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These are my personal opinions. Always seek a professional when you're making choices about your mental health and well being. So imagine someone visits you at your home and they are in a panicky state and they are saying, I don't know what to do. I want to kill myself. I hate myself. Everything in this world sucks, my life sucks. Nothing is going right. So there's really no reason for me to be here anymore. What do you do with that? Those are the kinds of messages I get sometimes. It's not always, but there are cries for help for sure. And I know, and I'm not trying to laugh at that at all. It's just, it can really put the fire under your feet. Like respond now, help me now. And it can be challenging. So if somebody did that or if somebody has done that to you, you know how challenging it is. You don't want to say the wrong thing. You want to say exactly what it would take to help them. And what I've learned is that you don't want to say the same things that everyone else says to them. If somebody says, I want to kill myself, the first thing I don't usually say is, go get help, call a therapist. I don't usually say that. Not that it's not going to come out of my mouth eventually, but the first thing I usually say is, wow, tell me more. What's going on? That's my approach. Luckily, that hasn't happened in real life. Actually, it happened with one person, but it was only something that he had thought of in passing. He wasn't telling me that he wanted to kill himself right now, but he did say, I have had thoughts of killing myself. And I did the same thing. I said, wow, tell me more. And I open my ears and listen to them without judgment. I choose not to say anything until I hear them out. And then I keep listening and I tell them, I'm listening, I'm hearing you, please go on. And then I might say, wow, that's so tough. Now I know why you feel that way. That would be tough on anyone. I'm trying to relate. I'm trying to meet them where they are instead of immediately take them out and say, go get help. Because where they are isn't often at the place where they're going to pick up the phone and call for help, usually in that place. And I'm not saying not to do this. I'm not saying don't take this as advice, because that might be the perfect advice for you for someone else to take or give. When something like this happens. This is just my personal approach, is that I want to meet them where they are. And I think it's a good approach, in my opinion. I think when you meet somebody where they are, it lets them know that you're listening, you're empathizing, you want to be there with them. Because when you're with someone, they feel heard, they feel not so alone, they feel like you are paying attention. What doesn't feel like paying attention is when somebody says, you need help, you better call or I'm going to call them right now. That doesn't feel like you're paying attention at all. Even though it might be great advice, I'm not saying it's not. I just like to approach people from an empathetic place and meet them where they are so that we can have a conversation there. I want to be there with you right in that space because I'm meeting the person at their energy level. I'm meeting the person at their state of mind, at their state of emotion. I'm meeting them there because if I'm here and saying, we got to go, we got to call this person, we got to get your mom over here, we got to do all this stuff, then I'm losing them again. This is my personal approach. This is what I would do. I'm not telling you to do it because this is a huge, scary, sensitive area and anyone could be anywhere in their own mind and you just have to approach it carefully. But I do believe in listening to someone who says this and being there with them in that space, in that low state of mind, state of energy, state of emotion, so that they feel like they're not alone and they're connecting with the person. Of course I feel empathetic because I feel for them. I've been in that space myself and I immediately connect to them from that place that I used to be. And that is helpful. I believe that's how I approach this, is that it's helpful to people to meet them where they are. And this works with any emotional state or energetic level. It's part of building rapport, really. If you were next to a complete stranger who had high energy and you had low energy or vice versa, it's hard to build that rapport. In fact, the high energy person might be dominating or all over the place and ADHD or whatever, and the low energy person just might be. They might want to talk about feelings and they want to talk about just being peaceful and talking in a low key like I am right now. They just want to connect at a different level. So I believe in meeting people where they are. And I open the Today's episode I opened today's episode with this comment about somebody coming at you and saying, I'm experiencing all this stuff. Life sucks. I want to kill myself. Because again, I do receive, not a lot, but I do receive messages like that. And yes, it's the fire under the feet. And I'm not saying that nobody should ever send me messages like that. I'm just saying that when it happens, I just have to approach it carefully and answer carefully and not say, sorry, I can't help you. Call a therapist, especially over email or on this show. Just giving someone advice or making a suggestion could be construed the wrong way. I might not be meeting them where they are. So it is difficult. I'm sharing this because it can be very difficult to address, especially depression and suicidal thoughts. With that in mind, I'm going to read you this message. This person wrote very succinctly and very condensed as far