Dear Beni,

so good to hear from you again!

It touches me that you’ve been suffering and are living trough fear for your health. I imagine you are feeling vulnerable and out of control while needing resources and confidence to handle the situation.

Oh yes, I’ve been feeling very vulnerable, and since some of my conditions turned out to be chronic, I started feeling hopeless too. I think these health issues triggered an old childhood trauma, and brought to surface some feelings and false beliefs that I didn’t even know I had. So it’s been tough, and I am still struggling.

But yes, I did learn a lot and managed to calm down some of my anxiety. I don’t feel so helpless any more. But it’s still a struggle because new health issues or injuries keep popping up, and it’s like I can’t get a break from it. So I am still in the midst of it, but with a little bit more positive attitude and more optimism. I hope it gets better soon…

I learned that I worry a lot and I learned to recognize it. When I do not worry there is capacity to feel the next step and I do not get more afraid and after that freeze.

Wow, I too learned that I worry too much about my health and that it’s actually health anxiety. I also learned that when I am anxious, the body can’t heal so well, and the pain is stronger too. When I can stop fearing and freaking out, the pain diminishes too. So that’s been super helpful.

For you, when you don’t worry, you are more in touch with your intuition, with your true self, and can make better decisions. Cool! I will try that too – to get in touch more with my true self even as a part of me is worrying about my health and wanting to believe it will never get better.

I then did Snowboard Teacher Training in December and it triggered me a lot. I can’t hide myself any longer and I showed myself which was scary and felt natural. I belief we need to live trough the emotions/trauma and set them free by handling the situation in a way which meets our needs.

Congratulations on becoming a Snowboard teacher! I am glad you decided not to hide any more, and that it felt natural to be authentic, even though it was scary.

I noticed that when I live trough something like abandonment, guilt or shame and I feel my needs I can always keep the heart open.

Oh wow, that’s a great observation! If we are in touch with our true needs, even as we are experiencing abandonment or being shamed, we can keep our heart open. We don’t need to go into a defense mode. It’s like if we are in touch with our true needs, we are also in touch with our true self. And our true self has open heart and has compassion, always. Wow, that’s profound. I need to contemplate some more on it, but I like it.

My body tells me what to do where to go and it’s something I trust in deeper every week. In some way it feels selfish which I think is a wrong view on it.

Actually if we are in tune with our body, we are also in tune with our true needs. And with our intuition. So it makes sense that you would listen to your body and try to sense how you feel about something, and then do what feels right. Yeah, it makes sense to me.

I am happy you are in touch with your needs and listening to your body and your intuition. I am sure if will lead to less freezing and a more authentic way of being. Happy to hear that, Beni!

Hi Beni,

I am sorry for never replying to this… I had health issues and a related health anxiety too, and it consumed me pretty much and it was hard to post anything constructive here…

How have you been doing?

I belief my heart can stay open to anyone and that boundries can be set with an open heart.

I think you are right. I am learning that at the moment. To not be angry at the person, to want all the best for them, and yet to set boundaries in order to protect myself from abuse. We can have compassion for the person, and yet, the person can be toxic and self-destructive (e.g. someone who is addicted is like that). And that’s why we need to set boundaries. But still, we don’t need to hate them when we set boundaries. We don’t need to close our hearts. So yeah, I agree with you.

At the same time, they might accuse us of being selfish for setting boundaries, they might guilt-trip us. In reality, we are not selfish, it’s just that we don’t want to be manipulated and taken advantage of. We do love them, but we don’t want to enable their addiction, for example.

We can have compassion both for ourselves and for them (for their true self, and their true needs). And from that place, we set boundaries. So yeah, I think it’s possible to keep an open heart and yet protect ourselves from abuse. Thank you for pointing that out…

I hope you are doing well, Beni. I’d love to hear from you, if you’re reading this…

Dear Seaturtle,

I’ve been following some of the conversation on this thread, and have read some of the accounts of N, not all of it.

