Dear Anita,

I think what you’re saying is right. I will think more about it but this is what I can figure so far so that I know if I’m thinking in right direction or not.
I also feel the constant correcting was at the root and was the persistent parental behavior. Its fits also because what I feel today is related.
When my mom constantly corrected me= I felt not good enough as i was = I felt I was not desirable and good= I felt that I am not worthy of love= I doubted my loved ones  love for me and depended too much on it to tell me I am good enough as I was made to believe that I wasn’t.
Cut to today, same thing happens,
when I don’t receive constant assurances of love- i immediately start feeling and doubting my loved ones love for me.
So I think due to my childhood persistent correction, I grew up to be unsure about myself and feeling like I am not good enough. Is that right?

So basically, what I have to do to heal is to identify that my feeling of inadequacy is not natural and thus not true but something that was an unfortunate and false result of my childhood happenings. I have to tell and remind myself that I am more than good enough and that I confident and desirable and once, I begin feeling that truly from within, I will depend less on external validation and not be constantly needy of emotional attention (title of my thread). What do you think?

Dear GL, Lily and Anita,

First of all, Thank You so much for your valuable inputs. This post is a little long so please bear with me. I am also poor in writing in organized manner so I hope you all can understand what I’m conveying. I read and re-read all your posts and have concluded the following from it:
a. GL, I agree that I don’t have healthy boundaries with my parents. I would go a step ahead and say that I don’t have healthy boundaries with any of those whom I really hold close, whom I see as ‘mine’. This, so far in my life has included my ex-bf (2 years ago) and my parents only and as Anita very rightly showed, I had the same problems with both. So yes, I feel the same that I don’t have healthy boundaries. I think but my solution has to come more from the mind and heart and not just physical distance. I think that will just be escaping as every time I’ll be around a loved one, I’ll have the same issues. Besides, I anyways don’t live with my parents, I have my own place in a different city and have come to them only during COVID but even from afar I had an unhealthy bond with them and the same hurt would play on, i.e. instead of feeling bad that I only go to their room and they don’t come to me, I used to then feel bad that I only mostly call them.
b. GL, I also agree that I am taking undue responsibility for people that I love and also that I want them to be okay not for themselves but for my sake as I am so attached to them that I won’t be okay if they’re not okay. As a small example, when I came down and saw my dad had gained a lot of weight, my thought was what will happen to me if something happens to him, I won’t be able to take the pain of losing my father. So it is coming from a place of emotional dependence. I have to realize that we are all responsible for ourselves and should focus more on my well-being and be willing to help my loved ones if they want but not go around taking unwanted responsibility for them or wanting them to be a certain way for my emotional stability.
Thank you for making me see this.
c. Lily, you are bang on that ‘I depend on the attention of others’. I thrive on it, it makes me feel happy, it makes me feel good. On the flip side, not getting attention makes me feel horrible. It is not good, I know and that is why I want to get out of it. Thank you for all the suggestions of activities to become independent. I am doing journaling since a year and a half, it has helped a lot. I also do have many hobbies and will try to focus more on them. As far as open communication issue is concerned, you are very right in what you said but I am having a little bit of difficulty in explaining the way I think about it. I’ll think about it a little more and get back to you.
d. Anita, firstly a big big thank you for taking the effort to go through my threads, study them so well and put it out here. I am very grateful. All that I concluded from the posts-
– I agree that I need to stop looking at others’ lives and seeing them as emotionally sound and feel bad for myself. You are bang on that I don’t see them all the time and also, I don’t see what’s going inside them. So I will stop doing that.
– So, what I understand from your post is that there was some kind of persistent behavior on part of my parents that made me feel uncertain, unloved, clingy in childhood and the same thing has carried on and become more prominent in my adulthood. It was slow and gradual (your river analogy) instead of something obvious like hitting/broken home and that is why maybe, I am not able to see what exactly it was. But there was something. Probably ignoring on some level. I will think more about it to figure what it could be.
– So today, I am a grown up girl who due to her childhood experiences feels emotionally unfulfilled, unloved, uncertain and insecure on the inside.
– As a grown-up, now that emotionally insecure pattern is playing in all my close relations. Again thank you so much for making me see the clear pattern in how i felt in relationship and with parents. I can actually use the words parents and bf interchangeably and all the complains remain the exact same. In both of my only close relations, I have felt uncertain about the other person’s love, have wanted more from them and mostly, wanted constant reassurance of their love for me. There is certainly a strong parallel there. I can see your point about attachment style not being fixed. I was avoidant with my ex bf as much a I was anxiously attached. Thank you for making me see that.

