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““If you don’t sense the whole thing as somehow humiliating, you haven’t found your number. The more humiliating it is, the more you are looking the matter right in the eye. Anyone who says, ‘It’s wonderful that I am a _____’ is either not a _____ or hasn’t really understood how disastrous this pattern is.””

— Richard Rohr, The Enneagram

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Parental Approval and Seeking for Change

I heavily grew up with the feeling that I had to be this good girl that always listened to her parents. I felt that that was the way to gain their affection. This caused my entire sense of self worth and worthiness of love to depend on whether or not I listened to them. Did what they expected me to do. Etc.

But the pressure to perform for their love and approval became too much. I sunk more and more into depression because I sacrificed my own happiness for theirs. And they still weren’t happy. In fact, because my grades went down the opposite happened. They judged me for it in a negative way. Kept nagging me that I wasn’t performing well enough. That I should do my homework and study.

There were more factors involved aside from performance at school. But this kept going even in the deepest pits of depression, where I woke up every day wishing I did not wake up. It felt terrible. It felt like they didn’t actually care about me at all. It felt like I was really better off not there.

Through psychotherapy and some talking with my parents, the load lessened a bit. But I was still hyper sensitive towards my parent’s judgement. I remember the last time I gave my report card to my dad and how he just frowned. He didn’t say anything besides that. But I could read from his face that he didn’t like it. That he was disappointed. And that alone felt very painful.

After high school I moved out into a dorm room. The distance between me and my parents really helped me. I still went through psychotherapy for another year, and felt much better already after that. It gave me more energy to deal with my parents too and our relationships have improved a little.

However, I am still hyper sensitive to my parents and their words and approval. I feel like it’s a bit less than before in some areas. But overall, it’s still a major problem. It’s still the biggest stress factor in my life.

My parents both have had a very tough youth. And without a role model, they naturally never understood the whole concept of emotional support. I do belief now that they always mean well for me. But I always feel judged by them. I always feel like I have to do what they “advise” me, even if they really mean it as just advise. And it’s driving me nuts.

Now the problem is: I cannot change my parents. I can only change myself. And yes I went through a lot. And yes if you look at my childhood it’s only natural how I react. But I’ve been telling this myself for almost five years now. I’ve been blaming them and felt victimized for five years. And while it’s good to understand yourself and accept yourself, I also have to start looking for change. And I can only do that in myself.

Over the past five years I have solved the problem by distancing myself from my parents. Although this did help a lot and although I still think it was a great first step, in the end I’m really only fighting the symptoms. The root of the problem is that I still seek for approval from my parents. and if I want my relationship not only with my parents, but also with myself to improve, this has to change.

As Eleanor Roosevelt said: “No one can hurt you without your consent.” And Gandhi: “They cannot take away our self respect if we do not give it to them.” For my entire life I have been in this endless loop of stimulus->automatic response. Parents judge me-> I’m in pain. Parents tell me I’m bad -> I’m in pain. Parents tell me I should do better -> I’m in pain. But I’m not a machine. I can choose how to react to them. I can choose not to care for their approval.

It’s hard to accept this and I haven’t for a very long time. It felt unfair. It felt like it was all their fault and not mine. That they should change. That I’m the victim. It felt like saying to myself: “Why are you crying? Just don’t cry.”

But nothing is going to change while I just sit there blaming others and not taking responsibility myself. And I’m not taking away sympathy for myself. I can still be compassionate to myself and say that it’s alright to feel this way and validate my own feelings and experiences. But nevertheless still seek for change in myself.

I think it’s very important to realize that I have to keep validating myself. I have to give myself my self worth. Not my parents. I should not give my parents the right, my right, to determine my self worth. And the key to the problem probably lies here.

The stimulus->reaction loop can be further written out into stimulus->thoughts->feelings->behaviour. So what happens is: stimulus: negative feedback from parents -> thoughts: I failed in my parent’s eyes and am therefore not worthy (of love) -> feelings: enormous pain -> behaviour: avoidance of parents. And what I need to focus on is the thoughts part. Cause while I don’t have any influence on the stimuli, on my parents, I do have influence on my own thoughts. And my thoughts are what in the end lead to my feelings of pain.