You are now starting to question if you are a narcissist, and worrying about it, and my impression is that no, you are not. You said on page 2 “I feel that same impulse to let people know they have been heard, it also hurts me deeply when I am the cause of someone else being on the “unseen” end of an interaction with me“.

If you care about other people being seen and heard, and also if you care about how other people feel and if they were hurt by your words/actions, then you are definitely not a narcissist.

There is a good youtube video by a psychologist Kati Morton “Are you a narcissist? 8 common traits of narcissism“, answering this question. Towards the end of the video, she gives a list of questions to ask yourself to determine if you have narcissistic traits:

• Are you concerned about how others feel? Would it bother you if you knew that you upset someone?
• Are you quick to apologize when you’ve hurt someone else’s feelings?
• Does too much attention make you nervous and anxious?
• Do you often think that other people aren’t good enough to associate with you?
• Do you often struggle to apologize or think that every disagreement is someone else’s fault?
• Do you struggle to see things from someone else’s perspective?

From what I could gather, you did care about N’s feelings, but he didn’t care much about yours, e.g. when he would be regularly late for dates, or when he would spend hours in the evening talking to your common roommate, while you were waiting for him in bed. Just to mention a few examples.

You talked about being controlling, but it actually referred to not wanting to engage in some dangerous, adrenaline boosting activities. That’s not control – that’s self-protection. You had every right to refuse the things you were scared of doing.

N is an addict, unfortunately, who is numbing his feelings by smoking weed. That’s probably why nothing seems to bother him (his Teflon approach to problems). However, this also means he isn’t sensitive to either his own pain, neither your pain and your legitimate needs (e.g. to not be late, not disregard you when you are waiting for him, etc).

It seems he was blaming you for having those legitimate needs, telling you are too demanding, or too sensitive. In the meanwhile, he was numbing himself and making himself artificially insensitive.

That’s why I believe it’s a good idea you left him, and that you don’t try to go back and “save” him and make him more sensitive, specially until he is addicted. He might have many good qualities, but his emotional numbness and the pain he is causing you with it isn’t something you should live with.

Dear Peace,

congratulations on getting married in your homeland too! And having a big wedding that you enjoyed, despite your family not being super happy about it.

What is more important, I am so glad you feel free from your family’s expectations and guilt-tripping, free to enjoy your marriage and your own choices. I am super happy about you and how much you’ve grown and blossomed in these last few years!!

My health is so-so, still suffering from health anxiety. And it is not helping that I have various health issues (smaller but not insignificant) popping up rather frequently… which kind of gives me the reason to worry. So it’s hard to break free from the cycle of worrying… Anyway, I am working on it, hopefully will see some results soon.

During my childhood, my mom was always nice,kinf,loving but not expressive. She never said no to anything I asked, and she never scolded me. She was really kind. But what was missing for me was the feeling of being taken care of. I wished my parents would be more concerned about me, wondering where I was if I disappeared for a bit. Unlike other kids’ parents, mine didn’t ask about my day. It felt like I wasn’t really looked after or belonged to anyone, and that made me feel lonely and i used to look for attention and love from others .

It’s nice that your mother was kind and never scolded you. And that she was physically tender with you and never rejected you when you wanted her comfort and soothing (I remember her arms, the hands that fed me, and her lap, where I would rest my head even though I was getting older). That’s very healthy.

Perhaps what was missing was her showing more interest in you, like asking you how your day was, and also perhaps noticing that you feel sad about something and asking you about it? Maybe she failed to protect you if your siblings (or relatives) were cruel with you? (she couldn’t understand that I needed protection and emotional support.)

If so, it would be a type of emotional neglect (failing to protect you, or failing to notice your mood and comfort you). And as you say, this was inherent in the traditional upbringing: Our family followed the older tradition where having a family and kids was normal, and they didn’t think much beyond basic needs like food, clothes, and getting married. It was usual in our culture for older siblings to take care of the younger ones.

If older siblings were supposed to take care of the younger ones, they of course couldn’t take care of their emotional needs, but of their physical safety at most. Which is not enough, because we need emotional safety and attunement even more than food and clothing. So… if you had no one to take care of your emotional needs, no wonder you felt lonely and unwanted, and looked elsewhere to meet that need (It felt like I wasn’t really looked after or belonged to anyone, and that made me feel lonely and i used to look for attention and love from others.).

