Dear antarkala:

You are welcome. “When I feel jealous, I tell myself I don’t deserve to be a friend. How do I approach this?“- (1) tell yourself the truth: that what we people feel is not our choice; it is only our vocalized words and actions taken that are subject to our choosing.

No choice (such as in feeling jealous)= no personal responsibility (no valid guilt).

(2) apply an empathetic attitude toward yourself. Imagine a little child who was jealous of other children, would you frown at the child and berate him/ her for feeling jealous, or would you gently ask the child what is bothering her, what’s behind the jealousy?  If you uncover what’s underneath your jealousy, you’ll find some old hurt: it’d be easier for you to feel empathy for yourself for hurting (underneath the jealousy) than for the jealousy itself.

“I want to understand where my social anxiety is coming from and how to overcome it“- the first society in a person’s life is the family one is born into. If a child was anxious in the context of that first, mini society, the child is likely to grow up to be anxious in the bigger society. For example, a child may have gentle, fair and loving parents, but if the parents are often anxious, worried about things, and the child notices it..  their anxiety naturally passes on to the child.

“I understand how what my mom told me influenced me… She told me, I just moved to a new country and I am taking this – decision in a mentally weak state, out of loneliness in the new country“- your mother had a good point there, a valid concern. From what you shared about your boyfriend though, he reads like a gentle.. non-dangerous guy at all, so you were not in danger with him.

“No, my parents do not present themselves as perfect“- good job on their part!

“I believe a marriage is not just about wife and husband but also about both families. I also keep thinking, if I marry my boyfriend, how compatible are our families? My parents are getting older as well and they need company, we don’t have close ties with relatives and I want the family I marry into to bond well with mine. – Is it too much to ask?“- no, it’s not too much to ask, and it’s in your rights to ask for this. Therefore, before you consider marrying a man, get to know his feelings about both families being part of the marriage, and if the two of you have a meeting of the minds, get the families together so that everyone can get to know each other.

Till next time we talk, take good care of yourself!

anita

Dear Going Through Life:

You are very welcome!

My sentence (“But these feelings were not as strong throughout the 3 months..”) explained: feelings don’t stay the same, they change every day, so, let’s say you catch her at 12 pm, she’s busy, otherwise occupied, and she sounds like she doesn’t have any feelings for you; you catch her at 6 pm, she is not busy, had a hot shower, listening to romantic music ..and she thinks of you romantically. Feelings change over the course of weeks and months as well.

“I need to first clear in mind if I want her as a friend right now given the long distance or ask her if we can reconnect romantically. Whenever I have the answer clear. Ill surely text her“- good plan!

“I agree with this approach and at this point I got nothing to lose but I don’t want to come off as desperate, so I am just trying to frame the right message which conveys what I feel in my mind and heart. Not good at writing or expressing my feelings, lol“- you can put together a first draft for a message, here on your thread, and I’ll be glad to give you editing suggestions.

anita

Dear Paradoxy:

You are welcome, and thank you for expressing your appreciation for my advice. Wow, what can I add to Tee’s brilliant analysis submitted about 6 hours ago, written so well. I am in awe!

You wrote in your most recent post: “They never let me have a childhood, always forcing me to ‘act like an adult’.. I am back to my hollow self, desperately trying to glue the broken pieces of my empty shell… I have just accepted death“-

– it is very clear to me that what makes your self hollow and empty (“hollow self”, “empty shell”, your words right above), is the absence of Godwin the child. Your parents forced you to act like an adult, they never let you have a childhood (your words right above).

What are the words a young child often says as he/ she just starts to talk: I want this, I want that.. But Godwin the child was not allowed to want this, or that.

On March 23, you wrote in regard to your parents: “Always discouraging me from what I wanted to do. Even this med career was their fault. I never wanted this“- Godwin-the child not allowed to do what he wanted to do, not then, not now.

On March 24, you wrote this about your parents: “they always forced their way on me“- If your parents always forced their way on you, it means that Godwin the boy never got his way. I want this, I want that was met with, no, no, no, we want, and only what we want matters!

The same day, you wrote about your father: “He always wanted me to think like older people despite being still a child, and that made me never get any chance to enjoy my childhood“.

Children need to be taught to become responsible adults over time, gradually, but seems like your parents took a short cut and wanted you to be an adult immediately, instantly, way too early.

What you need then is the resurrection of Godwin-the-child, to fill your life with what Godwin wants.. not irresponsibly, but still: what you want needs to matter in your own life, it is your life (or should be), not your parents’.

Paradoxy, often enough you let me know that I misunderstand you, that I misunderstood your words. Sometimes it is true, but at other times, you don’t like my correct understanding, so you retroactively change what you said, giving what you said before a new context, new qualifications.. so to reject my understanding. Please don’t do this in regard to this post.

anita

Dear antarkala:

You are welcome. I wonder if I understand correctly (please let me know if I do): generally, you enjoy a social life but you are also anxious in social situations, and therefore it drains you. You wish that your boyfriend would have made it easier for you in social situations: that he would take charge where you struggle and smoothen the way for you. It upsets you somewhat (you are disappointed) that he can’t. You think less of him because of that, thinking that he is not as.. qualified/ as strong as he should be to be your husband (something like that..?)

