Dear Katrine Nielsen,

you’re welcome and I am happy I could help you at least a little. Yes, being a good, loving parent to your inner child would be very important, and having love and compassion for yourself. This is what you need like the desert needs the rain, so try to give yourself as much as you can. Being loving and kind to yourself also includes setting boundaries and not feeling guilty about it, so yes, try to take care of yourself in that respect too.

I do wish you well on your healing journey. Take it easy, step by step, and please feel free to write whenever you need to. Do share with us how you’re doing and if there’s anything you might need help with. <3

Dear Maria,

welcome! You’re saying you’re leading a calm and happy life, and have a great job which doesn’t give you any stress. The first panic attack happened when you were resting with your husband.

You took up fitness and started eating healthy about 1.5 months ago. The only possible cause you can think of is the neck exercises a day earlier which were hard for you.

What comes to me is that perhaps the neck exercises, which were difficult for you, awakened a memory (perhaps not even a conscious one) of some difficulty and pain you’re suppressing. You otherwise live what seems to be a perfect life, and now, with fitness and healthy eating, you’re making it even more perfect. But what if there’s something underneath the surface that is calling for your attention?

I know this is a wild guess, but do you feel there might be something to it? Is there something you’d need to deal with, which you’re refusing to?

Dear Jess,

it sounds like you haven’t really felt appreciated in your own family, and felt better and more accepted by your friends.

In your family, there was one family member who’s always mocked you, and “there was not much support and positivity coming from this connection.” Your parents were “nice”, your father a bit disengaged, and it appears they were preoccupied with their jobs and your other siblings:

My parents have always been nice. My dad a little bit disengaged though. They have always provided support but not always the right support for ‘me’. They are their own people, they have their own lives, jobs, my other siblings to take care of.

They might have provided material support, but they didn’t provide adequate emotional support for you, weren’t there for you when you needed them. You got that support from your friends instead:

I remember feeling a little bit more emotionally interdependent from my parents and less family orientated than a lot of peers. for me family was always the people who treat your nicely and care and for me, and that was my friends.

Perhaps it wasn’t just your father that was disengaged, but your mother too (because she was too busy and preoccupied with care for your other siblings)?

Then, when you were 12, you went to an overseas trip, and when you returned, your friends weren’t exactly jumping up and down from joy that you’re back. They didn’t even ask you much about the trip. It appears as if their lives went on, regardless of whether you were there or not.

That’s when you felt a strong sense of rejection and the sense that “I don’t matter”, I suppose. Till then you felt you mattered at least to  your friends (you didn’t feel you mattered that much to your parents, did you?), but from that moment on, even that was shattered. You lost interest and became disengaged with school, and an “empty and grey feeling” overwhelmed you out of the blue.

That was the feeling of rejection by your parents that was always dormant, but was until then successfully held at bay by the interest provided by your peers. But when their interest seemed to have evaporated, the empty and grey feeling took over completely.

I think this is what happened, Jess. If you’d like to share some more about the ways you felt neglected and emotionally not supported in your family, please do. Healing that emotional neglect, I believe, will be key for healing your recurrent depression too.

Dear lk09,

good to hear from you! I am fine, thank you. I am glad you’re happy in your own company, dancing and making plans for writing again. It’s also great your old friends have reached out, making a note that you’ve been hiding in your shell before, but now you’re opening up…

I do wish you to “survive” the ceremony tomorrow… I guess your presence won’t be needed, since only the male members participate? I also understand you don’t like traditional weddings, with such expensive gifts and all the “pomp and circumstance”… I guess I’d be intimated as well…

So try to keep cool as much as you can, and please do take care, specially having in mind the surge of infections in India.. how’s your friend’s father, who was in hospital?

Dear Jess,

you say that at the age of 12, you “became really disinterested/disengaged with school. I guess I experienced a couple ‘rejections’”

I believe that those rejections by your peers might have contributed to an increased feeling of insecurity and lack of self-confidence. Until then, the feeling was dormant or not that strong, although present, because you were mocked and made fun of by some family members, and it probably didn’t start when you were 12, but earlier. Am I guessing this right?

Till the age of 12, perhaps your school friends provided a sort of a support system for you, and you didn’t feel bad about yourself (“I had a good group of friends“). But when some of those friends rejected you, you started feeling vulnerable and “lesser than”, and this started a downward spiral. Do you think this is what might have happened?

Dear miyoid,

it’s good to hear from you! I am sorry you’ve got some doubts again, but it’s also okay you’re probing further, trying to get to know yourself better and better…

I realized that all this stuff I thought I loved, I just love the outcome. For example, I thought I loved drawing, designing, handling business, communication, interpreting, video-editing, reading, languages. But I’ve realized, I don’t like the process of doing those, I just love when I create or accomplish something.

