Dear Sox:

It is interesting, you wrote to me in your recent message: “You are right. It seems the timing was just off..”- I didn’t say that at all. What I did say was that he doesn’t value walking his talk/ following his words with action. This lack of value is not dependent on time, so it is not that the timing was just off. Likely, without him doing some healing work, he would continue to not walk his talk in the decades to come.

“Probably his anger was misdirected at me”- it often happens that anger gets misdirected. And because he has significant anger within him from early in his life, it is not likely that breaking up with you will give him “some peace and happiness”- maybe a relief for a short time, that is all.

“Yes, his actions often did not follow his words; there were a lot of instances even while we were together. These did raise flags in my head but I ignored them”- probably because you have the strong tendency to blame yourself: you see yourself as the guilty one, not other people, so you ignore red flags.

“But, Anita, please tell me how do I stop blaming myself?… I feel like sending an e-mail to him; giving him a piece of my mind… Should I tell him the way he acted was wrong.. and how do I rid myself of the guilt”- you are stuck between believing that you were wrong, feeling anger at yourself and believing that he was wrong, feeling anger at him.

Just like I suggested to you that his  anger started early in his life, I suggest to you that your tendency to feel that you are wrong/ do wrong and are guilty, has its roots early in your life, that is, in your childhood. That early-life belief (being/ doing wrong) and heavy guilt gets activated in the context of the relationship and breakup with this man. I suggest that you and I discuss this issue, if you are willing, before you send him an e-mail regarding him being wrong. In the next post to you, the one to follow this one, I will attend to this issue of your guilt.

Regarding his few books/ study material that are in your possession- he blocked you from all the numbers you called him, therefore, you need not contact him. Donate the books and get a receipt from the store (or from the post office, if you package and mail those books to a store). If he ever asks you for them, post to him that receipt- he can contact the store and ask for those books, they may still be there.

anita

Dear Sox:

“If you had to make an educated guess; do you think he will try to contact me? Maybe to apologise or to mend fences”- I can’t predict the future, of course, but my educated guess is that if he contacts you, it will not be so to apologize, at least not to sincerely apologize, and I don’t think that he is likely to try to mend fences. He may say: “I am sorry”, and “I want to mend fences”, but he already has the reputation of not walking his talk, so those are likely to be empty words.

I think that the two of you, individually, suffer from anxiety (most people do, if not all, at one time or another), but there is a big difference between the two of you: you have the big tendency to blame yourself for whatever goes wrong, and I don’t know that he has that tendency. When one of two people has such a strong tendency, and the other doesn’t, the one who doesn’t is likely to conveniently let the other take the blame at any time.

Regarding whether he will contact you at all, it depends mostly on whether he will feel lonely. We are social beings, so if he feels lonely for too long, he is likely to contact someone, and that someone may be you.

Next is the part about your guilt. I looked for evidence of your core-belief that you are wrong/ doing wrong, the one at fault, guilty:

1. “The guy broke up with me.. I tried to call him to understand why, so he blocked my number. I panicked and ended up calling him from all available numbers”- I think that part of your panic was you assuming you did something wrong, feeling very anxious over what it is that you did wrong, thinking something like: oh, oh, what did I do wrong???

2. You “messaged him 2 days later apologising (though I really don’t know what I even did)”- you didn’t know what you did wrong, but you assumed that you did something wrong, so you you apologised for whatever it was that you did wrong.

3. “I just cannot wrap my head around as to WHY he broke up?! I was honest to a fault, extremely dedicated and loyal and loving”- it may very well be that the reason you developed, since sometime in childhood and onward, an extreme, to a fault,  honest, dedicated, loyal and loving personality was to make sure that you will never do anything wrong.

When he broke up with you, you asked WHY because your fear of having done something wrong is so great.

4. “I have been having a hard time processing this; cannot understand what I did and have been blaming myself”- again, you assume that he broke up with you because you did something wrong, and you are thinking very hard, trying to figure out what it was that you did wrong.

5. “In my head, I did not do anything wrong; I tried to communicate; was always; ALWAYS honest”- in the logical part of your brain,  you did nothing wrong, but in your heart (where core beliefs reside, in the emotional part of the brain, that is)- you believe that you did something wrong. You’ve been trying so hard to always (capital letters) to be honest/ do what is right, so to.. never be/ do wrong.

