Dear Katrine,

Me and Tee have started going into my childhood and the patterns I have adapted, and it has been very helpful and I am applying that now.

I am glad that some of our discussion helped you. I did mention a few possible false core beliefs, and a possible pattern that you are repeating in your friendships. I’ve described it on page 9, last but one post. This is what I said:

In your childhood, you concluded that your parents don’t care about you, because of their failure to protect you. You also concluded that you’re not important, that you’re less worthy than others.

These became your core false beliefs: “I am not important”, “Nobody cares about me”, “I am unworthy”.

And now, you seem to be playing out this same narrative with these co-workers of yours. You are hoping that they’d care about you, but they don’t. They don’t care too much when they’re sober either, but they care even less when they’re drunk. And each time you interact with them, your childhood wound gets reopened. You feel again and again how worthless you are, and how nobody cares about you. Your false core belief is reaffirmed each time you interact with them and expect something from them.

You haven’t commented on this analysis/assumption of mine, so I don’t know whether it sounds true to you, or not so much? But you did say that you’re realizing that your friends “drink way too much and do stupid stuff”, and that you are disappointed with their behavior. And that for that reason, you’re trying to expand your circle of friends.

In my opinion, you’ve said enough about your childhood to get an idea of what happened and what you were missing the most: validation of your experiences, as well as soothing and protection that your parents failed to provide. I don’t think it would benefit you in any way to start assuming that your parents lied to you about your sister’s disease, e.g. when how long it took the doctors to diagnose her, etc.

What is important is your experience of how you felt. And you remember very well how you felt: you were pushed to disregard your fears and to “just get over it”. You were told to “just forget about it” when your grandmother accused you of being an animal abuser. You were forced to do a presentation at school when you had terrible anxiety about it. Those were all traumatic events that you remember well, and which (together with other similar events) have caused you C-PTSD.

So I would encourage you to keep working on the trauma you are aware of, and not on something you aren’t aware of and for which there is no evidence whatsoever.

Dear Katrine,

I haven’t asked if they have talked to him about me.

But have they promised that they would? I am asking because they told you “we have your back, we will help you out!“. Do you know if they have done anything to actually help you out?

The girl who added pressure kept asking me about him everyday, and saying things like if nothing happens on this first date you move on and forget about him. If it doesn’t happen now it never will you are too different. … she wrote me just before meeting him like tell me how it goes.

It seems that she was very curious about what happens between you two. Was she among those who told you they’ll help you?

My friends thinks he started be coming friends with my friends to come closer to me.

talking about it to my friends who knows him they were shocked that I didn’t pick up on the fact that he wanted me to eat at the restaurant with him.

When you say “my friends”, do you count in the inconsiderate female co-workers too (who used to dance around him when drunk)?

I have started swing other people at work outside of work to get a bigger friend circle that is better for me because I am extremely disappointed about their behaviour.

Good decision! I too think you should hang out less with these co-workers who party and drink a lot, plus, they don’t seem like good friends at all.

Dear thosedays,

This is very true. I am planning to have a self assessment with a experienced clinical psychologist to dive into my inner child and see what is missing.

That’s a very good decision! Digging deeper into your childhood issues, unmet needs etc… will definitely help you move forward!

You seem to have a very good in dept level of understanding one’s cognition. We can have some private conversation if you dont mind, perhaps shed some light on my situation.

Thank you, thosedays, but there is no possibility to send private messages on this forum… I understand if you don’t feel comfortable sharing more in this space. If you still change your mind, I am here 🙂

I can’t really tell but i believe she will be supportive.

Great! Sounds very promising that your girlfriend is supportive and open to your self-exploration. If she’s not afraid to see you change and be more true to yourself – I think it’s a very good sign for the prospect of your relationship too.

Dear thesedays,

it seems you feel that you should make your decision now, immediately, whether to break up with her, or stay:

For those years of trying, I know the time has come. … I wanna be firm on my position right now and decide which path I should go.

What causes that urgency? Is she expecting you to commit? Or your environment is (e.g. family’s expectations to get married, things like that)?

I would like to ask (you don’t need to answer if you don’t feel comfortable talking about it): what do you feel is missing from your current relationship? You said your relationship is “peaceful”. But there is something missing… Do you know what it is?

Dear Katrine,

Yes they were all we have your back, we will help you out!

Have you actually asked them if they have spoken to him about you, and what did he say?

