My Life 3: Stuck

Above anything, I had given up all hope. I had so much pain of loneliness and rejection, that I just did not dare to reach out anymore. If you paid close attention to my eyes, you could see a lot of sadness, an endless suffering. But it was hidden, by not believing anymore that anyone would come to help me. Reaching out and getting rejected again would mean feeling even more intense pain. I kept it to myself, alone. I believed that nobody really loves me, and I just have to live with that. Desperately, I tried pushing my suffering away, trying to live the life that was expected from me. But deep inside, I was broken into pieces, through the constant abuse by my parents. I was fragmented.

I needed my parents to stay alive. To stay connected to my parents, I kept believing the fragmented and self-contradicting narrative they forced into me. I believed that I was a difficult kid, instead of them having emotionally destroyed me. I believed that I deserved humiliation and physical punishment, instead of them being unable to love me. I believed that I was the cause of all the problems at home, instead of them creating the chaos. I believed that I should feel guilty and keep myself in check, instead of them not taking responsibility for their wounds. I believed that I could not be angry and hateful towards them, instead of them needing to respect my emotions. I believed that all my wishes were wrong, instead of them thinking about only themselves. I believed I was not loved. And I believed it was because of me, not being worthy of love and living.

Not knowing what do with this rejection by myself and by my parents, I switched myself completely off. My joy, my love, my truth, my life, my self, it did not exist anymore. Instead, I acted like was expected from me. Play sports? Check? Go to school? Check. Believe in Jesus? Check. Act like I enjoy life? Check. Believe that I am a sinner? Check. Make nice compliments to my mother? Check. Swallow her destabilizing emotions? Check. Be a good child so my mother feels like a good other? Check. Make sure my father feels seen? Check. Accept his rules? Check? Accept the blame of being the problematic child? Check. Believe I am problematic? Check. Believe that I am autistic? Check. Believe that my feelings are wrong? Check. Go to therapy? Check. Act obedient and respectful? Check. Be totally honest? Check. Be thankful to my parents? Check. Act what others tell me to do? Check. Think what other want me to think? Check. Feel what others want me to feel? Check.

In the past, every time I showed my true self, I was not loved, but I was rejected. I learned that for getting fake acceptance, which I thought was real, I needed to do what was expected from me. Because otherwise I would end up miserably alone, helpless with my unworthiness and my pains. The only way in which I could survive, was to disable my heart and become anonymous. I would still have my pains and my unworthiness, but by somehow living the narrative of my parents, I would have some connection.

As an extra defense mechanism to hide my pains, I developed a belief of superiority and tendency to control others. My many painful emotions and memories made me think I was deeply unworthy. As a reaction I trained my mind to convince myself that I was the extreme superior best, creating a deep split between my mind and my emotions. Any tiny hints from others that I was not superior, made me feel my deep slit of pain, almost instantly translating into anger towards my new perceived humiliator. I was putting so much effort into believing that my superiority was real, that I made myself unable to connect with reality and my feelings. By making myself untouchable, I made reality, my feelings, and other people untouchable for myself.

But I would still have intense painful feelings, in situations when people avoided me, I ended up being alone, or when I was punished by my parents. Feeling intense pain often made me jump back into my dissociation or my superiority, living in my mind. It was the only way in which I was able to stay somewhat functioning. It made me forget the real world. Due to resisting my emotions, my whole body was very tense, but by living in my mind I did not feel that. In my mind I felt space, clarity and rest. I did not have to check into my emotions and reality, because I believed emotions to be irrelevant, and I convinced myself that I was the best.

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But even through my many defense mechanisms of dissociation, controlling and perfectionism, I was too scared to show them. I withdrew myself far away. I was unable to meet life. Instead, I was living in stasis.

Life became flat and meaningless. I acted like a presentable teenager, nothing strange seemed to be going on. My haircut was okay, my clothes were well taken care of, I could hold a conversation, I showed interest by asking questions, and I could talk about different topics. My grades at school were okay, I played soccer at a local club, I had proper teen jobs to earn money, and I went to church every week. To some it could even look like I was well behaved, properly raised even. That is what I wanted to live up to.

In reality, my constant attempts at self-hypnosis actually failed most of the time. It was a narrative I kept on living in, but my behavior was totally different. For example, almost every time the class started in secondary school, I was afraid of sitting alone. Because of that I made no eye contact to invite my classmates to sit next to me, afraid to get rejected. If I would be in a conversation with someone, I would only talk from my mind, scanning every word if it would not make anyone angry. I would also hide my anger every time if someone told me something that I didn't completely agree on. I was used from my father that if I do not follow his perspective on life, I would get beaten. I felt threatened by anyone that had any different point of view.

When playing soccer and my teammates would get slightly frustrated at me, I would immediately panic, and do something very unfavorable with the ball. I could not relax into playing soccer, or destress my body by moving. I didn't really knew why I kept going to play sports, but it was okay to be away from home. When my teammates said they had a nice refreshed feeling after a training or match, I didn't know what they were referring to. I could not feel my body.

Because I was heavily mistrusting towards woman, I had little contact with girls my age. Apart from having one good friend, I did have relationships that had some elements of friendship, like I went camping with some boys out of my class in summer. But when they asked me next year to join again, I surprised them by refusing to come along again, because I falsely believed I was not part of them. From my family I was not used to being welcome, feeling welcome was scary.

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Curiously, sometimes I met people that I felt at ease with. I could speak my thoughts, about how I analyzed other people and myself, and being able to empathize with them. We could help each other reflect on life, and be together with whatever happened. It is as if I learned to completely shutdown to most of my external world, while I could be in openness and harmony with very few people. I still had very little access to my feelings and being in the flow of life. But being able to speak freely, occasionally gave me much needed breathing space.

Growing up with my parents, I was made to believe I amounted to nothing, and my perspectives and feelings did not matter. Being very scared of any rejection, I hardly showed myself. When I felt any tiny sense of judgement or frustration from someone, out of fear I shut myself down, switching to behaving from my wounded self.

It meant that for most people, it was almost impossible to get a bead on me, unable to figure out who I was, or what my intentions and feelings were. I was also told that it was unclear whether I was not interested to connect with others, or that I was just unable to connect with others. For me, it was a constant juggling of different needs. I was suppressing my hate to anyone, I needed space alone, I wanted to belong, I felt misunderstood, I wanted to be seen, I wanted to hide, I wanted to be seen, I wanted to cry, I wanted to be nice, I wanted to have friends, I was scared, I mistrusted anyone, I wanted to trust and be trusted, I wanted to fight, I wanted to rest, I wanted to be supported; all of these conflicting interests were always battling for attention.

With the very little awareness that I had left, nothing was ever really taken care of. Trying to direct myself from my mind, I was like a broken ship in the middle of the ocean, constantly changing direction to a different port to get help. I was not constructively responding to what was happening outside of me. I was constantly reacting to my inner fragmented world, towards all the conflicting parts inside of me that were fighting for care and attention. I could not get a bead on myself either. Just like my parents, I had become a personification of emotional chaos.

Anywhere I went in life, I carried my enormous wounds with me. My wounds where constantly seeping through my mask of anonymous behavior. The fear of not being welcome and accepted, getting attacked and humiliated, and my feelings of sadness, loneliness, desperateness, shame, hate, and unworthiness, severely limited in how I moved through life.

I did as best as I could. My mental world was overdeveloped, so I was able to finish university, with a focus on business administration and information technology. In the meantime I founded an online gadget store, and followed an additional university studies program in public administration for one year. At the start of my university studies I left the house of my parents, and as a result my will to life would slowly start to return. It materialized in a way that fitted my life at that time.

First Spark of Life

In the last years of my studies, I met some classmates that were reading books about self-development. I wasn't really connected to them, but enough to get inspired by their interests.

For the first 20 years of my life, I struggled hard with emotions and social dynamics. I could not yet see, that my parents wounded me like that. I honestly believed I was socially incapable, and that I had little creative, emotional, and spontaneous capacities, like my mother implied towards me. I thought the only way to "fix" this, was by learning fake emotional and social behavior. I became interested in fabricating my social skills. My first two books I ordered on amazon, were "How to talk to anyone" and "How to win friends and influence people". The books were very practical, and so very useful for me being a starter.

At some point I was reading a chapter that suggests to make eye contact to people. Subconsciously I related eye contact with humiliation by my parents, when they forced me to look at them when they were angry and humiliating me. Not aware of that, I followed the advice of the book, and being 22 year old, I started to look some people in the eye when I talked to them. In the beginning it felt surreal and very scary. Looking into someone's eyes, it felt as the other person was angry at me, and I vaguely felt my shame and my pains. Looking back, these were all associations from my childhood abuse.

But in a way I persisted, and I forced myself to keep looking. I think sometimes I came across as someone who was just staring other people in the eye. Anyhow, I felt extremely powerful, like I was joining real life, in how the real people relate to each other. I still avoided eye contact with many people, and I still had a very long way to go. But this was my first practical step in personal development, ever.

Second Spark of Life

As I was expected to do, at the start of my studies had I joined a fanatically christian student association, I lived with housemates that were also fanatically Christian, and I kept going to church almost every Sunday. There were some people in our student association that frequently didn't go to church, and it was frowned upon. "Luckily" I wasn't one of them.

The anthem of our study association was singing about "expanding your horizon", and we prided ourselves for having that as one of the main pillars in our activities. Ironically, we were only studying subjects that were compatible with the Christian religion, like Immanuel Kant (who rigorously defended the concept of sin), any other theological way of thinking, and christian subjects applied to daily life. Once we had a study group that was studying masturbation, the members of the group were exploring how it was bad and sinful, and how to stop doing it. Just like in church, we fooled ourselves we were open minded. Christianity indoctrinates their followers that they are open minded and free, while they actually are in chains.