as just the facts she said. Raised on a small farm. Mother was a narcissist. Father who was stable and whom I loved dying, died when I was turning 14. Brother who was 10 years older, sorry. Was drinking in high school and progressed to using drugs later and I attempted suicide the year after my dad's death. Mother is difficult to live with and who was always dissatisfied and disgusted with me. The problem is I've never been able to find or reclaim a me that is not dominated by the mother I could never please. I suffer from depression and never good enough self hate. Thank you for sharing that. I am trying to meet you where you are right now. Yes, that's why I open the show like that. Because there's a place where you are feeling right now not feeling good enough self hate that you weren't born with but was instilled or conditioned into you. Self hate is not something we're born with, it's something that somebody has convinced us of. You need to hate yourself because xyz, you're a disappointment. You this, you that, and I'll never love you or you'll never feel love from me. And all of these very toxic comments and approaches, especially in family, can really bring us to that point where we believe these things that other people are trying to convince us of that we're not good enough, we're not lovable, we're not important and we take that with us and suddenly we don't know how to operate in the world without that feeling coming up and those thoughts coming up. And so we do our best and yeah, maybe there's a time in our life where we just don't feel like being here anymore because the people that we love aren't in our life anymore and what's the point? So that's what she said. She attempted suicide after her dad's death. And I'm so glad it didn't work. I'm so glad that you're still here, able to tell me about it, able to share even this painful state of mind and state of being that you're in now. Because I would rather have you here telling me about it than having to read about you and not even have ever gotten a chance to hear from you and to share this. And so what I was just saying about when somebody shares something very challenging, very difficult and even life ending, or possibly life ending, it's a careful approach that we have to take. And one thing I really appreciate about this message is that it, it seems that she's not in a suicidal place now, but she's still in a place of self hate. And she doesn't want to be there because she wouldn't have written to me otherwise. She doesn't want to be in depression, she doesn't want to be in a never good enough place inside of her. And I'm glad to hear that because that's one step toward the door, to open the door, to walk through the door, to get out of that place. It's one step toward it. Maybe you're halfway there, maybe your hand is near the handle, maybe you're about to open it, but you just know that if you do, there's more of the same on the other side. And at least that's what you believe. When the truth is, yes, there may still be difficulties, but not the same kind. Yes, you may still have some feelings and thoughts about yourself, but not the same kind of. So walking through a door like that doesn't mean it's a magic pill and everything's taken care of and everything's going to be great and positive from that point on. There are challenges, there are steps and sometimes we can take huge steps, huge leaps into a better place, into a much more self loving place inside ourselves. So when I see a message like this, I'm not freaking out thinking, oh no, I don't want to tell her the wrong thing because I believe that you, you have had those thoughts in the past, the suicidal thoughts or whatever. And now you're in a place of depression, which yes, it's terrible it's awful. I've been there and it feels like total. Devoid of emotions. It feels completely numb. Sometimes it just depends on who you are and what level you're at. But for me, it was numbing. And what I've learned about depression is when you suppress your thoughts, meaning you don't express yourself, or at least you feel afraid to express yourself. And then you repress the emotions that come with those thoughts, meaning you stuff them down. Those two things will lead to depression. I'm not saying there aren't other things as well that lead to depression, but I know for a fact that those two things will lead to depression, because that's a. I got there. I grew up in a household where I was very afraid to express myself. So I stuffed it down. I suppressed what I was thinking, so I didn't speak. I repressed what I was feeling. So I didn't express my emotions. I was afraid to show them, so I stuffed them down wearing that fake smile everywhere I went. And when you stuff those down, they have nowhere to go. And so they just sit there and the pressure builds. The pressure is your body cannot contain the negativity that you're stuffing down that you're keeping in. And so it finds ways to radiate outward from that emotional pool inside you. Radiates outward. That depressed state that goes outward, you can feel it in your body, goes up to your brain. And feel isn't even the right word. It's. For me, it was a lack of feeling. It's like I wanted to feel something. It would have been great to have a good cry, but I couldn't even do that. It was like total apathy. So being in that depressed state, you don't even have the motivation to want to find a cure or a release or some exit away from or out of depression because you're so unmotivated. So I'm not talking about everyone who has depression, but certainly that's what I experienced. And maybe this person is experiencing the same thing. And so my first step out of depression was a breakdown. I'm not saying that this is going to happen