Dear anita,

the last days were a bit better. I did the things I wrote about above. Just with my art projects, I found it hard to concentrate. During the last week I felt stressed and slept more than usually. But also couldn’t sleep so well at night. But hopefully, next week I will get back to getting more things done.

At the moment, I feel more impatient. Today I felt impatient with my friend. Sometimes I get annoyed over little things. At least I didn’t say or do anything bad. Hopefully, I wasn’t passive aggressive. It is hard for me to spend a lot of time with people…

I also don’t have much patience for my parents at the moment. Today I talked to them on the phone, but would have preferred not to. I think I wasn’t too cheerful there… I just felt stressed during the conversation. I didn’t say so much, maybe I was not so polite.

With my therapist, the last session went well. She said she does want to continue our therapy. When she said I should ask her how she feels, I misunderstood her. She meant that I can ask her about her opinion or impression, when I tell her about my life. I do have a good feeling about her.

We also talked in therapy about my family. Why is my sister more upset at my parents than me, when she was treated a little better? When I told my sister about the things my father said to me, she couldn’t really believe it. Or she didn’t know. Unlike me, she never felt hated by my father. She felt liked by him. She said that she thought he could see himself in her. Apparently my father never said such things to her and usually my parents also didn’t hit her.

That is a little update about the past days… Overall it was o.K.

How are you doing?

Dear anita,

I hope you get better soon. I can relate to what you said about your leg. Sometimes such negative experiences teach us to be more mindful and to change something. In a way, I feel similar about my experience with K. I became more mindful of some problems I need to work on.

What will you do to make the changes?

For me, I think I want to try to be more aware of my own feelings. Not react on impulse, instead take some time before I say yes or no to someting. Also, I want to finally work on becoming more confident. I hope that therapy will be helpful there.

You wrote: “This is a longer answer to your short question, isn’t it?”. I’m not so sure what (or if you wanted to tell me something?) you wanted to tell me there? Can you explain more? Or was it just a phrase and I’m overthinking again?

After thinking a lot about my past with my parents a lot of feelings are resurfacing. Maybe I need some distance from them. they have changed (at least my mother has) and they are now nicer to me, but still… I don’t know if I want to visit them during the semester break. Why do I have the one who always comes for a visit anyways? And I’m also a grown up with my own life now… I think I would rather work on projects for university.

I was wondering, why is my sister more angry than me? In the past it was different. I was very angry at my parents, even before my sister. Maybe it has to do with my failed career and my financial dependence on my parents. It makes me feel very guilty. It gave me the feeling that I don’t have the right to be angry at them. And I felt guilty, like a loser, like a failure. I was in no place to ask for something… That’s how I felt. Feeling this way didn’t help at all. It got me stuck.

Of course I am thankful for my parents helping me. But I need to work on becoming more independent. Often I avoid thinking about my career and the future. It feels impossible to get my life together. Where to start? First I need to finish my degree. While I do that I should think more about my options. Maybe get another job, where I can learn more. Work as an intern. volunteer. Inform myself more. A lot of these things are very scary to me. I feel like I am so far behind other people my age and don’t know how to catch up. But I must try. No I must do it . Somehow.

Dear anita,

I am happy we can communicate so openly and that we can ask each other, if there is a misunderstanding. This is so different from my experience with K. He never said what bothered him, if I asked him something he sometimes ignored it. It made me feel so crazy. But maybe I should also learn how to deal better with such behaviour? I don’t think I want to communicate with people I can’t be open with anymore. Or at least not become closer to them, until I feel more comfortable. Only open up, if they do. And if their reaction to my openness makes me feel uncomfortable, maybe share less personal things. Does this make sense?

You can share personal things about yourself if you want (or not share anything, if you prefer). I wasn’t bothered at all. Sometimes I just don’t have much to say about it. I feel weird giving advice to others, like I am not in a position to give advice at all, as I am so confused myself. Like once, I responded to a girl on this forum. But afterwards I thought: who am I to give advice to others??

