Dear Paradoxy,

I asked B recently why she did what she did and she told me that when we broke up, she was heart broken and felt abandoned and in that moment, she felt that the only person who cared for her was her aunt. So she decided to just do what her aunt told her to do, because she was under the impression that only her aunt cared for her. So heart break just became a catalyst for what happened, and her aunt was waiting for the opportunity like a predator waiting to pounce on their prey and B fell right into her trap.

This idea that she was a puppet of her aunt’s is a false one, because she already rejected her aunt’s wishes in the past. Her aunt told her to stop seeing Al, and she didn’t obey, which lead to her stopping contact with her aunt for an entire year:

She told B to leave Al because she knew Al was not a good man but B, on her own accord, rejected her aunt and decided to stay with him. After which, she stopped talking to aunt 1 for a year.

She could have similarly rejected her aunt’s wishes in the prostitution case too. But she didn’t. And eventually she even developed feelings for the guy.

So can you really be mad at a 5 year old?

You should certainly not date a 5-year old…

And I don’t see her craving men’s attention, she just naturally gets the attention cause that is how physically attractive she is, so I don’t see any craving

She gets the attention, but she also returns the attention, e.g. she started sexting with the classmate of yours who was hitting on her, right after you broke up. She went to the resort to meet her guy friend, right after another breakup of yours. She went to a concert, where the music artist started hitting on her – which means that she made herself quite visible, so the music artist would single her out from the crowd. This all seems like someone who is very much craving and seeking male attention, not only passively receiving it.

She is fine with staying at home minding her own business if that is all she had to do.

Is she really? Because after your most recent breakup, she didn’t stay at home, but immediately went to party with her girlfriends, and then she went to a resort to be with her guy friend, and then she went to the beach:

her going to a concert with her girlfriends right after the break up to party (which she knows I am not a fan of cause she gets hit on by men a lot, which is exactly what happened at the concert by a music artist), her going to a resort several hours away to be with her guy friend, hugging her guy friend and his friend too close, her wearing a bikini/revealing outfit (while with her guy friend) and posting it despite knowing that I hated it, going to the beach in another revealing outfit,

But she did say that all her dress ups were for herself  (including the bikini outfit), which I think is bs cause no woman dresses up in a fancy outfit just for themselves.

If it were for herself, she wouldn’t have put it on social media.

And another excuse she had for the bikini incident is that she was in her bikini early morning when everyone was asleep, which is so stupid cause she is literally at a resort, she cannot possibly assume that everyone would be asleep.

Paradoxy, you are forgetting that she went to the resort with the goal to meet her guy friend. She didn’t go there to have a swim early in the morning while no one is around. She went to meet him. And she did. And they took a photo. And she posted it on social media. Her true intentions are very clear and transparent, but she is trying to muddle the waters with her ridiculous excuses. She is trying to make a fool of you, Paradoxy.

She also said that she said all those things about me ruining her life and etc cause she misunderstood and she was just angry and she asked me to forgive her for what she said in anger, so should I?

Please look up the term “the abuse cycle”: it is when the abuser is trying to convince their victim to stay in the relationship, by promising they would change and claiming they didn’t mean what they said, and that they are sorry. The victim agrees and the relationship gets better for a short while, but then the abuse starts again. The abuser never really changes. All those are empty promises.

You said she never listens to you:

Its like her brain resets every 5 minutes and everything I tell her just goes over the head. You can literally feel the words going in one ear and her processing it for a second and then leaving the other ear.

You have been trying to explain to her why her behavior is hurting you, why it is wrong, but she doesn’t even want to hear it. To me this is a sign that she doesn’t want to change. She isn’t interested in hearing how she is hurting you. She is only interested in continuing the status quo.

she admits her mistake one moment, and then blames me again, then goes back to apologizing apologizing and blaming me. I think she just wants me to be blamed for my role in causing her mistake, even if she takes responsibility for actually doing the mistake. So she takes responsibility over her actions AND blames me for causing her to do these actions.

No, she doesn’t take responsibility for her actions. She is blaming you. She only admits that she did the deed (e.g. sleep with someone for money). But she is blaming you for it.

But that doesn’t change the fact that her behavior and her lying is 1000x worse than my one lie.

Yes, and your lie wasn’t a lie really. It was a promise to her not to tell the truth to anybody, even to your close friend. So she actually asked you to lie. And you didn’t oblige.

