Dear anita,

Thank you for your patience.

When I read both of your’s and TeaK’s reply I thought we are not completely on the same page with everything, but I also saw how I did not explain the situation well enough. Something similar happened to me with my thesis; I pretty much worked through my whole thesis in my head and there’s a lot of information in my head, but providing a quick summary of the whole structure was a bit messy because there was too much information, which was still a bit all over the place. In an effort to jot everything down in my head, it can lead me to over-explain or write very long sentences. Or my sentences are confusing for others. Thus I try to shorten my sentences or write more succinctly, but I feel like I lose things I want to express or the situation is wrongly expressed. This how I am feeling when I am trying to explain something on here, but at the same time want to express my emotions. Apart from my thesis, it did take energy and preparation to write my next reply, because I did not know how to do it. I literally asked myself, “how am I going to explain this better?”

With the previous posts, I still see that it is difficult for me to talk like a child or keep it simple. I will try again and hope that I can clear up some misunderstanding, or better said, add in the rest of the information.

Firstly, thank you anita. With the exercise, you allowed me to have a place to dump out stored anger. It is difficult for me to dump out “negative” emotions through writing in simple sentences, especially anger. But rationalizing will still take over at some point.

There is missing information with the memory of my mum. I did say something hurtful to her; something along the lines that she does not care about me. That line is when she started crying. So, even though I found it unfair that I could not play before doing homework, I also felt like it was also my fault that I made her cry. That was the second time I saw my mum cry. The first being at 2 years old when comforting her. This time the tears were different from the first time I saw her cry the first time.

Also, it was my mum, family friend and me in the house. My siblings were at kindergarten and my dad at work. Our family friend stayed over for a visit. We had moved to a new city, but it was already the second move within that city (from an apartment to a house). I was 7 years old and by then had experienced 4 moves in total.

I would also like to add, that my mum was still working after she had me, up to the age of four. She was a flight attendant. I have a memory of being up of one of the towers at the airport and rushing to my mum being very happy to see her. She confirmed that memory and that there were other times where I would see her at work. There is also a picture of me getting to wear the pilot’s hat.

My dad also travels a lot for work. When they had me, he was still working on the ship as an engineer. When I think about my memories there are less of him simply because he is not always around, he is working. When my mum was not around, my grandma was taking care of me. We were still living in my birth country. I have lots of happy memories, apart from that one time when my mum cried at the age of 2. I remember having two good friends at my first kindergarten. I was thrilled when my brother was born at the age of 5; my parents and I had moved accommodation before he was born (I was 4 years old). I have fun memories of the countries I traveled to from ages 4-5, in terms of people I have in those memories are my mum and a friend I made in one of those countries. I have loving memories of being with my older cousins. The oldest was the cool one and early on became my role model; the first thing I said when entering school was “I want to be like my cousin.” The second thing I said was “I want to make my mum and dad proud of me.” The second oldest, we were almost always together when we visited each other. Playing imaginary creatures which we drew beforehand, games, imaginary fantasy world, lava, mermaid/merman, he would do my hair, etc. When the three of us played together it was a blast. Sure there was quarreling sometimes, but we had fun most of the time.

I am adding this information because I think it helps bring more clarity to the life I have been living as a kid. I am starting to question whether “abandonment” was the proper word. It kind of was, but I feel like it takes out all the positive because I have a lot of happy/fun/loving memories as a kid, but the sad/confused/angry/ ones simply stood out. One that stood out was at the age of six, we had moved to a new city by then. However, that memory seems to be neutrally charged.

1. When my sister was born it was really early in the morning. (I was 6 years old). I remember waking up and being alone in the house. I do not know what I felt but I just recall being alone in the house. I do not think it was for a long time. When I saw my dad coming back I remember a smile on his face and him telling me that I now have a sister. I remember being happy having a sister. I went through this event with the theta healer, because she asked me about when was the first time I felt abandoned. This was the only memory I could think of, but it was neutrally charged; when I talked about it, it did not really stir up anything in me.

There honestly is not much else related to anger to my mum in early childhood. So the words

“At first, the little girl refused to agree with such a devastating conclusion, and she stubbornly isolated herself from them. But not for long, because she was a little girl who needed family, so she gave in and gave up and abandoned herself.”

I do not find it accurate nor do I resonate with them. I feel like it is not my story at all. I have too many loving memories before and after that event, that event simply stood up.