My parents are usually more nice to me now. They are not toxic. We don’t talk about our problems or past. Especially my mother tries to be really friendly. She even started to hug me, when we meet. On the phone she started to say: “I love you”, which makes me feel slightly uncomfortable. But I respond back.

My father is still a difficult person, who sees the bad in others but doesn’t want to face his own problems. But he is nicer to me than in the past. He doesn’t say such terrible things to me anymore.

Still, I feel that I need more distance from my parents at the moment. And I also should use my time to finish my degree.

I have such big fears about the future. But this already started when I was very young. I never felt good enough. I felt like I would never amount to anything. It became a self – fulfilling prophecy. Now it is even harder to get out of this. I wish I would have seeked help sooner, but it took me a while to realize how big my problems were.

What do you do after you recognize your feelings? What do you do to quiet them down? It is hard for me to not get overwhelmed and panic at times. And I think this keeps me stuck.

Dear anita,

thank you for your helpful post!

Everything sounds very good. I tried to make a routine of my own:

– Wake up at 7 am (earlier on work days)

– Shower, make breakfast, make bed etc.

– Don’t use the internet in the morning. Ideally only use it in the evening for about 1 h. But not using it in the morning is a good start.

– Go to work / Uni or work for at least one hour (better start small) in the morning

– Cook /Eat

– Go to university or work at least one hour at home

– Go for a walk or exercise

– Clean up for 30 Minutes

– Eat

– Wash face, brush teeth etc.

– Read a book at 9 pm

– Sleep at 10 pm

– Maybe have one day off per week?

I think I will try this and then I can tell you how it went in a few days or weeks… I should also work more on countering my inner critic. When I see my therapist in a few days I will talk to her about it. Maybe I can ask her if I can make some sort of diary for this. Then we can review it together when I see her again.

Thank you a lot! I hope you are well!

Dear anita,

in the last days I tried to stick to my routine, but I am still struggling.

You will be disappointed to hear that K. wrote to me again. It is my goal to not make rushed choices anymore and communicate better, so I want to ask for advice. After he seemed not interested in a final talk, I didn’t respond anymore. In a moment of anger, I deleted him off my facebook friends list. Afterwards I felt bad about it, for not communicating clearly. But in the end, we had ended it, so it was o.K., right? Some guilty feelings stayed though.

He wrote to me again, asking how I was. Because I still had those guilty feelings and also didn’t want to make him feel bad, I responded. I told him that I am o.K. and asked how he was. He said he wasn’t doing well, that it was difficult. When I asked what had happened, he only said that he can only tell me later, because he is in the library now. So I said that he can tell me more, but that I don’t want to bother him now (I regret saying this, I didn’t want to make him feel guilty), because he surely wants to study now. That we can talk later, if he wants to. So we said until later. He also said “thank you” and I asked “thank you for what?” (I regret this, why couldn’t I have just said nothing or thank you??)

Now I feel like this is unfinished. Saying “until later” seems unfinished. I want to draw a final line, to end it. For my own peace of mind, because I have this nagging feeling that I didn’t end it properly, that I am not a good communicator. Or should I just let it be? I still don’t understand why he tells me he isn’t feeling well, but then doesn’t tell me more. If he doesn’t want to talk about it, why bring it up?

I tried to write a message:

“Hi

We said “until later”, but then we didn’t talk. It feels weird to me, unfinished.

Often I didn’t know what you think or want, or what bothers you. Sadly, I also didn’t have the courage to ask.

If you still want to talk about something, we can do this.

If not, it is also o.K.

Otherwise I just hope that you are doing well.

I really wish the best for you! Good luck with your exams, hopefully it doesn’t get too stressful. I wish you success, health and a good time with your family.

Goodbye.”

What do you think? Or should I just let it be? I am sorry to bring up that topic again, anita. I just feel so unsure. It’s hard for me to communicate with him. And I feel like I have no social competence… But before I do something stupid again, I wanted to ask for advice.