I had the habit of praying every night before going to bed, and asking forgiveness of my sins every time. Nearing the end of my studies, many times I couldn't figure out what I would have done wrong that day. Maybe today in the bus I somehow did something wrong to another passenger? Or did I buy fruit from the store that was meant for someone else in God's plan? Was I not nice enough to someone today? I believed it must have been me, and I surely should have done something wrong that day, just like I always did something wrong in my childhood. So every night, I kept on asking forgiveness for my sins that I surely did. But somehow, it started to itch a bit. What was I actually doing? Next to that, my housemates started skipping going to church. And they showed me, that not really much was changing if they missed church a few times. They were still healthy, responsible, and nice people, fun to be around with.

In my bible study group, there was one member who started to make sarcastic comments about the bible. When Christians read the bible, there is a hidden programming in each Christian. When you have any questions or doubts about God, you always steer it into conclusions like "we are only sinners, we don't know", "luckily Jesus has forgiven us", "the ways of God's plans are not understandable for humans", "it is a grave sin to even think that we can try understand God's ways, we are only humans" and "we are so lucky that we are Christians". These responses are part of the subconscious programming to keep Christians hypnotized. Once when the discussion was going towards the usual path, my group member started sarcastically replying with "you see, it works out every time, the bible is always right". I didn't really pay attention to him, but altogether, something was changing within me.

Praying started to become a chore for me, instead of something that I wanted to do. At some point I stopped praying for a few nights, maybe I was just really tired a few nights in a row. And it happened a couple of times more. I couldn't really feel a difference: the world was still the same, I was still the same. So what was the sinful difference that I was made to be scared of? I just could not notice it, and I became doubtful about its need. I became a sinful doubter of the Christian religion. I wasn't so sure anymore if I wanted to pray, if I wanted to read the bible, or if I wanted to go to church. Slowly, it didn't make a difference to me. Although, I did have some remnants of my Christian faith inside of me, that made me feel a bit uneasy about rebelling.

At the end of my studies, I was doing an assignment near my parent's home, for which I left my own house and lived at my parents home for a while. Before each dinner, we would pray, and sometimes other members of the family took turns to say the prayer. At some point my mother asked me I would wanted to say the prayer. Hesitantly, I expressed that I wasn't so sure anymore about Christianity. My parents were completely shocked, and quickly my mother said the prayer. I was never asked to pray again.

My refusal to pray was my seal of redemption.

Third Spark of Life

Starting university, I had a pretty rigid idea about how my future would look like. While being at university, I would find my wife, would marry, and have kids. And after my graduation, I would be a consultant for ten years, after which I would start my own company in a related field. Having these kind of rigid expectations were part of my wounded personality.

However, in the last few months of my studies, I continued to read more books about personal development. I was reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, and the autobiography of Anwar el Sadat: In Search of Identity. Because I was heavily disconnected to myself, it was difficult to really connect to the core of their messages. Although, I was heavily inspired by them. These books had something that I did not have. I was searching for my identity and truth.

Additionally, I managed to get inspired by reading the famous book of Viktor Frankl; Man's Search for Meaning. Frankl is a man who survived the holocaust, living inside a concentration camp. During his hardships, he received many insights about what makes people tick; what gives them meaning in life. After WWII, he became a psychologist that practiced logotherapy: the practice of helping people finding meaning in life.

While he was in a concentration camp, he was observing his fellow prisoners. He discovered, that once a fellow prisoner lost his hope of someday getting out the concentration camp, he would die within a few weeks. This was a far greater determinant for dying than anything else like malnutrition or illness. The ones that kept having hope, they usually continued to stay alive. Later when being free again, Frankl became skilled in helping people find their meaning in life. I was struck by a deep realization, when he wrote about an invitation that he gave to of his clients:

“Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!”

I felt heavy, as if my whole outlook on life, my present and my past, my whole body, and my whole self, was in chains. I was not able to move anything about myself, everything was planned, it was just a very logical reaction of what I experienced, what I learned, and how I planned and expected my life because of that. I remember clearly, sitting on the leather chair in my parent's house, reading the book, letting this realization sink in. Subconsciously I felt that I was not living at all. I did not want to be in these chains, I needed to throw my life around. Drastically.

Within a few minutes, I decided to change my life completely. Apparently I was ready for that. I came up with the idea of changing my life in three major ways. It didn't take long to fill them in.

The first big change would be that I stopped believing in Christianity. My faith was fading, and I wanted to find out what it means to live without it. I gave myself permission to not read the bible anymore, to stop praying, to stop believing that Jesus needs to save me, and to stop going to church. Second, I would already try to become an entrepreneur right after my graduation. I did not need to wait ten more years for that, I could do it now. My plans of being a consultant for 10 years suddenly seemed unattractive to me. Instead, I would move to a big city, and start a company there. I didn't know what I was going to be doing, but I would figure it out, something in business and it. Third, I wanted to try something that I have never tried before: dancing. I could not dance at all, I didn't even like it, but I knew that so much people enjoy doing it, and it is very different from what is in my life, there must be something in it for me.

Change needed to happen. Now or never.

Moving to Amsterdam

A few weeks later while, I got in contact with another man that already was having his company. Let's call him John for now. The iPhone and Android smartphones were just introduced, and John was making money with creating apps. Back then, very few people knew how to make apps. I send some e-mails back and forth with him, and I made a concept Android app to show my skills. I said that I was nearly graduated, and I wanted to be an entrepreneur in software. He was open to working together, and we kept in touch.

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Some months later, I graduated and I moved to Amsterdam. I had some small savings for a few months of living, after which I could always take a regular job. Within a week I found a house in Amsterdam, that had one living room and two bedrooms. Because it was hard to find living space in Amsterdam, I made a concession. I would be living and sleeping in the living room, while I would arrange two other housemates to live in the bedrooms. However, to get to the kitchen, the person needed to walk through my room. I said to my housemates that it was totally no problem for me, and that they should go to the kitchen anytime they wanted. Practically, it meant that at any inconvenient time I would be waken up, because a housemate wanted to do his dishes at 23:30, or needed to prepare breakfast at 06:00 when I was sleeping in. I even allowed my housemates to dry their laundry in my small room.

What was going on, is that I was unaware that it actually was a major inconvenience for me, to have my privacy and rest constantly disturbed. But I was totally not aware of that. In my childhood, I was made to believe that my personal space, boundaries, privacy, and rest did not matter. My parents constantly invaded me, and if I would get angry about it, I would get beaten and humiliated. My parents taught me to give up my boundaries, to not notice my frustration about it, to not express my boundaries, and getting used to constant invasion.

In Amsterdam I was living 4 years like this, having no conscious frustration about this whatsoever. I learned to disconnect from my feelings at a young age. Once I found myself in the middle of lovemaking with my partner. Someone entered my room, and saw us being busy, and he got back. I felt some frustration about his carelessness, but then again, I did not say anything about it. After 4 years, I rented the whole house by myself. A few years after that, I still had unpleasant dreams about people constantly walking through my room. I was inviting and allowing people to constantly invade my space, subconsciously getting frustrated all the time, and I had no awareness on what was happening.

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Within a few months in Amsterdam, I got my first project via John. The cooperation went successful, and after some more projects he invited me to share all profits equally and become co-owner of his company. Together with some other people, we had projects for customers like Google, PayPal, Vodafone, a Dutch newspaper NRC, the Dutch government, and many others. At some point we got two employees to help us. I was making good money for big names and I had employees: my ego was satisfied.

Apart from external validation, again I was repeating a pattern that I learned in my childhood: being used. I was working a lot, and I nearly escaped from a burnout. John was working as well, but a far cry from what I was working. Just before my burnout, I once worked 32 hours straight from 09:00 until 17:00 the next day, and during my holidays I was constantly working in the evenings. One day, I found myself waking up with pain in my chest, and my father (who did suffer from a severe burnout) warned me that I had to take a serious break. I took a break and went back to work, but still working a lot.

Once a friend said to me, that I would make more money if I would work on my own. But I was simply blind to his message that I was being used, so I did not do anything with it. From my childhood, I was used to simply obeying someone without asking critical questions, because asking critical questions meant punishment. Being imprisoned by my parents, I was also used to the idea that I had nowhere else to go, because no on else would take care of me when I was young. While working, it did not even occur to me, that elsewhere there might be a better work opportunity. I was hypnotized, in simply obeying and staying at the same place. I had projected John to be my parents. I used him to take care of me, and in exchange, I let myself being used to do most of the work.

If I was open to the possibility that my friend might be right, a simple calculation would have made me understand. I could make more money if I just became a freelancer and worked on my own. My credentials were more than enough, and there was a high demand for software engineers at that time. I willingly allowed my partner John to use me, and I had no clue what I was doing. John was having a similar situation with another partner of him, that actually took a stand for himself, and they had frequent conflicts. Once I even mediated between them, in a meeting with the three of us. But I could not recognize the pattern inside my own life. I was completely blind.

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Some months after having moved to Amsterdam, I started taking dance classes. I began by taking streetjazz classes, a mix between hip-hop and jazz dance. I wanted to dance something that was cool and stylish at the same time. Style wise, I made a right choice. With my stiff body and my out-of-tune pacing, it actually didn't matter so much what style I started with. But my teacher got cool moves, and we danced on funk and pop music, so I was happy to practice. On a deeper level, I was giving myself an immense gift, by creating an opportunity for expressing myself and connecting to my body.

Dancing turned out to be the complete opposite of how I lived. Dancing is about being connected to the music, finding freedom within the limits of the melody, allowing the flow guide you, and let your body speak your language, in between the lines of the choreography. But I was used to structurally act, based on a systematic analysis, of what was happening and so what would be happening. I saw the world as predictable and behaving through rules and processes.

Taking dance classes helped me to explore a lot about myself. Because I was used to living in my mind, I had a lot of challenges to practice a hobby that is about living in your body. For example, when we were practicing body rolls, I discovered that my torso and back also is a part of my body that I can control. So far, I only used it to have my head on top of it, and to bend it at the right moments when I would stand, sit, or lie down. But after practicing a body roll, my torso started to feel like a limb that I can bend on different places, which is even fun to do. Besides exploring my own body, I had zero awareness on how extremely tense my body was at all places. Now, many years later, when I look back at my first practice videos, I see an enormously stiff and scared boy, setting his first steps in living inside his body.

