To date or not to date

[ESLteacher]

Time will tell I guess!

[TryingNewThing]

oh wow you're back ESLTeacher wb

nice to see you again!

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Loving myself is one of the HARDEST things that I have ever tried to tackle in life. I chalk a lot of it up to my beyond fucked up childhood. Some people should never have children. Over the years I have improved a lot from the obese kid that had coke bottle glasses, nervous grunts, and eye twitches (not to mention the beating marks). It scarred me though...it scarred me deep in my soul. It has made me that much harder on myself as an adult. I can never just let the pieces fall where they may, I have to control where they fall. I feel that I always have to find ways to improve myself whether it is physical, mental, or just a skill. Most of the people that I grew up with had decent families, lived at home until they went off to college, parents paid for college, they got their bachelors, got the job, the car, the house, and the family. Me on the other hand, that was not an option. Being thrown in and out of mental hospitals for three years when in reality the problem was not with me, it was with my parents (hence why none of us three kids talk to either of them and haven't in years). I was forced on my own with nothing to start with, had to get my GED through night classes at the local community college, attempted college and between time and the cost it did not work out very long. So I did what made sense, I came to China, earned my teaching diploma, worked off my debt to my sponsor agency that paid for it, and now here I am. I am finally in a place where I can work and afford college so next semester that will be happening for me via the internet and I think that will help me feel a bit more complete. Plus, I have been researching plastic surgery in Shanghai at a certain hospital and getting rid of all of that leftover stuff from when I used to be obese will help me move to a better place mentally as well I think.

Most people go to Tibet to find their real inner self... I guess China will work

Abusive childhoods leaves permanent scars. You are going to have to get used to that idea and start living in a manner where those scars don't get hurt. How that will be for you I do not know.

While I am no expert on abuse, I do have my own series of experiences and I figured out how to work with it, and not constantly seek to be 'normal' but instead seek to be content. I have kept more than a few foibles and short-comings AKA defects of character, and have worked on others.

They say Rome wasn't built in a day... I think that means we can't expect to change everything all at one, and the things we change are never really 'done' but are a process that can take large chunks of time.

Accepting that is one of the steps of recovery. Recovery is a process, one that is never actually completed, but things do get better.

[Blue]

Well said Bowyn.

Some of those "scars" might still be open wounds. They weren't put there in a day or even a week or a month - they were put there over years and, like any wound, they take longer to close than they did to open. Don't expect them to turn to faded scars overnight, it won't happen, but one by one, in time and, with work they will do just that. No they never disappear entirely but, they don't have to stay gaping wounds that make us miserable or cause us so much pain either.

[mihai]

Well teach seems we got alot in common haha.
We must stay patient .
I got only muslums till now , and think i should stop; i am not a religious person and they say i am a "insulting person" :\

[ESLteacher]

oh wow you're back ESLTeacher wb

nice to see you again!

Thanks Trying!