6. “I had some anxiety issues 2 months prior to the break up, and some insecurity issues as well… But, I still don’t believe that it would entail such a harsh, hostile and cruel break up. What did I ever do to garner this level of hatred? Am I wrong thinking this way?”- as you search for what it is that you did wrong, you figure that maybe it was your “anxiety issues” and “insecurity issues” that were what was wrong about you. But then, you counter this thought with the following: okay,  I was wrong/ I did wrong and deserved to be broken up with, but I wasn’t wrong enough to deserve cruelty!

And then, you wonder if you thinking this way is what is wrong about you.

7. “I am also going to admit here.. I had been going through some anxiety issues.. I MAY have gotten clingy/ emotionally needy.. I still tried to remain calm”- you used the verb “to admit”, as if you were guilty of a wrong doing, that that wrong doing was feeling anxious and consequently, behaving in “clingy/ emotionally needy” ways. You have been trying very hard to be calm, so to not feel/ do anything wrong.

8. “I don’t really know why he broke up; me accepting that I may have pushed him is me trying to make sense of things because I was never given the opportunity to know what I have done wrong”- again, you are assuming that you did something wrong, and you are trying to figure out what it is that you did wrong; he moved away from you, and you assume that you pushed him away.

9. “I at least deserved an explanation, I think”- you believe so strongly that you are/ did wrong, that you figured that maybe you deserved to be broken up with, but you were not that wrong to not deserve an explanation!

10. “I MAY have become a bit clingy”- you are looking very hard for what you did wrong, that’s why the MAY is in capital letter. It is as if you are sitting in a dark room with a flashlight, pointing the flashlight here and there, shining a STRONG light at this and that, looking for that which you did wrong.

11. “If you think there is some other reason why he acted in the way he did; please do tell me.. where do you think I faultered based on what I have told you? I would also want to work on myself; if I was at fault”- Guilt, with a capital G, is strong in you. You strongly feel and believe that you were at fault and you are anxiously, obsessively looking for what it is that you did wrong, looking for that fault, or faults. You figure that maybe I can see that fault, asking me to tell you what it is.

12. “But, Anita, please tell me how do I stop blaming myself?… I do have a tendency to feel guilty even when I am not at fault. I have a habit of apologising incessantly and if I feel I caused even the slightest of discomfort.. I apologize. Yes, I am willing to discuss the issue”- so let’s discuss it. As you read the following, for you to be able to consider what I write next, you need to be as calm as possible- we need to be calm so to think effectively.  If you are not calm enough, you can return to your thread later, when you are calm:

You wrote: “I have been told by.. my family that I did nothing wrong and this action of his reflects how he truly is”- when something is wrong in the family, a parent is displeased or angry, the child will take responsibility for it, believing that she is at fault for that displeasure or anger. Children think that way, seeing themselves as the cause for what is happening around them.

If the parent tells the child: this is your fault! That will stick with the child, but even if a parent doesn’t say that, if the parent is displeased or angry, if the parent does not contain his/ her displeasure so that it is not expressed in dramatic/ exaggerated ways, and if the parent does not explain to the child that it is not the child’s fault- the child will feel at fault, not understanding that.. it is not her fault.

Somehow, within your family, you naturally took responsibility for what you were not responsible for, believing that there is something wrong with you, with what you are and what you think and feel.. and what you do. It was a false core belief, formed early in childhood, and that false core belief was not corrected over the course of your childhood. As a result, you continue to believe that you are at fault about things you are not at fault for.

Now, notice  this: no one is perfect, and no matter how hard you try, you cannot be perfect- you can not possibly be calm all the time and say the right things all the time, and do the right things.. all the time. No one can. For people with your core belief (which was mine as well, by the way)- you take every normal imperfection and see it as evidence that you are indeed at fault.

The reason this breakup bothers you so much, is less for the breakup itself and more because you are troubled for being allegedly, in your own mind, at fault for it. The core belief itself is very distressing: it’s hard to live day in and day out believing that you can screw things up at any time (because there is something so wrong about who you are…).

In your recent post you asked: “so what should I feel? I don’t even know what to feel”- in regard to personal responsibility and other-responsibility, if you correct your core belief, over time, through emotional healing- you will no longer feel so distressed over possibly having done something wrong/ being at fault for something. You will understand that your thoughts and feelings are never wrong, and that sometimes your actions: what you say and do are wrong. But you will know that this is true for everyone. Everyone around you sometimes says and does the wrong things.

Not being as distressed over this, you will be able to correctly evaluate your behaviors and others’ and detect who did what wrong. You will be able to correct your own wrong doings and you will be able to hold others responsible for what they did wrong.