Still living in my mind, it was hard to connect with my body that enjoyed the new movement. But somehow, I got the hints that my body really loved dancing. For more than ten years, I practiced all kinds of styles: ballet, modern, salsa, bachata, and hiphop. Several periods I took 4 or 5 dancing classes per week. Ballet turned out to be my favorite dance. It appeals to a softness and subtlety that is almost breathtaking for me. Naturally, there were a lot of girls in dancing classes, and sometimes they were curious towards me. Once, a girl came up to me after class, trying to start a conversation. But because of my mother I was very scared of women. Being scared of the girl as well, I switched to talking from my mind, and the conversation lasted less than two minutes.

Meeting Me in Amsterdam

Even with the changes going on in my life, I was desperate for living in my heart, but I simply did not know, that I was searching for my heart. Instead, I was searching with my mind, inside my mind, disconnected from life and my heart. I thought happiness was about having a successful job, interesting interests, good looking friends and a good looking girlfriend. I was not connected to what these things mean to me, how it affects my own uniqueness, how it makes me feel.

From my childhood I learned that I should keep my sensitivity and feelings as far away as possible, from myself, and other people. Revealing myself, what I am to the core, would only cause immense pain and disappointments, and is something to be very ashamed of. At the same time, I held a deeply buried belief that I was unworthy of having any pleasures in life like smiling, and I deserved to be happy and lonely. I was not aware of any of this anymore. But as long as I would keep myself away from my feelings, myself, others, and anything else, it would remain impossible to explore what life and happiness means to me.

Living in Amsterdam, I would not find out soon that my feelings are actually the keys to my true dreams. Instead, I learned to live anonymously to myself and to others. And while doing that, I kept making life difficult for myself. It might help to understand, if you would have met me in Amsterdam during that time:

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Drinking a tea in the streets of Amsterdam, you see a boy passing by, blond hair, tall, slim, well dressed. Looking at him, he inhabits the body of a young adult, but he feels like a teenager that is still a child. Your eyes are caught by his stiff shoulders and his somewhat crooked back. And while scanning his body, you see he is controlling his body, even working against it, unable to let it flow and serve him. It makes you remember that people treat their bodies similar to how they treat their life.

When walking, he constantly scans around, like he constantly is looking out for something, his eyes big, and somewhat scared, but without giving himself away, in any way. He doesn't appear relaxed, neither searching, or open for that matter, but more like someone who is following the conviction of his thoughts. The boy having passed you and walking away from you, you send your attention in order to contact him, with the kind of intention that people usually feel in their back. You feel he noticed you, but he doesn't pay attention, and keeps on walking. It remains unclear why.

Resuming your tea, you let him go. And your thoughts wonder off to other people walking by. After a while, you see that same boy is coming back to pass you, he must have bought something. Remembering his anonymity, you become particularly interested. You know the typical anonymous behavior of the human kind, but he is hiding something. At thirty meters distance you try to spot his energy, feel his thoughts, and figure out what he is up to. It is too early to say, but he seems to have noticed you, and is blocking your inquiries. He becomes hard to read. Like he carefully manages everyone around him, deciding who to keep at a distance. You wonder if you scared him at thirty meters already, even when there are so many people around.

You look the other way, backing off a bit, but keeping track of him. He should be around twenty meters away now. Ten meters. Feeling into your own intentions, you notice an innocent curiosity in yourself, and conclude you weren't sending any harm his way. Trusting your impulses, you decide to allow your curiosity to guide you. He should be near you now, and you give him another look. He saw your peeking, and in a split second your eyes meet each other. Immediately his eyes widen a bit with fear, and he quickly looks away. You seemed to have startled him while walking, and your curiosity grows. What is such a sensitive boy doing in such a busy city, and why is he so scared?

Flowing in your curiosity, you try to have a chat with him. You raise your hand, greet him, and ask him some questions. But by each bit that the contact slightly intensifies, by raising your hand or greeting him, he seems to startle a bit more, withdrawing inward. With each step you take towards him, he stops being present. While responding to your chat, he does not bring himself in the conversation. It is like he lets his mind run the show, behaving like he thinks what is expected from him, becoming artificial. You try to be extra careful with him, hoping that he brings himself into the connection again. But he seems to notice you trying, feeling a desire from you, and he tenses up even more. He cannot regulate himself, and you decide to give up trying, and just see what the conversation brings.

Along the conversation, in each silence of a split second between you, you can feel his thoughts running at lightning speed. He seems to runs all kinds of checks, balances and questions on how you come across. Does the color of your pants match with your hobbies? Do you really like the weather today? Why are you not asking how I am doing? Is your smile fake? Why are your hands and arms relaxed, are you pretending? He doesn't trust you, and scans for danger. And while doing this, he continues with his artificial behavior. You notice his mistrust, and if you open your warmth to him, it makes him suspicious, as if he needs to give something in return. It makes him backoff, by moving slightly backward and stumbling over his own words. For now it is impossible to reach him, you can not let him know that your intentions are good. You wonder where the real person is behind this behavior. What is he really thinking, what is he really feeling? Why is he not showing himself? What happened to this boy?

Chatting for some time now, he seems to relax a bit, and he starts to ask some questions about you. While his questions seem very rational, you feel he has a genuine interest in you. There is something peculiar to his questions. They assume a frame with limited causes and effects, implying your reply can be only one of a few different answers. You decide to challenge him a bit, and answer outside his frame. Immediately you feel him tensing up, feeling invalidated, even a bit frustrated. You feel sorry for him feeling hurt, after he showed genuine interest in you. To compensate and give control back to him, you make a joke about your answer. Being quickly agitated, it seems hard for him to understand the point of view of other people. You feel glad to have noticed his frustration, and agree to walking on eggshells for the time being.

Telling something about yourself, it seems he picks up subtle nuances on how you life your life. It fascinates you, that he is so very rational and process oriented, but extremely sensitive as well. Carefully telling him about this, it makes him open up a bit. It appears he needs to feel seen before he can show himself. He cannot protect himself, and trusts on the sensitivity of other people to not get hurt. A difficult position you imagine.

Opening up a bit, he shares some of his analysis on life, what kind of people exist, and why they behave in what way. You decide to not confront him with putting people in boxes, and assume that out of fear he needs to feel an illusion of control about what happens around him. Again, the theme of fear and control. Instead you ask him about unpredictable people. It seems he almost hates them, clenching his jaw while answering that inconsistent people are horrible. He just showed another pointer for anger.

"Fear, distrust, control, anger, and being unreachable while pretending to be available..." The words echo through your mind, and feeling them together translates into some sort of lifelessness. He talks like he has his life in order, but all his expressions point to another direction. He rarely smiles, speaks from a heavy and dense energy with a high pitched voice, his eyes reveal hidden sadness, his whole body is extremely tense, and he uses calculated objective words, with little adjectives. He seems to be moving from analyzing one frame to the next one, instead of experiencing the flow of life. Staying far away from of a real connection, he seems to protect himself. It doesn't look like he knows anymore what he is protecting.

The conversation is nearing to an end, although he doesn't seem to notice that. It is as if he is expecting you to tell him what to do. There is even a helplessness, trying to make you into caring for him. You catch yourself thinking that he is easy to take advantage of. Shortly after, you let him know that you would like to leave for your car. Hastily, he prepares to leave, and apologizes for not noticing it. Calmly you tell him that there is no need to worry. Looking him in the eye, you silently wish him to keep meeting people that treat him with respect. In the past it must have been different. With a genuine handshake and smile you part your way. You notice that he keeps pulling on you, even after you left his sight.

State of Living

Considering my my incapacities and where I came from, I took great steps by leaving Christianity behind, moving to an unknown city, and starting a new life there. During the week I was writing code and managing projects, in the evenings I was taking dancing classes. In the remaining evenings and weekends, I was either seeing friends or resting, and reading some books about self development. I also joined a local football team, sporting two times per week. And I took up voluntary work, by working in a shelter for homeless people once a month. I was shifting my life to the best of my abilities.

If you would ask me at that time if I was happy, I would probably be silent for a few seconds, and reply with mind-based reasons why I thought that I was doing "okay". But I could not answer from my heart. I could only answer that question for the parts of my life that I could allow myself to see.

To some extent I knew that my body was not super flexible, and that I was a bit angry sometimes. I noticed my nightmares, my challenges with women, wanting to have more friends and to be more spontaneous, but I didn't gave it much attention, I thought it to be normal for me, it was just how it was. In reality, I could feel small parts of my wounds, but I simply could not handle myself feeling more of it. Deep inside, I had a vague feeling that I kept pushing away, telling me that I was not even remotely happy. It was a subconscious defense mechanism, to convince myself that I am okay. If I would face my harsh reality in its totality, I would instantly be in a state of shock, retraumatizing myself, unable to take any action for the better.

But deep, deep down, I was always in shock. Terrified, immensely sad, and desperate of what happened to me in my youth, unable to understand with my feelings and mind what happened. Subconsciously I was constantly scared of anything similar happening again, still living as if any next moment I could be humiliated or being beaten while lying on the ground. All the memories, feelings, and beliefs of my childhood: they were controlling me on the innermost layers of my being. I disconnected from them, and tried to live from my mind, without feelings. And with my mind I convinced myself I was doing okay. But apart from living up to my own rules and goals, almost everything else in my life showed, that I was not doing okay at all.

