Dear famaz:

Growing up with two much older and unkind siblings, you were lonely. At 19 you lost your mother to cancer and you lost your father at 37 or 38 (six months ago) to the same kind of cancer. Your father used to lie to you a lot and was “very sneaky and passive aggressive” with you and with everyone else.  When he got remarried, it was a surprise to you because he didn’t tell you about it. His new wife successfully drove a wedge between you and your father, and your father, who paid for your education abroad and was there for you when you had problems, never took your side when it came to fights between him and his wife. You noticed that he felt good about you and his wife competing for his affections.

You loved the subject matter you studied abroad, you love your job and you do your best every day. You always had a purpose and achieved most of your objectives. Now, at 38,  both parents passed away and you find yourself surrounded by “loser people who don’t know what to do with themselves and their lives… have no purpose… many bad people… bad company“.

“But like every person in this world I don`t want to die alone… any suggestions about helping me to gradually open up, or any similar experiences are really appreciated“-

-regarding similar experiences, yes, I had a similar experience and I will share it with you: my mother was a combination of passive, passive-aggressive and aggressive, different behaviors at different times. She lied to me and to herself a whole lot. I tried to get her to communicate with me honestly (when I was a teenager, I remember) but to no avail, zero success on my part. She gossiped about everyone and I am sure that I was not an exception (she gossiped about my sister, after all). And she portrayed everyone as bad and untrustworthy… including myself. No surprise then that I grew up distrusting everyone… including myself. This meant a very lonely life for me.

My loneliness was acute while growing up and as an adult (I am older than you). It was a very unpleasant experience to grow up with a mother who I disrespected for her dishonesty, gossip and more. I didn’t feel close to her, to say the least. And I didn’t feel close to anyone else (she made it clear to me that no one deserves my trust).

I want to reply to you further, but before I do, I will wait for your thoughts about what I shares so far.

anita

Dear famaz:

You are welcome and thank you for your empathy. I am sorry that you had a similar experience to mine, I know how painful and devastating it is.. and for so very long.

“She turned me and my siblings against each other. I don’t think that was intentional but the result is all of us feel isolated and alone”– it was probably (I am guessing) a habit that she picked at a young age, something she observed the adults in her life doing and copied it, kept the behavior going without much awareness of what negative effects it had on others (and on herself).

“Have you ever thought if I can`t trust my family, who I can trust then?“- growing up I didn’t think that, definitely not at a young age. Unfortunately, I trusted my mother to a large extent (I couldn’t help it, every young child trusts their parent at first), so when she told me that I was a bad person, I believed her. When she told me that everyone else was bad, I believed her. But over time, I could see/ feel how she was hurting me, how she lied… so I was very conflicted. It’s a nightmare when the person you naturally look up to the most (the parent) is so far removed from the pedestal you needed them to be on.

“I noticed you used the past tense describing your loneliness , hopefully you manage to overcome that , could you share more about your experiences?“- I ended all my loyalty to my mother, completely separating from her, physically and mentally (it took years of intentional work, starting eleven years ago).  No longer loyal to her, I am no longer loyal to what she told me. It was only a few years ago that I noticed that I was interacting with other adults as if.. as if they were okay people, feeling that I am one of them, not apart from them. I still tend to be wary of people with no evidence that they are dangerous to me… something I have to pay attention to.

I hope that we can continue our discussion beyond today There is more to it than a few posts can cover, isn’t it?

anita

Dear famaz:

Thank you and I too am interested in continuing our discussion.  These are my thoughts in regard to what you shared in your recent post: all young children look up to their parents for .. everything, physical and emotional needs. We put our parents on a pedestal, at a young age, because we need them up there: we need to believe that they are able- and willing- to give us all that we need to survive and thrive because we aren’t able to make it on our own, we are completely dependent on them. As adults, we put other adults on a pedestal because we don’t yet believe that we can make it on our own.

Long after I worked and earned enough money to make it on my own, I still didn’t feel that I can make it on my own: objectively I was able, subjectively- I was not. Coming to think about it, I didn’t want to make it on my own because the idea of making it on my own meant (subjectively) that I will be forever alone. There is something about a childhood so filled with alone-ness, isolation and disconnection, that it instills a fear of alone-ness, and the child turned adult becomes desperate to not be alone.

What do the people placed on a pedestal do? “they noticed it and somehow used it against me (from) time to time, not following through with their promises or trying to deceive me“- Lots of parents, lots of criminals (on the street and in leadership positions/ positions of power), and lots of people in our day-to-day lives, in one way or another, use their power against people who are weaker than them, including the people who handed them power. It takes a person of character, of strong ethical principles to be aware of their power and yet, to not misuse, or abuse it.

“After a while, I got sick of them, sometimes I avoided them completely and sometimes, if the situation was so frustrating, I exploded and told them how I really feel about them“- this is what I did. In my case, it was my behavioral pattern for many years, and it earned me the diagnosis (no longer in effect) of Borderline Personality Disorder.