It’s not your mom’s fault – it’s just how she was raised and what she knew. But she also gave you a lot of physical touch and cuddling, which is super important, and she was also never abusive (she never criticized you, yelled at you, shamed you, or emotionally manipulated you). This all means that you did get a lot of her love, only it wasn’t complete. As you yourself said, emotional protection and support was missing… but now you are getting it from your husband, and are also giving it to yourself. Which is why you’ve had a major healing!

And I am super happy for all the healing and growth you’ve experienced, and all the positive vibes coming from you! Congratulations, Peace!

Hi SereneWolf,

You have like your own little farm that you grow crops in? what plants are there?

No, I live in an apartment building. I meant that in general: that rain is good for the crops out there in the fields 🙂

And you’re indeed much stronger than you think! No matter what your anxiety says to you.

Yeah, I guess so. It’s my learned helplessness that was telling me differently. That’s what I’ve realized recently: that I adopted learned helplessness in many areas of my life (due to my childhood and upbringing), and it’s been a slow process to “unlearn” it. The most recent but long-lasting example is my health problems, which triggered a lot of my childhood trauma.

And it actually occurred to me that you’re the opposite of me in that sense: whereas my “modus operandi” is learned helplessness (believing that I am weak, and relying too much on other people to help me/save me), yours seems to be excessive self-reliance, to the point to pushing other people away. In other words, I am too needy, while you seem to be not needing anyone, or rather, not wanting to need anyone.

Both of those are defense mechanisms to a similar type of childhood wounding, but they are on the opposite ends of the spectrum. You had a very criticizing father and a mother who didn’t protect you, whereas for me it was a very criticizing mother and a father who didn’t protect me. Your mother and my father were more interested in keeping the “peace” in the house, while less interested in their child’s well-being.

My father was more interested in appeasing my mother, than in protecting me. He would minimize and try to explain away my mother’s behavior. He was gaslighting both himself and me that what is happening is not a big deal. I believe your mother was the same?

Of course, when I was a child I didn’t know that my father’s silence meant that he isn’t able to confront my mother. Instead, I believed that I was the problem and that my mother is right. My father’s silence meant a confirmation that I was a faulty child, that something is wrong with me. So he was complicit in my mother’s emotional abuse. He was a silent bystander, even though he never personally treated me badly.

Anyway, I believe we got a double whammy of one abusive parent and the other silent/complicit. And it ruined our self-esteem, because the complicit parent didn’t protect us from the abusive one, and so the only message we’ve received was that we are bad and faulty. At least that’s the message I’ve received.

You did say your mother was kind and caring in many instances, and so was my father (specially when it was just the two of us spending time together, going on holidays, hikes etc). But when it comes to confronting my mother about her behavior (both towards me and towards himself), my father was weak. And so her message (that I am not good enough) never got counter-balanced by something positive.

Maybe I am repeating myself because we’ve been talking about this before. But it is what I’ve been thinking recently – how our defense mechanisms are on the opposite sides of the spectrum. Me: too dependent and needy. You: too “independent” and not wanting to need anyone.

And it was not that hard for you to opt for total self-reliance – because you were quite capable and managed to get out unscathed from many tough situations/adventures, without needing your parents to save you. Which I guess strengthened the sense that you don’t need them and can manage on your own (in lot of situations I was alone and I saved my own self. There are some situations where people did helped me but still..)

So once you were old enough (around 16), you stopped relying on your parents for physical survival and sustenance, and you moved out. You didn’t need them for emotional sustenance either, because they’ve hurt you, each in their own way. The result is that you became totally self-reliant. (In comparison, I still felt like a child at 20, and couldn’t imagine to move out and live independently.)