So what I should work on is changing my unhelpful thoughts “I failed in my parent’s eyes and therefore am not worthy of love. Why do they do this to me?” into something more helpful: “My parents wanted something from me, and I was unable to give that to them. And that’s totally okay. I’m still worthy of love. I can give myself the self-worth and love that I need.” And with that, refuse to give my parent the power to determine my self worth.

It’s very hard. It’s going to be painful. In fact, I already experienced my first setback where the same old loop happened again. Where I allowed this loop to happen again. But it is the path I want to choose to walk. It’s the path I will walk.

Taking responsibility for myself is the path I walk.

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This is really true. “I want to be loved”. “I want to be a lovable person”. “My greatest fear is to be unlovable”. These seemingly simple sentences hit deep into my core. I can feel some resistance even from just typing this. Even though I know that no-one knows I am the one who writes this. And even though I want to tell my lover about it, the words simply refuse to come out. I cannot find the words. I cannot find the courage. I know they would be only understanding. I know. Yet, fear of them not loving me takes away my vocal cords. Instead, the only thing I can produce are tears of anxiety and frustration.

““If you don’t sense the whole thing as somehow humiliating, you haven’t found your number. The more humiliating it is, the more you are looking the matter right in the eye. Anyone who says, ‘It’s wonderful that I am a _____’ is either not a _____ or hasn’t really understood how disastrous this pattern is.””

— Richard Rohr, The Enneagram

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Different sides

“When intereacting with people, I cautiously examine the waters before treading into it. I subconsciously try to figure out their likes and dislikes, both in hobbies and in people. Not sure if it’s a universal 2 thingie or if my childhood caused me to think like this, but I’ve grown up thinking that people will like me more if I share their opinion. If I like what they like, and dislike what they dislike, there will be some common ground, and relating with each other will strengthen the bond and thus improve their opinion of me. So I end up showing different sides of myself to different people, according to what I think they will like most. I still want to be sincere, so I emphasise the parts of myself I feel they will like, and try to hide the parts that may be seen as negative. Though, in a sense it’s still less sincere. I’ve caught myself doing this several times and I’m not really proud of it. And to be honest, occasionally this behaviour is so compulsive that I just blurt things out that aren’t completely true before thinking, and end up regretting it pretty much immediately. I want to be more confident in myself and my opinions. I want to be able to be more true to myself and others. It’s just hard, because I feel this strong need to please the other person. Please don’t judge me too harshly on this. I’m trying to improve, but it takes time since it’s something I’ve always done since I was a kid.”

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Identification

“I have this thing where I find it hard to change myself when I‘ve already created an image in other people’s mind. Like, if I‘ve shown someone a certain side of myself, I take that into consideration in the future and act accordingly like ‘myself’, especially around that person. Or when I relate and identify with a certain personality description, I want to adhere to that description. I find it kinda weird: I try to be consistent, but doing so makes me feel inconsistent. It doesn’t always align to who I really am, which seems to be changing a lot. It makes me feel like I’m a bit fake, or dishonest. This adherence to perceived identities also make me feel restrained, because I cannot freely act and change however I want. It’s a bit annoying.”

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Self sacrificing heroism

“I have admired those who selflessly sacrificed themselves for others they love. A fictional character whom I looked up to was a reliable sister figure who killed herself to save the siblings she held dear. And even in death, what she was thinking about were those siblings. ‘Were they doing well? Were they living their life with a smile? Were they angry at me? But was I able to become a good sister?’ To me, she was the hero whos love was unlimited and indispensable. She was the most kind and loving character, which made her extremely lovable in my eyes. She was my ultimate role model.