My mom showered me in hugs, substituted foods I did not like with food I did like. For example pasta instead of spaghetti, no brussel sprouts but other greens. She read stories to me, sang together with me, played toys with me, knew me the best, went shopping with me. I have an amazing memory where we went window shopping during Christmas time. We walked for a long time and it got dark and you could see all the Christmas decorations light up and marvel at the advent calendars. We (mum, brother, and I) also once went on another super long walk (I was 6 years old) and my mum jokingly said we are walking to my birth city to see grandma, my cousins, and my aunts. I believed her. It was like an adventure, but in the end, we were too tired and she said the distance might be too long for us. She taught us that it is okay to make mistakes and learn from them. She would sow clothes for us, which I loved to model in, she listened to me, she keeps all the drawings and other creative pieces we (kids) drew/made for her. As we got older she asked whether she can get rid of some of the older stuff because it was getting too much and our art improved over the years. She helped with schoolwork as much as she could; there were so many late nights she helped me with decorations for my poster. She also often said I should go earlier to bed to rest – it was me who was stubborn and studious yet she who told me more often to get rest. When I was sad she would pick me up and cheer me up, she guides us back to love, she provides us with the tools she knows how to defend ourselves. For example, in grade one there was a girl who called me black several times. I came crying to my mum and she would comfort me. Then she told me to take the brown and black color pencils. I should place both next to my arm and tell the girl “This is brown. This is black. Can you see the difference or are you color blind.” If anyone were to ask me where I got learned compassion from, I would without hesitation say I got it from my mum. We watched barbie movies together and other kids movies. We loved watching musicals and dance movies and we still do to this day. When I was small we watched also Bollywood movies together. She made sure all content that I viewed was appropriately pg-rated. When I did not like a hobby I was doing she allowed me to quit because she wanted me to be happy; that was one of the most important things to her that we (kids and family) are happy. With my sibling’s births, it never felt like she was giving more love to one or the other. The only thing I did notice I was always the one doing more chores, but I did them together with her, so the time would pass by anyway. I wonder how many times she listened to me singing kids songs while I was drying the dishes and she was washing the dishes – to put it bluntly, she is amazing. I love my mum and I am loved by her. She rarely ever complained and simply encouraged us to give our best and try hard because out there (the world) things are difficult especially with our skin color. She did not say it often, but hearing her say it with a slightly sad voice made it stand out. If cousins were to label aunts, she would be a loving and caring one. That one time with the homework, cannot overthrow all the other caring and loving moments, it did stand out a lot though from the pile of different memories, just like how the memories stood out when she got unwell.

The sentence “No one cares about me” is something I would start to say early during my early teens. The time when my mum got unwell. My depression was more linked to my dad and friends and other small things I was doing due to my sensitivity/empathetic nature which accumulated. I always had my mum thought to count on, and at a time when I needed her a lot (my depression), she was not available. Her trauma along with other things, which I might have already thought was not common came up too. Plus everything else. There was a lot going on and it involved my whole family eventually, but like I said once before I talked about all this already. With a therapist and each individual family member. I am cutting this short because I just wanted to show that there is a misunderstanding about the situation with my mum. Maybe that belief of “nobody care about me” formed in between my childhood (0-18 years). As longs as I had my mom, I was fine, but when she was not available it really did feel like I had no one. My mum has always been the most “constant” person around me. My dad was sometimes at work in different countries, since we moved a lot my friend circle kept changing, we moved early away from my birth city, so seeing kinship became less too, and there are times where my siblings were put in different schools.

There is something though that I do get mad about when I talk about my experiences. At first, I could not clearly name the emotion that came along when I explain my experiences and people try to give feedback or comments to justify my emotions. I get upset when people get angry at my mum and judge her to not be a good mum or blaming her (saying things like “she should not have done that”). I logically understand what they are saying, but I also get frustrated at what they are feeling towards my mum at that moment. Their feelings come across as anger or rage sometimes. If I were to put a level scale for the anger it would go like this frustrated >  mad > angry > rage

They do not know her whole story, nor mine, or any other’s family member’s story, and how things are linked and connected. It is like they are putting too many expectations on her, or other family members who are parents, which contradicts with the idea of not having to be perfect, but being okay to make mistakes. I feel like society expects parents to be perfect even when there are blog posts, quotes, books about not having to be perfect. Next, the expectations fall upon adults. It makes becoming an adult an unwanted thing for me. When I was turning 18, I honestly said I could have stopped again at 17 years old. I did not drive, did not drink, did not like 18pg rated movies, did not smoke so anything that other teens are happy about to do legally and by themselves when turning 18 did not apply to me. I felt like I was just getting more responsibilities from society. The state sends a letter to citizen when they turn 18 congratulating them and being a full-fledged adult citizen that is able to vote and pay taxes.

My mum makes mistakes, but she has changed and learned from them. When she got unwell it was not easy for her, but she was trying. There was no one else there to help, no friends, language barriers so no professional help, my dad had tons of things going on and between the two it was tense at that time, she only had me who she trusted and felt safe to talk to. Doctors that she went to, well they prescribed the wrong medication which made her condition worse. And given all the other things that happened or needed to be taken care of, I honestly to this day do not see who could have supported her beside me. We were in Cuba at that time, oceans away from any sort of family, but family drifted away before then with passing years of us moving to Cuba. (There were still yearly visits though).

At her worst, she still managed to do things like cook for us, hug us, laundry. It is not easy seeing your mother perish and being put in a position between parents. Both of them had things to deal with and parts of the trauma that came up were between the two, which happened before my birth and very early on. This was the third time I saw her cry, and those were the tears that I saw when I was two.