You said one of your work colleagues, who is currently working in another country till December, had been putting pressure on your before the yoga date. What kind of pressure was she putting? Was she encouraging you to talk to him? Did she promise she’d talk to him, but she never did?

A couple of weeks ago, that same girl invited everyone to join her for drinks after work, but she didn’t invite you. And you felt excluded and rejected:

one of the girls (the one adding pressure on me before the date) asking people to join her after work for drinks (last friday and today) but didn’t included me. Do now i feel both heartbroken and like i am slowly being cut off for some reason.

Another problem is that when your female colleagues get drunk, they “start touching him and dancing around him, and talking about him and his birthday party in a place where I can hear them when they know how I feel“.

I am sensing some insincerity on their part, specially from the colleague who is now in another country. If she promised to help you, or was encouraging you to approach him, and then a few days later didn’t invite you to go to drinks with the rest of the group – that’s insincere.

Another problem is their partying habits: it seems these girls regularly get drunk, perhaps not to the point of oblivion, but definitely to the point of not having too many inhibitions. And then they do and say things they wouldn’t when they are sober. You being there in their vicinity only hurts you.

I think you should rethink hanging out with these people (or confiding in them either). First, because they might be insincere. And second, because they make a mess of themselves when they drink, and you don’t really need to witness that…

Dear thosedays,

you’re very welcome.

Should I give up searching and remains where I am now?

Well, I think you should first heal the emotional wounds that caused you “severe heartbreak” and “emotional breakdown” after your first girlfriend broke up with you. (I assume she broke up with you, right? Because you were the one who suffered immensely afterwards…)

When we have such a strong reaction, being debilitated by pain (I can’t describe the pain just that I was very vulnerable that time, anything bad happen will trigger my emotional breakdown), it means that your feeling of self-love was very weak or non-existent. And when your girlfriend broke up with you, you probably felt not just unloved but also unlovable.

Your girlfriend was maybe meeting some of your emotional needs, and when she left you, you might have suddenly felt like a child all alone in the world, with no one to give him what he needs, no one to take care of him. Does any of this ring true?

You said that after the breakup, you had no one to talk to. Which means that you don’t have a strong support system, consisting of family and friends, and you probably very much depended on your girlfriend to give you what you need. Without her, you might have felt lost.

If any of this rings true, I think your priority should be to heal those emotional wounds, i.e. meet those unmet childhood needs, before you start looking for another partner, or commit to your current girlfriend. I would start working on myself before changing anything in my current relationship.

You’re welcome, i-am-one! 🙂

Dear Katrine,

My parents did treat me different than my sister, they didn’t have the resources to deal with two sick children and so I had to fight my own battles.

Whenever my sister or family member would hurt me they didn’t really want to deal with it, so they always told me to forget about it. Like when I was ten I got a pet bird and when I told my grandmother she called me an animals abuser. I went home crying but was told to not think about it. That makes you feel worthless. Like it’s okay for other people to hurt you, you are not worth protecting.

I understand. I mean, even if your sister’s symptoms were “bigger” and more severe, and the care of your sister took a lot of their time and energy, it was wrong of your parents to not react in situations like with the pet bird. Because your grandmother behaved horribly, accusing you of being an animal abuser (!), and your parents should have called her out on that. They should have not only spoken with her, but they should have also told you that it wasn’t right from the granny to tell you this, and they should have reassured you that you’re not an animal abuser, and that owning a pet bird doesn’t mean animal abuse.

So they should have reacted because it was clearly child abuse at the hands of your grandmother. It was really mean and harmful to tell such a thing to a child!

I understand how unworthy you must have felt – because as you said, it’s like “we don’t care about you, we don’t care how horribly someone treats you. You’re not important.” The message you got is that you’re not important, and that’s probably one of the key core beliefs that you developed about yourself.

Your parents’ failure to protect you from verbal and emotional abuse by others left you vulnerable and helpless around people, which probably added to your anxiety. Maybe that’s why you were so afraid to ride on a bus, for example. So it could be that their negligence directly contributed to your anxiety. In addition to that is the message “you are not worthy”, or “you are less worthy than others”, which is the conclusion you draw based on their negligence.

Of course, it’s a false conclusion, because you are as worthy as anybody else… I hope you can see it and accept it, slowly but surely.

I am glad this past week was relatively good for you, that you got more sleep and weren’t in pain. And also that you felt more relaxed when going out with your friends from work.