Once, already being two years into my healing journey, I was in a group therapy session. The therapist explained that we have an internal dashboard in our brain, that shows the status of our feelings. For example if we are very lonely, or very angry, the light for loneliness or the light for anger will start to flash red. The light tells us we should do something about it, like calling a friend to feel less lonely, or expressing our anger so that it can be released. The therapist asked around in the group, about what light was frequently asking flashing red in each of us. Someone replied with not feeling seen, the other with needing to put himself first, and someone else with expressing her boundaries. I told the therapist that my whole dashboard was constantly flashing with red lights. I was used to ignoring my internal dashboard, and through my mind I was living the life that was expected from me.

I was totally disconnected from my feelings and what was truly happening inside and outside of me. I had no clue about why and in what way, I was attracting what people and situations around me. Additionally, to navigate my life, I was using a map that was not based on how life works. The deepest meaning of life is reflected in how it touches our deepest feelings. Feeling life keeps us in harmony with it and ourselves, allowing us to join the rich flow of life. In contrast, I had no clue that I was trying to live my life by thinking it through, constantly stopping it. Also, I was unaware of what opportunities I was missing from the automatic flow of life, that could give me growth and joy.

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Now, having travelled far into my healing journey, and still having a great distance to go, it is starting to become clear what I was really feeling, and what was really going on. In the upcoming paragraphs I will try to give a meaningful description of my inner life at that time. It useful to know that in the past, my wounds were not always active, but they were always limiting my life. And if in some rare moments I was somewhat at ease, I was in a precarious balance that was easily destroyed. But below the surface I was always in shock, being susceptible for any wounded behavior.

Writing about my wounds, I have no illusion that I have even healed one of them completely. However, most of the time, I am able to take responsibility for my wounds, emotions, thoughts and behavior.

Practically this means, that I notice when my wounds are growing in pain, before they can express themselves into destabilizing or harmful behavior towards myself or people around me. When that happens, I can take care of myself, and express my feelings to myself and others. Sometimes I ask for help. The practical result is that my behavior is now functional, allowing me to enjoy life, to have intimate relationships, and to follow my deepest passions.

Next to that, I do claim that I am rationally aware of most of my wounds. This means in any moment I can still loose myself in them, but afterwards I can open to what really happened, and if necessary, I can give them priority in my life.

Below you can read about my wounds and my behavior that was controlling my life until my early thirties.

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[todo: bevestiging zoeken, ook via grapjes]

[todo: keur mensen af binnen enkele minuten, "saai" "dom" etc]

I believed that I was very ugly from the inside, scared of showing myself, having lots of toxic shame. I was still living inside the same shock, abuse, humiliation, loneliness, and terror that I experienced in my childhood. With everyone I met, I still made the same many assumptions about what behavior, feelings, and thoughts were allowed and not allowed, and what repercussions could follow. I kept on making the same assumptions about how badly people would treat me, and why I deserved that.

I was still living inside that same prison, together with suppressing severe amounts of fear, anger, hate, and sadness. I did not dare to touch the walls of my prison, testing out boundaries with people. I just did not show myself to people, believing what I truly felt and thought was not welcome. Everywhere I went I was not welcome: sooner or later people would find out about my ugliness and always causing trouble. I frequently broke eye contact and other forms of relational connection. Some people radiate their presence all around them, a feeling of "Here I am". I was radiating "I'm not here".

I was scared of other people's frustration and my own frustration as well, they would cause trouble. I ignored my own boundaries and related feelings, could not express them, neither most of my wishes. And sometimes I was hypersensitive for my boundaries, they were a deep wound that I sometimes got aware of. If I felt violated, I learned to hide my feelings. Not having access to my anger, boundaries and sadness, forgiving other people was almost impossible for me. Being in a relationship with me was like walking on eggshells.

I believed that nobody loved me, and that I was not worthy of living. I was neither worthy of smiling, sharing joy, friendships, celebrations, and affection with other people. Those things were for other people, but not for me. I had little dignity and self love, and was easily offended. After feeling offended I escaped into shutting down my feelings and convincing myself that I am superior, judging and humiliating the other person in return. If I heard people laughing a few meters away, I assumed it was about me.

I skillfully managed to hide all of my feelings of superiority, fear, hate, sadness, and masked them with decent and respectful appearing behavior. I believed that if I showed any of my forbidden feelings, I would be attacked. I heavily mistrusted anyone, especially women. If people would be friendly to me, I frequently mistrusted them and reacted distantly and sometimes cold. I expected people to always twist reality so that they would not have to take responsibility for their actions and perspectives. For other people, I was very hard to read, to get a bead on.

I believed that I was autistic and that my feelings, instinct and impulses were broken. I could not trust and act on my them, they are wrong and would always cause trouble. I would withhold signs of appreciation and affection towards others for the same reason. And, expressing them would me make vulnerable so that I can be humiliated and taken advantage of. I simply did not notice most of my impulses anymore. I could not feel my impulses like when I needed fresh air, warmer clothes, water, food, or human company. Not listening to my impulses, often I was stuck in apathy, numbness, and inaction, unable to energize and move myself into action in order to care for myself.

Being disconnected from my feelings, prevented me from developing an emotional awareness of where people currently are, and where they are coming from. I could not see their inner emotional compass, and could not understand any direction they were taken in their life. I frequently guided myself and my relationships into destructive dynamics. I could only see life from my perspective, because there is only one predictable truth. I had little capacities to see what my share was in creating any situation. It was hard for me admit guilt, and I frequently blamed others. Anything else would arouse my fears. I could stay stubborn in my own way of thinking for a very long time.

I saw life as a structured predictable process. Believing that life was predictable made me feel a bit safe, as an antidote to my immense fears. And because life actually is unpredictable, I was constantly in mind analyzing and processing what just happened and what would be coming, changing my understanding and rules of life so that it would be predictable again. My mind was always racing, on and on, fooling myself.

Frequently having frustrations about anything, I could be endlessly fixated on them, in the thoughts they would create in my mind. I was not able to feel the underlying feeling, understand and accept what happened in reality, and move on. I just did not not know how to get out of my loops. The only way to get out, was connecting my thoughts with my feelings, and the people and life around me. But because I learned that the outside world is not safe for me, and feelings are painful, I kept on being stuck. Endlessly.

I believed life was about controlling other people or being controlled. Rejecting emotions and spontaneity, I believed that everyone's life was run through their minds. My only way of defending myself was by trying to control what people think. If they would have a different ideas on something, sooner or later they would offend and abuse me, just like my parents would abuse me. I tried to manipulate and control what other people where thinking, by subconsciously sending them anger. I felt threatened if they had different perspectives. I was scared to speak out if I had a different perspective.

Offended by anyone's different perspective, I would be submissive(passive) in front of them, and aggressive when they did not have my attention. For me, conversations and discussions were not about an equal exchange of thoughts and emotions, in which both sides speak their truth. When someone showed any sign of anger or frustration, I would startle, and change my point of view hoping them to calm down. For me anger or frustration meant being beaten and humiliated, instead of simply another person having different feelings toward something or someone.

I used my emotional helpless to get sympathy from other people, and made them into caring for me. They could use me in return, and I felt entitled to be taken care of. Disconnected from my own feelings, I was able to get lost in the reality, truth, and wishes from other people, if someone manipulated me into (falsely) feeling secure. I had a tendency to completely open up to them, in honesty, obedience and loyalty, manipulating them into caring for me, just like I had to manipulate my parents into caring for me. It was easy to take advantage of me.

Disconnected from my feelings and inner beauty, I assumed that my inside world and those of others do not matter. Consequently, I misunderstood that things like joy, acceptance, friendship and happiness were a result of outer appearance. Lost in my mind, disconnected form my feelings, heavily deprived of happiness and terrified of rejection, I was obsessed with outer appearance, like popularity, success, weight, clothes, and looks. My mother once said about someone else "she is a very nice lady, but very thick, so, well..." implying by her tone of voice and facial expression that it's a grave sin. The outer appearance of someone else could be a reason for me to keep someone at a distance, if they did not match my criteria of perfection. As soon as I would find myself in a new group of people, I would scan around and look for the few people who I approved. I would reject the rest.

As a result of the consistent humiliation by my mother, I was severely holding back my masculinity. I suppressed my sexuality, actively rejecting it as being sinful, dangerous and abusive, as that was how my mother treated my sexuality. Instead I was trained in being overly serving the female sensitivity. I rarely took action, leadership or initiative when around a women, except for serving them. My genitals have a tendency to become smaller when they are in standby, my mother emotionally castrated me.

Being terrified of women, having a romantic relationship was impossible for me. I would constantly feel that I would be doing everything wrong, I could not express my boundaries and wishes, I expected woman to emotionally take care of me, I expected them to very inconsistent, manipulative, and I would frequently despise them if they were not around, acting submissive when they were near. I could not bring in my feelings to build an emotional foundation that is essential in a relationship. As soon as I was feeling more of my heart around my partner, I would also feel my immense pains and shut my heart down again, rejecting my partner in any way. I was unable to stop a relationship, on a deeper level being scared of losing my mother again.

In lovemaking, I could not surrender, I was simply too scared and needed to stay in control all the time. Later in life when I got aware of my abuse, I told my partners that they needed to be extra careful around my thighs and stomach, otherwise these parts think they will get beaten again. Initially, my sexual fantasies were getting urinated over by my mother, and being beaten and penetrated by my father. Living with my parents, my sexual integrity was compromised as well.

Related to my father, I developed the assumption that all man are pathetic and can not stand their ground. They are easily manipulated and angered, and I am in competition with them, instead of them being my brothers. I felt intimidated by man that can really stand their ground, trying to not make them angry at me.

When someone would give me a pat on my shoulder, I would get flashback of being beaten by my father. As I was taught, I believed that the only way to solve conflicts was through manipulation and physical intimidation. When I was around children that would annoy me, I would get impulses of hitting and beating them.

For several periods of many months and years, I would have nightmares of my youth, 5-7 times per week. I did not remember having genuinely pleasant dreams. My nightmares were about getting shot or attacked by my father, being in conflict with my mother, or being rejected. Growing up, I feared for my life. I also had many nightmares in which I was somewhere in a public place, only to discover that I was not wearing any clothes around my legs, feeling completely exposed and humiliated.