So the technicality of the issue makes me look like I betrayed her and lied to her.

Don’t get caught up on technicalities. Look at the bigger picture. As you yourself said, she is treating you 1000 times worse than you treat her. She is pointing out at the speck in your eye (your inability to hide the truth from your close friend, or you getting angry and calling her names), whereas she refuses to see a massive log in her own eye.

But like I said, she claims to have said what she said in anger, just like I have called her rude names in anger too, so should I really not forgive her for her false accusations?

No, you shouldn’t, because she will be “angry” again and will accuse you unjustly again (as it happens in the abuse cycle). And she is still accusing you for the fact that she cheated and prostituted herself. She took no responsibility for it – she is blaming either you or her aunt. But she herself took no responsibility.

I know that she is a guilt-tripper and manipulator, but it is like she doesn’t even realize she is doing it. It is like a 5 year old crying and throwing tantrums and pouting and showing glassy eyes to get what the child wants, and you just feel so sorry for the child that you just feel the temptation to give in to what the child wants.

As I said, better not have a relationship with a 5-year old…

You know what one of the key features of a toxic person is? They never take responsibility for their actions and always blame others. You can say that she is a like a 5-year old, or you can say that she is a toxic person. Regardless of how you choose to view it, she is not someone you want be in a relationship with.

There is a saying, that you should not go to the market when you are hungry because you will just buy the wrong things. Maybe I just picked the wrong person out of my own desperation for a friend.

A very good and apt saying. Yes, she seemed supportive of your interests and hobbies (and maybe she really is), but otherwise her behavior is very toxic. As I said before, she is hurting you twice: first by her actions (cheating/acting out sexually), and then by blaming you for those actions.

Perhaps a part of the attraction you feel for her is not only that she is supportive of your hobbies and interests, but also that she is very stubborn and doesn’t want to listen to you – just like your parents wouldn’t listen to you.

So perhaps there is an urge in you to get your parents to listen and understand your needs, by proxy: by trying to get her to listen and understand your needs. Which she clearly doesn’t want to…

Hi Helcat,

thanks a lot, I am moved by your kind words.

Yeah, it’s an everyday struggle to choose to look at my chronic pain with hope and acceptance, rather than with resignation and despair. It did force me to dive deep into my faith, I guess. It was shattered for a while, because I believed God is causing these problems to me, that God doesn’t want me to succeed and thrive. But I’ve realized that’s not true and dug deeper to see how I might be causing or at least contributing to the pain. And in that space, I did find a window to help myself.

As for motherhood, the only option for us would have been IVF. And it was too much for me, I didn’t want to go through the procedure, knowing that I have issues with being a mother anyway. So I didn’t opt for it…

When you say you now have more empathy for your parents, I totally understand you. I also understand some of my parents’ decisions, which weren’t the best but were made out of necessity, and I don’t blame them for that. But it’s not those decisions that were the most harmful. It’s rather my mother’s very negative view of life, which made her a bitter person, not able to give  me love but constantly criticizing me and making me feel like I was not good enough. It’s really the slow, repetitive putting me down (instead of lifting me up) that caused the greatest harm.

Of course, mental health wasn’t a thing back then, so that too is large factor. They didn’t know about “conscious parenting” and everything young parents know (or can know) today. All that contributed to how I was raised… Anyway, I am not blaming my parents, I’ve forgiven them. But the emotional injuries still happened and it’s taken a long time to heal them. And the process is still ongoing…

It is wonderful that you opted to have a baby and that you went into motherhood with much more awareness, having had lots of therapy and healing over the years. I think that’s crucial and a guarantee that you will be a great, caring and attuned mother!

Wishing you all the best too! <3

Dear Paradoxy,

as I am thinking about your situation, two main things come to mind. One is that she is accusing you, unfairly, of making her prostitute herself, and “ruining her self-esteem”.

She told you that she was heart-broken after you asked her if she was a gold-digger, and this made her sleep with a married man for money.

B also told me that she was heart broken and in pain cause of the break up, saying she felt abandoned by me

I’ve explained to you why this is bs, because no heartbreak can cause a normal person to humiliate themselves like that, unless they are traumatized and broken inside to begin with. Her reaction to your offense was disproportionate, and there is no way that a normal person would do what she did. She is blaming you and guilt-tripping you for something she should take responsibility for.