to you, but it was a hell of a breakdown because it was my last relationship, the person I married before my last, my ex wife. The very beginning of our relationship, I was depressed because I was still. I had stuffed down so many years, so many years of anger and what I wanted to say to people. And I chose not to. I pushed it down. I chose not to because I was afraid of their response, their reaction. So I was conflict Averse. And I was a people pleaser and I definitely didn't want to say what was on my mind. And so the very first month or two of my new relationship with this person, my ex wife, she said that. And I just told this story recently, so I apologize if this is a repeat, but she said that she wasn't ready to have a relationship with me because I still had work to do on myself. And I said, well, what do you mean? She says, well, you need to work on that. You're still going through stuff. And so when you do work on yourself and you get better, please give me a call because I think we could have a great relationship. And I said, what? What do you mean? Are you breaking up with me? And she says, well, you know, we're, we're going to have to take a break because you need, you have work to do. You have to work on yourself. It was the first time somebody was that honest with me. She wanted the relationship with me, but she was willing to give up the relationship because she knew I needed work. I mean, that's a weird way to put I need work, I needed to heal, I needed to work on myself. And I was shocked because again, nobody's ever been that honest with me. I just thought that everyone had their own way of dealing with whatever was going on, the other person and they would find their way of coping. And I found my way of coping. And that's how I believe relationships were supposed to be. And so when she said, well, you know, you need to work on yourself and go ahead and do that, I support that. But for now, I'm not going to be in this space with you because I can't, I can't do that. I mean, it was a brand new relationship. So she didn't want to get into a relationship with somebody who needed that much help, I guess I should say. And that again, it shocked me. I thought, what's going on? I thought this was going to go, go great. And here she is, already starting to leave, all because I'm depressed, all because I can't get out of my shell. And I just, I couldn't handle it. Like, what are you saying? I don't want to break up. And the moment the pain of her leaving outweighed my depression became the first step out of my depression. The fear of losing the relationship outweighed what I felt inside of me. And my body, my mind couldn't handle became a breakdown. And I literally broke down. I started crying, I fell to my knees and I started crying. And for some reason, in that moment, I screamed. I said, I hate my stepfather. It was just. It came out of nowhere, and I wasn't even thinking about him. It just came out of nowhere. And she came over to me. She comforted me. And I was crying. Tears were coming out of my eyes. I said, I just hate him so much. By the time I was done crying, I realized this weight came off my shoulders. And that weight had been with me for so long, my entire life. And when that was off, I felt better. I felt brighter. I felt more energized. It was just a small step. It was the very first small step out of my depression. And I realized in that moment that the more I'm willing to. To admit and to express and to emote everything I'm feeling inside, especially the stuff I never want to say out loud, like I hate someone. I said, I hate my stepfather. When I believed you weren't supposed to hate anyone. So I never, ever said that out loud. I even suppressed those thoughts inside my head, like, I can't think that I'm going to stuff that down. I can't think that way. I can't hate him. He did so much good for us. He loved me. So I'm thinking about all the good stuff and just erasing all the bad stuff. All the drunk screaming and kicking holes in the wall and hitting my mom, just erasing all of that so that I can function, because that's what I did as a kid, right? You just compartmentalize things that you can't handle sometimes, and you just find ways to cope. And so one of my coping mechanism, or my primary coping mechanism, was stuffing it down. Don't show him how you feel or tell him how you feel. Don't say anything because you have to stay safe. So I didn't. And I learned to be quiet and to stuff things down to the point where they had nowhere else to go. And I didn't feel safe expressing myself. So I became this chameleon and just grew up adapting to every situation and putting a fake smile on. Until I met this woman who said, you got to deal with this depression, otherwise I can't be with you. And it was the very first time I realized that my depression was going to affect the rest of my life and that I was going to lose something that was very important to me. And the fear of that loss outweighed the depression that I was experiencing. And. And that's when I had that breakdown and I cried and I let it out. It was the first step out of depression. The first step not only toward the door, but turning the handle and putting my foot in the place where the door opens and wouldn't let it close again because after that I didn't want to ever close that door again. That was the understanding that I needed. That it was order to get out of depression. I need to pull out what I had stuffed down for so long. You know I've said this before, but it is definitely worth talking about. I used to do one on one coaching sessions and I remember just how much time went into the before and after of a session. The preparing beforehand, then the writing notes afterward. And I needed an