There are definitively things which our parents could not teach us because they were not taught nor had anyone to teach them. They include emotional communication or expressing needs/ putting yourself first. When I say parents this extends my aunts (mum’s side) and my dad. Their childhood was definitely not easy and we did not hear much about it when we were younger, but some things do slip through or get notified when you start comparing yourself with others in kindergarten or primary school. My mom and her mom and siblings come from an abusive childhood with tons of moving, not being accepted, some dealing with illnesses – it is amazing what they went through and have accomplished. They never tried to say anything because they found that it was nothing to tell a child. They have changed throughout the years. Not perfect but learning along the way. Sure, emotional needs we not met to our expectations/needs (my older cousins feel the same way). But that is the thing – our expectations/needs, which come from comparisons from what we saw around us. It is different for each of us, for me, I have to say my emotional needs got met a lot as a kid from my mum. Decreased when my mom got unwell. It felt like losing my best friend (my mum was my best friend) along with slowly losing my mom as I saw her light diminish.

Our family is probably one of the most accepting families I know because they know what it is like not to be accepted, to have to stand on your own. With the experiences they went through, they also do not know how to receive support and help well, which was something I have been doing too, and most likely other family members as well.

My mum is an over-giver, I most likely learned overgiving from her. She has lost herself and it was still seen after she got better/more stable. That is painful to watch, especially because she was so cheerful and bright. Had so much energy in her. That just decreased over time. She was trying to help us much as possible when she got better, be more present for us, but was limited for her own lack of self-love and self-worth. Over the years, there were moments when I saw her – the supermum; they were always occurred at times when she suddenly had to take care of all of us kids and do a favor for my dad; when she was occupied helping us with our needs. Asking her what she wanted and needed did not help much, as she did not know much either. When she started being able to realize that it became harder for us (family) to speak to her or even ask for needs she became even quieter, hoping not to be a burden.

It might also help to know that when we left Cuba, or better said fleed for which I had almost given no answers to; it went like this, “we are leaving tomorrow forever.”It was hard to believe considering one of my aunts and her kids were staying over for a visit. Their vacation was cut short, but maybe they were not too surprised because they saw that my mum had changed drastically upon arrival. My dad had to stay in Cuba for another two years for work. Our arrival back home was messy and disappointing. I am not going into details, but today, after one year of getting information from tons of people to help put some puzzle together in the story, it could have been avoided. With more honest communication and being able to emotionally communicate I honestly think many traumas could have been avoided, for me and other family members. In fact, I even had to laugh at the absurdity of it all, and the bad timing of other events that happened. But well, it is what it is.

My mum and I are very alike. I once told her I did not want to end up like her when she eagerly wanted me to share my thoughts because she knew I was keeping things in. It hurt both of us when I said it. I apologized immediately and she also understood where I was coming from at the time I said those words. She couldn’t remember, like other things that happened and what she said when she was too unwell. When I told her last year, she was trying so hard not to cry and she apologized and never meant it and said that she was not fully herself. I know she never meant it and that she was not fully herself.

What I would still like to add in this reply. My mom (as well as aunts to their children) have something in common. They all say they could never forgive themselves if we (kids) do not follow our dreams and go our own pathways, they shall not be the ones holding us back. It is difficult to experience family drifting apart and each having different packets to heal from. My older cousins said when they were trying to comfort me or give me advice (they visited me on my birthday last year) “go away from family as far as possible. The younger generation kids will do this a lot quicker than we did.” That statement hurt. They have their own things to heal from. Yet ironically I wonder if they know that their mums agree on that, that they should do their own thing. In the family, I have heard from almost everybody’s pain something about. Then again I am used to it from strangers, classmates, neighbors as well since I was a kid.

They ( our parents) are acknowledging that fact, and continue to support us the way they can. They will keep telling us to not give up, to believe in ourselves as they believe in us.

I think there is love, but it is not fully flowing, because they are giving love from a place that is not in abundance. The whole family has it, and anyone could agree with some of the illnesses that go around and things experienced by everyone makes self-love and taking care of yourself first not easy. Some of our parents cannot express verbal love to the person directly, because they simply do not know how, but will express it in another way. They have improved over the years and with us kids starting to take our healing journey (my oldest cousin started with therapy, I followed next) and sharing about healing and learning to communicate our feelings better it is starting to trickle down to other members. I feel a lot closer to my family again. My mum and I have weekly calls since January and she is starting to speak up a bit about her feelings. My sister and I were always close, but now we also communicate feelings a lot better. Since I have taken a protective role for my siblings, she said that she now understands me better and the things I have been going through. My brother and I communicate a lot more than we used to. The same goes for my dad, finally. And he finally heard me, like fully. (In fact, I think that is something I also wanted, for my dad to hear me fully; it happened last week). But what it is, even more, there is more communication and activity between them (parents and siblings) even when I am not around.