So, after concluding all that, I can identify the following issues that I currently deal with and have to solve, rather than following pattern. This will also tell you how I think and you can help me through I hope:
– I have grown up to be a very emotionally dependent person. I can survive by myself or with little love but I need a lot of it to be ‘happy’.
– At all times in life so far, I have chosen one person to be ‘mine’ and I have dumped all my emotional needs of love and affection on them as I am incapable of giving any to me. 1st it was my parents, then my bf (interestingly when I was with my bf, I didn’t really care about being loved by my parents), since two years when the relation ended, again my parents.
And now, I have to come out of it to become emotionally independent and develop healthy boundaries. Am I understanding it right?

Dear Anita and Tanya,

Thank you for your inputs.

Anita, it makes sense. My mother definitely has a more service-oriented way of loving as compared to me whose needs are more of verbal and physical love.
Tanya, I’ve felt that too, that  is one thing that is helping me, positive thought, unlike earlier times when I’d feel so sad that I’d just say whatever hurt me every single time, now I try and reason out and think positively and am able to sort it out in my head. Thoughts are very powerful, yes.

So in this very moment, I am going through a typical example of what this thread is all about and I would love to share here, to give an idea of what my problem is and to also get opinion.
I’ve come to stay for a while with my parents in COVID. It’s been lovely. We play games and have fun and everything. I am also working from home. Now today, I woke up perfectly happy, no bitter feelings, nothing. I had panned morning exercise for my parents because they are getting older and I’m worried for my father’s weight issues. We woke up in the morning and I went to my parents room calling them for exercise. Both were like yeah, just 10 minutes, the gardener is here, just some garden work then exercise. I was like okay. They went about doing the gardening work while I waited. I called out to them a few times. Mom every time politely said just 5 minutes, just a little while. After waiting for around 30 minutes, I gave up and went for a shower and then had my breakfast. I was annoyed. Then as I sat in my room for my work from home, I could hear mom in the adjacent room, she was back in her room, she was speaking on the phone, then she was going around the house but not once did she come to my room to say that oh, we couldn’t do exercise today or just say let’s go now. It was as if she’d just forgotten it. I don’t know why I got more annoyed. What was the result? I couldn’t focus on my work and I’m here writing this down. So, my entire first half went down the drain because of my feelings over something mom/dad didn’t do. I’m telling myself it’s okay, mom is busy, she usually doesn’t do this, maybe she has forgotten, it’s not personal etc. etc but I’m still having to put energy in those thoughts, and now I’m too drained to be as fresh as I could have been for my work had this not happened. So this is a typical example of how things play out. And today it’s just my parents because they are the closest, when I had a bf, same problems existed there too.

I am most annoyed with myself. I had a nice productive day planned out and I’ve just wasted a quarter of it because of something so stupid. I’m literally regretting even planning this exercise things but then I am thinking that the problem is not exercise, the problem is me being so affected by mom dad’s attitude. Why am I so touchy? Why couldn’t I be okay with them not willing to do it and go about my day as I had planned. Why did this little issue overpower my day. This is what always happens. something miniscule will trigger me and there goes my productive day, and who is the only person affected? Me. Why? because I am annoyed. Why am I annoyed? because my parents didn’t respond to something that I was doing for them only. What a terrible reason to have a spoilt day it is. I really want to get out of it.

I am happy I have worked on myself a lot and it’s showing, Had this been a year ago, by this time I would have said what I’m annoyed about, would gave created an argument or even if I stayed quiet my facial expressions would have given it away. but today none of that. I havent said one complaning word and I am calm on the outside. It’s only the internal part that is now left but its so hard.
Please help. Whatever it was that caused me to be this way, I can’t keep looking back and blaming it. I want to get out of it irrespective of why I am this way. Sometimes all this makes me feel chuck it, I won’t do anything for anyone but then I feel what’s the point of life and relationships then, I feel happy when I am doing something for my loved ones and I try now doing it without expectations but once in a while something small just hurts and then all the previous times when I’d let the expectation go come flying back to me and I feel I shouldn’t do anything for anyone or love anyone this much.

Please help me-

1. Learn to be actually, really, emotionally happy by myself. Currently, I force myself to find happiness by myself, if I had it my way, I would spend every second with a loved one, my alone time is not a choice. Help me feel emotionally fulfilled alone such that relations are only a bonus and not the core of my life. I don’t want to live life like this where I feel I’m constantly controlling my emotional needs to be with a person, I want to make myself and myself alone my only emotional need so that its natural not forced. I am willing to take in all help.
2. Learn to not let emotions linger and to not let little things like today’s example get to me. I know life cannot be jolly all the time. there will be irritants, there will be things here and there but I want to inculcate resilience so that I feel bad for a few minutes, reason it out in my head and then it’s done, I go about my day or at least I can keep my emotions away from affecting my daily life productivity.