Throughout my whole body there were signs of severe humiliation. My whole body was extremely tense, and at several places I had disfigurements, like a tilted and crooked spine. I also had many weak areas that where frequently injured, like my left knee, lower back, neck and right foot. Blood circulation was low, and I frequently had cold feet and hands. My heart rate in rest was around 80-90 bpm, and my breath was barely noticeable and hearable. My voice had a high pitch, reflecting my fear.

To help me suppress my emotions, I had a lot of sugar every day, and I overate at dinner. I was unable to sleep at healthy times, and I frequently slept in, laying in bed in apathy. I believed life to be hard. I frequently lost myself in feeling a victim of life, suppressing those feelings as well. I was addicted to playing computer games, it was the only place where I would not be humiliated and beaten. My house was a mess most of the time, I barely made efforts on making a nice place for myself.

Core Of My Wounds

The core of my wounds was a very deep shame. With all the pain, sadness, humiliation, and terrorizing that happened during my youth, I concluded that I caused all of it. My parents kept pointing to me (and my older Brother) with everything that happened, and constantly attacking me for it. Complementary, with all the chaos, there was virtually no opportunity for me to open my heart, and to live from my softness, sensitivity and well wishing to myself and others. It simply was too dangerous to explore these and other qualities that are inside of me. So I grew up, simply not knowing how beautiful I am. In my twenties, my father once said "I'm surprised how very sweet Wouter actually can be". My mother kept dismissing my emotions as if they didn't amount to anything. My parents did not know me either, just like they do not know themselves.

Instead, all I saw around me was frustration, conflict and other forms of darkness: these were the only clues that I used to create my self-image. And when I would coincidentally act from my purity, I would be attacked and destroyed, like a plant that keeps sprouting new twigs, which are stamped on and crushed. Again, and again, and again.

There were no opportunities in my youth to show to myself how beautiful I can be. So my self-image was based on believing that I had no inner beauty, and that I caused situations like conflict, disappointment, pain, being a burden, hate, humiliation, and terror. I concluded that this could only mean that I am very ugly from the inside. And that must be the reason why nobody really loves me, and why people want to humiliate, control, and hurt me. Also, I believed that my feelings where broken, listening to, and acting on them, would only create even more pain. This was my core wound, and the origin of almost all of my behavior and beliefs until my thirties.

I could never how my sadness, fear and anger to my parents. Because then I would mirror back their darkness back to them, which is something they avoided at all costs through physical and emotional violence. So I learned that my emotions are bad, and that they should play no part in my life.

My core wound of shame convinced me that I was deeply broken, impossible to heal, and I had to find ways to live with it, alone. Even the psychologists said that I was broken by diagnosing me with autism, while I actually was a victim of childhood abuse. This prevented myself from exploring my wounds, and to start living from a place of healing and acceptance. In this way I could never heal, accept, and use my powers, that would allow me to incrementally shape up my life. I was extremely stuck, and all my wounded beliefs and behaviors were immobilizing me even more. I found a way of living so that my wounds were minimally touched and I convinced myself that I was doing okay. But behind all of this, my deep wounds were still my deep wounds.

Furthermore, my wounds were heavily reflected in how I felt constantly unwelcome, how I suppressed my anger and sadness, and how my body tried to protect myself as best as it could.

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Wherever I went in life, I assumed that I was not welcome. It even was one of my truths, I simply knew it. For all the bad things that I had done, for all the troubles that I had caused, being an inconvenience for existing, being very ugly deep inside, other people just did not want me near them. And if they showed otherwise, they were probably pretending or playing along the rules, just like my parents were pretending they loved me when I was young.

During a time in my life in which I was journaling a lot, I mostly did this in cafe's in my neighborhood. But while picking cafe's, I assumed people didn't like me coming there. So I had a lot of cafe's that I alternated, before I went to a cafe I had recently been to. Sometimes when I would be recognized, the staff could smile at me. I felt wrong for making them recognize and smile at me, I thought that I must have come too often to their place. I simply believed their smiles were fake and that they didn't want me in their place.

Sometimes in life, people would feel what I was doing, and they said to me "Wouter, you are a nice boy, I really like you". I couldn't hear what they were saying, I didn't dare to believe in the opportunity they were serious to me. If I would open up to hearing what they said, it probably was false and I would be rejected again, feeling immense pain and loneliness. I ignored them. Just like my parents did not want me to exist, the whole world did not want me to exist.

While I experimented a bit with looking people in the eyes, it was extremely scary and I only did it for short moments. Looking longer, I felt shame when I exposed myself by looking other people in the eye. There weren't any memories or images or thoughts that would enter my mind, but just being extremely scared of showing myself, because I believed that I was ugly and that I was always causing pain. Showing my deep ugliness would mean that the other person would become angry at me and would reject me, and I would feel pain and lonely. All the humiliation, rejection, and judgements that I received from my parents, it translated into a huge feeling of shame for showing myself.

Apart from expecting to be rejected, I also felt I was unworthy of having a happy life and lovingly being taken care of. It was caused by constant abuse, and seeing my younger sister and brother being constantly favored over me. Through this, I was programmed to believe and feel, that a happy life was not meant for me. So if there was a party, a nice event, or any joy to be shared, I felt I was not deserving that. I do not belong with spontaneous, successful, and happy people. It simply is, not for me. I learned to evade situations that would give me joy and a sense of belonging. Additionally, I could not reach out and ask for help, I believed I was not worthy of receiving love, and getting rejected again would bring even more pain. My reflex in my arms of reaching out was completely gone.

In my 30's I went to see a physical therapist that is specialized in treating trauma. He would touch the imbalances of my body while I am lying on a massage table. When certain emotions and images would come up, he would guide me to process and heal them. I visited him over hundred times, and the first tree times I visited him, he kept repeating "I see many of signs of humiliation in your body". The most visible being my crooked upper back, anterior pelvis tilt, my tense face and eyes, disconnected movements of my limbs, and extreme tension all over my body. In the beginning, when he would only come near me without even touching me, I would already have many images and flashbacks of getting beaten, my whole body tensing up even more, reliving my abuse. In real life, I would feel this with many people I met, greatly suppressing it. Fox example, I would get flashbacks of being abused when people would give me a friendly pat on my shoulder or back.

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I tried to hide my sadness as far away as possible, I was scared of crying. Subconsciously, I was still scared from my parents, because they heavily beat me when I was crying. I could only cry if they would understand why I was crying. Otherwise I was just trying to get attention, and I would be beaten into silence. When I felt a need to cry, I was trying to understand why I was crying. If I could not understand it, I would stop my crying. I could not give myself permission to cry freely. The disconnection between my mind and my emotions severely limited my self expression. Physically, my body prevented me from crying as well. When I actually was crying, the related muscles would tense up, so that I would produce only hiccups, with barely noticeable sound. This is also known as inward crying.

Most of my wounds, I lived through my anger, which I also heavily suppressed. As a result of the nightmares, until my thirties, almost each morning I had to recover from my intense nights. Almost each morning during the first few hours, I was angry and low on energy. Later in day it was usual to have one or a few additional episodes of anger, which typically lasted between 30-90 minutes. I was feeling anger in my system, and my mind tried to give me situations that could have caused it. It could be any situation that happened just a few moments ago or thirty years ago.

Almost daily I would also think about my parents and how extremely much I hated them. Naturally I also had this hate towards myself, for being so "stupid" and "unworthy" that I lived with them. And often I projected this hate to people around me, wherever I would see them. When I felt violated by people, I would imagine how I would attack or sometimes kill them.

My anger could pop up in any moments, after which I consistently suppressed it with my mind. I could already feel my anger when I was walking on the sidewalk, and I saw someone walking towards me in the opposite direction. In my mind I would expect him to walk into me, and I was already getting angry at him for this hypothetical situation. Being in a conversation and someone said something I didn't agree on, I would feel anger towards the other person, especially if it was a woman. Based on my childhood, I felt forced to adopt the view of any other person. Naturally, I would also feel scared to say that someone else wouldn't agree on. Because I assumed whenever I said something, I forced the listening person to adopt my point of view, and he might become angry about it. For me life existed about forcing each other into each other's points of view and behavior. Any difference would mean conflict.

When the actions of someone else impacted me negatively, however small or big, I would feel anger towards that person. Immediately my emotional memories would be activated, in which my parents gravely offended me. So in face of any adversity with a person, I would detach from the connection, and suppress my immense anger. This could be a split second or days, depending on what was touched. Having learned that anger is not welcome, I tried to hide it, and I continued the connection artificially from my mind. But because I could never really feel my anger, I could never discover how my boundaries were violated, or feel what was needed to restore them. So whatever (perceived) misgivings I received from anyone else, I could simply not forgive them. I learned myself to suppress any anger, whatever it cause, and behave artificially until the anger subsided. Never being able to express my anger, I lived in hate as well, to anyone that happened to be in my crosshair when I was hateful. All this sadness, anger, and hate, I kept it hidden from the outside world.

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My emotional wounds were reflected in imbalances and contractions in my body. They were attempts of my body to protect and hide my wounds from the outside world and myself, preventing them to be vulnerable.

My upper back was crooked, which is called kyphosis, reflecting humiliation. My lower back was tightened and shortened, it felt like a hard plank. My neck was very tense as well, pulling my head backwards to protect it, like the reflex of a prey that is being grappled onto the neck. I developed a spontaneous injury in my trapezius muscle. My tight lower back was tilting my hip backwards, holding a lot of fear, and it destabilized and tightened my legs and feet. Sitting in lotus position was impossible for me, just like bending forward from of my lower back. The muscles of my upper legs where one block as well, I could simply not relax them: if I would take the top of my quadriceps muscles, and move it left and right, the whole muscle group, including its lowest part, would move left and right in the same way. Virtually all my muscles in my whole body where extremely tense.