If this is what is going on, at least in part, then Tommy has a good point in his reply: traditionally, girls are raised to have very high and unrealistic, super human expectations from men, and they end up disappointed. Think of it this way, if you will: in every woman there is a little girl who is sometimes scared and needs help, but it is also true that in every man there is a little boy who is sometimes scared and needs help. Better see the boy in a man than see a prince on a pedestal.

There are many women who are attracted to what is referred to as bad boys, tough, insensitive and rude men who sacrifice their hearts for the appearance of strength. This doesn’t work out for the women, but it shows you how attractive (the appearance) of strength is to many women.

In reality, both women and men are weak and strong, both, and a good partnership is that of the two (man and woman) helping each other, encouraging and sharing each other’s strengths for the benefit of the team.

When a woman expresses to the man her unrealistic expectations of him, and her disappointment, it weakens the man.

Dating is the time to learn about the compatibility of the couple, but don’t let unrealistic expectations based in rigid gender roles get in your way of evaluating your compatibility with your boyfriend.

Is this helpful to you? Please let me know, I would like to explore this further and be helpful to you.

anita

You are welcome, Kshitij!

anita

Dear Kshiti:

You are welcome. I am sorry about the worsening situation in regard to your intrusive thoughts. I don’t think that we talked about you seeing a doctor, did we?

There are pharmaceutical treatments for intrusive thinking/ OCD, certain medications that help many, and can help you. What do you think about making an appointment with a doctor, for evaluation and possible treatment?

anita

Dear Pj:

You can talk to me, and to other members, right here in your thread, whenever you feel alone. I’m here every day and have been for almost 9 years (excluding a 6-month pause). Also, there are support groups for caretakers such as yourself. You can look at senior lifestyle. com/ 40 resources for adult children taking care of aging parents.

“seeing my mother suffer at the end of her life…  and the fact that my mother would be gone forever crushed me“- would you like to share about your mother, has she been a good mother to you? What did she teach you.. ?

“I don’t know the purpose of this life anymore & where this life will take me. I’m lost“- less than an hour ago, I submitted a post to another suffering member on the topic of purpose in the midst of suffering. In it I quoted from Viktor Frankl’s famous book Man’s Search for Meaning, a 1946 book about his experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps during World War 2, a place of much suffering.

Here are a few quotes from the book: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.”

“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”

“For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself”.

“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”

“For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire… The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

The title of your thread is “Should I start over”?“- yes, please do start over and share about your new beginning here, will you?

anita

Dear Going Through Life:

You are welcome and thank you for being so nice, gracious, I appreciate it!

“While breaking up she told me that because of the distance and the timings, it’s better we stop talking, after that I talked to her a bit and not much. Then after a few days she texted me she met someone else…. she was lying”-

– putting the long-distance factor aside for a moment, what I boldfaced above could be, maybe, her excuses for not having continued the relationship with you. Being that women are the ones traditionally pursued, it is often that when rejecting men who pursue them, women come up with tactful, untrue reasons aimed at sparing the pursuer’s feelings and avoiding a confrontation. In this case, she may have been saying (paraphrased): I am not interested in talking with you, not because I don’t like this or that about you, but because of the distance and wrong timing, nothing to do with you! 2nd time, perhaps wanting to get the message across to you more clearly, she told you that she met someone else.

“She hoped we could stay friends“- this could have been part of the rejection-package, so to speak. When rejecting a man’s advances, most women are careful about not hurting the man’s feelings, not just, or necessarily because of being kind, but so to not incur a man’s anger, not wanting the man angry at them.

But she could have meant it, I don’t know. And she may be a kind, honest (and tactful) person, and mature enough to understand the disadvantages of a long-distance relationship.

“I feel like there’s a strong connection there… I actually felt a really strong pure bond with her… It’s been almost 3 months since we talked and still I can’t get rid of these feelings. These feelings scare me but the though about her makes me smile a lot. I think that happens when you really like someone“- no doubts you have strong, positive feelings for her. But these feelings were not as strong throughout the 3 months, not same intensity, and your attention was often elsewhere. Same is true to her, her feelings don’t stay the same.

Your current feelings for her are not any kind of evidence that she is feeling the same, or similarly. I know that you are aware of what I just typed, but I am stating this because there is a subconscious belief in these feelings (of longing for another person),  that they are feeling the same. There is no basis in reality to this belief.

“Although she is really attractive and I don’t find myself as attractive as her physically. In confident that I’m consistently working on myself and feeling better and confident….Don’t know how to start the conversation with her, whether I should just write a whole paragraph and send her or to first ask about casual stuff first… I’m kind of putting my respect on the line“-

– if you send her a casual short message, like how are you?, she’d probably figure that you are pursuing the (long-distance) romantic relationship that you had with her, and that you re pursuing it in a timid, least risky way. What if you write her a long-enough paragraph where you present yourself not as a timid man who’s afraid to be rejected, but as a strong, confident man who can take rejection?

This would be a unique approach that can give you an advantage over the competition (assuming she is not in a relationship currently)- a man who comes across differently from others. This can make you look attractive in her eyes. It is an attitude that can attract other women to you.

In this paragraph, you can tell her how you feel about her, what you like about her, and what you would like from her, given the long-distance factor, and ask her if it suits her. Be honest, direct, straight forward and caring (for her well-being), all at the same time. What do you have to lose with this approach?

anita