I am just doing what people want me to do, and I am in delusion about what I want.

I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that the only time your mother showed interest in you and gave you praise was when you made money from your designs, as a teenager? She was happy about the outcome – more money for both of you – but she wasn’t particularly encouraging or praising your talent as a designer. I don’t know if this is true, but it occurred to me as a possibility.

Do you remember how your mother reacted when you were little and e.g. made a drawing and showed it to her? Or any similar little accomplishment – was she there to affirm it and be happy about it and praise you for it, or she didn’t really appreciate it much?

I guess your father wasn’t excited about your accomplishments either, because he was rather self-centered, if I understood well?

About your boyfriend, well, try not to get attached to him and expect things that you know he cannot give you. Even now, he disappeared and didn’t reply to your message for half a day. His behavior hasn’t really changed, so if you can’t break up with him, the best strategy is not to expect anything and to be prepared to stop contact whenever he behaves in ways that are hurtful or neglectful. It’s great – and super important – that he doesn’t live with you any more, so whenever you don’t like something, you can retreat to the safety of your own home.

Dear Ashmitha,

you’re very welcome. Regarding your parents, it appears they found an arrangement which suits them both – living apart, with weekend visits by your father. When he visits during the weekend, how’s the atmosphere? Is there still tension? Is he still drinking too much?

Regarding your boyfriend, you say:

Yes I do notice that when family is stressing me out, I feel an urge contact my partner and just talk to them.

Do you feel you can share whatever bothers you and he’d be understanding and supportive? Does he share when there are issues in his family, and he just wants to talk about it or ask for your opinion?

About your previous relationships, you said:

Even when I have known I was unhappy in a relationship and I bring that up to them, once they agree to or suggest a breakup, I feel very anxious and don’t want them to leave. Yet, I will go into it thinking I do want to leave.

How does it happen? You’re unhappy in a relationship, you bring it up with your boyfriend, and then it’s them who usually suggest a breakup and you agree, even though a part of you feels anxious about it?

You also said earlier that you leave easily, without really trying to fix the relationship:

I have always wondered why my friends have been in 4 year relationships, and despite having problems, will always want to get back together, whereas I am fine with leaving a relationship if something isn’t working.

I guess there’s a part which wants to stay – the part that wants security and fears being alone. And that’s the fragile, scared inner child, which you suppressed because you needed to be the hero for your mother. That little girl needs a protector in her life, that’s why she can’t stay alone for long. She’s also the one who feels anxious that the relationship would end.

But there’s also another part of you, who’s afraid of staying in a relationship which has problems, because you know where those problems might lead (your father threatening your mother with a knife). This part is probably afraid of the slightest problem and wants out as soon as something is off.

This seems to me like the dynamic behind your relationship behavior. In order to be able to talk about problems with your partner, you’d need to 1) stop being afraid that he’d leave you if you say something, and 2) stop believing that problems cannot be solved, and that the only solution is to leave.

Dear Katrine Nielsen,

I am sorry that your grandfather, whom you liked, passed away when you were still young. I am also sorry that you had to go through such a difficult childhood experience.

The first thing you can do is try to have compassion for your younger self, and tell yourself that it wasn’t your fault. And that you weren’t equipped – like no child is – to deal with such emotional burden that you were facing.

You were bullied, and your parents and teachers ignored it, and so you anxiety became even bigger, to the point of being afraid to ride on a bus. Your anxiety seems to be largely related to the fear of judgment and condemnation by others. And you did experience a lot of judgment and condemnation in your childhood, both from your peers who bullied you, and from your parents and teachers, who thought you shouldn’t be anxious, and should just “get over it”.

So I think it’d very helpful if you could have compassion and understanding for that little girl, who had no one to ease her anxiety – to hold her hand, take her into their lap and console her, to go to her school and talk to the teachers. There was no one who had compassion and understanding for you, and so the first step you can do is to have compassion and  understanding for yourself, Katrine.

I think it’d also be great if you could find a therapist who can be that positive, compassionate, comforting figure – someone to “hold you” emotionally and soothe your anxiety, and help you learn how to love yourself. Do you have in mind someone who could be this soothing mother figure (or even a grandfather figure) for you?

Also, try to understand that you have the right to be happy and lead a happy and fulfilling life, even if it might not be possible for your sister. You don’t have to suffer just because she suffers. You don’t have to feel guilty for having your own goals and dreams, for wanting to find happiness outside of your role of helper and care-taker to your sister (more precisely, the secondary helper, because the primary helper is your mother).

In that context, it was wonderful that you got the opportunity to spend some time and work in London for a while, and it shows you’re capable of that. But you’ll need to do some more healing and finding yourself, before you can embrace a new life script and new possibilities for yourself.