The way I see it, you have to fill your needs first before you can give from a place from abundance. It is natural to take and things like compassion are a choice, which is beautiful. You can be compassionate and give to others, but if your own cup is too empty and you feel like it is not enough, then you can potentially start to fill with bitterness/depression/etc. To get these emotions out you also have to be able to rely on yourself to give yourself what you need, because if you are waiting for someone to fill your needs, it can easily lead to co-dependence, and when the person cannot give you what you need anymore it might even hurt more to feel a void again. It might sound cold at first, but the image I have in my mind is that of a ballerina doing pique arabesque. It comes from a place of understanding and wishing that everyone learns to love themselves and make themselves a priority before extending that love to others.

It is difficult, but it is possible I believe.  I am trying and hoping that others follow suit, including family members.

anita, while I know that I have not given my whole life story, but I think one can see that there there was/is lots of trauma for each individual family member and each one is simply trying to make the next generation’s life better, filled with less sadness. The problem is, that we would first have to heal ourselves to provide from a place of abundance.

By the way, I know this is not how a child would speak. However, I hope my message was comprehensible and shed more clarity on my life.

Kibou

Dear TeaK,

Thank you for your patience so far.

Unfortunately, my energy has not been optimal and I haven’t been able to finish the reply to your messages.

Kibou

Dear TeaK,

Thank you for your patience. I will structure this reply in two parts; reply 1 and reply 2.

Reply 1

Yes, I would say one of my core wounds is my “unmet emotional needs.”

It took me a while to name that, and it was not until I’ve heard the stories of others and read more about psychology and blogs like these. However, I was able to name the feeling of being a burden a lot quicker in life. I think it started naming that feeling when I was having giving up life thoughts for the first time in my life. Having those thoughts made me feel like a burden, and it got stronger when I saw other people needing help or perhaps being worried about me.

That includes my mom when she got unwell. But also my brother. There was a time I was going to swim as far as possible out into the ocean hoping to get a cramp since I sometimes got those. My brother seemed to have noticed I was not doing well and yelled out my name, as well as make my mum aware and that she should call me back closer to the shore. That is when it hit me, that despite not even saying out my emotions, a loved one of mine still noticed something going on. My brother. I felt guilty for it, for making him worry.

After that event, I spoke more openly about my depression to my mum and my dad. My dad hired somebody to talk to, the problem was a language barrier. The professional spoke Spanish with tiny bits of English. My Spanish was not good enough to communicate such deep emotions and the inner working of my brain. We tried it two times. The second time both my parents were in the sitting, to both hear and aid with the language barrier (my dad’s Spanish is a lot better). I mentioned how I felt hurt by dad and blamed him for many of my reasons for why I felt so hurt. I quickly regretted saying these things when I saw his sadness in his eyes, it looked like he was about to cry, a face I had not seen before on my dad. This adds up to reasons why I used to prefer not to share my emotions, it will hurt you, the other person.

Although it did feel a bit better coming open with my difficulties it was not long till I found myself saying “take a grip” to myself and started to worry about my mum primarily and the rest of the family.

With each reply to either you or anita, I have noticed myself sharing more of my story. The reason why I try to keep it short, is not to complicate things for both you and anita. Like if I still do not want to be a burden.

When I decided to share more of my stories and my emotions with my two close friends, one of them retreated and I wanted to know what was going on. Since they always said they wanted to know more or receive messages from me. I would ask whether they are okay with the length of my messages, which made the retreat and use of said first one thing and then another were confusing and hurtful. Especially because they knew I already had trust issues and troubles with friendship from the year abroad time. I did take into consideration that maybe because they were going through complicating things, as they told me, it changed their behavior.  I also would send messages and picture presentations to cheer them up. That one friend, once they learned and were more comfortable with honesty, they shared that they did retreat and that due to lack of physical contact/distance between us they feel less emotionally connected to me and reading the long messages and me having too many emotions were tiring, but they enjoyed reading them. That they did consider we are very alike because they also think deeply about things like I. Those sentences hurt, especially from a friend that themself writes about how they are very emotional, an HSP, and write about how the right people will tag along if they are just being themselves. They wrote about, how they also struggle with self-love and have written about how they prefer people different/opposite from them. Sometimes, I wonder whether this is also the case they retreated from me because I am too much like them. We are still in contact, with them still having the habit to not reply to all messages, leaving many unseen. Last year, they once wrote me though after asking that this is what they do and asked whether we could come up with something that we both feel connected to each other. But after that email, they quickly changed their behavior again, and then even took a while to read my messages back then, leaving me very confused again. They are going through their own healing journey and like I said before we are still in touch. It simply is no longer the way it used to be. I do think they want to stay in touch since they said they are looking forward to following my new IG account once I create it.

As for the other friend, which today I’ve been grieving a lot more, it really hurts that I haven’t heard from them for almost four months now. The first time they apologized for not being there for me for the good and bad times and that they have a lot on their shoulder. I was really grateful for their honesty and could understand. Then they messaged like we always did and suddenly stopped at the end of January. At first, I thought I did something wrong, like being wrong for sharing my emotions and my story or maybe sending too many messages, although she kept saying she is happy to receive them. I also wrote to them that they can still send messages to other friends in our same friend’s group on IG, knowing that is something that she would worry about. I know she reads (some) of my messages since eventually, I could see her active on IG. While I know, I did allow it, it still hurt me. I sometimes would send cheer-up puns or pictures (bi-weekly/monthly by now), since she did tell me she is having a lot on her shoulder, and knowing her some of her past, I think it is best to show her I am still here and have not left them. Despite it all, it hurts.

