Thank you, i felt nice reading that.

How are you?

It has been a bit tricky/challenging lately, in a different country (it has been 3 months or so) and 10 days ago my department was told that it’ll be shut down. I have been a bit depressed since, but coping somehow. Not as bad as before, i am trying to go to the gym every chance i get to be able to feel better and hoping that my boyfriend can come here sooner (we don’t know when bureaucracy will let that happen, tricky when you don’t have citizenship you know) When he’s here, everything will be easier for me, kind of trying to stay alright but being alone, and with no sunlight is weird. Will increase my vitamin D and stuff.

It will be shut down for sure, I am trying to have some opportunities within the company in different departments but they have already started the legal stuff so i am not sure what will happen there. Will try my best, and hope for the best but this might be a bit of a racist thing they’re doing even though I am not sure since there are no reason to shut this down, we’ve been doing a perfect job especially now that I was here. However, I will need another job as soon as sth happens here both because of my expenses like rent and all and also because i have moved here for work, so i will need to approve i am working asap to be able to have the visa not cancelled. I am hopeful, there are some jobs i’ve looked up, I kind of have the time I need, but ofc I am hoping for the best result/the most comfy result I can get. Since the day I’ve learned the news, I’ve been a bit more sensitive, depressed. A bit better now but from time to time I get emotional very easily. I sense that this job was also something that holds me in place, a reason to feel more safe. Now that it’s going away, and I cannot trust them, I feel a bit like I am abandoned but mostly I am realizing I should do more and more to protect myself. Maybe I’ve been focusing on my work and not learning much for 2 yrs now since it’s been busy, and it’s time to jumpstart to make sure I have more skills.

He has been a good help, I get emotional and the fact that we’re connected helps a lot. I mention that I wouldn’t be able to survive this well if it wasn’t for him. I would be so alone, so depressed, so rejected. Now at least I can tell everything, cry and then I can feel better at the end after talking with him. I am waiting for the day he gets here, and then he’ll be also working so we wouldn’t be so dependent on one job. One loses a job, the other one keeps earning till a new opportunity is created.

Thank you Anita, it’s decided that I will have to leave and find a new job, I’ll do that with the best of my abilities. Grieved a bit, it feels like my grief is ending slowly and then I will work on improving myself for another job where I wouldn’t be treated like this.

On the other side, I am seeing examples of how other “care-free” people, how other irresponsible people gets to be treated with lots of help. It kind of started to affect me a lot, observing my thoughts. I have always had something towards those people. The thoughts that I can collect:

– This week we have heard that my uncle’s heart condition has gotten a bit serious and he’s in need of a serious treatment or he’ll just die. My mom called me to ask, “if we can find a treatment, can he stay at your apartment during the treatment? (where my current BF lives)” I told her that I would do my best, it’s not exactly my house right now since he lives in it. I’ll ask kindly and I’ll hope he’ll accept that. However, then I got angry.

The reason why he got this sick is that he continued with his terrible alcoholism even after a heart attack & all doctors told him not to do that!!! with lots of exclamation points. He has a toxic family, his two children, especially the little one, asks for money all the time, always finding financial excuses for him to be unsuccessful at school. Probably will fail (I’ve been trying to provide him support, the child, so that he’ll succeed in exams but he’s not doing anything and he’s accepting that he’s lazy.) Blames on financial stuff, pandemic and so on.

My mother has supported that family a lot. A lot that she actually has been a mother to my uncle when she was supposed to be my mother. I reminded that to my mother recently, in that phone call.

That uncle has been visiting our home, after my mom’s divorce: we were living together with my mom, and she was unemployed back then trying to handle some jobs like sewing, etc. herself and trying to make ends meet with me (primary school) and my sister (going to university back then). My uncle visited our house every week asking for money, crying, telling about his own terrible life and conditions. He made the second child in order to save the relationship but it failed, and even I was angry that he created another life in those so called poor conditions.

Nothing has changed, he has never been able to give us a good impression. I have learned that his wife actually tricked him into thinking she had cancer and took lots of money from him in the past years, which was a lie. She didn’t have cancer. Lots of toxic stuff, always had some relations to money.

I reminded my mother that he actually not only harmed her, but also me.

He could’ve just asked her, how are you, you recently got divorced. How are you? He never did that, it was always about how he needed so much stuff, how he couldn’t even buy a bread towards home for that child waiting.

