteem. I feel you gal. I also had self esteem issues because i am short and people thought i am ugly. However, i turned this around by upgrading my closet, working hard on my health and dreams, and suddenly i reclaimed my dignity because people started respecting me. You are good Hannah, you are blessed. Stop adding yourself with unnecessary stress.. If your dad does not love you, then leave him alone. he seems to be a bad dad.and if your mum dint approve you dont let this haunt you. She’s not God, she does not have to approve you….and please start believing that you are worthy and reclaim your dignity…I read the article below on reclaiming dignity and it really uplifted me..many people also agreed that it uplifted them.  https://www.unboundedwisdom.com/must-reclaim-dignity/

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Hi Isaac. Thank-you for your reply and sharing your experience. How is your relationship with your parents now? I understand that it is best for me to not have a relationship with my father now, as it brought me a lot of sadness and pain. I feel quite alone in the world not having parents however. When something positive happens or when I am feeling unwell or need help with a problem, I do not have them to turn to. I know many people are in the same position, so it is possible to be happy without this. I just need to get to this point. It was interesting what you said about my mother. I have never thought about it like that. I supposed I did idolise her a bit. She was not perfect. Not everything she said was right. And that’s ok.

Yes, my self-esteem is low. I do not feel attractive or smart or funny or any of the things I used to feel about myself. And I have not been doing anything to improve this so it isn’t surprising to feel progressively worse.