You wrote that you are willing to discuss this issue- I am willing too, for as long as it takes, whenever you are ready.

anita

Dear Sox:

“Even though I have so many people around me who appreciate me or and love me; but I still feel unloved”-

– will you tell me about just one of the “so many people around” you who appreciate and/ or love you- the one adult who was around you most when you were a child, how he or she loved you then and now?

anita

Dear Sox:

Your feelings of guilt are very strong, so I figure that these feelings have their roots in your childhood, that as a child you were led to believe that you were at fault for what was wrong, when you were not at fault. I figured that if your parents didn’t use these words: you are at fault! you are guilty!, then in some other way, you ended up believing that wrong things that happened, were indeed your fault.

This is what you wrote about your childhood and family, in the order you shared: “I don’t know if my childhood has inculcated in me a thought process that evokes the feeling of guilt in me… Their parenting style is different and so is their loving style. I don’t really remember how they loved me when I was a child. I was pampered a lot, I would also get scolded a lot. I was a rebellious child; maybe even be categorised as  being the black sheep of the family. How they love me now? Both of my parents; they listen to me; they advise me;  sometimes even scold me if they think I am doing something wrong”.

I will now comment on different parts of the above:

1. About being scolded: s a child, you “would also get scolded a lot”, and as an adult, they “sometimes even scold me if they thing I am doing something wrong”.

Here is one online definition of scold: “to angrily or harshly tell someone that they’ve said or done something wrong”. So, your parents scolded you a lot, that is, they repeatedly sent you the message that you were wrong, and they sent you that message angrily, their anger cementing in you the core-belief that you were wrong.

You wrote earlier: “I don’t know if my childhood has inculcated in my a thought process that evokes the feeling of guilt in me”.

One online definition of inculcate is “to instill (an attitude, idea, or habit) by persist instruction”. Another definition is: “to teach and impress by frequent repetitions or admonitions”.

Well, your parents then inculcated your core-belief that you are wrong, guilty and at fault by scolding you a lot.

Having learned how strong in you, this core-belief is, I don’t think that they need to scold you anymore, because you probably suspect that you did something wrong every day, before the idea occurs to them! You don’t need to be scolded, you have been overly scolded already.

A child needs to be guided and taught gently, not harshly, because a child gets easily and intensely scared when faced with a parent’s anger. Here is a quote from an online article on scolding (www. parentcircle. com/ article/ scolding your child): “Using harsh words, or scolding a child, is considered a form of emotional abuse. Experts believe that the psychological effects of being yelled at is as bad as, and sometimes even worse than, physical abuse. Therefore, as a parent, you should be aware of the psychological effects of scolding. Like adults, a child being scolded also experiences feelings of humiliation, fear, guilt, shame, anxiety and stress. All these could lead to sleep-related problems, developmental delays, behavioural problems, learning problems, emotional issues and trouble forming social relationships…

“Fact: parents indulge in emotional abuse when they scold.. scolding doesn’t instill discipline; instead, it could give rise to behavioural issues.. Scolding does not teach a child to change her behaviour. Instead, it makes a child feel fearful or aggressive”-

– according to what I just quoted, it is very possible that you were “a rebellious child” as a result of being scolded. In other words: what came first was you being scolded repeatedly. After some time of being scolded, you reacted in rebellious ways.

2. About being the black sheep, you wrote that you “maybe even be categorised as  being the black sheep of the family. One online definition of black sheep: “a disfavored or disreputable member of a group”- disreputable, as in one being repeatedly scolded and receiving therefore the reputation of being the one person in the family who is the wrong one, the guilty one, the n at fault. Was that your experience?

3. About parenting style. You mentioned your parents’ “parenting style”- it seems that their parenting style included lots of scolding you, which gave you the reputation of The Guilty One in the family, a reputation that turned out to be your core belief, that is, believing that in any relationship, if something goes wrong, then it must be your fault, something wrong that you did.

4. About being pampered, you wrote that you were “pampered a lot”. You were scolded a lot and pampered  (treated with extreme or excessive care and attention) a lot. When a child is scolded a lot, the anxiety that results from being scolded does not disappear when pampered. Fear cannot be neutralized by pampering.

Back to the online article I quoted from, it reads: “Scolding is not a good weapon for parents or parenting.. Be a positive parent and inculcate positive parenting techniques. Never abuse your children by not knowing the limits of scolding. Always keep this in your mind, ‘Yelling silences your message. Speak quietly so your children can hear your words instead of just your voice”. The article continues to advise parents to “Stop using harsh words”, to “never put down your child in front of others”, to “watch your body language, tone of voice.. If you feel you are losing your temper take a time out, relax.. go for a walk.. calm yourself and then talk to your child.. talk to your child calmly to make him behave the way you desire”.