I am honestly sick of this. Really, honestly, very very much sick of this shit where care-free people always count on others and somehow always get something from them. They turn their life hell, but also effect others. I have never spent too much on anything, and always thought of my next rent, which I don’t feel regretful about. Maybe I cannot enjoy life as others? I don’t care. I wouldn’t enjoy without feeling safe anyways, so I postpone my joy. Last year, there has been an incident where my uncle was a guest in my mom’s house, I was not there, and he drank too much alcohol and then attacked randomly. My step-father had to jump to him, hold him in floor lying so that he wouldn’t harm anyone including himself. He is sick, and I got so angry hearing about these. In this random attacking, my mom’s knee was bruised. After this final incident, my step-father had to step in and called it a day. Told me, “That’s it, he will not be a part of our life anymore, he harmed your mother enough, you stay away from him too, he’s sick, that’s all.”  And I was relieved. Because this fight was only one incident from our lives, he always drank too much alcohol, shouting, even getting arrested by police because of some neighbors calling police. He always made me uncomfortable when I was a child, even though, I was able to connect with him because he was soft/emotional. This was the reason why my mom always tried to find a solution for him financially or in practice like finding him jobs.

I don’t feel bad about him anymore, my priority is not him. His children can do that. I don’t have any emotion there besides anger. I don’t have energy for those people anymore. I was affected without my consent, I didn’t even chose to help him, but my mother did. One of the reasons why I started working so early was the fact that I saw and heard about those money problems. He could’ve just worked in one job, stayed there for lots of time and then get his shit together. Instead, he always wanted to get rich, so he never chose to earn in a humble way. But he is filled with anger and resentment towards everyone that has earned humble. He always found my mom to blame, “You were lucky, you got lucky.”, “I didn’t raise my children like you, they are not as lucky as yours, so they have a right to be unsuccessful, I cannot force them.”

I was not successful in school, not at all. I am realizing how emotionally insecure I felt during primary school and I have never focused in class. Never. Always trying to find a distraction, always. My success came in when I started to earn money and then I got confidant a bit more and more and that was all my success.

I felt relieved that my step-dad was healthy enough to protect my mom from him. He has healthier boundaries, my mom has none. Maybe because of the fact that her parents died young, he always felt the need to take care of her siblings. They were 8 brothers and sisters, 3 of them died in childhood and one of them died when I was a child, from cancer. 4 were left, and the oldest brother is this one. The other two are trying to make their own ends meet. They have learned how to do that with the help of my mom at last.

Maybe you already know this, but in muslim countries, there are festive periods in each year where old people in the family give money to young ones, like rituals. Stuff like Ramadan or stuff like that, children always collect money and count it, feel better, etc. They have never given me that experience. I was never able to collect money like that, like a normal child. So I still feel resentment towards that.

So after this news, that he is very seriously ill and might die, my mom was so sad, and the boundary that I felt good about, the boundary that needed to exist 20 years ago, has been once again broken.

When she asked me to persuade my BF into staying with my uncle, which is very toxic, and might even talk about my old BFs to him (why not? he doesn’t act intentionally, and he might blurp and make him uncomfortable) and even the fact that me persuading my BF into staying with my uncle can harm us. And when I think about how bad I can be influenced again? I feel so much anger. He is not the only reason why I have wounds, I have so many other areas and people, like my father. But I might say that the reason why I find so much “value-related meaning” in money stems from my dad, my uncles, and some other newer people in my like that has contributed my root-wounds. Like my father creating that I am no worthy of spending money over and then it gets stronger with what my uncles did and my mom has more issues financially, and since those were not hidden from me, I see everything and act accordingly and then learn, learn learn, and then the people in my life also act like it or I just collect all the clues where they do act stingy. So that’s probably what has happened.

I am not sure if I created a good story line, but what made me write this long post? We have talked with my BF today, right before writing these. Just a random conversation. He told me that last year, he has sent money o his sister (which is one year older than me) so that she could buy an expensive phone to her. Because of the inflation and everything, it’s not very easy to buy those. Instead of using a economical one (which he’s been using the same device since we met, which is also economical) he sent her some money so that she could buy the phone she has been wanting to have. Instead, she went and bought a tv and then that tv got faulty, stuff like that, troubles and troubles. He just told me this story making fun of this. “She could’ve bought the phone and then she wouldn’t need the tv, which she cannot use anymore anyways, lol” in type of way. Not sounding resentful in any way. Not blaming her, just appreciating and accepting how she is. I haven’t met her, but she is like the youngest of 3 siblings and acts like it. I am also the youngest of 2 siblings, and I don’t act remotely like the younger sister. The sister compare doesn’t hurt me as much. I don’t care about the affection I should’ve gotten from my sister. I don’t expect anything from there financially or emotionally anymore, I think. I am grateful as long as she can take care of herself. The part that hurts me most is the fact that he was able to do that to her, the acception, affection, “you should have better than me, you want it more than me and you deserve it” type of mind, he doesn’t care if he has a better phone and thinks she should have it, because why not.”