Today I felt lots of grief, so it probably is influencing my writing.

“When you comforted your mother when you were just 2 years old, the child doesn’t do it because they have developed empathy at that age, but primarily because they fear that their own existential needs won’t be met. If something happens to your mother, you as a small, helpless child wouldn’t be able to survive on your own. That’s why a child tries to do everything in their power to comfort the parent, to make the parent happy, so the parent could continue to take care of them. It’s a coping mechanism, a survival mechanism for the child. If you help your mother the best you can and don’t represent a burden to her, there’s a greater chance that she’d take care of you, and that your own survival would be ensured. That’s how the child’s mind works, unconsciously.” 

This part of your reply reminded me of the book “The Art of Loving” by Erich Fromm. It also talks about the survival mechanism in a child and that children do anything in their power to make sure their needs are met.

“So, I believe you became an empath, i.e. attuned to other people’s needs, out of necessity.”

That might be the case.

“This continued for many years, where you’ve tried to help various hurt people whom you met on your journey. You would involve in “deep conversations” with them and offered to be their shoulder to cry on. This was your way of bonding. You didn’t ask for much in return, just that they keep in touch. When they wouldn’t, when they would ghost you, that’s when you finally felt hurt and abandoned.”

At first, I thought it was normal that people ghost you since it has been part of my life with constant traveling and moving. However, after accumulated experiences of such cases, is when I started noticing the hurt, which played a part in my first depression.

“I also understand now that some of those people might really be wounded (suffering from social anxiety, as you said), that’s why they would often ghost you. But also, many of your relationships seem to be long-distance, with people whom you didn’t spend much time with in the first place, since you do move a lot, so that’s also something to consider.”

I am happy that I was understood. But yeah, many of my relationships, if not almost all, are long-distance. I’ve come across an amazing blog, which covers articles about (adult) TCK, CCK  (third culture kids / cross-culture kids), and the ex-pat life. I resonated a lot with almost all articles. I am considering buying her book, as it covers stories from over a hundred other people who share similar lifestyles. There are not many instances where I feel touched/heard by the words “you are not alone.” This was one of the cases where I did. It was one of the highlights of the day.

There were some articles covering the topics of connection and friendships. There was one common “lesson” that most TCKs shared, which was “everyone leaves.” I feared that statement once, trying to prevent it. I read a free chapter of a graphic novel last year. It dealt with the same topic, and I felt very moved by it; resonating a lot with the story, even if the details were different from my personal story.

I’ve come more to terms with everyone leaves after they kind of have to right? Nothing is permanent. Everything requires change. Although I lived a life full of changes, it has taken me very long to slowly come to terms with it.

As for the theta healing, while talking about something that concerns you with the healer, emotions will come up, which can show up as physical pain in a certain body part later on (stored energy) or chakra whilst talking. The modality helps clear false beliefs but does not clear emotions. It helps release though. Does that answer your question?

“When you do feel an emotion, it’s good that you can name it, but it might be good to also stay with it for a while, without immediately rationalizing it and trying to get rid of it. Try to see where it’s coming from and which need of yours hasn’t been met. Try not to immediately explain it away, telling yourself that yes, you’re hurt but the person who’s hurt you is hurt too. Because by doing the latter, you immediately overwrite your own pain with empathy for the other person, while your own pain and your own need remain unaddressed.”

I have been working on that. Sitting with emotions is not comfortable I have to say. It is weirdly interesting to come to see/experience just how much energy it takes to sit with one’s energy.

Reply 2

“It appears your mother wasn’t manipulating you consciously, but rather, she was emotionally immature and reacted like a child. And then you were made guilty for “making your mommy cry”, and even needed to apologize.”

I think “emotionally immature” is not correct. She only cried 3 times in front of me during my 18 years of childhood. I think that would be putting too many expectations on mothers, to say that they are emotionally immature because they cried in front of their children. Then again I did not share the full experience the first time.

“Your entire family (I assume your father and other adults, perhaps your grandparents?) concluded the same: that you’re guilty and needed to apologize. There was nobody who understood how an adult should behave – all of them were emotionally immature.”

It was only my mum, a family friend and me in the house. And I do not think that one of them is emotionally immature unless that includes suppressing our needs and emotions. In that case, the whole family is emotionally immature, including me.

“And you were emotionally blackmailed: if you don’t behave, you’ll make your mother miserable, perhaps you’ll even make her sick?”

I was not blackmailed.

I know I am keeping these messages a bit short, but I hope you have read the event with me and me in the reply I sent anita. There, there is more information on how the event played out.

It really can take only one event that sticks out to all others to make keep “lessons” in mind.