assistant. And that's what I love about Simple Practice. It takes care of almost everything. If you're a therapist listening, you already know that your work doesn't end when the session does. There's scheduling, notes, billing, insurance, follow ups, all of the admin that happens before and after the work you actually care about. Simple Practice is an all in one EHR that is HIPAA compliant, high trust certified and built specifically for therapists. It brings all that scheduling, billing, insurance and client communication into one place so that you're not juggling multiple systems. There are automated appointment reminders to help you reduce no shows and note templates to make documentation faster so the business side of your practice feels lighter. And if you're just starting out or growing your own practice, there's a credentialing service that takes the headache of out of insurance enrollment, which honestly can be a huge lift. If you're ready to simplify the business side of your practice, now is a great time to try simple practice. Start with a seven day free trial and then get 50% off your first three months. Just go to SimplePractice.com to claim the offer. Again, that's SimplePractice.com. The person who wrote to me says that she suffers from depression and a never good enough self hate. So my comment to you is not only the story I just told, because there's probably some of that that needs to happen. Because if you grew up with a narcissistic mom and your father who might have been your only support and the only person who really showed you healthy love, I'm assuming, because when he died it sounds like that it really affected you in a bad way and sounds like he was there for you. But no matter what, what had happened with your mom is what affected you most. Because here you are, much older and now having to still deal with these thoughts and feelings that didn't go anywhere they stayed with you. Because when you have a parent that's a narcissist and you're a child who's supposed to receive love and connection and guidance and good role modeling, and that's not there. Yes, self hate can develop. Yes, not feeling good enough ever can develop. And one of the challenges is realizing that when we don't have a healthy parent to guide us, to love us in a healthy way, then what ends up happening is we develop these false beliefs about ourselves. And that's why I emphasize that we're not born this way. Somebody made us feel this way because of their own feelings about themselves and thoughts about the world and how they were brought up or some personality disorder or whatever. And when we use them as our source for how we feel about ourselves, then we are, of course, programming ourselves. Not literally, but we are being conditioned to believe things that aren't true. So what do we do? That's the difficult part. I told you what I did. I can't just say, go have a breakdown. I wish that it would happen naturally, where it would be freeing and it was safe to do so. But often we don't feel safe enough to have that breakdown. My personal approach is if I feel hate, I'm going to express hate. And I don't mean like being a hateful person. I mean, if I hate something that happened to me or hate a person that entered my life because they did some awful things and I am trying to. Or I'm having a conflict inside myself where I say I'm not supposed to hate that person because they did such nice things for me. I'm going to address the hate, not the love, not the kind, caring, positive aspects of the relationship. Because the hate is there, the hate is there. So I address the hate. I accept that I hate, and I let that hate out. That mother. I get angry. Son of a. I get angry and I let it out. If it's in there, then I let it out because I don't want it to stay in there. The really crappy part about depression is that you don't know what's in there. Often you just think I just feel this way and I don't feel like anything. So how do I know what's in there? Well, one thing I do is just think about who was in my past and how I felt about that. I may not have the feelings or emotions, but I remember what it was like because I remember wanting to say things that I didn't say. So something is there. And I'll talk to somebody about it. I had to go to therapy. A lot of people have to go to therapy. Yes. This is the point where I say, hey, you might need therapy. And that's a good idea. But if you can't go or don't want to go, then I would definitely address what's going on inside of you from your past. Because the past is what has painted this picture inside of you. That nothing is good or you're not good and this picture is wrong. It is. It's just wrong. And it may not be enough for you to hear that, but to start believing that you are way more than anyone could ever define you as is a good start. Because when I hear somebody say, I don't feel like I'm good enough, I ask, compared to who? Or compared to what? I don't feel good enough compared to what? That's a good question. Because if you don't have a comparison, then you'll be stuck in that cycle forever because you'll be thinking, well, I'm not good enough. Well, compared to what? Oh, my sister. Okay, there's a comparison. Why don't you feel good enough compared to your sister? Well, she had all this stuff going on in her life, and my mom loved her, but she hated me. So you may have something to compare yourself to or you may not. But my next question would be, when will you know you're good enough? When will you know? What does it take for you to realize you're good enough? And that's a very important question because it's a qualifier. It means that you need to qualify what good enough means. What does good enough mean? Does good enough mean that you're