Hey Anita, I hope you’re having a great week.

I sometimes see a dream where I have two relationships at the same time. I get nervous about that and I freak out. I just realized that I saw lots of dreams about that in the past months. I also saw another dream last night where I was coming across with a girl I knew online, kind of a persona, she is like a life coach or something. She sometimes shares texts about lots of people asking for help with long texts, without asking first and she hates that. I don’t even know her, but I saw her in my dream. I was preparing a letter for her, like the ones I write to you, diligently trying to express what happened and how I feel. After I get where she is, to give the letter, I realize that my letter started to melt. My letter was on an ice, in a small container. I see the water and remnants of my melted letter and I feel bad about it. Now I have to write all of that all over again, let alone putting my thoughts in an order. So much work! After a while, I realize that it was the right thing to happen, since it was rude for me to put all of my stuff there for that person to help me. How selfish was that? I was scared of that girl’s boundaries and I was grateful that my letter was melted. I don’t see my own boundaries here in this dream. All these years, I saw others’ boundaries and I acted accordingly. This doesn’t sound fair.

Sometimes I see quotes on “being scared is the worst thing you can do, it’ll happen” and so on. I think of double-slit experiment and I worry that the stuff I’m afraid can happen if I don’t put my thoughts in order. You probably know the experiment, but it shows that if a detector observes the photons, they behave differently compared to when no observer is present. It creates an idea that the possibilities of a situation is endless, but when the observer is present, a possibility manifests. If the observer wouldn’t be there, no possibility would manifest. I guess this experiment paves the way for the ones that think their thoughts actually shape the reality. This sounds like a strong distortion to a scientific theory. I’m not religious at all, but I am not familiar with safety enough to be able to be free from those superstitious thoughts. I am not a person with strong opinions, I can reject this idea at a dinner table and then doubt myself the next day. I wonder what strong or not strong opinions you might have on this…

Hi Anita, I hope you’re great and having a nice day.

I realized something and I wanted to write it here. I felt a bit bad about something he said this morning, and then I reacted calmly. I said it was rude, and he replied by “it shouldn’t be rude?”, I resisted. The way you’re saying it is rude, maybe you should’ve expressed it in a different way. Then I stopped talking, waited a bit and then prepared myself, my stuff to be ready to go to my house leaving him at his home.

This was not “old me”. I used to accept that “it shouldn’t be rude.” and ignore my feelings in a way so that the communication would go smooth. I wouldn’t react, reacting to something was never my thing. The only reaction from me I remember was crying or being really sad when the person did something or said something upsetting to me. I thought about what I’ve done in the past, but maybe I was willing to leave him there alone, and go away with my slightly upset mind and wait for him to correct the mistake, even if there was not a mistake. I wanted him to put it together, behave better. He didn’t do anything bad though, but I was feeling a bit neglected.

I am now realizing that all I did in the past was giving every chance I can to the person in my life to correct their mistakes. I just try harder than them, for them to correct anything. Because I know that everything can be resolved if someone wants enough, and I put so much effort into giving the chances, the time and the understanding. But this have never worked in the past, maybe it has given me more time with the person but in the end, it resolved badly, as you know. I guess as I started to work on myself, I’m learning so much.

When I was preparing my bag, he saw it. He saw that I was getting prepared to go out, leave him maybe. He also started to put on some clean clothes and asked me if we can go out and have a coffee. He has spent hours and hours with me afterwards and then he left to see his sister. I don’t know if this is right. I am not sure if he felt guilty and did this because of it, or if he really wanted to spend time with me. I guess it’s best if we can just miss each other for a bit so I’ll give him some space.

As for your wise replies, you’ve replied to my double-slit experiment ideas in such a rational way. I guess I expected a more spiritual approach from you but I don’t have any idea how you think about those stuff at all.

Key is to FIT our thinking to reality so that there is a match. The greater the fit between my thinking and reality, the better my mental health and the better I affect other people/ shape their reality and mine. Thing to remember though is that another person with a poor fit (between his/ her thinking  and reality) may perceive me not in the way that I am and therefore be affected not by me, but by his/ her distorted view of me.

Yes, this made it very clear. Although I try to think better than my reality, which I might’ve failed to do so but I’m hoping that it’ll have an effect.