It’s not a bad thing if we’re physically/financially self-reliant (that’s something we should actually strive for as adults – to be able to support ourselves). But your self-reliance stretches into the emotional realm too (But basically for relationship you’re right I’ve been hurt and I was alone so I thought just myself is enough). And this is giving you trouble now…

So what you mean is a process of trusting first and even for me in relationship trust comes first and after that, love.

Well, trust has to be built. I was talking about the person having a track record of being trustworthy, e.g. of showing up when they’ve promised, of not laughing at you when you show vulnerability, of supporting you when something bad happens (e.g. when your cat died). After a while, you realize you can trust them that they won’t hurt you or betray you.

Maybe somewhere I still believe in fast love yet still have that feeling of security which isn’t right. My controlling behavior haha

Fast love can be infatuation – it’s when we have our rose-colored glasses on and idealize the person and fail to see the warning signs. But for you, I guess you’re afraid to fall in love – you are afraid to form an attachment to the person – because you are afraid they’d hurt you. I think that whenever we get attached to someone, we need something from them, and them disappearing from our lives would hurt us. So that’s a risk that you are not willing to take yet.

I think that’s why you don’t feel “fast love” – because you’re preventing yourself from falling in love, i.e. to form that attachment.

And slow love, like getting to know the person, building trust and love based on that. It seems long process but there is actually much higher probability.

Yes, and you’re actually getting to know her, and based on what you said, she seems trustworthy. But your fear doesn’t let you start trusting her. It doesn’t let you fall in love with her either.

But because I was already in many unhealthy relationship dynamics even that seems questionable and time wasting to me. So in a way I’m craving a heathy love yet still exhausted to actually put in efforts for healthy love. Me, I’m the problem it’s me

Yes, it is 🙂 You’re seeing it clearly. Which is a good place to start healing 🙂

I’ve got some ideas why you have so much mistrust, and I think it’s related to your mother not really supporting you, but making allegiance with your father (excusing his abusive behavior, and telling you to be the mature one and tolerate abuse). So it was a kind of betrayal.

How do you feel about all this? We can explore it some more, if you feel like it…

Dear Dafne,

you are very welcome!

I am fine more or less, having some issues but keeping my health anxiety at bay, which is a new experience for me. I am learning new things about the nervous system and how we can “rewire” it, so we can be less anxious.

You helped me to see the things for what they are and not for what I wish them to be. I am much better now knowing that my feelings were ,real’, that I am not overreacting and that there is someone out there who understands my pain.

I am happy you’re feeling better now and more understood. And yes, you were not overreacting – your father did cause you a lot of pain and then denied it, putting all the blame on you. As children, we always take that blame, we always believe there’s something wrong with us when the parent abuses or neglects us. And we carry that blame into our adulthood too.

We carry not only the blame, but also the belief that we are not good enough. This false belief almost becomes our “curse” because it directs everything we do, as well as the way we see ourselves and other people. And we might not even be aware of it.

I’m also glad that you could find ways to nurture your inner child and feel loved again

Yes, that was the turning point in my healing – when I’ve come across the concept of the inner child. Because until then, I was making some progress, but I could never stop blaming myself, I could never find enough compassion for myself – until I realized that I was an innocent, precious child who was not given the love and appreciation that every child needs and deserves. And that I was lacking because of that. That was the turning point, that’s when I could finally feel compassion for myself and start loving myself.

Your’re right about my father. I’ve lied to myself for so many years, explaining his bad behaviour and suffering in silence. I’ve shed too many tears…

Yeah, I can imagine. You were feeling unloved and uncared for, and you were excusing your father’s lack of love and care, and at least partially blaming yourself for it. I hope you can now see that it wasn’t your fault, and that you are lovable and worthy, even if your father didn’t show this to you.

I’m not gonna argue with him anymore or beg for his attention.

Good decision! Because his recent behavior shows that he refuses to take any responsibility for his actions and keeps blaming you. Wanting anything from him would be a recipe for continual pain and suffering…

I will try to live day by day. I only hope that those past experiences won’t mess up my relationships with others.

I hope you can find the way to heal those childhood wounds. If you can’t afford a therapist who works with the inner child, perhaps you could check out some online materials and try to do self-healing?