a good speller? You can spell words like crazy, and that's great. If you can, that's awesome. Does it mean that you are worthy of. That's probably where we're going. Probably worthy of love and affection. Okay. Are you? Yes, of course. Everyone's worthy of love and affection, so that's a given. It may not be a belief that you have now, or maybe you do, but that is a given. Because we're all born worthy of love and affection. It's just that we have people in our lives that may not be able to give it, but that doesn't mean we aren't lovable. It just means those people aren't loving or are sick, toxic. Maybe they're abusive and they don't belong in our lives, but now here they are. So now we got to deal with it and figure out how to cope with it until we grow up and get out of the house and then we have all this dysfunction and baggage that we need to deal with. So here we are. So now we have it. But how do we get from I don't feel good enough to I feel good enough? That's why we need the qualifier when will you feel good enough? How will you know when you're good enough? See, the wrong answer is, and I don't mean to put you down if this is what you're thinking, but the wrong answer is when my mom loves me or when my mom says I'm sorry, that's when I'll know I'm good enough. Because if that's your qualifier, then expecting that from a narcissistic person, it will never happen. So you set yourself up for disappointment and maybe even more depression because you're always seeking something that won't happen, it won't ever happen. And I hope that doesn't feel bad, but it might. To think that the person that you want to love you most will never ever be able to do that. And listen to how I said that that person will never ever be able to. It's not that they look at you and say you're unlovable. It's that they try to look outside themselves, but they're so damn insecure and so dysfunctional inside themselves that they can't see past their own limitations. And honestly, it really sucks when a parent can't see past their own limitations with their children because that ends up as the child's problem. Later or of course even during childhood, the child experiences their limitations, the parents limitations, and then the child becomes limited because the parent is so limited and the parent doesn't know how to operate as a loving, healthy, supportive parent. And so the child grows up thinking they're not good enough. And that sucks because it's basically saying, hey, it's true that you are good enough, but I'm going to reprogram you to believe that you aren't good enough so that when you become an adult you won't be happy, in fact you'll be depressed. And so I'm going to function within my limited ability to make sure that you have a roof over your head. But that's it. Because everything else I'm incapable of doing, I'm incapable of being emotionally supportive for you and towards you. I'm incapable of giving you love because I'm incapable of giving it. That is it, the narcissistic, toxic abuse of whatever parent is incapable of doing so. So when we try to qualify how we feel about never feeling good enough or not being lovable or anything like that. And we try to get it from a parent who was never able to do it before, then we set ourselves up for disappointment. It's a self fulfilling prophecy that absolutely takes us down the darkest road possible. Because it's like saying, let's put out this fire with more fire. Let's even put gasoline on it because that's wet. That should put it out. But we know it doesn't. And I'm not blaming you for that. I'm not saying that you are doing this to yourself. I'm saying just be careful how you qualify what good enough looks like. Because if you are trying to seek love and connection and affection from somebody who is incapable of doing it, and that's what makes you feel good enough, you will never get past that point. You will stay stuck because that person's incapable of doing it. The next big question is, well, if my parent never gave it to me and I feel stuck in this place and I just can't evoke a breakdown inside of me and I need to work on this stuff, what is my next step? You know, the first place I go is just remembering who had an impact in my life and finding out if I have any negative feelings toward them. For example, there have been abuse victims that were abused when they were a child by one parent. Even sexually abused, they were terribly violated in some way by one parent, and they grew up not necessarily hating the abuser, but hating the other parent. And that happens because the other parent didn't step in and help or didn't protect them or whatever happened, there was a reason that that hate developed or that anger toward that parent developed. And what often happens with abuse victims, at least in a scenario that I just described, is that they will, just like I was talking about earlier, they will have a conflict inside themselves where they convince themselves that they shouldn't be mad at the parent who didn't abuse them. They shouldn't feel anger, they shouldn't feel hate toward that parent that didn't abuse them because they weren't the abuser. And in fact, they might even say they were abused themselves, which could have been true. My parent abused that other parent and so they were dealing with the abuses as well. So we're in the same boat, so why would I be angry at that person? We were both being abused, so that scenario could be absolutely true. But what that does is deny the anger or the hate that you still feel. And if you feel it, it's still there. And the conflict prevents you from addressing it. The conflict prevents you from bringing it up inside yourself to a friend, to a therapist. And so when you have this hate or this