Not because she would do anything good with it, just because she wants it.

I think of what I was told, when everyone else was handed in nice phones around 2009-2010 and I also want one for myself but never had courage to ask for it, from anyone. Everyone including the successful friends, unsuccessful ones, doesn’t matter was getting a phone. I still remember how my step-mother maybe guessed that I might also want a phone, and then hinted that to my father. He was so stingy, the stingiest person I’ve ever seen. Because of that hint, he made an indirect comment saying everyone deserves stuff, and what did I do to deserve a phone? Nothing. If I was successful, maybe.

Then after some time, step-mom was successful. She made him buy me a humble phone which I got so excited about. That might be the last thing I kind of have him bought for me in that sense. I have never asked anything from him and always got my stuff myself. Step-mom was a healthy person, I still feel grateful for her. She did “what mom did for my sister for ages”. She did what a thoughtful person would do. I find that valuable, but I also find pain in what she did, because she felt the need to do that. It wasn’t that he didn’t have money by the way, but he basically didn’t like spending on us.

Another feeling I can think of was from a secret santa from primary school.

Background information: He was surprisingly good to others, which I’ve mentioned before. I have never grasp that fully until I started reading about narcissistic tendencies. He was never giving to me, never generous to me in any way, but always trying to impress others. Others in life that he didn’t have. He also tried to impress my friends, probably aiming to impress their families. This has harmed me a lot. Even turned me against my friends, never acted on it but I was seeing the contradiction and having feelings towards it. I spill something in the house, and I was treated so bad. But a friend of mine, a guest, spills something, breaks something, acts care-free, and doesn’t get anything besides more good behaviors. I saw all that, couldn’t say anything, couldn’t understand why, just observing. All in all, that was the friend that deserved her phone after phone because she was successful. I still have that friend, she is healthy, still successful. I did resented or had jealousy in the past, but not anymore. I have moved on from her, but kept that toxic feelings with other care-free people. Maybe really care-free this time. Got better observation skills maybe?

So this tendency to care for others in my dad, happened in secret santa. We shopped and got the boy I was giving the gift to – a nice toy, a nice ball and a something to hang on the wall. I still remember, it was a creative gift, moderate but not so cheap I feel, something that we thought of. He loved the gift. And then I was gifted something from another boy, that I didn’t think was bought for me. Maybe his mom bought a deodorant and she didn’t like the smell, so they gave it to me. I kind of got angry with that boy then, I told him that I was sorry and angry about it. He was clueless, maybe forgot the thing one hour later. I still remember that day and feel guilty because how irrespective of me to dislike a gift. I wouldn’t be able to direct my bad feelings towards my dad, I didn’t know who was responsible for that bad feeling. So I understand that misdirection now.

Maybe I still feel conflicted, confused about these. My BF is a generous person, I know that in theory, feeling it, but haven’t experienced that yet in a way that would make me sure. He got me one gift that felt good, it was last year’s new year. I felt so confused because of that. Then I started to think to myself, maybe I am becoming like that at last, receiving and giving expensive gifts. Then there were financial instabilities in his life, and my house got confusing, the lawsuit, the expenses of the lawsuit and all, I’ve still been paying for most of the expenses there even though I rented a house here in another country. I didn’t want to ask from him in a bad way, so I just said to myself, one more month of rent, one more, one more till I feel insecure. This was possible because I worked two jobs at the same time last year. Maybe me doing that, not asking him to pay directly, was a result of me thinking he was not in a perfect situation and I didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable. He was not like not paying for anything, he offered me his help in different ways. I haven’t took most of them, but accepted once. So maybe I also felt bad there, I was thinking about so many stuff, in order to not hurt anyone, and actually, the surprising thing is that I am able to do that. I have worked a lot and maybe I was lucky in saving money. But learning about how he actually sent lots of money to his sister for a phone, which is older than me, feels bad. I hate these thoughts, I shouldn’t be thinking about these stuff. But I do. I haven’t said anything when he told me that, I just responded randomly and then we got off the phone and then I started crying. Writing these, I see it more clearly, but I don’t think sharing these thoughts with him would result in a good way. Maybe omitting the sister part, and then talking about it would make more sense.

whosh huh what did I just do there, it feels like I’ve just poured 20 years of wound. It was painful to write, and think but I somehow feel more relief. Still surprised that all those came out after one sentence from my BF. It was just a funny memory to him. I cried for more than an hour writing those, feels very weird. I cried about stuff that has happened 15 years ago, 3,033 kms away. How much distance does that make? Looked up the kilometers btw.

How quickly the time passes, I have read, found comfort in your reply and then waited till I can reply with more calm, then it’s already almost 3 weeks. Thank you for the support Anita! How are you?