Having tight shoulders, I was constantly pulling up my arms, and my chest was heavily contracted all of the time as well. Even while having kyphosis, I still pulled my chest up to appear bigger and untouchable. Logically, my spine was very imbalanced, and my neck was in a very unnatural position to keep my head straight. My head was the only part that was somewhat artificially straight, reflecting the fact that I escaped into living in my mind.

Standing up, I would heavily lean onto my left leg, tightening it even more. I developed a chronic injury in my left quadriceps and my left knee. I was standing on the middle part of my foot, sinking in my feet, instead of resting on my heel. Logically my calves where very tense as well. While leaning left, my right leg was slightly hanging in the air. In an attempt to stay connected, my right knee was hyperextended, turning slightly inwards, and with my right big toe I tried to grasp the ground. My right big toe joint had a chronic dislocation, it was always bend as well. My left shoulder was higher than my right. The left side of the body relates to the emotional and receptive qualities of a person, while the right side relates to the qualities of action and ratio. I fixated my emotions, trying to achieve artificial freedom in my thinking. My right leg being free, it was unconnected to the ground, searching for life, trying to make sense of what was going on.

Most muscles can be divided in three groups, muscles for breathing, for standing and walking relaxed, and for being in any action. My muscles for breathing and being relaxed were so tensed up, that I was using my action muscles to force air into myself instead of breathing. If I would be sitting on a chair, at times I heard a constant clicking sound in my neck vertebrae, because I used muscles in my neck to pull air into my lungs. My belly was constantly sucked in, even when I would be standing relaxed, or resting in bed laying on my back. My diaphragm was constricted, I could not breath with my belly. To breath in my belly, I could only force air into it. Because of my tight chest, sternum and ribs, I could rarely breath in my chest as well. I tried to protect my heart as best as I could, being completely closed. Even when lying next to me, you could not hear me breathing. I did not dare to make a sound. Breathing in and out should be like a camping mat: your whole body participates, being noticeable even in your feet. I had very short breaths, only minimally expanding my chest. I did not dare to take any space, and gave it back very quickly after having breathed in.

Related to my face, my eyes were widened, so that I could see any danger as fast as possible. At the same time my eyes tried to hide my pain and loneliness, not daring to reach out anymore. My eyes had similarities to the shape of triangles, they revealed suppressed sadness. My tight neck heavily tightened my eye muscles, I needed glasses to see sharp in the distance. My whole face was tense, out of fear my mind was always in hyper focus, and my forehead was constantly tight, developing a chronic headache. Out of suppressed anger, my jaws were very tight, and I would grind my teeth at night. During photos I would often have my eyes closed, even the sound or light of a flash could startle me. My lips would be defensively closed, pointing a bit downwards, revealing the suppressed grief.

Because I had so much fear in my body contracting everything, my blood circulation was low, and I often had cold hand and feet. My lymphatic system was heavily impaired, giving raise to inflammations later in life. The lower blood and oxygen supply to my hands and feet made them age faster, looking older than the rest of my body. The muscles around my lower arm where very tight as well, it prevented the ulna and radius to rotate freely around each other. My heartbeat in "rest" was around 80-90bpm, even while I exercised regularly. All over my body, my skin was contracted and rigid. Because of the low blood circulation, my skin was pale as well. Being in rest did not exist for my body. But if I was not doing anything in particular, my hands were frequently in fists, and I contracted other parts throughout my whole body.

Revisiting reality

Sometimes I connected with my deep pains for a short moment, like when I was alone on new year's eve. In these few moments I would think about my feelings, write them down, and try to give them a place in my mind. Afterwards I would quickly jump back into my mind, feeling fear, which I masked to myself and others with superiority. But I could not feel about what I was thinking, let alone exploring feelings on their own and following them. I was unable to trust, that only my feelings can take me to forgotten places. Places in my heart that I had abandoned a long time ago.

<Lena>

However, within me there was a feeling growing, being frustrated and disappointed that I was still single. I longed for the warmth and affection from a woman. And what I needed was a woman that would love me as I am, even with my many incapacities and deep pains. In that way, I could start to love myself again, and regain my trust in women. Because unconsciously, I was still believing that I am very ugly from the inside, that woman only want to humiliate me, and that nobody really loves me. But I was not aware of any of this.

Instead, I felt I needed to have a girlfriend, and my mind took it over from there. I lost myself in all kinds of fantasies what it would be like to have a girlfriend. The bigger the hole grew of not loving myself and missing a women in my life, the more disconnected and grandiose my fantasies became. I imagined I would have a model like girlfriend, like in the Disney and Hollywood movies. And she would always be happy, smiling, sexy, intelligent and funny. She would be the one that would save me, give me a happy life and make me feel seen.

I started reading books that made me believe such a fantasy was realistic, also reading practical advice on how these women where apparently to be seduced. I further illusioned myself, by selecting specific moments of my life that supported my image of superiority. Because of those moments, I considered myself the best of the best, so I deserved the best of the best girlfriend. My mask of superiority led me further astray.

I was convinced that I really needed a girlfriend and I wanted to experience making love. I wanted that so bad, that I even set a goal, needing to have lost my virginity within a year. If I just practiced seducing women, I would gradually increase my skills. And in due time I would have a super hot girlfriend who would make me happy. In reality, I was giving myself all sorts of false promises and hope. True happiness come from the inside, and you can only attract a partner that has a compatible level of happiness. My mind-ideals where disconnected from what I needed on an emotional level. But because I could not use my feelings to connect theories with reality, my disconnected theories in my mind were my only guide.

I started to practice the skills of a pickup artist. Little did I know that it was incompatible with my wounds and my inner character. For a few times, I walked down the Kalverstraat, a shopping street in Amsterdam. And while walking, I tried to push myself to start conversations with women. I did not manage to start any conversation. I tried my luck in bars in the evening, going there alone. But emotionally I was so frozen, that I had little success. With my mind, after many failed attempts, I once forced myself looking at a woman for 30 seconds, trying to make contact. There was no empathy or playfulness in my stare towards her, it was mechanic.

I was unaware that a connection with someone else is about listening to your own feelings, and allowing your feelings to inspire you how to connect. Instead I learned to distrust my feelings, so all I had left was my disconnected mind. To her, standing at the other side of the room, it must have been unpleasant, maybe even intimidating, to have a guy staring at you. Another time I managed to start a conversation and I tried to use my tricks to keep the conversation going. It felt awkward to me, being dishonest about what you want to say and why.

In hindsight, what I truly needed was learning to trust my own feelings again. If I would be guided in understanding that deeper layers of feelings point to deeper truths, I could use these deeper truths to allow my life and behavior to happen, instead of forcing something from my mind. But as written above, my actual path was different. I needed to experience the contrast that is visible now.

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My efforts were not producing the results I expected. Desperate for results, I considered taking lessons in relating to women and seducing them, but I did yet not follow up on that. Instead, I created an account on a dating website. My ego felt hurt that I had not succeeded in real life, and my illusions where painfully starting to fade. Via the dating website I started mailing with a woman, let's call her Alice for now. We enjoyed sending e-mails to each other, and she made a very empathetic and soft impression on me. We decided to meet in real life.

Lost in my mind, disconnected from my feelings, unaware of the value of inner beauty and terrified of rejection, I was judging people heavily by their outer appearance, and my reaction towards Alice was no different. In my mind I fantasized about how very pretty Alice would be. Consequently, I was disappointed that she was not as pretty as I fantasized her to be. "Nevertheless", we would have our date.

But during our date she managed to open my heart. I noticed that she had a beautiful smile, a sparkling joy, was very soft and extremely accommodating, still had her own opinion, and was kind to me and other people. Intelligent and funny too, didn't take herself too serious. Actually I liked the way she looked. She was simply wonderful. She♥ was able to pierce through my strong mask and armor of still being terrified from my childhood, that was strongly rejecting and judging her at the same time. Even when I had suffered so much humiliation, meanness and rejection from the first woman in my life, my mother, I was able to open my trust towards Alice, if only for a little bit. I fell in love with Alice, and she fell in love with me.

But again, I was not aware what was happening. Consciously, after our date I had some memories of her beautiful smile and kindness, which I liked very much. At the same time, I was rejecting her a lot through my mask of being terrified, judging her to be too thick. I also felt a desire to be with her, but could not feel that I actually was in love with her. That was all I was aware of.

As soon as I would allow my mind to think about Alice, I would reject her again, just like I was rejecting myself. Through all the abuse in my childhood, I trained my mind to be super strong to defend myself. But it was heavily working against me now, I could not allow myself to love someone, it was far too dangerous. My mind was even stronger than the feeling of being fully in love with Alice. My mind would filter anything imperfect that would lead to "rejection". When in my heart, I could see her beauty. When in my mind, I would actively make her ugly in behavior or appearance. If I did not make her ugly, it meant I would start to love her more, which was too dangerous. I learned with my mother that when I open my love to a woman, I would be crushed by humiliation and manipulation.

And even if I heavily suppressed my mind, it meant I would have to trust saying or acting on what I truly felt for her, that I love her. But I believed that my feelings were broken, so I could not take them serious: believing my feelings and acting on them would only cause more trouble. Next to that, becoming aware of my feelings was extremely difficult for me, because I needed to suppress my feelings almost constantly, otherwise I would feel my enormously painful childhood wounds. When opening up to feeling, it is impossible to choose what to feel and not to feel. You either open up to feeling, feeling more of everything, or you close down, feeling less of everything, all the way down to not feeling anything at all. Anything that is not felt, is mistranslated through the mind, in desperate attempts to keep you afloat.

I had great difficulties connecting to my feelings of loving her, just like I could not connect to the other feelings inside of me. At rare moment when I felt my love for Alice, I would feel joy and a wish to be with her. But as soon as I became conscious about it, my mind started to interfere, judging and rejecting her. It happened similar to when I was young and I noticed that I started to smile about something: I told myself that I am not worthy of smiling, and I stopped smiling. In my youth and with Alice, I could not open up to connect around me, it was far too dangerous. I was terrified.