“At the same time, my inner thoughts were confirmed: PEOPLE ARE OUT TO GET ME, NOBODY IS TRUSTWORTHY and that made me even more isolated“- this has been my mindset: I used to focus on people’s normal, human imperfections and mistakes and see those as evidence that they are indeed untrustworthy. I used to get angry (still have this tendency, which I need to better pay attention to) at imperfect people who make mistakes…  people like me. It takes the understanding that it is okay to be human: okay for me, okay for others, and forgive the forgivable about me, and about others.

anita

Dear famaz:

BPD is not necessarily a life-sentence, hasn’t been in my case. Healing is possible and it is a wonderful thing. But when significantly hurt in childhood (as most people are.. maybe all), complete healing is not possible, and the expectation of complete healing stands in the way of achieving as much healing as is possible for any one of us.

“I can see my improvement during recent years“- keep seeing, focusing and building on your improvements.

“I like yourself need to pay attention to our pattern of behavior to not fall into old ones“- paying attention (daily and repeatedly) is a necessary part of healing and improving.

“I used to think very highly of my parents , and my parents also thinking of themselves very highly, they were arrogant“- they placed themselves on a pedestal… and fell of it? We should all be humble, placing ourselves not above (Superior) and not below (Inferior) others… Equal in human value is a good place to be in.

“When I realized than my mom was terminally ill this was truly a shock in so many level, I thought my parents could do everything, in my teenage mind , how couldn’t they do anything about my mom’s illness“- children think that their parents are gods: superior entities not subject to mistakes, faults or mortality. How far they fall off their godly pedestal is the question (not if they fall)… a more important question is.. do we fall with them?

“Do I trust people who (are) still in my life completely ?NO. I don’t think that’s prudent to trust anybody 100%“- I would say that it is far from prudent (and very unwise) to trust 100% of people, but it is prudent to trust some people 100%: trusting them completely not as gods who never make mistakes, but as.. good people.

“I recently began to forgive both of them… I saw them as villains. It applies to other people too… people who wronged me in some way… forgiving is possible, do you think not trusting people can prevent you from forgiving them ?“- can you define for me what you mean by the words Villains, Forgiving and Trusting?

anita

Dear Famaz:

“I felt superior, and that made everything much harder, but when I realized I’m not special, that made it much more tolerable“- I very much relate. Life is much more tolerable for me these days because I know that I am neither superior to any of the billions of people currently inhabiting the earth, nor am I more special than any one particular person. It is indeed such a relief to come down from up there where I do not belong (superior/ special).

Also, feeling inferior and superior are two sides of the same coin: I felt inferior much of the time and I felt superior from time to time, so to compensate.

“I fell with my parents from a pedestal back then, but I wasn’t crushed actually I am happier now“- placing anyone (including oneself) on a pedestal makes for an unhappy life.

“By villain I meant bad people who do bad things on purpose, I sometimes think my dad was hurting me on purpose“- when person X hurts person Y while feeling anger at person Y, there is an intent to hurt. The intent to hurt is inherent in ANGER.

“He had grown up a lot after my mom’s death, before that, he was like a little boy… I had never thought about it“- some people keep us the same; other people make it possible for us to expand: to become more than we were before.

“With people who are in your life who hurt you in the past… and you want them to be in your life: once you forgive them can you trust them again?“- depends if they did enough (if anything) to deserve and earn your forgiveness and trust.

“people who did one mistake and try to somehow make up for that, do you trust them again?“- if you are referring to a forgivable human mistake, then yes.

“I think trust (is a) step further than forgiveness“- I think that trust and forgiveness go hand in hand when it comes to people who deserve your forgiveness and trust. When they do, you keep doing both: forgiving and trusting, trusting and forgiving. When you forget one or the other, you remind yourself that you too make mistakes, and that you too will fail other people from time to time (and hope that you too will be forgiven… and trusted again).

anita

Dear famaz:

I always found the concept of forgiveness problematic, or easily misunderstood and misused. There are plenty of people who push forgiveness on people (people in my life, in the past), suggesting that if you don’t forgive, you are a bad person (yet to become a good and forgive), or a sick person (yet to become a healthy person… and forgive). But what do people who push forgiveness mean by forgiveness?

If they mean that to forgive means to not take the law into your own hands and exact revenge… and end up in jail, etc., I agree that forgiveness is a good thing. If they mean to no longer suffer from ongoing anger, which leads to health problems such as high blood pressure..  I agree that forgiveness is a good thing. But if they (whomever they are) mean that it is okay to push your anger down and berate yourself for still feeling angry, I disagree. If they mean that it is okay to and to keep going back to the people who hurt you (even if they are no longer actively hurting you) and suffer for it, I disagree that forgiveness is a good thing. It depends what forgiveness means…

When you feel intense anger at someone and for a long time, you can command yourself to no longer feel anger (in the name of forgiveness), but anger does not obey commands: It has a message for you,  and it will not go away until it is fully heard.

“Because of my situation of not having my mom around me, some people tried to take advantage of it, or try to mislead me intentionally… I’m actually working on forgiving those kinds of people, not for them, but for myself. I don’t dream to hang out with them or see them. They are not trustworthy at all“- the benefit in forgiving, for you, would be to no longer suffer the distress involved in keeping anger inside you, right? In that quest, you have to first thoroughly listen to the message your anger has for you, to fully understand what they did to you, that it was wrong to do it to you, that you didn’t deserve it, and that the Wrong belongs to Them, not to You.

You are welcome to explore and process the message in your anger here, on your thread, if you feel comfortable enough doing so. As a matter of fact, if it works for you, we can do it together: I will further process my anger while you process yours.

anita