She is also blaming you (and your parents) that you ruined her self-esteem:

She also kept accusing me and my parents of being racists and ruining her life and self esteem etc by discriminating against her cause of her skin tone

First, nobody forces her to stay with you. She is the one begging for a second chance. If she believes you are ruining her life, she is free to go.

And second, at the age of 24, she is an adult, she either has self-esteem, or she doesn’t. And you can’t ruin it for her. Based on how she behaves, it seems that her self-esteem has already been ruined in her childhood and youth. That’s why she could sleep with a guy for money. That’s why she sees herself as a sex object and craves male attention. So again, it is very unfair to blame you for her lack of self-esteem or for “ruining her life”.

To summarize, B is blaming you and guilt-tripping you for something that is NOT you fault. She has wounds and self-esteem issues that predate you, but instead of admitting it and taking responsibility for it, she found someone to blame: you. She keeps transgressing (to use a Bible term), but instead of taking responsibility for her actions, she keeps blaming you. Very unfair. And abusive.

She is abusing you in two ways: one is by her hurtful actions, such an lying, cheating, sexually explicit behavior etc. And the other is by BLAMING you for it. So she is hurting you twice.

Another problem, which makes your conflicts more explosive, is your attitude towards women, which you adopted from your father, and which frankly is misogynist. It would hurt every woman to tell her that “most women are gold-diggers”. Or “women do stupid things, and it’s normal for them.” It is very offensive.

However, I don’t want to put the stress on that right now. That’s another topic. What I want to emphasize right now is that B is abusing you, not only by her actions, but by unjustly blaming you for those actions.

Can you see that?

Dear Paradoxy,

The factors that affected you will not be the same factors that affect me, and therefore the solutions you suggest won’t work in certain situations

The funny thing is that regardless of where we were born, and in what circumstances, every child needs the same to be happy and healthy. The basic needs of a child are to be loved, appreciated, seen, validated, supported and encouraged by their parents of primary caregivers. These needs are like sunshine, water and soil for a plant to thrive. Without them, we will wither. Maybe not physically, but emotionally for sure.

Unfortunately you had very few of those needs met. And that’s why your inner child is hurting and still wants to have those needs met.

Some of those needs were met by B, and that’s probably one of the reasons you grew so attached to her. This is what you said about B:

she tried her best with my emotional needs as well, I just didn’t think of listing them which is why I said etc. She tries to motivate me whenever the stress of medicine gets to me. She even supported my music development, computer engineering projects etc.

So she encouraged you to do what you love…. whereas your parents discouraged you:

They have never listened to me. Always discouraging me from what I wanted to do. Even this med career was their fault. I never wanted this. I wanted to do music or computers.

Being encouraged meant a lot to you (it means a lot to everyone!). It also includes being seen for who you are, appreciated for who you are as a person, not trying to change you. You spoke more about it here:

I was never offered a chance to show my real personality to anyone, so they all pushed me away. The one person who didn’t push me away was B.

She saw you and accepted you for who you are. She didn’t reject you, like your parents did. You felt seen and accepted by her, haven’t you?

She is the first person to have ever loved me. … She was the only person who treated me like I meant something,

She was the opposite from your parents in some aspects, and it felt so good to you (and your inner child). You felt loved when she treated you like that. So loved that you were willing to disregard all the hurt she caused you by having sex (or sexting) with other men after each of your (very frequent) fights.

I know I am repeating myself, but I’ll say it once again: I think that she might be using sex (or sexual behavior, such as sexting) as an emotion regulation strategy, as a coping mechanism, when she feels bad about herself. That’s why I suggested it might be like an addiction, because she kept doing it, even if she promised she wouldn’t. I believe the only way for her to really stop is to a) admit she has a problem, and b) starts working in it in therapy.

You are still deliberating whether to give her another chance, because to paraphrase you, “everybody deserves another chance”, “things are complex”, “I need to consider all factors” etc etc. Well, you already gave her plenty of chances, and as I’ve explained above, people with addiction/compulsion cannot change unless they truly heal and transform from within. Which she hasn’t done, and she cannot do without a serious dedication on her part and professional help. You explaining to her why it is wrong, or begging her not to do it, won’t cut it.