If I’d I master these two things, my life will be good. I am ready to take any advice. Please help. I am doing positive thoughts but it helps me not let my emotions lead to emotional actions but now I need something to stop me from even needing that much emotional attention internally and from letting emotions affect my mind so much.

Any help will be appreciated.

Dear Anita and GL,

Thanks so much for you inputs.

//To begin, it seems that your parents were really concerned for you in your childhood that they revolved the family life around your sister and you. Good and all, but it seems that they didn’t really let you face many difficult problems alone, or at least let you try to solve it for yourself first, or really gave you the space to self soothed your own emotional hurt. From the above, it seems that whenever you had a problem, they were ready to drop everything to help you solve it. So they had good intentions, but they also indirectly taught you that problems are meant to be solved externally, not internally, e g that loving validation come from the people around you. That didn’t help you create an independent stance that you CAN solve things on your own (that you can love yourself irregardless if other people love you) and help is a bonus feature from family and friends. Rather, your parents had let you depend on them which created a certain heavy dependency on them. There is also no healthy boundaries between you and your parents, e g your mom doesn’t stop you from calling her while she is out with friends, dropping her problems to help you with your problems.

So you being needy is probably due to, in part, the fact that you are heavily depended on your parents’ affections and that they let you be. But at some point in your life, your subconscious probably understood that being depended on others’ affections to validate anything about you is chockful of uncertainties and it is terribly exhausting. Because such dependency means that you will always try to test their sincerity and affections and of course, it’ll back fire on you since you’ll doubt it even when they have shown up for you. Uncertainties tend to create panic which tend to lead people to try to control their situation in some way. So you’ll never feel secure in your attachment towards your parents because you need them to love you to prove something; of course, it’ll always be a limbo of “they love me, but…”//

– THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT IT IS. It feels like you’ve put into words my exact thoughts that I just couldn’t put together. With a lot of thinking, the only conclusion I always came to was that mom dad have loved me so much since childhood that I never learnt to be emotionally independent. Also, I remember, once when I was hurt about something mom did/didn’t do that made me feel unloved(I don’t remember what it was) and I expressed to her how I felt bad, she actually felt really guilty and told me that it seems like she’s still proving her love to me after so many years and that she’s not enough and that is actually true. Thank you so much for putting in perspective what was like jumbled thoughts in my head.

I really want to get out of this thinking because I’m no longer a teenager who can afford to surround herself with her family who will put up with my unreasonable expectations of love. I worry that tomorrow I’ll have a family of my own, I’ll have a partner and if I don’t learn to love with space and boundaries, I’ll make both him and me miserable, I don’t want to do that. Can you help me with how can I develop emotional independence?

I do say positive things to myself, when something happens that traditionally makes me feel bad, I tell myself that there’s nothing to feel bad about, like I said, I try and filter my thoughts. I tell myself that I am loved. But why do those thoughts exist in the first place? How do I reach a place where I don’t have to keep checking myself, keep restraining my thoughts, where I don’t need that much external validation and love?

Any advice will be welcome, Anita and GL. Again Thank you, for the advice so far.

Dear Anita,

Yes that happened. The single-direction focus did get divided between me and my sister but Anita that is bound to happen, why should I feel bad about it. I agree sometimes I’ve told mom that you love my sister more but when I look at the bigger picture it is just not true. I pick up one incident when i felt mom showed her more love and start feeling less loved. There are a 100 incidents that I know when she has literally put my needs before her and why should I even compete with my sister. It’s my little sister. There are people I know whose parents don’t even talk to them properly, those whose parents actually show very vivid favouritism between siblings and they are still okay. Why am I so overly sensitive? What if my parents love got divided, why do i need that single-focus love.
What I am scared of is this Anita, these are my parents, they take all my tantrums, they listen when i unreasonably demand more love but tomorrow when I’ll get married, I cannot expect my partner to give me that ‘revolving around you’ love. He will have his family, friends, everyone to love. If i start feeling unloved whenever he chooses to spend time with his friends or family instead of me, I’ll make life miserable for both him and me. I need a way to solve this and I just don’t know how.

Thanks Anita for replying.

There’s some new development and I can really do with some help decoding this.

