Dear Murtaza:

“I feel like if I hugged someone chest to chest I would feel less pain in my chest”- what an original way of describing a hug, and it is biologically true: for social animals such as humans, physical touch really does relieve emotional/ physical pain. Chemicals in our brains are released when hugged or gently touched and those chemicals relieve pain or otherwise make us feel good.

“she told me that she always wanted a friend to share with his experience and to gain knowledge from each other, to recover both together”- I like it that she said that, sounds very good to me, particularly the recovering “both together” part.

“just wanting to beg her (for some reason) wanting to hug her and cry, wanting to be weak in front of her”- I wouldn’t beg her, if I was you, but I would hug her and cry and I would express weakness in front of her, starting with a bit of weakness, so to see how she responds before expressing more weakness.

anita

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by .

Dear Murtaza:

You are not the only lonely young person where you live with pain in your chest. There are young women too who are lonely and who need to be “hugged.. chest to chest” (I still like the way you put it, there should be a song using your words, I can almost hear the music to it).

But you say it is impossible, that “this would never happen”, so what can I say.

anita

Dear Murtaza:

I am fine, thank you. I was wondering if I would read back from you, good to read from you!

“it’s like the bed is my safe place”- because you lie down in bed relaxed, I figure. When I was most anxious in my life, as a teenager and around your age, I used to lie down a whole lot of the time, listening to music and fantasizing. Those were the times I felt good.. I didn’t stress myself, didn’t try to do anything. Minimal movement while physically comfortable is a very effective way to relax.

“I imagine talking to you.. it’s more comforting than fantasizing (because it could actually happen)”, and it did happen in real life: about an hour and a half ago you sent me a message and I answered it. This exchange between us is as real as real can be.

anita

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by .

Dear Murtaza:

If in reply-post to you I miss something important that you wrote in your post (I don’t respond to it), please let me know what it is that I missed.  Sometimes I don’t fully understand something you bring up, or I am tired and fail to pay attention to something important that you wrote, so please let me know anytime that happens.

“I believe that life is going to be worse for me.. the more I get older the more I became more miserable and life gets harder… my mental health became way worse than ever and in the past at least I used to care about things. I am weaker and more helpless than ever and I don’t think I will ever change, and it can only get worse”-

– I will tell you about what I learned in my experience, and I will tell you about it just as it has been for me, not changing anything in my telling so to convince you to change your belief, not at all. Here is my experience: my mental health did get worse and worse. It was like a ball of mud that rolls down a muddy hill. The ball of mud is like my mental sickness and the hill is life as the years progressed and I grew older. The more I rolled down the hill, so to speak, the more mud/ more mental sickness was added to the ball of mud.

In life nothing stands still, so a ball of mud doesn’t stay the same: either mud is added to it or mud is taken out. In my life, from childhood to being a teenager,  a young adult and onward, no healing took place. I didn’t receive any mental help, so I became sicker and sicker and less functional.

In 2011 I had my first quality psychotherapy and my healing started. Nine years later, I am mentally healthier than I have been since I was a baby or a very young child. There is way less mud in .. that ball of mud that I am today, so to speak.

Back to your belief, based on my experience: yes, I think you are likely to get sicker and your life worse if you don’t engage in a healing process. Healing, I learned, is natural, and it is available to every living thing. I can see it in nature, as I live in a wooded area: lots and lots of trees and plants and animals, and every time a branch falls or a tree falls or an animal gets injured, as long as it isn’t dead, it starts to heal right away. A plant or an animal doesn’t intend to heal or plans it, it just happens. It is nature’s way.  Mental healing is of course more complicated than physical healing, but still nature’s motivation is to heal.

anita

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by .

Dear Murtaza:

I think that you posted the above at 2:37 am. I wonder if its the hot middle east July nights that is the reason you are awake so late at night? I remember getting the only relief from the heat in the early hours of the morning. But I don’t know if that’s the reason you are awake so later/ early in the morning. Maybe it is air conditioned where you live. In any case, you should be asleep as I type this, at after 3 am your time. I am tired now (5:10 pm my time) and will read and reply to your recent post (and anything you may add to it) when I am back to the computer in about 13 hours from now.

anita