Hi Seaturtle

I’m sorry to hear that you were made to feel imperfect as a child from all sides. The beauty of being a child is being imperfectly perfect. Making mistakes is a huge part of growing up. Raising my son, he does things that are stressful sometimes. His crying was stressful early on, he wakes through the night and he is a messy eater. But it is all part of being a baby. It’s not the child’s fault the parent experiences stress when the child does something natural for a child (like making a mess). It is a parent’s job to learn to manage the situation and their own emotions properly instead of blaming the child.

It sounds like your father tried to control you to a horrific degree. The more details you share, the more grim the picture. Made to exercise the way he wanted, made to do what he wanted and made to think and feel what he wanted. No wonder you were feeling hypervigilant cleaning up after the party.

An image of a young Seaturtle comes to mind. Worrying about crumbs. Hypervigilant and fearing her father’s punishment. You didn’t deserve any of it. You deserved to feel safe, happy and loved in your own home. Such difficult circumstances that you had to grow up in.

This type of thing with the letter… I have some baggage here, so I don’t know if my thoughts are correct. I welcome Anita or Roberta to give their input on this if they have any?

My instincts are pessimistic and say that your instincts are correct about the gaslighting. It reminds me of my mother who likes to play a role on special occasions. But outside of special occasions, doesn’t act in that way. Has your father ever behaved like that at all before?

Then another small part of my mind is playing devil’s advocate. Well relationships can improve after children move out. Perhaps he is trying to change?

Well done on handling your roommate and her temper when it comes to money. People who lash out about money tend to have very individual and unique beliefs about it. In my experience, the only way to not trigger them is to follow their rules. But, it may not suit you to do so. The only other way would be to get a new roommate or get used to the situation.

It is difficult with your friend who has ADHD and Depression. I think that your feelings about it being difficult to spend time with someone who is gloomy and won’t stop talking about that type of thing is honestly fair.

But at the same time this is how someone with ADHD and Depression acts. Expecting her to be able to control her behaviour and act differently. It’s extremely unlikely from my point of view.

I don’t know if you knew she had ADHD before this conversation or if you know much about ADHD as a condition?

I don’t think that you were being mean or unfair. Just perhaps that you were overly hopeful of her ability to change and not aware of the impact of her conditions. It is an honest thing to happen.

The conversation is a trigger for her though. People with ADHD regularly encounter people complaints about things like talking too much, which is as she said is a part of her condition. The negativity is a result of the depression though. The depression may make it more difficult than usual to manage the ADHD as well.

I think a difficulty for you may be that as you have said you try really hard to work on yourself. It isn’t easy the work you are doing but you are doing amazingly and should be proud of yourself. Understandably, you feel like she should try to and see her as an equal in this way.

But sometimes being an equal doesn’t mean treating someone in the same way as you. We are all unique individuals.

I also think that her being triggered and her comments about her feelings could be hurtful to you? Do you feel hurt by her?

All around it is a difficult situation for you because you have to figure out how you want to manage this friendship.

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏

Oh also how are you doing? Sorry my thoughts are scattered today. 😊

Hi Brian

Lovely to see you again!

I think there’s a great deal of variety in spiritual paths. Different religions and different practices, different beliefs. It very much depends on the individual.

Do you feel like you’re on a spiritual path? If so, what does that look like to you?

For me, I was raised Christian. My husband is Buddhist and he’s very into his Buddhist/Daoist practices. I do some Buddhist and Daoist practices too. Sometimes I go to Church and pray. I have vaguely Christian beliefs but there are differences. I don’t see different religions as having different Gods and instead believe in a generic higher power. I don’t believe in discrimination against gay people or other people’s religions.

Wishing you all the best! 🙏❤️

Sorry, just read in your reply to Anita that you were planning on helping her to move out but letting the daughter stay.

You don’t have any legal responsibilities for the daughter and she is a minor. If the mother or father decides to take her there is nothing you can do to stop it. If you try you could potentially have legal action taken against you.

Just letting you know.

Hi Nate

I’m sorry to hear that you don’t have anyone to rely on in your life.

You are still young. My husband didn’t lose his virginity until he was 26. He still ended up being an awesome person with a wife and a son. What is the urgency? Your life is just beginning.

Perhaps part of the issue is that you are too hard on yourself and have a sense of urgency about this?

Dating is like a lottery and a numbers game. People are looking for something and not everyone is compatible. It can take time to find a suitable partner. Only 12 people weren’t suitable is a better way to reframe it. There are many, many more women out there.

What method were you using to try and find a date? If it’s online statistically the odds aren’t good. Tinder has a 2.8% success rate of finding a match for men. Whereas women have a 35% match rate. Statistically, the average is that 2 in 100 women would match with you. If you are getting more matches than that you are actually rather successful. These women are likely to match with other people at the same time and often end up considering multiple men at the same time. Ghosting is a pretty common dating experience these days. I’m sorry that it hurts though. In short, dating sucks.

Wishing you all the best! ❤️🙏

Hi Peter

Thank you! Your post was very thought provoking. It’s lovely to see you around.

Do you have any advice about acceptance? It is something that I have always struggled with.

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏

Hi Seaturtle!

Happy 25th Birthday! How was your party?

As you guessed, people pleasing has it’s roots in trauma. So basically, when there is a child there is something called magical thinking. Our brains automatically seek patterns.

Your father conditioned you to cater to his needs with verbal abuse. Perhaps your “reward” sometimes was not being verbally abused? Not being praised, just not being attacked verbally. Some “reward”, huh?

Back to the magical thinking and patterns. So you picked up this idea as a child that if you did everything perfectly then MAYBE there would be peace for you. We all seek control in the chaos in abusive situations as children. The alternative that it is just chaos is too frightening.

But children don’t do everything perfectly do they? Heck, even adults don’t. So no matter how hard you tried, it was never enough because he was always looking for mistakes as an excuse to unleash his abuse upon you.

The secret is that there was no actual rhyme nor reason to his behaviour. If he was in a bad mood he would find a reason to abuse you. This is the truth.

So you’re in this abusive situation with a father with unstable emotions being told to manage his emotions for him. Such a large responsibility for a child and frightening to be at his whims.

Recognizing that it is not your responsibility to manage someone’s emotions and it is not your fault if they snap at you (unless you did something seriously wrong) is how to get past people pleasing. Getting used to setting boundaries with unhealthy people is helpful too. It is stressful at first, but you get used to it with practice.

I think it’s helpful to view people as equals. Your emotions matter as much as theirs do. But you still have the responsibility to take care of yourself and they have the responsibility to take care of themselves. If that makes sense?

I don’t think it’s selfish, it’s just not your responsibility unless they are a child as children often need help with regulating their emotions because they are still learning. But even then, it is important for them to learn developmentally appropriate self-soothing techniques. My son is currently learning to fall asleep without being held or fed. Next, he will learn to fall asleep by himself.

Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