So, its been nearly a month and I had no contact with him nor did he reach out to me (or maybe, he did sometimes, but my phone was switched off during those times.) Yesterday, I’d switched my phone on for a while and immediately I got a call from him and fortunately or unfortunately, I answered it.

I didn’t say anything, just asked him why he’d called and let him say what he had to say- he said that he loves me, always has for he wouldn’t be in a 6 year long distance relationship with maybe few meetings had he not really felt for me at an emotional level. Though he didn’t really say that he treated me badly, he did say that he knows he’s hurt me a lot in the past some time and was behaving in ways that made me feel he was avoiding and ignoring me. For a change, he agreed that there might be some truth in my belief that he repeatedly pulls me in and pushes me out of his life but then there’s a reason behind it all.
He said that while he wants me and has always wanted only me, the long distance is getting too much for him. He’s like its been 6 years, we have met maybe only 3-4 times as we were both stuck with stuff. He’s like I want to be connected with you all the time and not only through phone calls or Skype. He in a way blamed me for the long distance as he’s been able to visit me more times than I have been able to visit him and said that he wants to end this long distance now and have a relationship with me when he can be with me. He said since our distance wasn’t decreasing and talking to me about visits wasn’t materializing so out of helplessness, anger and frustration combined he used to start avoiding me. He came to see me precisely to bridge the long distance and I refused to meet him. He’s like he loves me and is still what he was earlier its just that the long distance is frustrating him with every passing year and now he cannot do long distance, he desperately wants me physically present with him and is ready to come himself to me and give me all that love that I want, which he said he feels all this while but suppresses because he cant express everything over phone calls, if I agree to meet him.

I was getting really emotional but didn’t want to lose control in front of him again and thus, told him that I’ve some urgent office work that I need to complete this week and will call him back in a few days. I thought meanwhile I’ll think and even seek advice here and be sure if what he’s saying is genuine or not. All that I’ve been able to think so far is that:

1. I do not know if he’s genuinely sorry. Sometimes I think he is, but he’s said sorry so many times and then did the same thing that I don’t really know.
2. He doesn’t really realize his mistake, doesn’t see that avoiding ignoring me as a way to show his unhappiness with long distance instead of talking out with me when i constantly called him like a lunac was heartbreaking.
3. However, what he says about long distance seems logical to me. It is true that our relationship has gone for a long period without much meeting, maybe once a year or twice, mainly on an emotional level, it is also true that many times when we’ve planned meeting, it hasn’t worked out from my side due to various work/family reasons, though I’ve tried my best every time. It is possible that he must be frustrated with the long distance.

What do you think, Anita? Does what he say seem logical or am I again getting emotionally blinded? Also, in case it does, should I agree to meet him if he takes the initiative to come here again?

– Regarding Childhood scoldings, it was mainly on lines of getting scolded for keeping my room as a mess, or not studying on time, or arguing with my mother when I should have maybe just listened. Just those. And my parents reconciled really quick. Sometimes when they used to be too harsh, they used to get me chocolates later on.

Hi Guys,

So it’s been nearly 3 more weeks. This is may be the 6th or 7th time in the last one week that I’ve tried to post here but lost the strength to go on with it every time.
On the outside, things are still okay. After the office incident and return to his narcissistic behavior for a while, he maybe understood certain things and is apologetic again. However, he has stopped reaching out to me. He doesn’t call or text. I’ve been not very proud of my conduct off-late as in the last 3 weeks, I’ve called him a few times and texted showing my exasperation at his giving up on me so soon. When I text or call, he’ll show that he wants me back and is apologetic, he’ll may be call me back once after I myself call him but then again silence. So basically he’s stopped reaching out to me on his own. When I reach out, he’ll show that he’s sorry, he’ll sound really disturbed and say that he wants me but doesn’t call/text me on his own.  I’m not able to understand his behavior. I think my failure to keep no contact is due to the fact that now i can see that he’s stopped contacting on his own and I’m literally on the brink of losing even his calls and texts. What is his behavior even implying? Anyhow, this morning, I’ve promised myself that I will not contact him at all now and I hope I can pull this through.

