Dear Veronica:

I wish you had different friends, at least one friend who will not respond to you with false optimism or refer to what distresses you as not important, or as-bad as their problems.

Did you ever talk to someone and that person listen to you attentively, respectfully, as a result you felt listened to, respected, valued?

anita

Dear Veronica:

You are very welcome.

It is interesting you putting it this way: “being sad is like a crime”. I wonder if you can tell me more your experience with being sad being so objectionable to others..?

And about not being able to control yourself once triggered.

How is your plan going, to not watch romantic movies, to not do online dating/ dating otherwise?

* Will soon be away from the computer for about 14 hours. I hope you post again and again, anytime you’d like. Will reply if you do when back at the computer.

anita

Dear Veronica:

You had a successful week then, eliminating your drug as you referred to it? Well, congratulations! And you can be “still here” on your thread whether you are doing well or not, by the way.

Sadness is not a crime. To some people it is, to your father who reprimanded you for being sad, for crying, it was a crime. If there is a friend in your life who reprimanded you as well, or disapproved of you every time you expressed sadness, or looked sad, it is a crime for that friend as well.

It is not a crime for me and it is not a crime in reality, to feel sad. There is no crime in feeling anything at all, whatever we feel is okay to feel.

We don’t choose our feelings, they just happen in our brain/body. How can we be guilty of what we do not choose.

Better not put on a fake smile, better not wonder something like: how is my face looking, is it showing sadness… better fix it, smile! smile!- not a healthy way to be.

You can choose to share about your sadness some but not for two hour straight, that is a matter of choice, to share some and listen to the other person, so that the two share. But to feel sad, and for your face to naturally show it, this is your birthright, no crime in it.

You shared (and I am remembering correctly, I am almost sure) that your father reprimanded you or hit you when you cried after your mother left, correct? Interesting because that happened to me too. My mother left one night, it was dark, I was about five. She left after fighting with my father, angry, indicating that she will not come back. I cried and my father hit me with a belt because I was crying. I think he didn’t want the noise of me crying.

But this kind of crying, of a child left by her mother, feeling forever-left by her mother, that crying doesn’t go away. The sound is gone, but the crying keeps going. The attachment of a child to her mother is so very strong, maybe the strongest attachment of all. I think the strongest.

anita

Dear Veronica:

“I stop hating myself for the attention I crave”- not hating yourself is key to healing, to living a better life. Glad to read this from you. Accepting your feelings with empathy (“embrace the child within me”), not judging, not shaming yourself is the way to get better.

Regarding my experience, the night my mother left, she said she will commit suicide, then she left. I then left in the dark, looking for her, looking for a dead body. I wasn’t crying. I was imagining that I was in a movie, an actress, a movie star, that there was a camera following my every move in the dark. I felt pleasant, separated from the horror of the night.

Regarding how I overcame… decades later, seven years ago I started my first quality psychotherapy and my ongoing healing process. Much of it is recorded right here, on these forums.

Back to you, accepting what you feel empathetically, not harming yourself with self hate, is most important. Please adhere to this attitude.

anita

Dear Veronica:

A link to a thread where I shared more about myself, you mean? There is no such one thread. My sharing is hard to find because of my massive posting for a few years now.

How do you stop the self hate? By noticing when you have a self hating thought, relaxing best you can and repeating to yourself the commitment you made to embrace yourself, to accept yourself. Remember the child that you were, the one crying and holding her mother’s clothing. Think of her with empathy, empathy for that young girl so scared and so very sad. Visualize taking her into your arms, holding her, telling her you are here for her, that you will be helping her along the way, every day.

anita

Dear Veronica:

A young child has no walls whatsoever to protect herself from a parent’s anger. When your father screamed at you, the child that you were didn’t think: maybe he is wrong screaming at me, let me see, is his accusation valid, is it correct…?

No, a child believes, automatically, what the parent says and the emotion the parent expresses. When he screamed at you, you believed you deserved it.

And then, you hear his words, his emotion, way after he said them, because there were no walls, no selective hearing. What you heard stays.

Only now, slowly, patiently, we can counter that yelling voice, those untrue thoughts with our own calm, true thoughts. Insert some calm into that distress, some truth into that untruth that keeps playing in our brains.

We literally change our brain chemistry, when we do that. With true thinking and calm, there are feel-good chemicals released in our brain. Over time, we become less addicted (in the title of your thread, Love Addiction) to feeling good by doing this or that which we don’t want to do.. because we feel better.

I hope you post again and again. I would like to read from you, anytime.

anita

Dear Veronica:

You shared on the previous page that you currently live with your parents, leave home early and come back late. Will you tell me more about your relationship currently with your parents?

With your father, how is it with him currently? I wonder if you are still trying to reach out to him in some ways, be those ways as subtle as they may be?

(This will help me understand better, regarding the rewiring question)

anita