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Related to Alice, it was a constant ping pong with opposite perspectives, between my mind and my heart, between rejection and judgments, and love. And the more I tried to understand what was going on, the faster the ping pong went, and the bigger the pingpong ball grew. Throughout our whole relationship, it drove me to intense frustration, shame, judgments, anger, sadness, hypocrisy, headache, and tiredness. It drove me crazy. But now, taking a step back from all of this, in my childhood I simply was made emotionally sick by my parents. And in my relationship with Alice, it finally started to show itself to me: I had great difficulties loving someone on a basic level. Talking with my friends about it, they said that I was overreacting, and were hoping that I could find my way with it.

I was totally unaware of what dynamics where at play. I did not not even know the difference between living in my heart and living in my mind, let alone having awareness on what place I was living in each moment. To me it felt like two separate rooms with its complete own perspectives and truths on life. In some moment I was in one room, and in the next moment I could be magically in the other room, with complete opposite feelings, thoughts and truths on Alice and life. Having been in the other room would only feel like some vague distant memory, with no way to return to it.

I did not understand that my judgements were only possible when I was living in the false truths of my mind. And I did not understand that when I was living in my mind, I was in deep fear, not feeling safe, mistrusting people around me and running from the wounds inside of me, terrified of showing myself through who I love. And as long as I had deep and open wounds, I would consistently push myself back to living inside my mind, out of my heart, rejecting and judging myself and anyone, including Alice. I obsessed about Alice because I was lost, living inside the maze of my own mind.

The cause was way deeper than I could reach at that time. I assumed my feelings and thoughts towards Alice were some kind of mathematical equation. But with logic I could not solve it. Looking with my mind inside my mind, I could never find the invitation to grow inside my heart. Now looking back, the only concrete solution would be intense therapy for my childhood wounds. In this way my heart would become a safe place to live in again, and I could be with Alice while living inside of my heart. But at that time, I simply was not yet ready to face myself.

My confusion and insecurity towards Alice made me hesitant in important moments in our relationship. I felt I really wanted to be with her and I loved her, but while living in my mind, I could not see a future for us. I felt fake, a cheater and hypocritical, scared of being exposed. Not knowing the dynamics of what was happening inside of me, I felt helpless as well. In the beginning of our relationship, with great fear and shame I told Alice the reason why I was doubting. She told my that I could have any kinds of doubts, but not the kind I spoke of. She was heavily hurt by my thoughts of finding her unattractive. But after taking some days for herself, she wanted to continue our relationship, she loved me dearly and at that time she needed me as well. I was greatly relieved, but also stressed because I had to keep on struggling inside of myself.

I wanted to say to her that I loved her. But I was terrified to follow my feelings, as I still believed from my childhood that they are broken, and that they only cause trouble. During the whole relationship, I was stuck in this doubt and helplessness. Within a year, we went together on our first holiday, for one week.

But it was too intense for me. We were together for 8 days, and suppressing my patterns for so long exhausted me. My mask to hide my wounds, that I was holding up towards her and in society, I could not hold it up for 8 days straight. Being back home, I was able to recharge in the evenings and in the weekends. But on holiday we were together all the time, requiring me to fight my outward rejection all the time. I could not help but surrender to my wounded behavior, and I started judging her. Feeling judgmental on her and ashamed of myself at the same time, I started to ignore her. When Alice asked what was going on, I hesitantly replied that I had the same thoughts again about her posture, thinking her to be too thick.

The bomb was dropped. Again. In the middle of our first holiday, that was actually supposed to be a celebration of fun and relaxing for the both of us. She was speechless, and went out for a walk. She felt heavily offended, hurt, and unsafe. We went home by plane one day earlier. Her parents picked her up at the airport and offered to take me home as well, but I felt deeply ashamed and took the train back to Amsterdam. I was desperate and started to take cognitive therapy. Again, Alice took some time for herself. Knowing that I started therapy, she decided that she still wanted to continue our relationship. Again, I was greatly relieved and stressed at the same time.

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I started to take cognitive therapy, visiting a psychologist called Anouk. I had no clue what to expect, my only frame of reference was that I was wrong and broken, and that maybe she could help me. On a deeper level, I was extremely stuck in life, between my shame, mistrust, fear, judgements, sadness, and anger. All of these themes were extremely entangled in each other. Even looking at one little thread without touching it, would put me into shock, making me escape back into my mind. That is in a nutshell the complexity for which I asked Anouk for help.

But as soon as Anouk tried to help me understand something, or invite my feelings, or suggest another point of view, I would immediately close all my doors and shut her out. I would shut Anouk out as well, if I felt she was setting up a path in the conversation to make me realize something. I was hyper vigilant to spot any attempts to push me in any direction. I was extremely terrified of letting a woman into my inner world: Not again. I would not let another woman come into my heart, and let her destroy everything like my mother did. But at the same time, I desperately needed Anouk, because I had so much pains and loneliness in my heart, just like I needed Alice. These pains screamed for a loving woman that would accept and welcome me. Pains that turned to be too challenging to heal within a relationship.

So in these sessions, I ended up talking a lot with Anouk. I mostly kept talking about my thoughts, and very little about my emotions. Anouk did ask questions, but she quickly found out, that I could only explore my world from my point of view, or else I would feel manipulated and offended. When she suggested to have empathy for someone else, I would be triggered, as if my feelings did not matter, like in my childhood. So she would ask what I experienced, and what my thoughts were about it. In between the lines she kept track of I felt, and sometimes asked question pointing to a very small direction, but that is all she could do.

In the beginning of our talks, very slowly I needed to feel that I could trust her, and that she would not abuse or manipulate me. She would simply listen to me and help to validate my emotions and my point of view. Additionally, to challenge if she was to be trusted, I would ask her about her business life and sometimes her private life as well. I asked questions that at first sight were totally irrelevant to my reasons of visiting her. But I needed to check if she really cared about me in some way, and that she was not just pretending, like my parents pretended to be my parents. Luckily she passed that test. She found a way of answering my questions in which she stayed connected to my needs and her boundaries. If she wasn't able to, she would have felt to me as the next women that pretended to be someone who she is not.

During my first five sessions with Anouk, building trust was all I could do. I needed to discover, with little steps, that not all women were out to hurt me. But the sessions had very little effect on how I behaved towards Alice. Alice periodically asked how my sessions where. Having little emotional awareness at that time and being scared of showing myself, it was hard for me to explain what was really going on. In some way she understood that I needed time, but at the same time she grew frustrated about not understanding what I actually was doing with Anouk. Me and Alice did not find a way together, in which she could support me in the wounds that I was uncovering.

Having some basis of trust, I would allow Anouk to ask more about my inner world. We talked about Alice, and how my childhood was. Sometimes I surprised myself by having tears. They usually appeared when I was talking about Alice, or when the wounds of my childhood were slightly touched. Slowly but surely I was starting to reconnect with my painful feelings. At some point I told Anouk that I was beaten by my parents. But I was confused to hear her say, that beating children is not allowed, and that it even is a crime punishable by law. I was told that the things of which I thought were normal, were actually not normal.

Something big was shifting, mountains were starting to move inside of me. I kept this revelation in my thoughts some days, and I suspected something was off during my childhood. I started to assume that in some way it was related to my inability to love Alice. I wanted to get to the bottom of this. I asked my parents individually to come over, to talk about my childhood. They told me the same story that they expressed to me when I was little. I was autistic, and I had a lot of problems with my emotions growing up, and it was very difficult for them to raise me. They portrayed themselves as victims of the situation they created themselves. They were hiding behind a diagnosis that I got, after they abused me into being emotionally disfigured. My mother prided herself on going to therapy by herself for raising me.

When I told my mother that I was extremely sad and lonely when I was young, she humiliatingly replied "oh little boy, yes you had such heavy times with us". From the point of view of my mother, she was still the victim of her own childhood. She needed to heal her own wounds first, before she could see what she had done to her own children. Later in the conversation talking about my difficulties with Alice, my mother replied that I should be even greatly thankful for having such a nice girlfriend, implying that I actually do not deserve her. When I confronted my father with having beat me, he replied with "I simply don't know another way to control children. If you do know another way, let me know." I later heard that my father once said to my younger brother "at one point, Wouter only reacted to physical stimuli".

My parents did not have satisfying answers when I asked them difficult questions. They were still imprisoned by their own wounds, unable to look at themselves. And when I was talking with my parents, I was still trying to fit into their narrative, positioning myself as an autistic boy that was difficult, because I was used to behaving myself like that. In the months that followed, I decided that I needed to find out what really happened, on my own. I did not want to have contact with them anymore. It was a very difficult decision for me, but it later turned out to be the best decision of my life: I do not belong with people that are disrespectful towards me.

But it would still take a long time before I could really feel and discover that truth within myself, walking my own talk. I was still having my own wounds that were controlling me, and that were hurting myself and other people. Sometimes I could not even look at myself in the mirror, but I was fixated on how I rejected Alice. At some point Anouk told me, that she also had insecurities about her weight in the past. She told me about her past insecurities, so that I could express my feelings that I had about her posture towards her. In that way we could explore the underlying real feelings in a safe way. I immediately froze when she told me that. I was not ready to show her my feelings of hate, fear, mistrust, humiliation, shame, disgust, desperateness, loneliness and sadness.

Later I discovered that these feelings were not about Anouk, Alice, or anyone else. These where feelings that I got by being abused by my mother and the loneliness that followed from it. And through additional abuse I learned to heavily suppress them. I confused every woman to be my mother. Even with Anouk I was still terrified of showing them, unaware what they were, or where they came from. Her invitation was ten bridges too far.

It would take me eight more years to feel safe enough to express these feelings, directed towards another female therapist. I directed them full of immense anger and hate, using all kinds of language and catharsis, followed by crying and shaking from being terrified, excessive overeating that evening, and having difficulties sleeping the following nights. I explored these feelings many times, through many techniques. At that time with Anouk, I kept on exploring themes that were more accessible to me.