Coming to the internal part, I think I’m literally sinking. Everyday is a task, a challenge. It seems as if all life has been sucked out of my body. The initial crying period was better, now I’ve crossed that and gone to the numb phase. I don’t cry anymore, it’s been a week or so since I really cried. I’ve literally sat and tried crying to feel better but it’s like my heart filling up with water and becoming heavier but I can’t cry. I’ll stay awake all night. I can feel my heart beating so loudly all day. Its like something’s stuck in my throat all day. I think about him all day. Initially television, work were good distractions but now I sit with my laptop on, thinking about him. My body feels uneasy all day. I’ve lost the motivation to do anything. It’s a struggle to talk to people now. i don’t want to talk to anyone, i feel drained, i was not able to post only because i feel too drained to even write something and nothing i write seems enough to actually express what i feel everyday. i cannot even share with anyone, not because i don’t have anyone, i have family, i have supportive parents, i have friends and i was a very talkative person, i shared stuff but now I feel as if its all redundant, nothing will come of it, nobody also seems to really grasp what i’m feeling, i also no more like people saying anything to me, i’ve become very irritable. I behave with people as if everything’s alright and I’m surprised at my ability to do so, I’ve changed at lot, earlier i was so transparent that a fight with him would be imprinted all across my face and everyone could tell I’m in a bad mood but now i laugh and talk to people and they buy all of it when I know I’m crying on the inside. I feel like somebody’s pierced a dagger into me and left it inside and now I’ve to live life with that dagger inside me all my life without letting anyone know. I tried talking to a therapist but stopped going eventually as they say what I already know. everybody says the right things i know the right things but what do i do if I feel like shit still.

I’ve lost the ability to be happy with abandon, happy with every bone in my body smiling. I got promoted recently, my friends thre me a party. But i wanst happy, i wasnt happy, i kept going to the washroom and sad on the pot blank, just sat there for a while and came out and again laughed and partied with everyone. all that night i sat with my phone wanting to call him, just hoping he’ll call and i’ll have the chance to just heear his voice. I ve forgotten how to be happy, i used to be a very bubbly person, i don’t know what happiness feel slike anymore.

when I think he’ll move on and maybe already has some woman or must be checking out women now or must be with someone or must be liking someone, i feel like somebody’s killing me, i feel like running to an island. I want to run away from everything, i want to erase my memory or i just want him the way he was in the initial year. New years round the corner, his birthday is round the corner, what am i going to do, he always called me first thing on new years, 12 sharp and i used to geta  call from him whether he’s with frieds or family, he used to call me before his parents, how will i live through new years with my phone off and his birthday without wishing him, i cannot wish him like an ex, i will not wish him, I’m so sorry guys, this just seems like an emotional rant. but i really don’t know. sometimes i feel like slapping him, slapping him constanlty until all my pain gets vented out.

I cannot run away too, i can’t go to an island as i have a job that has recntly promoted me and i cant ask for a leave for a few months, its the only thing that;s going in my life, i worked really hard for it and if i sabotage this too, I’ll actually have nothing left so i cant runa way, I don’t know. I keep telling myself all that you people said, i tell myslef that i’m just stuck with him, i tell myself that he’s narcissistic, that I’m better without it, that i have to respect myself, i tell myself how he behaved with me, i tell myslef that if a man can give iup on me so soon he never loved me but i don’t know i just don’t know, nothing seems to change the gut-wrenching pain i feel.

It’s like I’m just passing through life. I keep telling myself that I’ve to do amazing at work, i have to become the best version of myself, not for him or to prove anything but for myself and in the rpocess, he may regret huyrting me when he sees me successful but I don’t know where do i get the motivation for that. I feel dead from the inside. I don’t know.  sometimes i’ll listen to some badass song and feel good for half an hour but i’ll be again in the pit then. the only time i genuinely feel happy is when i imagine that even months later he will not move on, we will meet then and he will maybe change in all these months and love me again, but the massive uncertainty of it again makes me sad. I tell myself that it’s not about him, about me, i broke up, he treated me badly, now i need to move on but i don’t know. i feel drained. Any help will be very good. Also, I’m sorry for the constant typing errors.

Thanks so much guys. I needed it now more than ever.

I’m now feeling a little happy that I respected my feelings over his. I just feel a little damage is done, I’m again checking my phone every 5 minutes and constantly thinking of it. Close friends justifying him only gets more frustrating. So internally and emotionally I feel I’ve been really pushed down, this wasn’t done, he cannot appear, disappear and re-appear on his whims. Though there’s one good thing that came out of it. I saw that for all his love gesture, he’s just the same, the moment I refused what he wanted, the name avoiding, not answering call and talking rudely began. I guess it is naive to think he’ll change. You guys were right, we cannot change anyone unless they themselves want to change for their sake. Another of my illusions cleared today.

No matter how emotionally damaged I feel in the coming days for I know I’m going to keep looking at my phone if he’s really gone but I’ll not let any of it show and will be radio silent on the outside. I wouldn’t let him gain control over me again, I’ll be in control of myself this time round.