Dear Sox:

Before I proceed I want to tell you something that I believe is very important for you to understand: in my communication with you, I am not trying to hurt your parents. I am communicating with you, not with them, therefore, my focus and concern is your suffering and wanting you to no longer suffer. You are not betraying them by communicating with me. This thread is about you and making your life better- this is what matters here.

“Do you think my anxiety issues and the core belief that I am always wrong, or I am the guilty one has emanated as a result of being yelled at?”- yes, I do. Yelling does that.

Your parents did more than yelling at you, they also created an image of you that is not true to who you were. For a young child, the parents are like The Mirror. What the child sees in the mirror is what the child believes that she is.

Let’s look at the image your parents showed you in the mirror of their minds and hearts: “a notorious kid..  create a ruckus everywhere.. could not and would not sit at one place… I underperformed at school or was not willing to work hard.. always up to something (extremely notorious) … always want to do things differently and discipline and obedience did not come naturally to me at all. I would reason, ask why I am being scolded or why, what I am doing is wrong?.. always had a very independent thought process.. even as a child”-

– A child is never, ever born with an independent thought process, let alone, “a very independent thought process”- a child is born not thinking at all, not having the words to think.

For a young child, only one thing matters, and that is to be fed and taken care of. The child will do everything possible to be liked by the parent, so that the parent will want to feed and take care of her.

Imagine this, in nature, any baby animal, like a young deer (a fawn) always follows her mother (the doe) wherever the mother goes. The fawn does not make independent choices as to where she will go. She follows. A fawn will never bite her mother or harm her in any way, this is harming the fawn’s source of food, shelter and protection. Same is true for a young child, the child that you were.

Your parents told you that you were a notorious kid, “extremely notorious”, but what if you weren’t at all a notorious child? After all, you were “the first child and an only child” before your sister was born, this means that.. your parents did not understand that certain baby/ young child behaviors are not a matter of being rebellious or notorious, but a matter of the baby/ child not being able to behave any other way.

Examples: 1. (an extreme example first): A parent says to her baby: sit! The baby does not sit. The parent says: you are a rebellious baby, discipline and obedience does not come naturally to you, not at all!

But the baby doesn’t sit because because she is not physically able, and/ or she can’t understand the word “sit”. All that the parent said was not true, the baby is not rebellious, she just… can’t sit yet.

2. Parent and young child are in a park where children run and play, and the child is running. The parents says: stop running! The child stops, but five minutes later, she runs again. The parent says: you refuse to stand still, you are not obedient, you are rebellious! But none of that is true: a child is impulsive by  nature, she feels like running, so she runs without thinking.. she doesn’t remember the instruction before starting to run again.

This is why a parent has to gently repeat instructions, and make sure the instructions are reasonable. An extreme example of an unreasonable instruction would be to instruct the child in the park to never run (it is too frustrating for a child, maybe impossible); a reasonable instruction would be to instruct the child to stop running after the child ran for 15 minutes, or half an hour.

3. A young child is playing in her room with toys, the parent enters the room and sees many toys all over the room. The parent gets upset at the child, accusing the child of being “up to something”- but the child was not up to something. It is natural for a child to play. Let’s say, the parent then tells the child: next time, play with one toy, then put the toy away before you play with the next toy.

The day after, the parent enters the room and toys are everywhere again, the parent says to the child: you are not disciplined, you are not obedient.. yesterday, you were notorious, today you are “extremely notorious” because I told you how to play, and you ignored what I told you.

But this is all wrong- when a child gets excited, she is naturally impulsive and forgets what she was told before- for a child, the day before was like a year before. She needs to be gently reminded of what she was told so long ago.

4. A parent says to a young child: put your toys away! The child responds with: “Why?” The parent says: you are not obedient, you are challenging me! But truth is, a young child asks many Whys every day, why this and why that, it’s a curiosity and a habit, not a challenge.

Fast forward, a child having many instances such as the four I listed here, believes that she is rebellious, notorious, etc., when in reality she was curious, impulsive, energetic.. like any other child.

* It does happen that an older child/ a preteen and teenager becomes rebellious- but not a young child.