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My relationship with Alice did not improve significantly. With little steps I was becoming more aware of my emotions, but I was still unable to take responsibility for my behavior. I was still very unaware of the dynamics that were going inside of me, and towards Alice I kept hiding myself. Sometimes I showed myself deeply in love towards her, but in general there was a dark cloud above us. There was uncertainty about our possible future, and there were many unspoken feelings from both sides. Our emotional connection and intimacy was slowly dripping away.

During our second holiday I could somewhat stay in connection, but I was still struggling a lot, and pretending to be happy. After our second holiday, she asked if I was still struggling with negative thoughts about her posture. Helpless and in shame, I answered by saying yes. Both being in our mid-twenties, we started couples therapy. We tried everything to save our relationship, fighting for each other and ourselves.

Alice was also having difficulties with me not seeing my parents anymore, she could not understand why I stopped seeing them. I was listening to a deep gut feeling that I could not really put into words. But Alice believed that I was discrediting my parents through my "autistic" limitations. She took it out on me with anger, saying I should start seeing them again. For Alice at that time, because of her wounds, being connected to other people was more important than being connected to herself. That was also one of the reasons why we were still together as a couple. And when I was choosing connection with myself instead having connection with my parents, she felt attacked in her beliefs. At this important point in my process of healing, she could not support me, but was working against me. It drove us further apart. Despite her anger, I was able to stay with my decision, which was highly unusual for me back then.

Over time, our relationship was starting to feel empty. Alice suggested we took a few months apart from each other. We would pause our relationship, and after that we would evaluate how we feel about being together or splitting up. After our long break, again, we both decided we wanted to be with each other. We desperately needed each other. Being with each other, we both still needed to find out something about ourselves. Our relationship continued in the same way: the passion was long gone, Alice was feeling insecure, and I was struggling with my mind and my judgments. I still really loved her, but it became increasingly harder to connect with that feeling. I kept on racing in my mind, trying to find a solution in my mind, that could only be found in my heart.

Three and half years having passed in our relationship, Alice decided that she wanted to go on a trip for a few weeks. She wanted to challenge herself and explore life on her own. Our relationship fading, we had little contact during her trip. And when I had no physical connection with her, it was even harder to feel my love for her, and stay in my heart. My wounds kept pushing me into my mind, into being terrified, and judging myself and others.

I started to objectify her even more, and was creating fears of the possibility that she might have gained weight during her trip. Unaware of what was happening, I fixated on that thought, fearing that I could not love her anymore, and that I would be rejected by the people around me. In that period, I was only aware of my judgments. Feeling ashamed of myself as well, I kept endlessly racing in my mind, on and on. And the more I thought about it, trying to fight my mind with my mind, the bigger my worries became.

I was being controlled by my wounds from my childhood. And I was past the point of no return. I was unable to take responsibility for my behavior towards Alice.

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When Alice returned, I waited for her at the airport, together with her parents. Me and Alice seeing each other again, we could feel our love, but our connection had became more shallow. It felt like I took her for granted, loving her but not knowing how to love her anymore, struggling with my judgments, scared of being exposed for my inner ugliness, hopeless, and scared of losing her.

That night we slept together for the first time again. But when lying next to Alice and hugging her, I was still hypnotized by my fears. At one point my hands where feeling on her body if she had gained weight. I (wrongly) concluded that it was the case. After a few seconds I realized what I was doing, and I snapped out of my hypnosis, pulling my hands back. With shame I told Alice what I was doing. She told me that we would continue the conversation in the morning.

The next morning I did not know where to look or how to behave myself. I felt deeply ashamed. For the rest I was simply unaware what happened: Being controlled by my wounds instead of my conscious awareness, I had humiliated Alice, hurting Alice in her insecurities, and I broke her trust. And while doing that, I had deeply cut myself in my own wounds again, strengthening my belief that I am very ugly.

I left towards my own house. After some days we met again at Alice's house, going for a walk. She told me angrily that she actually lost weight during her trip. And that after what happened, she was unable to trust me again sleeping next to her, even if she wanted to. Hearing what she told me at that time, I had little capacities for truly empathizing with her, other than condemning my own actions.

Some time later she hinted about breaking up, but not doing that yet, in order to care for me. I still had no contact with my parents, and possibly being single again, in a few weeks I would be spending Christmas alone. I said that it is very sweet of her, but that it should not be a reason for her to not choose what she needed. We agreed that we would let sink in what we talked about. Usually when we would walk, we'd hold hands and I chose what path we took. At that day, sometimes she would chose our path. That evening sleeping together, she had put on extra clothes. She could not be vulnerable around me anymore.

After a few days we met at the beach on a dark December. There were many clouds, but you could see rays of the sun passing through clouds. The sky was beautiful. "It is day of hope" I remember myself thinking. Hand in hand, we walked on the beach, still loving each other, and talking about our relationship being stuck. Alice told that me, that many of her friends and family where withholding advice, and only helping her discover how she feels and what she thinks. Because if she made any decision, it had to come from herself.

Our conversation continued about how difficult our relationship has become, and how much hurt there was. At one point she mentioned that she didn't know any way to continue, and that our relationship had become impossible. I stopped in our walking, and asked Alice with fear in my voice"is that what you want, do you want to stop our relationship?". She looked at me, in sorrow and sadness. "Tell me Alice, is that what you want?". She could not say any words, pressing her lips, and with tears starting to flow, she nodded "yes". And she said "Otherwise I would be destroying myself". I looked away and felt my tears coming up.

After some minutes apart, we found comfort by hugging each other dearly, feeling each other while it was still possible. We walked back to the train station, and Alice wanted to still hold my hand. Holding her hand for a few seconds, I pushed hers away, because it hurt me too much. Eventually, I surrendered and hold her hands again. And while taking the train to our last station together, we held on to each other. We both got out at our last station together, kissed each other on the lips and hugged each other. Alice used this last moment together to ask me: "You should not start blaming yourself too much, Wout? And this may sound very stupid, but will you promise me that you will find other people to be with in the coming days?". I replied with nodding my head. I sincerely thanked her for every thing that we had lived together, and we got each into our own train.

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I was devastated the days after. My world had collapsed, and I had lots of tears. Crying was still difficult for me. Being outside, everywhere I looked, I hoped that Alice would appear again.The following weeks, my heart felt as if it was shaved with a razor blade. And after some weeks, I felt relieved as well, because I did not have to put up with my judgments towards Alice anymore. I could feel and think what I wanted, and nobody would get hurt. I also felt immensely ashamed for what I did to Alice, blaming myself for having humiliated her. I pushed my feelings of shame far away, to the familiar unknown places of my heart.

Subconsciously, I was losing myself in my blame, deepening my wounds even more. I used the breakup as a further confirmation to myself, that I am very ugly from the inside, otherwise I would have no problems loving Alice. And this proved to me even more that my feelings are worthless, because trying to trust my feelings of love, I had humiliated and wounded Alice. I could only see blame and shame for myself. Growing up with my parents, I was trained to be a magnet for blame and shame.

Despite Alice having cautioned me to not blame myself too much, I could not see the bigger picture: We both really loved each other, made many well-intentioned efforts, and within our capacities, we were honest about our feelings. Consistently for three and a half years, we both made multiple self-empowered choices to be together. We both did our best.

Now looking back at my relationship with Alice, there was also a lot of love between us, but there was simply too much pain and misunderstanding. We had many rich moments, of pure love, laughter, on adventure, in nature, celebrating achievements, sharing family and friends, supporting each other at difficult moments, enjoying parties together, and so on. But we were unable to use these moments to increase our intimacy and trust. And because of this shortage, we were not strong enough to face, accept, and heal anything what could happen, unable to turn it around and use it to our advantage.

Being in a close relationship, I was confronted with becoming more close with myself. I could simply not face my wounds of deep shame and self rejection. And we did not find a way, so that Alice could support me in my healing. Instead, it backlashed by projecting my self-rejection into rejecting Alice. Again, we could not find ways, so that I could support Alice into healing her wounds. This ping pong intensified, until I physically humiliated her. And after three and a half years, we were exhausted of loving each other. We both lost ourselves into the dark sides of our wounds, unable to bring them into the light, to discover our beauty underneath.

Only many years later, I was able to connect to my deeper feelings for how my behavior towards Alice: "I did not mean it that way... I was simply terrified... You really are beautiful".

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I never spoke to Alice again. Half a year after our breakup, I received a loving e-mail from her mother. Next to being thankful for being in each other's life and having respect for everyone's efforts, she repeated that there was no one to blame. She wrote that it was always her intention to welcome me as I am, without reservations, respecting and accepting each other. She wished that I didn't blame myself for anything, reminded me of my positive qualities, and hoped that I was being nice to myself and taking good care of myself. I replied by being thankful for the rich moments with her as well, and that I was grateful for living in a family, in which people are soft and accepting towards each other. Because I simply did not experience that yet. Her e-mail also helped me to blame myself less, although I still lost myself in my blame, pushing it away.

After becoming single again, and being tossed around by my feelings of loss, relief and shame, I was getting some clarity back in my mind. I could clearly see, that how I behaved, proved that something within myself was very off. My words at that time were: "the way I look towards myself and towards other people, for my my age, I am simply not emotionally mature enough, this is not who I want to be". Something really needed to change. At the same time, I was still seeing myself mainly through my own wounds. As a result of the breakup and the self-explorations that followed, I developed another belief, telling myself "I first need to fix myself, I am not pretty enough yet".

To the best of my abilities, I tried to translate what happened into a constructive frame for myself. There can be many self-loving adjustments on my perspectives and beliefs, but in the end, this is what I came up with. These perspectives got my engines running for the next step. And for me, after all that happened, that is all that mattered. I needed to start something moving that was utterly stuck. And the relationship with Alice, surrounded with much of her softness, helped me to start seeing that, for which I am forever grateful towards her, and myself.