To answer your question Tee, I’m not sure what triggered my response with that last man. Maybe I was scared of him leaving me sooner or later? Or maybe I felt embarrassed that the stepfather can be more loving than my own father?

It could be either. If we feel not good enough, we then fear that people won’t like us and that they will leave us (like your father left you when you were a child). And so we try to prevent that hurt by leaving them before they can leave us.

Or the other option you’ve mentioned: you might have felt the pain of your father’s lack of love and care for you, compared to this man’s care for his stepson. So both can be true, Dafne. It could be that talking to this man triggered your own wounds, and it was overwhelming.

I did send him a message, he replied but still no 2 date in sight. He might enjoy his fun, bachelor life now and I might be too serious for him.

He might have felt a certain neediness in you, a certain heaviness, because when our wounds are not healed, we are very needy. Indeed, we are like little children, needing to be the center of our parent’s (now partner’s) world. So if you expected him to have you as the center of his world, and not to have any other interests and not to care for anyone else (including his stepson), that could have felt heavy for him.

You mentioned in your other post that your husband is your best friend and helped you in that hard time. I find it amazing. Depression or anxiety should never be a reason for him/her to neglect or quit the relationship.

Yeah, my husband has been a great support to me, not just now, when I am struggling with all these health challenges, but in the past too. In the beginning of our relationship he was a bit of a care-taker for me, like a good parent figure, and I was quite needy. But then we had some challenges, and it was a wake-up call for me to start working on myself and healing my issues, because otherwise I would have lost him.

Tee, if you do not mind asking me, where did you guys meet? Are you both from the same country?

We met many years ago at a business conference. We’re not from the same country but were living in neighboring countries, and so it was a 5-yr long long-distance relationship before I finally moved to his country.

Life is so unpredictable…we never know what’s around the corner.

Yes it is. In fact, I never wanted to go to this conference, because it was at an inconvenient time for me, but that’s where I met my husband. So it was the best thing ever 🙂

Let’s pray for our healing and to feel at ease once again

Yes, I hope that both of us will feel more at peace in our lives. I hope you can find some peace now, after you’ve realized some things about your father and accepted that it wasn’t your fault. I hope you can start loving yourself more, bit by bit <3

Hi Gavin,

you’re welcome. I am sorry you’re going around in circles and that you feel you’re out of time (years which I don’t really have anymore) and that you blew it, for good. I know that in your current state of mind, it’s hard to be open to a different perspective.

But I’m still going to tell you that at 51 you’re definitely not out of time for happiness and a new beginning. You may be late for a reconciliation with her, but you’re not late to fix your own life and your own mind (I think I am a person who sometimes doesn’t know his own mind or what’s good for him), and to figure out what is good for you and what you really want in life.

The problem is that I cannot excuse myself and blaming my childhood seems like an excuse to me, or perhaps a way of passing the blame for my actions

Barbara Heffernan, a therapist and coach whom I highly respect, once said: “Healing is a fact-finding, not a fault-finding mission“. We need to know what caused our deficiencies, so we can heal, so we can make up for what is missing. The goal is not to blame your parents and make excuses for yourself, but to know what needs fixing.

We as children have some basic needs that need to be met in their proper time (like the need for safety, love, care, appreciation, validation). And if those are not met, some parts of our complex being remain not properly developed. Emotionally, we remain trapped in a child-like state of feeling selfish (every child is naturally selfish and self-centered), and unable to see the needs of others (I had no empathy in my soul during that insane period of time when I had ignored her). Children who were emotionally abused or neglected didn’t have a chance to learn empathy because they haven’t gotten any empathy themselves.

You hate yourself for being so “diabolically” selfish, and I trust that you might have been very selfish with her. But if you were never shown empathy as a child, how could you give it to her? We cannot give what we don’t first get and internalize. In short, we cannot give what we haven’t received…

I wonder if this speaks to you in any way? Have you felt a lack of empathy and understanding for yourself while growing up? I don’t want to pressure you into talking about it, but if you feel like exploring it some more, I’d be happy to.