I can see clearly now, maybe because I am older, I cannot ignore most of the things I used to ignore in the past. However, I guess I should be able to sit with the not-comfy feeling and just be alone, observe, go on with my life. I think I try to run from that feeling, when I am not fully safe, in terms of emotions, I always try to run from it with either psychological readings, or spiritual stuff to make me feel better, hope for the better. I don’t like to sit and be pessimistic about anything, it just doesn’t make me feel any good, why do that? Therefore, I don’t sit with the bad feeling and I try to make it better by either manipulating my mind or trying to make the situation better.

And yes, regarding what I want, I always wanted to be happy and accepted, understood like everyone else. I do have a clue about what I want, but when a slight problem occurs like my partner being in a weird mood and behaving a bit differently to me, I start to feel unsafe and that affects me a lot. My motivation towards life just start to vanish. When I’m not able to feel safe with the love I have (Not sure about the expression but I’m hoping you’ll get me), I lose interest in the hobbies I like, I never want to read anything, do anything productive. I just go on with my life with the lowest effort and hope for better. It’s like my hobbies, my job, anything I like, all the things mentioned are not as important as being safe with the partner I have.

Having fixed stuff helps a little I guess, that’s something I’ve experienced in the past year. I’ve always did yoga after my breakup last year even though I felt suffocated, even though I cried during. Having at least one stable thing in your life helps, so I started yoga again, the streak is now over 30 days, and I’ll continue no matter what. I need that in my life, one thing I can count on.

I am telling here that I don’t like pessimism but I guess I am acting a bit pessimistic. It’s just when I am not safe with my feelings, I hardly see anything to be grateful about in life, that seems like the problem here. I have other stuff I’m working on to be grateful about.

You want to have a say in what happens in your life and in your relationship;  you want to be an active, reasonably-powerful part in your life and relationship, not a passive and hopeful observant. The stronger you become in your own life, the less exhausted you will be, and the lesser your fears.

Definitely, I should read these words often.

As for the spiritual thing question, I don’t know if I mentioned before but I wasn’t brought up with a religion. My parents were not religious and they have never thought me anything about it besides the need to respect others about it. So in my teen years, I considered myself as agnostic and never was interested in religions, and I was even thinking it was lame. Maybe it’s lame to follow something you are thought without questioning it, yes. But even though it did seem lame, I needed something in my life that would fill up that space. Maybe that’s another reason I have this obsession on being safe. I was not safe as other kids because I never believed in anything that would protect me. But as I grew up, I realized that I needed something but nothing persuaded me. I tried to talk with some people that are strongly religious, but when I listened to the so-called miracles they heard and saw as the reason to believe in their god, it was never enough for me.

The only thing I could see a little bit more persuading is the effects of meditation, and then again, I guess these can be explained in science as well. So I try to do my yoga and expect to be more stable, healthy and maybe have a slight effect on my “spiritualism” as people refer, so that I can be more happy. It’s like helping others at this point, or it’s like buying a bracelet to have more luck. So this is what I try to fill up this void. Doesn’t feel enough, but maybe since this is not enough, I put great importance to my emotional state and when that shatters, I am lost in that void without any will to live.

I cried reading this, and I couldn’t write an answer afterwards. I guess I wasn’t in the right state to say anything. Thank you for telling me about this, and I don’t know what to feel about it. I feel sad, maybe I am trying to be empathetic towards you even though I know this is much more powerful and hard comparing what I’ve been through. I was never scared of my mom killing herself or anything, she was in depression when I was 1-2 years old but afterwards she got better. She started to ignore the stuff that hurt her till she can get rid of those stuff. You praying all the time is so cruel to a kid coming from the world. I know there are lots of cruel stuff happening to kids. But I feel a bit weird. I started to feel resentment towards the situations, the people that made us feel that way in such an early age. For instance I feel a bit of an anger towards my dad for using me for his own needs, he used to tell me about his miserable loneliness just to make me go whine to my mom. He was using me to reach out to my mom, and maybe make her feel bad again hoping that she would accept him back. She resisted, thank god. But I was in the middle, getting emotional all the time thinking that my dad is in a bad condition. He was alone, he was sad.

