Dear Anita,

Thanks a lot for your advice. So I’ve noticed my friends notice when I’m stressed and they help cheer me up. If I need some advice, they are there. Although at times, they tend to do things that I don’t like such as argue with the teacher or pick fights with people; I don’t get involved with them. But if they are upset, I let them know I’m there for them by asking if they are okay. Lately, there are five more days till the AP Biology exam and tensions between classmates are high. We are still friends, but there is a lot of competition lately in the classroom. I have noticed that Andrew and I both may be right on a question, but we both will argue our point and question the other. This in a way is a good thing because it allows us to see the other’s viewpoint and also make amends to our own point of view, possibly making it stronger and more valid. However, there are times when we are quite competitive and he seems distant. At those times, I wonder if he is competing against me and it makes me stressed. I admire Andrew’s independence and I understand it because I also have a strong sense of independence as well. But sometimes I feel like it is hard to connect with him when he becomes distant and it makes me worried about him.  Sometimes I think I am overbearing on him and it makes me self-doubt. So the questions I have are:

How do I assert my opinions across without being too overbearing?

How do we both compromise on an answer when we’re both right, but on different paths and neither one seems to want to back down?

Dear Anita

It’s been awhile since I have been on, but college has so much to learn and experience and I’ve been having lots of fun. Andrew went away to military school, Dave and I lost touch and Steve (my lunch buddy) goes to a college in New York City. I have made lots of friends at college and also see my special friend on campus. He is great at cheering me up when I’m stressed over school work. I saw him today and  I told him how much he meant to me and his face lit up like the sun and we hugged. I have found myself becoming more independent from my parents. I have some questions:

How do you tell your friends that you need time for yourself without seeming rude? I love spending time with my college friends, but sometimes I have to do homework and can’t attend all the events they want me to attend. I try to balance my time between friends and school, but lately my school schedule has been skewed toward friends and club activities.

What are good ideas to do with a person you love? I love my special friend and want to spend some more time with him and start a relationship.

How do you tell someone who disagrees with your career choice that you are truly passionate about it without confusing them and also getting impatient? I am doing a major in biochemistry which will allow me to go into medicine, genetic engineering, neuroscience and I really am passionate about genetic engineering. I want to work with stem cells and help advance cancer research, but my parents don’t think that engineering is a career choice for females. I dislike their view that females can’t be analytical and do complex calculations.

How do I  prevent myself from becoming too overwhelmed with college assignments? Sometimes I’ll map out my plans ahead of time and work on 3 assignments a day to get them done, but that can be a bit exhausting. I check my work five/six times before submitting it and am an extreme perfectionist.

Dear Anita,

Thank you for your advice. My special friend broke up with his girlfriend in October and we have been hanging out.  He is studying health and wellness as well as environmental science. He is fascinated with how the environment affects human health and has been going on class trips to study ecosystems of the Pine Barrens. I wish I could go to see all the wildlife of Pine Barrens with him, but the class trips are expensive if you are not taking the class. I started with biology and chemistry as my sciences and he started with environmental. We both love nature and I may take an environmental class as well, it would be a fun elective.  I am working on becoming more confident about expressing myself without seeking approval from others for my happiness. Sometimes I feel like I am putting too much strain on myself to be there for the people I care about. For example, if a friend needs help with a homework assignment, I’ll take time out of my schedule to help them. But lately it seems like some of my friends are taking advantage of my help and trying to get me to help them with every assignment they have in a subject and it’s exhausting. I feel like I am being selfish telling them I need time to plan things for myself, but I’m also tired of being the crutch that they lean on. So the question is: How do I help them develop an independent understanding of the lessons by being a guide and not a person who just does the work for them?

Another question: Since my special friend and I are both quite shy, could we write our feelings down on paper and give it to each other? I do wish we could talk more face-to-face because there seems so much to say. Yet, spending time together and just enjoying the moment has always helped show our appreciation towards each other even if we can’t find the words to say. I want to take my special friend on a nature hike over Thanksgiving break and am quite nervous. How should I act? What should we talk about? Should I ask him ask friends or as a relationship?

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Janus.

