Dear canary,

good to hear from you again! And you are very welcome. I am responding late because I am occupied with other things, among them the horrible war in Ukraine, which doesn’t really leave me too motivated and upbeat these days… 🙁

But I’d like to say that what worked for me in developing self-acceptance was getting in touch with my inner child. You say that you feel great empathy for other people, including your ex-boyfriend, but don’t feel the same for yourself. That’s pretty common with people who were severely criticized in their childhood – they end up feeling like freaks, abnormal, as if something is terribly wrong with them. And they end up judging themselves, just as their parents judged them. Their inner critic is just so strong and merciless.

I had the same problem as you do – of having been severely criticized and judged as a child (and further into my adulthood too). What helped me was to get in touch with the little girl inside of me, and to feel love and compassion for her. The adult me acting like a loving, compassionate, understanding and warm parent towards the little girl in me. That’s exactly the opposite of how my mother behaved towards me, and how your father behaved towards you…

You can get in touch with your inner child in a meditation/visualization, or perhaps by having a photo of yourself as a child, or have a doll that represents you as a child, and hold that doll in your arms, caress her, talk to her, tell her you love her, how precious she is, etc.

In short, the goal is to become a good, loving, compassionate parent to the child you once were and that still lives within you.

Do you think this is something you could do?

Dear canary,

Welcome back to your thread! Thank you for your kind words, it’s good to know that you feel seen and understood here.

I hope all of this made sense.

Definitely! You have such a deep insight into yourself and you’ve come to some really important realizations. One of them is: “When I am going through a rough time, I feel ashamed.”

Whereas: “When I am having a good day, it is so easy for me to practice self-care and being kind to myself.”

You’ve also realized that it has to do with your father: “I believe this feeling of shame comes from my childhood when my father would tell me that “I am okay” or that “I shouldn’t be sad” etc. ”

I believe so too. You were criticized whenever you showed vulnerability, whereas you might have been praised for doing well at school. This then leads to the following dichotomy: when you are fully “functional”, excelling in what your father expects you to excel in (e.g. school), you feel good about yourself. Maybe in those times you even feel lovable and worthy. But this feeling is conditional to your “performing well”, i.e. fulfilling your father’s expectations.

However, when you’re not feeling so good, you feel ashamed of yourself because your father shamed you in those instances. You aren’t fulfilling your father’s expectations, and so you feel like a failure (and you also feel like a freak, abnormal etc…) This makes you feel unlovable and unworthy. I think your feeling of self-love and self-worth depends on how well you are performing emotionally/at school. On how well you are fulfilling your father’s expectations. Would you agree with that?

the support I need during my bad times just looks like a listening ear from someone who understands me, empathetic words. As I said before, I think I just need someone to acknowledge my feelings first before I feel like I am allowed to feel that feeling.

It’s good that you know what support looks like for you. One of the main things that we as children need from our parents is to validate our emotions. It’s very damaging if the parent dismisses the child’s “negative” emotions. Some parents punish their child for expressing anger and frustration, some parents (like your father) punish their child for expressing vulnerability and weakness. This then invalidates a significant part of our personality, of our being.

What you needed was a listening ear, someone who would say “I know you are afraid and anxious. It’s okay, I understand. Come, let me give you a hug. It will be fine, don’t worry, I’ll help you deal with it.” That would have been a good parental response to their child’s anxiety.

Your parents didn’t have a good response: your mother might have given you a hug, she might have not judged you for feeling anxious, but she didn’t know how to truly alleviate your anxiety – she’d rather let you skip school if you felt anxious. Your father outright criticized you and condemned you.

if I acknowledge my feelings I will spiral, just like from my past, and that is the scariest thing ever for me.

I think that’s related to the fact that your mother – no matter how supportive – didn’t really know how to deal with your anxiety. She didn’t make any steps to actually deal with the cause of your anxiety, for example school bulling. She never went to school to talk to the teacher. She was also hiding your problems from your father, thereby affirming that your anxiety is a taboo and something to be ashamed of. So even though she was somewhat supportive, she didn’t help you deal with anxiety in more concrete ways. She let you – a little child – deal with your anxiety on your own, instead of helping you with concrete solutions (which might have included talking to your teacher, a psychologist etc).

I think that’s why you learned that when you have a problem, she cannot really contain your emotions, she cannot truly help you alleviate your anxiety. So you’ve concluded that it’s better not to tell her how bad you really feel because she wouldn’t know what to do with it. And this would make you feel even worse – it would make you spiral into even more fear and helplessness!

Nowadays, it seems she can help if your distress isn’t too big: “If my feelings aren’t that debilitating the support simply looks like a hug, kind words, or a listening ear from her.”

However, if your distress is quite big and a simple hug isn’t enough to make you feel better – she gets impatient with you and then you end up feeling like with your father:

“Because she is so stressed from her own work, she can’t be patient with me and lashes out on me. And that turns out horrible. It makes me even more horrible, I feel like a burden.”

You end up feeling unlovable and unworthy with her too – because she doesn’t have the capacity to help you, even though she isn’t as judgmental as you father. If your distress is above a certain level, she becomes dismissive too, and you end up being judged by her too.

Would you say that’s true?

I know it’s been a long time since I have posted, but during this time I have been trying to gain support from my family and abandoned support from this thread.

It seems you are still trying to get support from your family, specially your mother, but you end up feeling even more frustrated (and unlovable and unworthy). What you would need is to realize and accept that you’ll never get the kind of support you hope for from your family, because their ability to do so is limited. This is true even if nowadays your father is less judgmental than before. But as you’ve said before, he can still be dismissive (e.g. he tells you you’re feeling better when you don’t). And as you said in this post, your mother can be impatient and thus dismissive too.