He was not an easy person to be around, and he was strict. So I didn’t like staying with him, only me and him. It’s harder when you’re the only person around that one hard person. Maybe it was easier in the past with my mom or sister being around. But alone, not being able to communicate properly, and actually I had to think of what I’ll ask over and over again. I used to ask him about the computer years ago. I used to want to play it, but I cannot open it myself like I did at my mom’s place. I had to ask for permission, but I used to rehearse what I’ll say in my head, only after that I could ask. I didn’t feel anger towards him much in the past, I always felt sorry for him cause he created that feeling inside of my head. But I do feel it now, he is still like that. Maybe after he saw that he couldn’t get into my mom’s head, with all the guilt because of the past, he started to get sick after the divorce. Months of medicine, different diagnosis trials and then he was diagnosed with cancer. Then he managed to make everybody feel sorry for him again. It took years for him to get better, and now whenever he feels the need, he just gets a bit sick again. Sometimes it’s his waist hernia comes up, and as mom says hernia always prevented him to do heavy stuff. Mom always did the heavy stuff around the house. This seems pathetic to me, but I feel resentment, anger. And whenever he makes me feel bad on the phone, for having pain or being alone just for one day because stepmom visits her family, he annoys me and upsets me at the same time. I feel bad for him, but I just don’t buy it and I get angry. I don’t reflect the anger though, I just hold it in and try to ignore my dad’s attention seeking words or voices.

maybe you were afraid that if you ask him for something, or if you ask him the wrong way, his bad condition will get worse…? Maybe you were afraid to contribute to his bad condition.

I was never capable of hurting him, at least that was what I felt. I was afraid for myself, he was not a good communicator and he got angry real fast. He used to use violence on me, my sister and my mother. Actually I am the luckiest among them, my sister and my mom had faced much more violence than me. He got better as the divorce went on, so the physical violence ended there. But the emotional violence has never ended, was always there. His way of living is kind of violent I suppose, he know admits that he has done so many wrong stuff to my sister and my mom. But since I didn’t get that much physical violence after I was 10-11 years old, he doesn’t think that about me. He thinks that he’s done a better job with me. But the thing is I don’t bite him, I don’t fight or argue with him that much. He thinks that I am okay just because I act okay, and he is not aware of the emotional abuse he made us go through. So I wasn’t ever thinking that my question or anything I would say would ever hurt him. I didn’t have that kind of a power. I was just afraid, cause he didn’t have any soft sides I can be free around. He was a good teacher in the school, and he was my teacher at the school for years as well. He was even an amazing teacher to so many people, but that was all he is.

He was also a teacher at home. I remember my mother feeling sad that we didn’t get the chance to have a fatherly father, a soft, loving person at our house that we could count on. But he was like a stranger, from who I could get a tiny bit of attention when I acted like a good student around the house. I could never cry in front of him, and he was never open about it. Sometimes he tries to get emotional since he is old and maybe he thinks about death these days, I mean in the last 5 years. But I am never gonna be comfortable around him to be able to understand that emotional state. I will just nod and try to seem understanding, but I would never lose myself cause if I do, If I couldn’t hold it in and just burst into tears, I would also speak and I would really hurt him this time. He would face stuff that he would never be strong enough to face. So I just wont, hurting him wouldn’t make me feel. I know that it’s a bit complicated now but simply my dad would use whatever he could find. When he can use his power, he uses violence. He cannot use it now since he is old and it’s wrong to do so in 2022 of course. But in the past, he could do it. When violence is obsolete, or he cannot use it, he shouts, argues. If that doesn’t work, he manipulates or uses your emotions and makes himself the victim. He should be used for a research on narcissism I think, that would be really insightful. I’ve learned a lot trying to get better.

I don’t remember fearing that he would die, even though he was so close to dying, I felt so strange. There were his former students coming from different cities, crying and crying in front of me like he was their dad. I could never cry like that, he was more of a father to them than he was to me.

It’s the first time I’ve told so much about my dad here, and I feel like I wrote these words with resentment. But trying to be understanding to him all those years and never putting the blame on him has ended I suppose.

Dear Anita, I hope you’re okay and having a great, peaceful time.

Yes, my father have never accused me of something. He just didn’t treat me right, but I only felt guilty because I wasn’t with him all the time leaving him alone from time to time. I felt responsible because I could choose to be with him, but I wasn’t able to choose it all the time. I was never responsible of his misery, but I felt like I did have the strength to help him by at least being with him more, for his own good. However, whenever I feel sad for him and decide to go, he did something that would upset or harm me. He would either make me cry, or behave badly, or neglect. I remember going to his place just to make him feel better but then when I’m there, he was leaving me alone and going outside to be with some other people. It was weird, I wasn’t the one he wanted I suppose. But I know that if mom did accepted him again, he would do the same to her. His opinion of love was more about “having someone”, “having them as a supply” and when the supply is there, he just continues to be himself. This is the most selfish love I’ve experienced, even more selfish than the partnerships where I was cheated on. Even now, he wants me to take care of him so that he is not alone in the house. When I manage to go there, and stay with him, just after 5 hours he argues, even fights me over something stupid. The aim is to make me feel bad and be there for him, but after the aim is accomplished, I am trash to him.