About the generalizations, I do not think they refer to my family, or at least only to my family, as I was having different images in my head. They were more like an accumulation of several experiences, which confused me but did store up anger or hurt inside me, but also due to me rationalizing or being understanding I probably neglected my own emotions.

1. People want fairness but we are not fair. So many times have I been treated unfairly because of being different; different skin color, different likes, different ideas, different backgrounds.

All of these statements I was thinking of experiences outside my family, from books, school, movies, uni. And child me would say “mean” or maybe even “angry and scary” as opposed to unfair since that word a child probably would not know. The first time I thought something was mean was a story my mum read me from the children’s bible; I am not really religious, however, for the short time we did go to church when I was little. I remember to this day how the book cover looked like and that one specific story. It was about two women quarreling about whom a baby belongs to. One woman was a liar, the other told the truth, but the person who was trying to come to a “correct” (that is what a child would say) solution cut the baby in half and gave each woman half of the baby. The baby no longer breathed when cut in half. However, the mum who lied got angry and complained that there was no use for the baby now. The mom who was telling the truth was sad and cried. That is how they figured out who the real mum was. I can’t remember the end of the story, or whether that was the end. I do remember I found the solution, and the lier means and was sad hearing that story, maybe even a little scared. There are other stories from children’s bible movies/comics I found scary and it always boils down to someone being different, which is why they do not get treated kindly. This is very common in life. The cases where I found that to be the least the case was in the international school in Cuba, which was filled with diplomat kids and kids who been in contact with several different cultures in their life (like a lot of different cultures).  Although not all memories are pleasant, I always found that school to have the most family-like atmosphere and the fairest, color, background, different ideas were rarely an issue in my viewpoint. The unfairness I’ve experienced in that case was all because people were hurt (sick parents, divorced parents, death of loved ones, not feeling like they are enough or worthless), and by then I already knew that hurt people hurt people.

I could probably give more stories, but I would rather change my statement as I no longer store that anger in me, when I said it. Now I would change it to “People want fairness and they try to be fair. What is perceived as fair depends on the worldview and experiences of each individual person, making an equal perceives fairness difficult to obtain unless people approach with open-mindedness and desire to want to get the other side better.”

2. People want authenticity but only to their liking.

This statement kind of plays along the lines with the first one. When I thought about this statement, the image I had in my head was that of modern society and the influence of corporates, polarization, and the trends in showing integrity. However, the first story I think about is one from middle school. In school/uni I was good at debates and discussions. I didn’t like them though. The group usually wants to win, and me being often class best there was kind of the guarantee perceived by others, that if they had met in the group they would win or get a good grade. There was once a debate about the nurture and nature topic during middle school, because of lack of time, the teacher simply split the class in half (literally took half of the class and made that one group) and randomly assigned which side we would defend. It was okay that we could agree that both sides brought valid points, but we still had to debate in such a way that favored the side assigned. I remember wanting to be on the other side since I favored that side more personally, yet the assignment required me to debate in favor of the other side (my group), plus I think I was influenced by peer pressure and the role of being class best. Our group won, although I honestly was let down on how the other group could not think of ways to argue against the claims I was making. What matters more is the fact that I did not like what I was doing; it was not authentic nor upheld my truth in my opinion. It did not matter which side I stood on, I believed I could win on either side of the debate because I would come up with counterclaims for both and unless there was no one to question what I believed then I would have nothing to challenge my own thinking. Maybe with this statement, I was also angry at myself, because although I want authenticity from others, even I hide all of myself in order to blend into new cultures in order to maintain peace. I hope this is making any sense.

3. People say you should be yourself, but if you are yourself and it is not to people’s liking then that is a lie.

This follows along the lines of the second point. I feel like I have been saying the same thing in different ways. In this statement, I would agree that family does play a role in it. For example, I could not be fully myself when taking care of others.

This statement I would like to change to “It is hard to be yourself in a world where many people are still all trying to find what it means to be yourself and allow to be oneself.”

4. People say they want kindness but are skeptical of it.

This statement came from blog posts, forums, and articles I had been reading prior to writing on this platform. Two of my friends had pointed out that they think I am too kind (this was last year), and thus I was searching about what the problem is with being too kind. People being skeptical about kindness came up, but to be honest I do not think I should have let it affect me so much since I was probably too vulnerable to read such things at that time.

I still think people tend to be more skeptical of kindness because there seems to be a larger number of hurting people who have not dealt with or have only dealt little with their scars/wounds. This would make kindness look like scarcity and thus more skeptical because we (humans) would tend to react based on our negative experiences first.

Now I feel like that statement has nothing too little to do with my actual feelings. I think I let my stored anger/sadness be fueled by a different anger/sadness; like putting oil to the fire.

5. There are so many things that contradict each other so there is no right or wrong, but people say something is right or wrong.