anger or this upset toward a person that you are convincing yourself that you shouldn't have, the conflict creates resistance inside of you. The resistance creates depression because you are suppressing your thoughts, repressing your emotions, and pushing all that stuff into that, what I call a darker place inside of me. You're pushing it down into that darker place so that it doesn't have to be addressed. Or you don't feel bad for having bad feelings about somebody who apparently loved you but didn't protect you, but you feel bad for having any bad feelings. So you push that down and those conflicts and that resistance build up. And they keep you depressed, they keep you from feeling happiness. They are internal blocks, they are subconscious blocks. They are emotional blocks. And they prevent you from being yourself, feeling free. Because as soon as you feel free enough to be yourself without the limitations of anybody else, you will feel good because you will feel fully accepted by you. There will be no conflict about what's going on inside of you because you suddenly feel fully accepted by you. It would be wonderful if you had an amazing parent or two who loved you and supported you and gave you all the healthy tools and resources that one needs in this world to get through life and be happy. But sometimes that doesn't happen. Sometimes we don't have the healthiest parents. Sometimes they're awful. Sometimes we have to do. What I like to consider self parenting and self parenting is accepting yourself fully, allowing yourself to feel everything, allowing those negative thoughts to come up and accepting that they're there. And damn it, if you feel hate, you feel hate. If you feel hurt, you feel hurt. If you feel anger towards somebody who you don't believe deserves the anger, you feel it and you allow it to be. Because when you feel fully accepted to be who you are, to be yourself, you become the totality of who you are. And the totality of who you are is who you were born to be. You were born not feeling hate or self hate. You were born not feeling not good enough. You were born wanting to love and connect and eat and walk and reach and open doors. And this is the door I'm hoping you'll open. Now there's a door into yourself that lets you know that it's okay to be you. This kind of stems from something that happened today. I actually witnessed this a few times. Now there's a kid probably about 16 that walks in our neighborhood. He has these earphones on. He walks through the neighborhood and he is screaming at the top of his lungs some death metal song. And I can't even imitate it for you now. I have a little bit of a cold or something. And just imagine the screaming. He's screaming and he's actually pretty good for a death metal singer. I don't listen to that stuff, but I could imagine him singing a death metal song, but he's screaming through the neighborhood and he doesn't give give a care about anyone's opinion or judgments. He is being his 100% self. Every time I see him now, I feel so good that he feels good enough in himself. He has come to accept who he is inside, that he doesn't care what anybody thinks. He's going to walk proudly as he is screaming as loud as he wants. He has to. Can be scary for some people, but you can tell what he's doing. He's listening to music and you don't know what's going on inside of his head. He's just enjoying his walk and singing, if you call that singing. And it appears that he's not thinking about anybody else and he's just enjoying life one step at a time. And I just envy this kid. He can be himself without care and that is a very empowered place to be. It's telling yourself, I don't care what anybody else thinks. I just want to enjoy myself. I just want to do what I want to do. So I get inspired when I see this kid because I know he's coming, because I can hear it inside the room. I work from home, in my home office and suddenly the screaming out of nowhere. And I look outside and I said, oh, it's him. That's so cool. So cool. So I don't know if he'll ever hear this show. I don't know if he listens to my podcast. Probably not got a lot going on with the death metal music. And I am just so grateful that he walked by that day a few weeks ago and I heard that. Which was very mysterious at first. Like, who's screaming out there? Sounds like domestic violence. What the hell's going on? And turned out to be this kid just expressing himself. And I'm willing to bet, I would bet that he doesn't have a lot of repressed emotions. I remember listening to really hardcore stuff when I was a kid and that really helped me connect with my emotional state way down and pull it out. That helped me pull it out. And music will do that. Music is very helpful in that respect. And so seeing him just connect with that and pull it out. He may not be listening to the same stuff in a few years, but maybe he will. Who knows? I just picture people like that who are willing to be that expressive and accept themselves without fear of anyone else's judgment and just be themselves without fear of anyone else's judgment. I think those people are more stable than on a lot of us. I think they are willing to show their true selves without fear. And when you get to that point, you live in a different space entirely. And that can be a help toward that door I was talking about toward and out that door, maybe that one small step out of depression. And so I am so glad that this person wrote to me. I don't know if anything I said helped you, but I wanted to share this with you because sometimes we do things that keep us where we are without even knowing that we're doing it to keep us where we are. I myself had to reconcile some of my thoughts and emotions. I actually went to a therapist