Dear Kodi:

We communicated a bit back in Sept 2016, SEVEN years ago, in Nov-Dec 2017, and a bit in Aug 2021. In your four threads (the current dating July 2023), you shared that you have suffered from “severe anxiety and depression“,  since you were a teenager, panic attacks, OCD, and your “biggest trigger has ALWAYS been the fear of severe illness”.

You “have tried everything through the years – many, many, medications (most of which I cannot tolerate) counseling, cognitive behavioral therapy, supplements“, but no long-lasting improvement has occurred.

(the boldface in the following is my addition): “I’m utterly exhausted from all the fear, frustration, anger, depression, irritability, guilt – basically every negative emotion you can have. I don’t like my son to see me like this. I try so hard to turn the negatives into positives, but it seems that whenever I do, something goes wrong… There’s no reason for me to be so unhappy except that it runs in my family and I’m an introverted empath. I feel like a horrible person…. You are spot on about learning to worry about health issues from a parent. I don’t blame myself for their anxiety, nor do I blame them. Unfortunately, I’m doing the same thing with my son. I’m aware of it and I try to keep it in control, but I fear I’ve instilled it in a him. He has different triggers than I do, and he’s not nearly as anxious as I, but I see it“-

-seems to me that what happened was that as a child and teenager, you sort of drowned in your parents’ anxiety and you’ve been floundering ever since, struggling to come up to the surface of the water for air. Whenever you do get to the surface, something goes wrong and you go down under yet again.

I imagine that you cared for your parents a whole lot, being a very empathetic child,  and it distressed you so much to see them anxious. Maybe you were afraid to lose them to what scared them so much, afraid to be left alone.

I wonder if any one of your parents still expresses their anxiety to you.. that would keep you under water, so to speak.

Do you relate to my drowning analogy? I would like to communicate with you about this more in depth, if you are reading this and willing.

anita

Dear Anna:

When I read your post for the first time back in Aug 19, a month and 6 days ago, I was very impressed by your heart and mind, and I still am. This sentence particularly stands out to me: “Today, I try in every choice I do, to be the change I want to see. But I want to contribute to the change with love and compassion, not with hatred or cynicism”-  beautifully said!

Re-reading this sentence on this Mon morning is helping my resolution to be the change I want to see in others, to deliver  whatever message I have in mind-  with love and compassion. Thank you, Anna!

anita

Dear Ben:

I have to be away from the computer for a while. I’ll read and reply to  you Mon morning (if not this evening). Please feel free to post more updates anytime you’d like to. Take care of yourself!

anita

Dear Ben:

Him:  “I miss you so much. I woke up this morning with the desire to get on a plane and hug you for hours‘… I can’t manage to forget you… Whenever I try, I don’t manage to. I don’t want to“.

You: “I still love you. For me it was a true love, and I’m prepared to follow that love. It seems like it either wasn’t for you, or that it was, but you can’t accept it was true love, or that you don’t deserve this type of love”.

Him: “Help me conquer my fears, my insecurities” and a crying emoji.

You: “You have to share them with me for me to help”.

Him: “I’m worried that you think my course is stupid, that you wouldn’t support me and that you wouldn’t want to be together long distance“-

* I am not sure I understand his last response right above: by course, he means his planned years- long medical studies? And by long-distance, he is referring to studying in Argentina while you keep living in the UK?

You were the practical one in the exchange above, trying to put a feeling (love, longing, desire) into a practical application: a monogamous, committed relationship where the two of you live and love together (after he finishes medical school, or  before?) Without a practical application for love, his expressed loving feelings for you are… a thrill for you to hear/read about, but effectively, they’re in your way, blocking you from moving on and having a life together with a man you love. Do you agree?

anita

Dear LunaIsHere:

You are welcome and thank you for your empathy!

“I can see how you’re drawing the link between the parent-child bond and my inquiry and I expected this to be brought up given they’re the most common models in terms of a healthy (or not) couple partnership. So to get back to your question, like any other child, I have received powerful messages from my environment on how to act and be in a couple… For more context, I’m very passionate about self-development and I’m very future-oriented when it comes to matters of the heart.“-

– you are very intelligent, educated, an intellectual.. I wonder if, like I have been most of my life, you too remove yourself from  a hands-on, emotional experience of life, so to speak, in the context of relationships, romantic and/ or otherwise, mostly limiting your experience to the intellect?  I wonder if you are trying to intellectually understand the matters of the heart before you experience these matters hands-on?

“I’m asking about getting mentally ready for being in a relationship through self-development. For more context, I’m very passionate about self-development“-

– self development has to include social development because we are social animals, and the self is not separated from the social. You find out a whole lot more about yourself in the context of genuinely interacting with other people than you do when alone (or when you socialize with others but in a detached, removed way). In other words, there’s a lot about you that you can never get to know or understand unless you are personally and genuinely involved in a relationship.

“My question comes back to what extent can I help myself get to the point where I can have a healthy relationship if I don’t have a reference to it. I realize that is a big question given that first relationships often end up being a test before one really settles but even them, with enough work on oneself, can be constructive in terms of gaining social experience and a better understanding of people“-

– (1) I think that I understand your anxiety about having had no reference to a healthy romantic relationship, not as a witness and not as a participant. (2) When facing any big question, it is helpful to break it down to small pieces. When you get to the point of having what may be a beginning of a committed romantic relationship, at that point, take  it one step at a time, one day at a time, or one hour at a time. (3) I don’t know what you mean by a first relationship being a test…?

anita

Dear Positivitea:

You are welcome!