Honestly, this primarily comes from my tons of experiences of moving around and exposed to change frequently. The statement did not provoke anger in me, but rather overwhelming. I actually find paradoxical/oxymorical to be part of my core traits; they are like the big trunk that holds roots and branches together (I’ve made a picture of it even; it is not complete yet). I find it beautiful, but I first somehow also had to find peace or some sort of understanding of how that is part of my identity and how it influences my relationships and experiences as an individual. This is where the TFK/CCK articles helped greatly with getting some more clarity.

6. Working is fun or full-filling, that is a lie. Most people I have met so far are sad or angry when they come back from work.

This started in the family. To the largest part, I found my dad, and one aunt that works to be unhappy with their work, and they were stressed out by it. This was also the case with other adults that worked, hence when people tried to say work is fun or can be fulfilling I would find it hard to believe, especially if they themselves do not seem that happy and more often stressed.

The emotion attached to this statement is annoyance and probably some fear (of the unknown).

I am not looking forward to working full time, but at least it is no longer as bad as it used to be.

“Was someone in your family (e.g. your siblings) jealous of you being smart?”

The first time I got that feeling was with my second oldest cousin when doing homework together (I was in grade 1). It was not voiced out by them, nor did I know how to describe that vibe I was receiving. However, I could match that feeling with the classmate voicing out their jealously. Usually, I would equate jealousy with loneliness, thus make it a goal to not get people jealous of me, as far as I could, because my desire to make dad proud was higher.

The more confident I am growing with all my experiences the less I care about it. Even jealousy is an important emotion that tries to tell you something. It would be unfair to deprive someone of feeling that, even if I may not particularly like it when I feel like others are jealous of me. After all, I also have been jealous of others. Although usually, that drives me to be inspired by them for what I envy and try to learn. I think I subconsciously wanted people to do the same things with their jealously towards me.

“It doesn’t mean you should start yelling at your mother and other family members, being angry at them, but you can allow yourself to feel those feelings privately, and not feel bad about yourself for feeling them.”

I like it that I can feel these things privately. Although I can also admit that I could talk about this to my mum in a subtle and calm way; about how I store anger inside and had to find a way to get it out of me. I even told her that maybe she can resonate with some of my feelings. Next, I shared how I wanted to turn these “lessons/experiences” into stories and shared some of my writings with her. She found it beautiful. I am really happy that I am communicating a lot more with my family, at the end we say more often “I love you” (with my mum that was almost always the case though). You really can feel changes happening and each one trying.

“When you talk about “people” in those presentations, e.g. people who don’t care about the environment, you may be in part talking about your family who doesn’t care about you, and you’re angry and upset at them. And it shows in your presentations…

Does this sound like a possibility to you?”

I feel more like I learned how to evoke such feelings subconsciously and consciously. In high school, we learned about, which background could make a bigger impact on the audience and get their attention + various other techniques. Especially for (collectively considered) important topics like environmental protection.

I think I rather have more of a problem with myself, which is that I know I can be manipulative and that I can be good at it. After all, such techniques at the end are a form of manipulation. This would not be the first time that I would feel that about myself. Nature and nurture is another scenario where I was afraid of my own capabilities. I think it also plays a big role in why I focus on social responsibilities yet trying to come to solutions, I hope not to fall into any manipulative behavior subconsciously or consciously. I talked about this with a friend, and they said there are good and bad forms of manipulation and it is impossible to avoid it. A mum for example might treat her child to a goodnight story if the child thus goes to the bed early is a form of manipulation even if the intention was out of the good and caring pursuit. They also mentioned, that I might care or overthink too much and I am probably more afraid of my own capabilities, especially because I could be good at it. It soothed me to hear, the fact that I am aware of it, is a good step forward.

Kibou

Dear TeaK,

I cried when reading your reply because I was so happy that you understood my situation and felt a lot more heard. Thank you so much for taking the time to keep replying and reading my messages. I will reply, to things where questions were asked, or things that seem to need clarification.

“You started suffering from depression before your mother got sick, and it seems it wasn’t because of your mother, but because of your father (was it because he wasn’t around too much?) and because of your school friends.”

I think it was because I did not share the same connection with him as I did with my mother. I eventually thought it was my fault though, yet the lack of him around meant less time for bonding.

For example, I often missed out on father’s day because he was not there. When he was there (I am talking about kindergarten times) he did not seem as happy as my mum when giving him gifts and wishing him Happy Father’s Day.  Eventually, I grew to forget that day altogether; often not remembering what day of the year it is. Sometimes I sent him wishes when I remembered, but it did make me feel guilty because I always remembered mother’s day. I once expressed that to my parent when talking about my depression in Cuba, and individually to my dad. He replied that he does not care about such things. On many of those celebration days, he does not care about them in the sense that he finds the original meaning of the celebrations has been lost, and too much has been commercialized and romanticized.

When it comes to the connection between mother and child he taught me about how it is more natural to have such a strong bond between mother and child. The child literally spends 9 months in the womb of the mother, already forming a deep connection there. I am starting to think I also learned rationalizing from my dad.

