Feel Empty

Constantine, the single most powerful thing you can do is to stop bashing yourself. You write as if everything bad in your life was your fault, and there is nothing good there. Both of these beliefs are false.

You only mention one specific example of a bad thing: the girl you love is torn between you and your friend. She has loved both of you, and had to make a choice. Because you suffered from depression, you reacted in a way that pushed her away, and she chose your friend.

The way to treat this is to grieve for the loss and acknowledge the pain, but to learn from it. She may get sick of the other boy and return to you. If not, in time you will be attracted to other girls. By then, you need to get your act together, and avoid the things that induced her to leave you.

There is no such thing as a mistake, there are only learning experiences. Learn from this one.

You know, there are two kinds of pain. Suppose I was careless, slipped over and broke my leg. The pain in my leg and the inconvenience of crutches for 6 weeks is legitimate pain. But I can then berate myself over and over for my stupidity. I can beat myself over the head with guilt for having been careless; torture myself with "If only..."

That would have no benefit to me at all. It does not undo the accident. My leg is broken, and that's that. I can't avoid the legitimate pain, but I certainly can choose not to suffer the extra self-torture I put on top of it.

You have a certain past that involved losses. Because of this, as a little boy you built a picture of the world that tends to get you down. As a little boy, you probably got the idea that somehow you should have been able to stop your father from dying, that leaving New York was somehow your own fault. This helped you then to make sense of your world, but now, as an 18-year-old, do you still agree that you had that responsibility?

This is the exact way you are still hurting yourself. Bad things happen. They happen to everyone. Often, they are completely out of our control, as your father's death was out of your control. And we can live with them. You've survived without your father for 13 years.

Some bad things are caused, partly or wholly, by our actions. If you look back at such an event and see you've made mistakes, this only shows that you have learned since. If you can work out how to do things better next time, then you have gained in wisdom, and the suffering was therefore worthwhile.

So, be kind to yourself. Find the good things in your life. (For example, if you were as horrible as you believe yourself to be, how come this girl did love you equally with your friend?) Develop your strengths and learn from your mistakes.

Have a good life. You can.

Bob