Dear Paradoxy,

I am glad you are safe and sound! I also hope that your friends who remained on Jamaica are safe too.

According to the news, at this moment the hurricane has already left Jamaica and is continuing towards the Cayman islands. One woman has died, unfortunately. But according to reports, the devastation wasn’t as huge as on Carriacou island, which was completely flattened.

I understand your mother wanting to protect you and get you to safety – it’s a very natural instinct. Of course she cares about her child’s safety. In extreme situations like these, where your physical life is in danger, it is only normal to get you out of the harm’s way, which she did.

You say your parents believe that almost every Caribbean person (or at least those they know) is morally corrupt:

They rarely find any Caribbean person who has not done immoral things.

Most of the people they know have slept around or are involved in some kind of immoral drama, so they naturally develop a stereotype for them and attribute their behavior as part of that person’s culture.

It was interesting for me to read that there is corruption and immorality in your own community as well:

another guy falsely accused my mother of revealing his secrets but my father was able to figure out the accusation was based on manipulation and false information cause my mother never did anything that she was accused of.

my dad used to be the treasurer of the community and he was responsible for handling the money affairs as well as another guy and both of them were accused of stealing community money but he was able to prove to them that the person who was actually taking the money from the treasury was a third guy, who just so happened to be the one who started the accusation in the first place.

Nobody challenges my father because he knows what is right and what is wrong and will not participate in any corrupt activities or get himself involved in the politics of manipulation like the other men.

My father stepped down as the treasurer cause he doesn’t want to get involved in the community politics after that incident.

It seems that some community members are involved in lying, cheating, stealing and making false accusations against innocent people. And it seems it’s not just one isolated case, since you talk about “politics of manipulation”. And your father decided to step down from his position, because he didn’t want to be involved in such corrupt politics.

Which tells me that not only Caribbean people are involved in immoral activities, but also those in your own community.

I would like to go back to what you’ve recently said about yourself:

I am just an embarrassment to my parents cause of all my stupidity and awkwardness and inability to talk to people and etc. Maybe it is just me. My lack of maturity, my inability to be of use to my parents, can’t even help them with their chores/work, my lack of intelligence, my lack of skill in anything, or the fact that I am a complete idiot. While the other kids became mature and responsible adults, I just became an immature idiot. I may be the best among my cousins, but I am still immature in the eyes of my parents since I will never be good enough compared to other children my age.

I have accepted my flaws, but society won’t. Cause society still requires a certain level of maturity,which I still lack.

You claim that you lack wisdom, intelligence, maturity or any skills. However, throughout the course of our conversation, you said very different things about yourself. For example:

You have expressed that you are considerably wise, not stupid:

I always told her that if she is unsure, she could ask me for any advice as my father’s wisdom was passed down to me over the years that he taught me.

Everything that my father taught me was logically correct, but I was wise enough to know that there are exceptions to the wisdom he passed to me. I did not let his opinion about things completely blind me, but it guided me to make even better decisions than he did, but I still have a long way to go as shown by the current situation.

I am not stupid enough to use their love as a role model.

I am not dumb enough to just blindly believe what B showed me.

You have expressed that you are more mature than your peers:

I cannot deny the fact that all of this treatment shaped me to be a better man than most of my peers morality-wise.

My peers may be happier than me and enjoying life and etc, but I am definitely glad I am not doing their foolishness, like smoking weed, drinking alcohol and sleeping with a bunch of woman and etc.

my obedience has kept me from going in the wrong direction like the guys here with me. I won’t do anything stupid or get involved in any wrong activities.

The emotional suffering they put me through has forced me to be the most mature for my age among all my cousins so I am definitely grateful for that as well.

Their wisdom still taught me to be a good man to the best of my ability.

If it weren’t for him, I would just be some immoral idiot like my “friends” but instead I am known for my honesty and care.

You said you were on of the top students in your country, which makes you rather intelligent:

We were all scoring very high in exams and getting into prestigious colleges and getting high salary jobs. Even I was one of the top students in the country at one point, and so are others from our community. Each year, there is at least one top student that is from our “emotional abuse” community.

You said you possess respectable music skills:

I have studied music for 10 years and have taken the exams up to 6 levels out of 8 with scores in distinction, and my guy friend definitely knows my level of skill regarding music.

So this tells me that a part of you doesn’t believe that you lack wisdom, intelligence, maturity or skills. On the contrary, it tells me you believe you possess all those qualities. But sometimes you seem to forget it, or you view yourself from your father’s perspective, who sees you as as an idiot, no matter what you do. (He cares enough to ask about my issues, but once I tell him my issues he just treats it like I am just being an idiot.)

I am the way I am cause of my father, both the good and the bad. My father is the one who taught me to be caring and loving, even though I never got it from him. If it weren’t for him, I would just be some immoral idiot like my “friends” but instead I am known for my honesty and care, and even taken advantage of cause of that nature. These idiots know that no matter how many times they hurt me, it won’t change the fact that I still care. That is my stupid weakness.

It seems you take some pride in being so care-giving to those “idiots” who don’t deserve your help? It seems you feel better than them.

Dear Paradoxy,

There wasn’t as much damage as we expected, especially since Jamaica has a lot of mountains so my campus was pretty much safe.

Happy to hear about that!

I am not saying that only Caribbean people are involved in immoral activities. But activities similar to cheating on their partner and other similar immoral activities appear to be higher among the Caribbean community. My community has its own set of corruption, usually religion-based or just plain politics of turning people against each other and stuff and financial cheating. One guy got murdered right in front of his kids cause he was a businessman who managed to steal a 20 million dollar diamond from another businessman.

Okay, so perhaps it can be said that the Caribbean community is more prone to sins of sexual nature (lust, adultery), while your community more to sins of financial nature: greed. And creating division among people (“turning people against each other”), which to me would be like sowing seeds of division and conflict, rather than love, mutual respect and understanding.

I am not as good as I wanted to be.

Your main problem is the belief that you are not good enough. Which affects your self-confidence and your communication skills, as well as the impression you make at interviews (The others managed to get into good colleges due to their interview skills and other test scores for the college).

You believe you are not good enough because your parents believe you are not good enough. In fact, your father sees you as an idiot and has seen you as such for a long time. You can never be good enough in the eyes of your cruel, strict, judgmental father.

When a child and a youth believes they are not good enough, all kind of learning difficulties can ensue, and even self-sabotaging behaviors like drug abuse and alcohol. If you are constantly under pressure to perform and are severely punished and criticized for not performing well enough, it naturally diminishes your capacity to perform, both at school and in what you actually like: music.

In this last post, you keep berating yourself, being stuck in the “woe is me”. And refusing to believe that change is possible.

I was trying to help you see that you don’t need to stay stuck, even if you physically still depend on your parents. That you don’t need to stay stuck mentally and emotionally in that bitter place. But you keep pitying yourself, defending your parents and staying stuck. And it’s a rather tight mental loop, almost a box, which cannot be opened.

Because you have an excuse for everything and you change your stance as needed: When you need to defend your parent’s parenting skills, you portray yourself as wise and mature – because that’s supposedly a proof of their successful parenting. But at other times, when you want to “prove” how inadequate you are, you portray yourself as stupid and immature.

The end result of our every discussion (i.e. the message you want to convey) is that you are bad, they are good. And there is nothing that can convince you of the opposite.

I wish I could help you open that airtight container. But I realize I can’t. And I don’t want to run around in circles, trying to help you, when you actually want to (at least for now) stay stuck in self-blame and self-pity, and are refusing to look at the real causes of your suffering.

I wish you well, Paradoxy, but most of all, I wish you real healing.