and I told her that my sister was more of a mom to me than my mom. And I asked myself, where the hell did that come from? Because I didn't know that was in there. I had no idea that I looked up to my older sister like a mom than my mom, because I love my mom. I had no bad feelings toward my mom. But I did feel, which I didn't understand until I was much older. I did feel neglect. And it wasn't her purposefully neglecting me because she was protecting the kids, but because she spent her time protecting and not loving and connecting and being with us more often than not because she was so busy protecting us as a child. I didn't know the difference. I didn't know that that's what she was doing. And that was a loving thing in a whole other way. I just wanted love. I just wanted her attention. I just wanted her praise. I wanted everything. But I couldn't get it because she was busy protecting us. So as a child, I saw that as not feeling loved or not being good enough. Her not seeing me as somebody that she wanted to spend time with. And I did not interpret that as she loves me so much because she's protecting me. That's not the same story. For the person who wrote in. Person who wrote in says, my mom is a narcissist. She wasn't paying any attention to me. And when she did, it was always something I was doing wrong. Or I needed to praise her or, you know, make sure that she always felt admired and respected and she never did the same for me or whatever it is, whatever the narcissism or however it came out in her family then. So that's a different scenario altogether. But yeah, that will cause a lot of challenges for a child who grows up and tries to figure all this stuff out, why they hate themselves or why they're depressed or why they don't feel good enough. So I just want to let you know, to the person who wrote, you are of course not only good enough. You're great, you're a great catch, you're a great person. And if you feel any self hate, okay, I'm not going to tell you. Don't hate yourself because that's what everyone else says. I want to say, hey, I felt that before too. I have felt that way. I've been suicidal in my 20s. I felt like, why don't I just end it? What's the purpose? What's the point? You know, my girlfriend left me. Now what do I do? There's nothing left. You know, we become myopically focused on what brings us happiness and exclude the rest of the world. So we think that's our only source of happiness. And if I don't get it there, then it's not worth being here. That's a very limited way to think. And we're taught how to think in limited ways by the people who raised us. And if they had limited thinking, we adopted that. Or if they did things in a way that caused us to feel bad about ourselves and not feel like we are worth loving, then we will turn that into dysfunctions when we get older. So I hope the person who wrote to me, I hope you're in a better space soon. And I want you to know that I really care about you. I really want you to get through this. I really want you to survive and thrive and get to a point where you write to me again and say, I have gone through some changes and I feel better and it's one day at a time and I'm getting better all the time. Time. I want to hear that from you hopefully one day. Please let me know if that's the case. And if it's not, I still want to hear back. Of course. Thank you so much for listening today. I appreciate you. This has been another episode of the Overwhelmed Brain podcast and I want to thank our patrons this week. Ashley and Brad, Always good to see your names. And Adriana, you know, Adriana was a patron for a while and she stopped. And then she wrote me a note that says, I'm a long time listener and I was a donor, a patron, and I retired last year and canceled my payments. However, I'm happy to say that I started my own firm and I'm doing well. Here's a little gift. Thank you for all you do. And she sent a nice, generous donation. I can't believe it. I am so grateful to you. I am so honored and humbled. Thank you so much for sharing that I. I don't know what to say. It's a just a wonderful gift. And of course, the bigger gift is, wow, you are now doing so much better. You have your own firm and you're consulting and this is fantastic. Congratulations. Thank you for your gift. Thank you for your donation. I appreciate you and anyone that give to the show. Very grateful to all of you. And if you find value in this show like these patrons do, head over to MoreToB.com and you'll find ways to give back over there. And if you're looking for a show on how to navigate difficult relationships, I've got a good one for you. It's called Love and abuse over@loveandabuse.com it's my other podcast. I've been doing it since 2019 and it's helped thousands of people. I hope you don't need it, but if you do, it's there for you. Loveandabuse.com and if you turn out to be the emotionally abusive person in the relationship or somebody who's having difficulties trying to show up as loving and accepting, then you might need Healed Being. That is a program that I created that helps people heal and become the best possible partner and the best possible person that you can be. And that's over at Healed Being, where I've also helped a lot of people heal from being emotionally abusive. So thank you again for listening. And I want you to be firm in your decisions and actions so that every decision that you make will be toward creating the life you want. Always take steps to grow and evolve. You are powerful beyond measure. And above all, and this is something I absolutely, absolutely know to be true about you. You are lovable. You are worthy. You are important. You do have purpose in this world. Never forget it. And you are absolutely amazing.