Anyway, as I said above, I think the real reason why you can’t let her go is because she was meeting some of your unmet childhood needs (such as the need for acceptance and validation).

And it felt so good, to the point that you thought she was “wife material”, completely disregarding the entire range of very un-wifey behaviors, such as lying to you, sleeping with other men, sexting etc.

But your reaction is not strange. In fact, this is what typically happens when we have unmet childhood needs, because we then blindly stick to the person who gives us even a fraction of what we needed as a child. Even if they are abusing us in other ways.

She was a mix of positive and negative (quite negative, I should say), but you were tempted to endure the negative, just so you could have the positive.

Your inner child wants her (the positive aspects of her), and then your rational mind is trying to find excuses why you should give her another chance. These rationalizations are driven by your inner child – by your emotional hunger – not by any sound logic.

This is why it’s important that we meet our unmet emotional needs from childhood – because they are like hungry wolves, howling and wanting, even if it goes against our own well-being. Mind you, those needs are legitimate, but they need to be met by proper inner work and healing, not by expecting others to meet them for us.

You said one of your subjects is psychology. There is a great video by a licensed therapist Kati Morton, who is talking about those unmet needs. It’s on youtube, titled 10 things you parents should have provided. It’s worth watching…

Hi Helcat,

I found it affirming to learn that very physical physiological changes occur in the body due to stress. The mind body connection is very unique!

Yeah, I knew about it before, but now, with this particular condition, which involves chronic pain, it really hit home. It was incredibly helpful to learn that physical pain can be exacerbated by how we think about it. If we view it as catastrophic, if we believe we are in danger (e.g. of a greater injury, of surgery, of becoming disabled etc), then every pain signal will activate the stress response and we will become hyper sensitive, leading to even more pain sensations.

Learning that I am not completely helpless when it comes to my pain – that I can in fact view it differently – was a great help.

It doesn’t help that stress is an inherent part of life. It would be nice to just magic away sometimes. Unfortunately, there is only so much we have control over.

Yeah, nowadays I need to consciously remind myself, when I have a flare-up, not to go down the catastrophizing/panicking route, but to calm myself down. This condition taught me the need for emotional regulation, which before I only knew in theory 🙂 So that’s kind of a silver lining…

Dear Paradoxy,

I have been having exams for the last few weeks and I have been focusing on them. I tried my best not to let the break up affect my studying. The way you tell me to heal makes it sound so simple.

It’s not simple. I think it would need a paradigm shift (mental shift), as well as emotional healing. And it’s a long process. But you are only 19, your adult life is only beginning.

I think perhaps one of the starting points could be to realize that there are some serious deficiencies in your father’s wisdom, in his approach to life. Because someone who is not in touch with their emotions cannot be a wise man, per definition. You mentioned his wisdom several times:

my father’s wisdom was passed down to me over the years that he taught me.

I have chosen to forgive my parents because they do not know any better and their wisdom still taught me to be a good man to the best of my ability.

What your father passed on you is probably a set of moral codes and rules for life. But he wasn’t able to pass on you the wisdom of the heart: compassion, empathy and understanding for others. You have those qualities inside of you, but if you start believing that the best way is to cut off your feelings, so they don’t bother you, then the wisdom of the heart – which you do possess – will be lost on you too.

But that trauma has made him compassionate enough to WANT to understand, but he is INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING.

he asks me to open up but his inability to understand forces me to never open up to him because all he points out is how my feelings are wrong instead of understanding why I am feeling the way I feel.

He asks you to open up, not because he wants to understand you, but because he wants to prove how wrong you are. He doesn’t really want to understand. He is stubborn (your own words) and believes he knows better. That’s not a sign of any kind of compassion: his trauma seems to have made him very stubborn and defensive, very closed to a different perspective.

You said: They have never listened to me.

Your father never tried to understand you. He pretended he wanted to (he would ask you to open up), but then he would invalidate your feelings. And it seems he had a skill of being very convincing:

there were moments like guilt-tripping and other similar circumstances where they would manipulate me into doing what they want without complaining (my father is a pro at psychology, and he is so rigid that everyone, whether it be his own boss, his friends, or our own relatives, knows that he should not be messed with because he always speaks the truth and can put anyone in their place by using pure logic.)