Also, I was determined to make my parents proud since grade 1. My dad rarely expresses his praise for us kids to us kids. He does show us how to improve, which was often. It felt like being compared often to others and I was still waiting for the praise. There are times I remember crying because when I received help from him, it seemed like I was not fast enough to catch up to his thinking and the way he was carrying out himself seemed like he was angry at me. But with crying, I also noticed that it would upset him somehow, which made me feel like I hurt him. The same situation as described in your reply (“If I share my negative feelings – if I am authentic – I will hurt the people I love”). So I often tried to avoid needing his help with studies and hoping to be able to do things without his help. Around middle school, my mom no longer could intellectually help me much with school content, even before she got unwell.

Through it all though, the anger/disappointment/pain I had towards my dad I often expressed to my mum. Most of my feelings in regard to my dad were expressed, whether they were sad or happy ones. There are memories I have of him that show that he loves me, that he loves and cares for all of us a lot, but has tremendous difficulties expressing that to us directly.

Me being stubborn and keeping to try to form a stronger connection between us paid off in the end. I try to speak in his way of thinking; that is the languages of sciences. My dad knows a LOT in almost every single field. Much seems to come from his traveling and self-studies experiences and his thirst for knowledge thanks to his grandeur curiosity; I think I get my curiosty from him.

When I felt heard by my dad on father’s day this year (things have changed), we first talked about the storage of proteins and carbohydrates at advanced cellular and metabolic level. When he could see, that I understood what he was talking about, to such extent that there was little to no new information for me, he was more open to hearing me. I don’t think he is aware of this himself though. I slowly could incorporate my explanations about the way I think and how I have difficulties expressing my knowledge yet understand it. Then I could move on to talking about emotions; This is the only topic I think my dad is not good at unless he has to address such matters with people outside his family. I addressed that once to him and he agreed, that was the case and it has to do with how he grew up. When he shared that piece of information with me, that was already a big accomplishment sharing such vulnerability.

But my dad has been trying to improve throughout all years of my existence, just the category family and emotions are tricky for him, and change there takes more time. He learns from every experience. The amount of effort he put in trying to help me through when he saw I had an outbreak of emotions is amazing:

1. He does not like therapy much and would rather pay for single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) to be able to see directly which part of the brain is affected. This can help get the proper nutrition and mediation methods or relaxation methods a lot quicker and more effectively in his opinion. I would agree though, the SPECT scans do show some very promising results and seem to be able to aid a lot, especially along with therapy. Yet he paid for online counseling for an extended while without much further explanation of how something else could be better. He was in Indonesia and I was in Germany. This was around October 2020. He also went through several sites about HSP and SPECT scans from Dr. Amen together with me. He asked what things I resonated with so that he can get a clearer picture as well. It was from him, that I was introduced to HSP, and could inform myself better.
2. He would order vitamins and minerals and deliver them to the house because he knew I was too “dead” inside to do anything.
3. Constantly checked in to see whether I finally get my blood tested for vitamin D.
4. When he overheard me and my mum talking on the phone, and I was expressing “dark” thoughts like “it does not matter anyway what I do,” or “I no longer can keep going” he would send a blog article to me that was inspiring and included both emotions and a bit science. (That was a new change; to see more emotional support in the things he would send me).

Basically, yes, my first depression had more to do with my dad, but it was also complicated. And his lack of presence did not make things easier. BUT, he keeps changing and he loves us all, he simply has a very hard time expressing that to us directly. Often he expresses it in different forms, which take getting used to as it was quite different from how my mum expresses love. It was also thanks to other people that could clarify more of my dad’s behavior. How I came to the opportunity to have these conversations was like fate, since they kind of came unexpectedly.

“I wonder if you started rationalizing only after your mother got sick”

I think it came before that already. I learned it from her. She would also rationalize, and be compassionate and understanding of others.  This was also seen early on with kinship. When she was in the position to help she would help a lot. As a child, it seemed like my mum was helping a lot more than receiving. Sometimes, she would also spend a lot of time with my cousin. I was still in primary school and was not so much aware of exactly what wounds each other family members held. I once got jealous of my cousin because it seemed like my mum was forgetting me. I shared that with my mum and she was understanding of my emotion and promised me that we would spend time together, just the two of us. She also taught me that at the moment my cousin really needed someone too and because we live in different cities (eventually different countries) we only had vacation time to do things with my cousin. That made sense.

“Perhaps you did blame your father for causing those moves to happen, or for not being home too much?”

I don’t think I blamed my dad for the moves. In fact, I was always excited when getting to explore a new environment. It was like an adventure. Maybe because I made happy memories usually upon moving into a new place, city, or country. I would even say I am more affected by reverse culture shock than culture shock, sometimes even wondering whether I experience culture shock.

“However, it could be that the core of that belief is related to your family and that you couldn’t really be authentic with them.”

That could be the case.

“I see how the trauma accumulated over time, and how it was difficult for you to even be angry at anybody, because no one did anything wrong, and yet you suffered, and your needs weren’t met – due to the “circumstances”.”

Yes. I think that describes my situation very well.

It would be nice if you could wait for the reply until I replied to anita’s new message.

Kibou