Dear Anita,

Thank you for your advice and for being so understanding. I have started to become more assertive about who I associate with in my life because some people just take from me and never give anything in return or others dump their emotional baggage on me to carry their burdens. While I can make time for the people who count in my life, I am still working on shielding myself from emotional criticisms and burdens that people like my parents will dump on me. My parents have never truly been there for me emotionally, but they sometimes ask me to shoulder their burdens when they have emotional problems. Ever since I have begun taking a Mindfulness Stress Reduction meditation seminar at Ocean County College, I have become more relaxed and more focused on the tasks that I must do. However, I find that my parents will criticize me for taking certain paths in a specific set of steps because they feel the way I proceed with some things falls outside their expectations of what they think should occur. I believe that everyone must forge their own stepping stones in life and sometimes people take different paths toward their goals because they do what’s most important to them first or what they feel matters to get done before going to another step. Everyone takes different paths to achieve their goals and there is not a set path for people to follow, sometimes I feel like my parents think there is a set path for me to follow and when I step outside the bounds they think I’m going to be lost in life or being irresponsible. Their layout of my life is to graduate from community college with honors, apply to a four year university and get some work experience and possibly graduate the four year university and enter the work force. However, my plans aren’t as concrete as that though because I also have to continue my education to a doctorates degree because I want to become a genetic engineer and do scientific research in a laboratory. They think I’m not applying my mental dedication enough to the important tasks at hand which in their view is that I spend all of my time working on my education, all of my time learning about how to do house repairs, all of my time learning how to budget money wisely because they feel I don’t have what they term as the essential life skills to survive on my own in this world. They believe I should spend less of my time in creative endeavors like being out in nature (which helps me relax), hanging out with friends (Ocean Pride LGBT group has helped me better understand myself) and also that a lot of the stuff I learn isn’t all important. I believe nothing learned is unimportant because the more you know, the more connections you can make and the better you understand the world and yourself and don’t make prejudiced assumptions. I have become more withdrawn from my parents and rely on my friends more for emotional support because I feel they never “hear” or understand with clarity who I am as a person or truly understand my intentions and how I proceed in my life when I explain things to them. The question is How do I know that I am being true to myself and not just taking on the burdens of others. Another question is When people put the burdens on me, how do I protect myself or not make myself carry their burdens? It seems like the more I want to plan my stepping stones out my way and do a different circuit path to my goals than my parents’ expectations, they think I am wasting my life or not going to make it out in society because  will be ostracized. I know I want to be true to myself and do what makes me happy. I am thinking of transitioning and seeking hormones possibly when I am 25 years old which is when I have graduated from a four-year university and may have a job and may not be living with my parents. I know when I turn 21, I will be applying to four year universities and living in a dorm so I won’t be under my parents much, but my parents have expressed that they won’t support me financially if I transition then and I’m not sure I can have enough money to pay for college without their support so I’m going to wait until I’m 25. Currently, I struggle with gender dysphoria at times but it’s not too bad because I’ve also gone to a therapist to talk about it and it makes me feel better. Sometimes I feel slightly spaced out in my mind, but that I because I am trying to protect myself from my insecurities and the pain of criticisms that people may put on me. It’s a form of numbing the pain because I can be tired of the criticisms and my inner critic that berates me at times, but Mindfulness Stress Reduction seminar has helped me be more aware of my emotions and to prevent me from numbing and acknowledging the feelings and accepting it so I can let them go rather than creating false layers to protect myself and losing more of myself. My self-confidence is still in its process of growing and somewhat shaky which is why it can be hard when I feel like I’m in an environment that I will be exposed to criticism that might break the fragile self-esteem I’ve built up. I feel on-guard and self-conscious at times and wish I wasn’t always this way. Other questions are How do I stop feeling self-conscious and stop my inner critic from thinking that others are judging me negatively? When people criticize me, how do I know which fights to spend my energy on in my defense and which ones to walk away from? Even if I walk away from them or just take the criticism, I often feel like there is a void and it still shakes my self-esteem and then I feel like I’m carrying another’s burden even though I don’t want to. I don’t want to carry the burdens of others or the criticisms of my parents, but it seems like they keep dumping it on me whether I choose to engage it or not. Is it selfish for me to distance myself from them and surround myself with a protective bubble and not listen to the negativity? How do I do this without appearing like I’m just ignoring them and being disrespectful?

Also at my college, I have been using the name Janus because he is the Roman god of new beginnings and transitioning. His name lends to the month of January in which I was born. Socially transitioning and seeking therapy has been a new beginning for me and I feel like I’m closer to finding myself.