That’s why I think it would help you a lot if you stopped going to them for emotional support and expect them to finally see you and understand you. Try to accept that they won’t be able to give you the kind of emotional support you need, and that that’s okay – because you can get it elsewhere and give it to yourself too.

Another very important thing would be to realize that you aren’t unlovable and unworthy for feeling anxious and emotionally distressed. You aren’t less worthy because you are vulnerable or because you show vulnerability. You are completely lovable and worthy, even if you feel emotionally distressed.

This is what you’d need to realize and tell yourself in times of emotional turmoil. You can tell yourself: “I am allowed to feel anxious. I am lovable and worthy, even if I feel anxious”.

How does that sound to you?

Dear canary,

Sorry for the late reply, I am on holidays and not really near the computer often. Thank you for your kind words and I am glad that what I’ve said has helped you.

This is so kind and this acceptance makes me feel a bit better. This makes me feel like I have a choice going forward and don’t need to explain to my parents anymore.

Good to hear this!

All I know is that whenever she would lash out at me, I would feel so alone and unlovable because I feel like if my own parents can’t handle me then no one in the world can or even wants to.

I understand where you’re coming from, because ideally the parents of all people should have the greatest understanding for us. But unfortunately that’s not true for so many people, myself included. My mother for example doesn’t believe me when I complain about some health problems that I have. She thinks I am inventing it and exaggerating. I’ve learned not to expect empathy from her any more – neither from her nor my father. It’s a bit sad, but I can’t do much about it. I get empathy from other people and I give it to myself, so I am not depending on my parents emotionally any more.

I really like that last phrase, “I am allowed to feel anxious. I am lovable and worthy, even if I feel anxious.” Because I believe this is true for everyone. I am easily able to tell an anxious friend how lovable they are but I don’t tell myself that. I think I get so caught up in the physical sensations in my body that I can’t think rationally. All I can feel is fear in those moments.

It’s a traumatic  reaction, the flight-fight-or freeze response, which takes place in our limbic brain. It takes over and switches off our rational mind. To alleviate it, it helps to practice anti-stress techniques such as diaphragmatic breathing or do grounding exercises. You can look up “Barbara Heffernan anxiety” on youtube and you’ll find plenty of tools and techniques to help you deal with the fear response.

I don’t know if I will get along with the therapist, I don’t know if I can trust them and open up because I am afraid of them being dismissive (I know therapists won’t do this but still have the fear!), I don’t know if it will be helpful, and part of me feels guilty for even seeking support in the first place.

This is exactly how you are feeling whenever you approach your mother, seeking help: you are afraid to open up because she might lash out and dismiss your problems as not a big deal, you’re not sure it will be helpful (because often times it isn’t!), and you feel guilty seeking help because she is a busy mother and you feel like a burden.

So one reason you feel discouraged to seek professional help is that you are projecting your experience with your mother into counselors and other help professionals who unlike your mother might actually help you. Another reason is that you did have some bad experiences with counselors in the past and you’re afraid it would be the same again:

I feel discouraged sometimes when I look at all the times in my past when I’ve reached out for help. I think the best help I’ve received was when I was 15 from my school counsellor. She was easy to talk to and I could trust her and relate to her, it’s just that we couldn’t talk as often because she had other students. Then after that all the other counsellors I’ve had I couldn’t get along with because they either never understood me or were dismissive. It feels like every time I opened up to someone they misunderstood me or invalidated my feelings. I think my first counsellor understood me because she would listen to everything I said and respond to it, whereas when I would share my story or thoughts with other counsellors they would only respond to the general problem. This made me feel like they are just listening to my general problem and sharing as many solutions as they can, instead of empathizing and really understanding then sharing support best fit for me.

The only counselor who truly helped you was when you were 15 yrs old. You could trust her and open up to her because she would listen to everything you said and then respond to your specific problem and not give you some general advice. You felt seen and understood with that counselor, unlike with your mother and other counselors you went to.

This is very important – that you did have a good experience with at least one counselor, and she did help you. So it is possible and you’ve experienced it. Now you would need to look for a proper counselor – one that is attentive and listens to you and your specific problems, and gives support that fits you. There are many quality therapists out there, so be open to the possibility that you’ll find one, just like you’ve found them when you were 15 years old. Trust that you can find the kind of support you need, by someone who sees and understand you.  So instead of telling yourself “no one can help me”, tell yourself “I can find appropriate help”.

Also, try to change your attitude from “I am a burden and undeserving” to “I am worthy of love. I am worthy of help and support. I am a gift, not a burden.”

I am grateful for everyone that has supported me this far, whether or not they are even in my life. Such as old friends, family, and strangers. I have met people that have understood me and listened to what I had to say. This makes me feel validated.

It’s great that you’ve had people in your life that saw you and understood you. “This makes me feel validated”. –  I’d say this made you feel validated to a certain extent. Because your core belief is still that you are unworthy of love and undeserving of help – wouldn’t you say? That’s because the core beliefs are imprinted in us in childhood, based on the experience with our parents, and even if we get a different, affirmative experience later in life (e.g. you being seen and understood by a number of people), we still operate from the same old core belief. That’s why you feel undeserving of seeking help now.

But now you at least know that this core belief is not true. You can tell yourself “I am a gift, not a burden”, to dispel the old programming. This will help you seek a quality therapist, and persist until you find one, without quitting! It will also break the spell of never finding the help you need and then giving up.

Thank you Tee for the help, I feel a little less afraid because I am reminded that there are such kind people in this world that want nothing but the best for you!

You are very welcome, canary. I am happy you feel less afraid and also that I could help!