Though I still admire her, I know now that in reality, this won’t work out for me. Because, as much as I’d like to deny it, I have my own needs and wants. There was a time were I completely repressed them. The result was me falling into depression. My mom moved out of the house and my grandfather on my dad’s side fell terminally ill with cancer, after which he died on my birthday. A lot of other things happened, and needless to say it affected me a lot. But I didn’t want to bother my parents who were having a hard time themselves with my own problems. So, I smiled and pretended everything was alright. But there’s a limit to what a human person can take. As the smile I put on broke down little by little, I criticised myself for not keeping it up. I had to think of others first, otherwise I’d be selfish. But at the same time, I felt incredibly sad by the fact that my own parents did not notice anything going on as I fell into the dark pit of depression.

Instead, they criticised me for my dropping grades, and called me lazy. I got yelled at for not being understanding enough. I felt insecure, worthless, and unloved. And somewhere along the line, surpressed anger started to mix into my storm of emotions. Anger is something I also surpress, however (2w1), so it just boiled somewhere in the dark.

Had I been more honest about my needs, I maybe could’ve prevented everything to build up inside of me like that. There would be a lot of problems still, but it wouldn’t build up as much. So, though I still find it hard to do so, I want to work on being more accepting of myself and my needs. And I hope, other 2s will be able to do so too.”

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Make a choice.

Friend: What do you want to do?

2: Idk, what do you want?

Friend: Nononono I asked first. What do you want?

2: But... I don’t really have a preference. So what do you want?

Friend: I know what I want, but I want to know what you want. You never tell me.

2: But... I really don’t care either way... Okay fine, I want to do what you want!

Friend: arfgsisbuskcbsjmsbjdnwg

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What do you want?

“I can feel uncomfortable about turning the attention to myself. For example when sharing something I want to say in a group talk. Especially with sentences that start with ‘I’. It makes me feel like I’m being needy and asking for attention. It gets worse when I have to ask for something I want. It’s fine if it’s something small from friends, such as lending a pen, but when it conflicts or may conflict with what others want, I’ll feel very troubled. It feels selfish to me to go for what I want despite knowing that other people want something else. I feel selfish if I don’t give in to what the other want. And I often know what they want, or else I’ll probably ask. So a lot of the times, I do give in.

This choice, however, can leave me feeling unsatisfied. I am learning to set my boundaries, and not give in to whatever the others want when they cross my line. But it’s hard. And often it’s not about being disrespectful to me. It’s about me not able to say what I want to others. They have to ask for it and give it to me voluntairily, press me to take it. I’m making it their task to give me my needs, cause doing it myself feels selfish.”

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I must feel sad for you

“As I grew up, I have picked up behaviours and feelings that are seen as good by others. When something sad happens to a friend, I have to be sad. When someone did something bad to a friend, I have to be angry. If I don’t feel this, that means I don’t care about my friends. I do care about my friends, I am a good friend, thus I have to feel sad and angry for them. I feel sad and angry for them. I have to show them I care.

But deep inside I know something is off. I know that, but I am too scared to face my genuin self. What if I don’t feel empathy at all? What if I’m actually really heartless inside? What if everything I believed I felt, was all a lie? I would be a horrible friend. I would be completely unlovable.

These complicated feelings have always formed a rift between me and my friends. I feel like they would hate me if they could see into my core. My ugly, pitch black core. What they like, what they see as a friend, isn’t really the real me. They wouldn’t love me if they knew. I am unlovable.

But I don’t want to be disliked. I don’t want to be hated. It scares me. So I don’t want to face myself. I feel like it will break me down. Emotionally. Mentally. The lovable me that I created, whom I want to be, whom I want to believe is the real me, would shatter into infinite pieces.”

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Browsing but not buying

“When I walk into a store and receive something, no matter how small, I’ll feel guilty if I don’t buy something. What I receive could be some help from a kind clerk, who finds me a product, or if I test out some products with the clerk looking at me. I feel selfish for being on the receiving end and not giving back. I’m painfully aware of the clerk, and I subconsciously assess their reactions. I feel relieve wash over me if they greet me kindly, wishing me a nice day, as I leave without buying anything and return the gesture with a smile. I know it is normal to just look around and leave without buying, and that no one is obligated to buy anything they don’t want. But still, I feel guilty.”