“Generally, I don’t feel deserving of empathy in light of mistakes – even though I would certainly show empathy to a friend!“- the book Healing the Shame that Binds you by John Bradshaw comes to mind. Paraphrasing part of it, it says that when people suffer from toxic shame (as opposed to healthy shame) they try to make NO mistakes = to be MORE than human; or they don’t care anymore and make mistakes carelessly = being LESS than human. I know a person of the first kind, very anxious in general: it’s very difficult to live with the pressure of being more than human. I used to be the second kind, at least in a certain context. The healthy way: none of these two extremes.

“Applying empathy to myself continues to be very difficult, however – especially during times of feeling more anxious“- that was true to me too and the origin of this difficulty: when I made mistakes as a child (including what were not really mistakes),  my mother did not respond to me with empathy (while gently guiding me to do better next time), but with condemnation, which caused me a lot of anxiety in regard to the next time I will make a mistake. Fast forward, as an adult,  I responded this way to myself when I made real or suspected mistakes: a mix of self-condemnation and heightened anxiety.

“Do you have any tips to applying empathy to oneself?“- it takes Noticing when you are judging yourself negatively for having made a mistake, then Pause (take a time out from the judging), then Address the situation (did I make a mistake? What was the mistake? Is there something I need to say or do as a result of having made this or that mistake?). Next, Respond (say or do that something), or not. Finally Redirect (place your attention elsewhere). I call it the NPARR strategy: Notice, Pause, Address, Respond-or-not, Redirect.

It will be helpful to address the origin of your personal toxic shame (which is behind your feeling that you do not deserve empathy in light of making mistakes, but other people do) and resolve it (easier said than done, of course).

“I’m also finding it hard to get my head round how negatively people in the media are treated having made mistakes, and feel that if they are being judged and treated so harshly, I too deserve the same ‘punishment’. We live in a very judgmental society these days, I feel.“- I agree. Growing up, my own home was a judgmental society orchestrated by my mother: when she did not shame me directly for real (or imagined) mistakes, she shamed other people for mistakes and imperfections while gossiping about them, which I overheard a lot. This 2nd hand shaming, together with the .. 1st hand shaming, affected me very negatively.  It made me very self-conscious and very anxious.

Watching other people being shamed in the media is that kind of 2nd hand, indirect (yet effective) shaming, isn’t it?

anita

Dear Ben:

I am glad my last post was somewhat helpful to you, thank you for letting me know (I like feeling helpful!). I am in a hurry now and expect to have a busy day, so I expect to be able to read and reply to your post of 20 minutes ago tomorrow morning, in about 22 hours from now.

anita

Dear Luna:

In your three posts, you shared (the italicized are your words, with adjusted pronouns) that you are in your early 20s, a practical person who has never had a committed romantic relationship. You feel inexperienced, even a bit naive when it comes to intimacy on an emotional level, intimidated by your lack of understanding of relationships on a realistic level. You think that one will be very beneficial to you, in term of your current personal growth;  that some dating experience will help you become a better version of yourself.

You shared that you are more introspective than most people, but you are starting to feel that what you need to learn next, is no longer up to your self-reflection- alone or in the context of friendships- but something deeper than both.

“I have some concerns about dating, mainly because of the models I’ve seen throughout my life in relationships“- I am guessing (and please do correct me if I am wrong) that what you witnessed growing up, and still (?), are romantic relationships that did not promote personal growth, maybe even stunted personal growth, and therefore, you are very hesitant about getting into one.

“My question now is how can I best make the most out of this feeling and if some of you have felt this before, I’d love to hear your story“- (by this feeling, you were referring to feeling inexperienced even a bit naive when it comes to intimacy on an emotional level).

My answer/ my story: before I ever had a beginning of a romantic relationship, I was already experienced in the context of romantic relationships: not as a participant, but as a witness. The witnessing itself equaled the experience: my earliest and only memory of the romantic relationship between my mother and father is that of the time I was about 5-years-old. It was night time, they were fighting. There was screaming, hitting perhaps… my mother said she was going to kill herself.  They left the apartment into the night. I was left alone..  I left the apartment myself, looking for my mother, afraid to find her dead. When I found her in the street (there were other people there), I was so happy to see her alive! I ran to her.. ran for her to take me in her arms, exclaiming out loud: oh mother, you are alive! But seems like my exclamation embarrassed her in front of the people, as if I made a secret- public, and she retorted: why wouldn’t I be alive?  Angry, she did not take me into her arms. Angry, she left me alone in my confusion and emotional devastation.

Quite a story, isn’t it? Thing is, it may be relevant to you even if your story is less extreme: when as children, we witness emotionally charged situations that feel threatening to us (a mother’s possible death is threatening to a child!), we are emotionally involved in those situations. And so, in the apartment, as a 5-year-old, peeking through the door of my small room, I personally experienced the horror a few feet away as a witness.

Next, I experienced something as a participant: running toward my mother and her rejection of me, leaving me alone in confusion and emotional devastation. This experience does not get contained in a child-parent category, leaving future romantic relationships untouched. As an adult, I had no trust that a man will be any different from my mother.

Back to your words: feeling inexperienced even a bit naive when it comes to intimacy on an emotional level– I assume that as a child, as a witness and a participant, you gained powerful experiences, some positive, other negative,  when it comes to intimacy. Did you?

anita