Dear anita,

today I did paint one page for project B. Even though it is not much, looking at the book with all the finished paintings makes me feel good and content with myself.

Also today I called somewhere to fix something that I had wanted to fix for a long time but did not know how to approach it. A fee I should have paid, but they forgot me and then I procrastinated on taking care of it. Or when I tried, they misunderstood me or I was unsure how to handle it. Hopefully, it can be finally resolved so that I will feel relieved and put this at rest.

About the internet: yes you are right. Better take smaller steps.  For the start, I should try no internet in the mornings, maybe until 10 am (like I wrote last week, but didn’t really stick to it).

I also agree about the weekly review. It can help me to set more specific goals for the week, instead of living from one day to the next one. Maybe I should refine this a little better though. I was not very specific on what I would like to achieve for projects A and B. For project B I should be able to finish about three pages. For project A I should at least add all of the text and images into the software for making a booklet. In the best case, I finish the layout ready for print (actually it should be doable).

So I tell myself right here that I have to work on project A tomorrow, no procrastination, even if it was just for a few minutes.

Other than that, I would like to stick to my routines the best that I can.

Hope you are having a good day! Until tomorrow!

Dear anita,

today I started working on my project at 9, then at noon, I started cleaning, and later I worked more on project A. It looks like it won’t take me that long anymore to finish it. It will be a relief. The topic of it was also quite dark and now I am feeling a bit… strange about it. It was the illustration of a gothic novel / short story. In the future, I want to start working on lighter topics!

I was quite productive today, but I skipped exercise or going for a walk. Maybe I should just do yoga first thing in the morning, even if it is just for 10 minutes.

The weekly review will be postponed until tomorrow, as it is getting late and I am feeling a bit tired. But I would like to stick to my routine as best as I can and work on my projects.

Until tomorrow.

Dear anita,

you are right, routines are helpful! So far, I haven’t got them down completely, but I am working on it.

Today I started working on editing my pictures at 9 and have finished most of them now. Only three are missing. In the afternoon I painted some more but was less focused. My head made up some weird theories and that took away some time. But now I am feeling calmer again.

Tomorrow a walk is desperately needed. I have skipped it for some days and now I notice it. Then I will work more on project A, hoping to complete editing my drawings. Some of them I am not so content with (others I am very content), but I will concentrate on finishing.

It is also my turn to clean the flat and I want to do a weekly review again.

Have a nice day and thank you for reading!

Dear anita,

today at work everything went o.K., no major problems. Only sometimes I am tense and I worry that I make others uncomfortable, that I make them feel like I judge them or something. But overall, it was fine.

After work, I managed to scan my drawings and started to edit them. I did so for about two hours. So I was very productive today and can be proud of myself.

Then I talked for a while to my new roommate and she is very likable. We could talk well and I feel good, like I am o.K., like I can get along with people. Only when I doubt myself things go wrong. How sad that I doubted myself so much that I ended up hiding in my room for months at the dormitories! That I thought all these bad things about myself and mistrusted myself so much! But I am starting to feel more like I am o.K.

“Back to the woman on the street alone, with this man approaching her with a knife: her job is to escape injury and death, not to provide the man with psychotherapy or to prosecute or to defend him in a court of law.”

Yes, this is exactly correct. This is what I want to do in the future. Just distance myself when things get out of control or when I feel the problem is not solvable. After a long long time, I finally understand. And I also want to finally let go of my past relationships, instead of overanalyzing and obsessing. I realize that I made things worse with this. Sadly I did not get it earlier.

Dear anita,

thank you for all your efforts! I know that you really give your all to help people! I have read your post from Monday again and am thinking about it. You are right that my inner critic resembles a lot of how I was treated in my past. I have to think more about it.

About black and white thinking: you are right, sometimes it is better to see things in black and white terms. It surely would have saved me from a lot of trouble, if I had not desperately tried to understand others instead of setting clear boundaries. The constant doubt makes me more confused and weakens me. I am trying to stop overanalyzing and accepting things as they are.

Dear anita,

you are right, you did specify that in some contexts he was a good person and as a parent, he was a bad person. I am just worried that I will fall into thinking in black and white terms again, which I would like to overcome. The words “good person” / “bad person” worry me somehow (I realize that I used them myself). It is too much of a dichotomy and it worries me.

I am trying to learn to see the world in more complex terms, trying to be more open and compassionate. Maybe I just worry that I will also be put in the category of “bad person”… So these words scare me.