I am still not afraid of hurting him, I am afraid of the confrontation because I know it’s so hard and maybe it’s ten times harder for him. I know that I wouldn’t hurt him, there’s no point. I’ll be the one getting upset about it afterwards.

I imagine that his students thought that you were so lucky to have him as your father, not knowing how he behaved in his own home vs school. Their emotional response to him being close to dying was appropriate to who he was with them, and your emotional response was appropriate to who he was with you.

Yes, you’ve seen an important point there. I don’t know how you guessed it. Other students thought that I was lucky. Some might even thought that I was privileged. But this was never the case, I know a girl who hates me over just this. Years and years ago, my father had dropped me off to a before-school course, just one time. He never did those sort of things, it was too much work, but I guess there was something different that day. And we’ve came across to that girl there, and he was jealous. I know it now. And after that day, that girl always tried to hurt me over different subjects. Years later I went to uni with that girl’s older sister, and then I saw that the girl is actually much luckier than me. She had a family, a connected one which I don’t. She has an older sister who loves her, supports and takes care of her when she needs it, which I will never have. I even have to protect myself from my own sister, she is toxic and never happy about my successes or friendships, she would enjoy that she’s better if I lose at something even though she is 11 years older than me. No compassion from her whatsoever. She might have grudges towards me since I had a slightly easier childhood, less violence. That girl has a father she can hug with, be emotional around and she can even lay with him hugging, talking about physical contact here.

Years ago, when father just moved out of the house we were living in, he didn’t have a spare bed for me to stay. So I slept in the same bed, which was the most natural thing I think for a child. When I was sleeping, I just moved my leg towards him and touched him casually, then again, I think a child must be able to touch parents when sleeping, or not. It’s your child, for god sake. Right after that, he just took my leg with his hands and moved back towards myself, away from him. This was the reaction I got. I ignored this then, but never forgot about it. When I look back now, this hurt me as well.

And that girl was financially stable as well, she was able to spend her father’s money comfortably. I never had this chance, always struggled even when we had the money. He just never liked giving it, so he never did. Not to me, my mom. Seeing that the girl had wrong reasons to hate me, I see how that’s unfair. She was a mean kid, I had my reasons to hate other children but I was never mean like that.

I feel an emotional transformation. I’ve been questioning some stuff especially about how I behave in the relationship. I realized that when something bad happens, not related to me at all, the other person gets upset. That’s totally normal, but I feel responsible. I feel uncomfortable, I feel like I am the reason for that bad thing somehow. I know that I am not but my mood suddenly changes, and I don’t feel safe anymore. I get even more unsettled than the person going through that little bad thing. After realizing it the other day, I tried to control myself. Even though my partner was upset, not related to me again, I tried to keep myself calm and comfy, as the problem was not mine. A problem about the trash, being tired or something with job upsets him, then he doesn’t smile or says anything good to me. I start to feel like I am not wanted there, I feel like he doesn’t like me anymore. This is the reaction I create in my mind and I believe in it, change my mood according to it. I am so skeptic about the love I receive, If I don’t receive it for 10 hours, I just get lost in my dark thoughts. Not nice.

The real transformation, however, happened yesterday. I know that people say things like “be nice to the kid inside of you” and so on. I never did that because I am still that kid, I feel like that. I feel vulnerable most of the time. Last night I was with my own friends, and he was with his own friends. After their meeting ended, he wanted to come to my meeting. I’ve sent a location and waited for him, and apparently the location was faulty and he accidentally went into somewhere he shouldn’t around the place, and had a little argument with the security. He was drunk.

I found him in the street and he was angry at me, about the faulty location I’ve sent. Since I’ve been questioning these days, I just didn’t accept him being angry at me, as we went inside the place I was calmly explaining and asking. “Why did you get angry with me, did I do something wrong? No. Why then?” Asking this 2-3 times sobered him a little and he accepted I was innocent, he was like a little cat owning up, calming down and accepting what I say. He obeyed what I said. It was like I had another “myself” in me who protected that little kid. This has never happened like this before, I thought about this a lot before I slept yesterday. I felt different. Although I was wearing my goldstone earrings and some say it brings confidence, so maybe that was the reason. Or believing that it brings it can make me behave better, why not…