Your father seems to be pro in convincing you (and others) to accept his views and opinions. He seems like someone who is convinced that only his stance is right, and no discussion about it. What he does then is a kind of mental coercion. In his mind, there is no space for listening to a different opinion: his word is “the truth”. End of story.

I guess he used similar methods to convince you to study medicine, listing all the reasons why medicine is the best choice. But to be a good doctor, you have to love what you do. And you already have some doubts about it:

The career path to become a doctor gurantees that I will be successful in life especially since I can handle the work load to a degree, but will I be happy doing this? Probably not. Though I like helping people, I don’t think med is the best way for me to help people.

I am not saying to stop studying medicine, not at all. I am just saying to stop accepting that you need to be unhappy for the rest of your life, just to please your father, or your parents.

Your father might have convinced you, with his “pure logic”, that medicine is the best option for you. He convinced you to give up what you love, for what is useful or opportune. And you accepted it: you accepted that your life must be as your parents construed, and nothing else. You accepted that you need to obey your parents’ wishes, even if it makes you miserable.

I would like to invite you to challenge that stance of complete submission to your parents. They proved that they don’t know what’s best for you. For example, they know nothing about mental health. They’re not able to give you guidance on true happiness and fulfillment, which is still achievable for you. So please don’t accept everything they tell you, don’t give up on your own wishes and desires.

I’d encourage you to re-evaluate things, e.g. see what subjects you like better, see your preferences. Allow yourself to feel your likes and dislikes. Just feel them, don’t crush them immediately. That can be the beginning of your healing.

Dear Paradoxy,

You are right that my parents did not need to crush the person who is having the suicidal feelings. But they did what they did and I consider that the past, something that I have moved on from a long time ago.

It is not the past unfortunately. The pain your spoke about and the feelings of emptiness and wishing you were never born, which you’ve shared here, are all the consequences of being treated like that by your parents. Your pain is current, it is still ongoing, even if the events happened quite a few years ago.

My father is not highly educated. Both of my parents only had a community college level basic education.

I was referring you what you said that your father has “a highly respected and high-earning job as a marine electrical engineer in cruise ships and cargo ships“. He has college education, as does your mother.

For someone with college education, living in the 21st century, they should know that when a child or a teenager has suicidal ideations, and even attempts suicide, is an alarm bell that something is going on in their psyche and that it should be carefully addressed. Berating and shaming their child in such a sensitive moment, instead of seeking professional help, is to me a sign of wilful negligence, I have to say. Their reaction is an example of severe emotional abuse.

What is worse is that your father had childhood trauma himself. You said:

He was … abandoned and belittled and treated like trash by his own family and distant relatives too, and he was traumatized by an incident when he was 5 where he was falsely accused of stealing 10 cents and was tortured for weeks with physical beating by his teacher until he had to admit to stealing to stop the pain, even though he did not steal the money.

You went on to say:

The trauma from that incident was so severe that I have seen him cry about it even now and he is almost 50 years old. But these harsh situations made him grow his resolve to be better than everyone who treated him poorly, to the point that he was the only person to have a highly respected and high-earning job as a marine electrical engineer in cruise ships and cargo ships, while everyone else had average engineering jobs or teacher jobs etc.

As a result of his severe childhood trauma, your father got better in terms of his career, his professional success, than any other member of his family, or perhaps even a wider community. However, his trauma unfortunately hasn’t made him more compassionate, neither towards himself nor his own son.

He clearly suppressed his pain and marched on, having no time for stupidities like emotions. He was of the conviction that men “do not have time to feel pain. We have responsibilities and other issues to worry about.”

And he believes that those who can’t simply shake off their pain and their trauma are idiots. If you are a man and you can’t clench your teeth in the face of pain and proceed with your responsibilities – you are an idiot. That’s approximately the message he has given you.

Can you see this?

And now, you are being drawn into the same kind of reasoning. At least one part of you is: the part who is making excuses for your father and saying that the best is to just press on and clench your teeth:

It is too late to be Godwin-the-child, I have a med degree to finish and I am too old to be behaving like a child. I should be focusing on my future career and etc. Med is already a pain on my behind so I do not have the time nor energy to share to Godwin-the-child.

You asked me how to heal. By acknowledging that there is a wounded part in you, your inner child, who is still very much alive and very much influencing you, even if you don’t care to admit it. And then getting in touch with him and his emotional needs, which have been suppressed and dismissed all these years.