A young child believes everything the parent says. Unfortunately for you, a lot of what your parents said about who you were (and who you therefore believe that you still are) was not/ is not true to reality.

anita

Dear Sox:

“doesn’t the general style of parenting involve yelling? Is that not that is practised universally?”- yelling is not a “style of parenting”, it is a behavior on the part of parents that harm their children. It is true that a lot of parents yell at their children, but it is always harmful and that is why a lot of children are harmed. Yelling is okay only in a circumstance like this: a child has his hand just about to touch a hot stove, or a child is wondering into a busy street- the parent then yells so to get the quick attention of the child and stop the child from burning her hand on a hot stove or endangering her life crossing the street.

“Does (yelling) instill my kind of core belief in every child?”- no, it does not instill a certain core belief, what yelling does to every child (and many animals, like dogs), is scare the child. It is always harmful to scare a child unnecessarily (when child is not about to touch hot stove, etc.)

“Anita, you had mentioned you shared the same core belief as mine; do you mind sharing how your core belief came to be developed?”- my core belief that I was terribly guilty, that I was responsible to whatever was wrong was formed as a result of (a) observing my mother repeatedly complain about how hard her life was, how everyone’s life (including mine, she said) was better than hers, how unfair it was.. crying, threatening to commit suicide, etc. (b) hearing my mother tell me (with tears, yelling.. emotionally charged)  that I was the reason for a lot of her pain, that she had to work hard to feed me/ buy for me,  and working hard hurt her body; hearing her tell me that I was bad, that I meant to hurt her, telling me in great detail how (she seemed to believe, which was not true) that I intentionally did this or that so to hurt her.

“Coming back to my childhood and how yelling may have instilled this core belief in me; how do I solve this? How do I rid my core of the belief that I am always wrong/ guilty?”- first, it is not only the yelling that instilled your core belief as “always wrong/guilty”- it is the combination of being yelled at and being certain messages (ex. a parent tells a child: you are guilty! You caused my pain!), or the parent expresses something to the child that a child naturally interpret as guilt, (ex. the parent complains at length about how miserable her/ his life is-> the child figures she must be the reason for her parent’s misery).

Second, regarding how to rid yourself from your always-wrong/guilty core belief- it will take time and work of the emotional healing kind. Such work is best done in quality psychotherapy. Here we can look deeper into the origin of this core belief in your mind, if you want to. If you do, you are welcome to share more about what you think gave birth to this core belief.

You shared that you “get anxious a lot.. to a very unmanageable extent” when a person says “they will call/ text back within a particular time frame and they fail to do that”, and you react to that anxiety by calling and texting them— this is making me think of this scenario: a mother says to her young child: I have to go to the store for just five minutes, stay in your room and play, I will be right back. She then leaves, and the child is alone in her room/ in her house. A young child does not understand what five minutes mean to an adult. For a child who is left alone, five minutes feel like hours/ forever.

The child is scared, alone, her heart is beating fast, she feels dizzy but she doesn’t have the words for how she feels, she just knows that she feels very badly, “to a very unmanageable extent”, and that she never wants to feel this way again. Her mother finally returns, the child is relieved.. but she is now afraid to be left alone and the parents not coming back “right away”. So, whenever her parent says: I’ll be back right away, the child fears the parent will be gone for hours/ forever.

Fast forward, as an adult, someone says: I’ll call/ text in an hour and does not-> the child within the adult fears that the person will never call again, she panics and calls and calls.. not receiving the promised call or text feels like being left alone for a forever.

anita

Dear Sox:

You are very welcome. Thank you, I am better now, and in a moment, I will explain to you what it  means, that I am better.

“I keep battling between improving, self-empowering and then reach the brink of slipping into what seems like an emotional tornado.. I am rising one moment, and eclipsing the next”, “Can you please suggest some ways on how to deal with the anxiety I described?”

Here is how I am doing better: I feel the beginning of “an emotional tornado” (I felt it a moment ago, not related to reading from you), I feel it at its beginning and it does not develop into a full tornado, so it doesn’t blow me away, it doesn’t throw me up to great heights and then down to great lows.

How to get to the point of being able to do that?- on one hand I had quality psychotherapy for over two years, which started me on the healing path. My therapist used Mindfulness practices (guided meditations, mindfulness exercises- all which are available online) in his treatment plan. What those mindfulness practices do is: literally slowing down the brain so that you can notice the beginning of a tornado, and do what needs to be done to stop that beginning from developing into a powerful tornado.

What “needs to be done” is what my therapist suggested, which was using tools from an imaginary tool box. Example of tools: healthy distractions, such as taking a walk when stressed.

In addition to mindfulness, I learned more and more the story of my life, got to thoroughly understand who I was at the beginning and who my mother was. It helps a lot to understand who was responsible for what and to own only to what you are responsible, not to what others are responsible for.

anita