It worries me to talk about the past, to talk badly about others. Once my old therapist asked me: “are you trying to be a saint”? Maybe I should accept the negative sides of myself, my flaws, my weaknesses. And then the shame will stop. Or become a healthy shame. Feeling shameful for behaving badly, but also forgiving myself for my mistakes and then move on. I don’t want to carry it around and then give it to others.

You are right that the shame started in my childhood. I remember feeling that I would never amount to anything in life. That no man could ever love me or like me. That must have come from somewhere. And I remember some of the words my father used, how he looked at me with a hard face and sometimes hit me. That there was very little understanding for me. And it is sad.

I understand and accept that you no longer want to talk about my childhood. You of course also don’t have to address anything about my parents that I wrote above. But it helped me to write it out for myself, to understand better. I am watching videos about toxic shame at the moment and it helps to understand. I think it is the root of my problems. The shame, the feeling of being nothing, worthless. The feeling of being bad. These problems are deeply rooted in me and I need a lot of time to understand.

Thank you that you went through my threads again yesterday and put together your post. It must have taken a long time!

Dear anita,

thank you for your long reply.

You are right, that a lot of the shameful and self-hating feelings come from my childhood. My parent’s behaviour did have a negative impact on me. I wish that they would have sat down with me to explain my mistakes, instead of making me feel inadequate. I wish that they would have told me quietly what about my behaviour was wrong, but that they still had shown me that I am a worthy person. I am afraid that they were not capable of doing this, they had their own problems.

My parents however are not bad people. A lot of the quotes were from 2018 / 2019 when my therapy had just started. A lot of the old wounds were opened and I remember feeling agitated towards them. Some of the words I wrote back then seem harsh to me today. Now I can have more compassion for them. Our relationship has improved since my childhood. They no longer are that mean and critical towards me and have more patience for me now. We don’t have that close relationship like other families, but I kind of like my parents.

My father can be difficult. But he is a good person, who is living with a harsh inner critic like me. I know that his words have impacted me and hurt me deeply. I realize that. I wish that we could have had a different relationship, but he was not capable of that. When he said to me “you are a disgusting person who hates herself”, I believe he was talking to himself. I know how he must feel and he has nobody to talk to about this.

I feel sorry for him because he is very lonely. We almost never talk about personal things. Often we talk about politics (of which I have no clue), sometimes he talks and talks about a technical subject I do not understand. Then I sometimes lose patience with him and my mind begins to wander… It must be difficult for him too. I don’t think he can behave differently. I think he tried his best in life. His sermons are trying to give people hope. He has this strange sense of humour that nobody understands, but it makes him likeable. He tries to do a good job. He supports his family in the best way he knows. I like that he stands up for his beliefs.

No longer do I want to see the world in a black and white way. My parents had this very black and white way of thinking, and I do not want to continue with it. I would like to become a person who accepts people as they are. This is the person I want to become and I am not there yet.

Of course, if people overstep your boundaries, you have to stop them. You have to tell them that what they are doing is not o.K. and distance yourself or even cut contact if they don’t change. That’s how I would like to operate in the future.

When it comes to my inner critic, you are right that it can become insane. I want to self-reflect, without beating myself up. So I want to acknowledge the truth that I have made a lot of mistakes, but it does still not mean that I am a bad person. I know I had good intentions! I know I tried. But I was also deeply insecure, yet I just wanted to find somebody to love and be loved.

My worry to hurt my ex was indeed insane and blown out of proportion. I drove myself crazy with this worry (and probably stressed him too 🙁 ). I could not make it right! The things that I told myself that I am toxic and such were not helpful at all. The worst is that I mistrust myself so much that I even suggest to myself I had bad intentions when there were none. Then I also did not trust him and made assumptions about him. I was looking for the guilty one, but in reality, we just did not match, we did not understand each other and the circumstances were difficult.

I agree wholeheartedly with point Nr. 3: I need to expel this old unforgiving inner critic: I have to forgive myself for making mistakes. It is normal to make mistakes. The important thing is to learn from them. Also, bad behavior is not the same as a bad person. There is a difference and I need to stop seeing things so black and white! I have to cut myself some slack: I am only human.

About the craftsman: I was not worried that I would hurt him, or that he would hurt me. I just felt embarrassed about the cookbook, about the recipe? I was wondering why do I feel embarrassed over a cookbook?? What is there to be embarrassed about? Why did I have to hide the cookbook?? There was nothing bad or weird about it. It was a cookbook. I would like to be a person who does not feel ashamed of who she is. I would like to be just me, unapologetically me. Even if others find the things I like odd, don’t like me, or judge me. And I think if I will be more confident in myself, there will be more people that will accept me. But first I have to accept myself.

Hopefully, I have addressed everything from your input. I think I will read again later when I feel more concentrated.