DEAR BELI’m 30, live with my parents (though I did live on my own for ten years) and work as an office cleaner.
My problem is that I am very, very shy, and anxious around other people. I’ve been like this since I was 11, and it’s led me into an isolated existence, at times incredibly lonely.
I don’t have the words to describe what it’s like.
Other issues include the fact that I don’t have a sex drive due to the medication prescribed for psychosis and depression. I’m still a virgin and suspect I’m probably gay.
'My self-esteem is low and I don't have any friends'I’m also deaf and was bullied at school. Needless to say, my self-esteem is low and I don’t have any friends. I’m talking to my doctor about my libido and seeing a counsellor.
I feel it helps, but I’d be lying if I said I don’t get negative and moan self-pityingly to my poor parents.
Since I’ve avoided social contact all my life, skirting around people and places, my social skills are poor but I can have a conversation one-to-one, in a quiet setting.
I know I need to focus on the positives, but I feel I’m in a black hole, scrabbling away at the edges to get out. It all feels like a mountain to climb. Fear runs my life.
I’m anxious when somebody is walking behind me in the street. I twice tried to join Facebook but left immediately, terrified I’d have no ‘friends’ or ‘likes’.
What I am asking is, what will be, or can be, the catalyst for change for me?
I don’t wish to be negative as I realise that one needs to be positive and take action — but how much of this is my fault and how much is fate or destiny? How much control do I have?AL
Last weekend, a friend asked me if I ever receive letters to which I feel I have no reply, no idea how to approach the problem.
Without thinking, I said: ‘Oh, they tend to be the ones I choose.’
Yours is one of those sad puzzles. But as I copied your handwritten letter onto my computer, I suddenly felt grateful to you for each word, because you make us all pause for a few moments and reflect just how indescribably hard life can be for that man or woman we just passed in the street, without a second glance.
More from Bel Mooney... BEL MOONEY: Even when I beg, my husband refuses to have sex with me 01/06/13 BEL MOONEY: Should I let my drunken, vicious ex-lover be a father to our baby? 24/05/13 BEL MOONEY: Should I boycott my mother's wedding to this ghastly gold-digger? 17/05/13 BEL MOONEY: Can I cure loneliness by selling up to be near my new love? 11/05/13 BEL MOONEY: We haven't had sex for 19 years but I can't escape my cheating husband... 26/04/13 BEL MOONEY: I've nursed my husband through cancer but now I want to leave 19/04/13 BEL MOONEY: I'm in love for the first time but not with my husband... 12/04/13 BEL MOONEY: I feel guilty my son is in nursery all week so I can work 05/04/13 VIEW FULL ARCHIVE‘Oh dear,’ lots of readers will be thinking, ‘what a lot this poor young man has to put up with. How on earth would I cope with all that?’
I believe that such moments of empathy do incalculable good. So may I first offer that faith to you as an accidental positive, a strange unexpected ‘gift’ which you have given to others?
Your final questions are surely unanswerable. How can any of us even begin to work out if our fate is our own ‘fault’ or genetic accident, or the unfortunate result of the arrangement of the planets at the moment of birth?
It’s usually a combination of factors — most of them out of our control. But I cannot weigh what’s impossible to know. I can only try to help your brave wish ‘to be positive and take action’.
Perhaps ‘the catalyst for change’ is your own, passionate longing to climb out of that black hole. I want you to look up at the mountain, not seeing its daunting height, but noticing instead how beautifully the sunlight slants across its contours.
The fact that you’re seeing a helpful counsellor is a very good start. So is talking to your doctor, but please don’t become too obsessed with your libido, because it won’t help.
Well done for taking those steps — and continue with the process, especially if it becomes difficult. That’s the time to get out the crampons and continue the ascent!
But you need to begin a daily ‘practice’ of self-help.
There’s an excellent book called Presence, by the famous voice and acting coach Patsy Rodenburg, which is about how to harness inner, positive energy. I think some of her exercises would help many readers like you. For example:
Centre your body every morning before you face the world. Your shoulders, upper chest and jaw should be released. Hold your spine up and release your abdominal muscles. Keep your knees unlocked and your feet firmly on the ground — feel the floor through the balls of your feet.Stretch the sides and back of your rib cage. Breathe…to a focus outside your window.Look at nature — a flower, a tree, a bird. Notice the weather. Look up at the moon and stars. And so on. Such counsel may sound simplistic. But breathing well, consciously standing squarely and strongly on this earth and actively focusing on the world around are all profoundly important beginnings.If you take ten minutes each morning to follow this routine, then greet your parents with the words, ‘You know what? Today’s going to be a good day,’ you will be amazed how much better you will start to feel. Believe it.
Then you should make an effort to connect with one new person each day.
This can be a tiny thing: you meet the eyes of the person who sells you the chocolate as you say ‘Thank you’, letting your voice be clear, not a mumble.
You quickly smile at the person standing next to you at the zebra crossing.
You wave to the driver who stops to let you cross — and smile again. And as you walk along you always look at your surroundings, not the pavement.
All this will take effort. But you must vow to make it. And when you feel tense and miserable, you go to a quiet place, draw in some deep breaths, close your eyes and open up your arms as if welcoming an old friend.
Then, as you let your breath out slowly, your whispered message to yourself is: ‘Tomorrow is going to be better.’
In such ways all of us can begin to take ‘control’ — although I prefer to think of the process as steering our minds and hearts towards the belief that we have so much glorious potential, still untapped.
Start to share yourself with the world, Al, and you may find it is a far kinder place than you thought.
How do I help my carer in her hour of need?
DEAR BELTo begin at the beginning, I have a genuine angel — a carer called Sally who looked after my late husband for two years when (as I was in my late 80s) I couldn’t cope with his vascular dementia any more.She was so wonderful my family decided to keep her on to help me. Old age seemed to have crept up on me.I’ve survived a brain tumour, breast cancer, plus other minor operations, and now have rheumatoid arthritis.Now my problem is how to help Sally. Her son Fred is in the Army. As I write this, his mum, dad and sister are taking him back to his unit.He and his regiment will be flying off to Afghanistan for their first tour of duty.The average age of the boys is 18. The parting will be so sad. I feel involved as, of course, I have met Fred. So Bel, I know your daughter is married to a serving officer in the Army, and that’s why I wonder if you can advise us how to keep going over the next six months? Fred has huge emotional support from his family and, of course, I will pray every day. But still, my heart breaks for my great friend and her family. Last year was terrible for them all, as Fred’s dad was sacked as part of a whole workforce, because his employers were taking the engineering works abroad.Then Sally has had very bad foot problems, requiring an operation, but still struggles in to take care of me.I’m sorry to go on like this — but hope you can give us some wisdom to help us all through the coming months.JOANThis only goes to show that angelic virtues generate more angelic virtues which generate more… and so it goes on, the radiance spreading outwards.
That young soldier has certainly taken some of it with him to Afghanistan. Sally came into your lives to take care of your late husband and then you.
Now, above all else, you want to take care of her — despite your age and poor health.
'Find consolation in action, in the certain knowledge that Fred is surrounded all the while by the camaraderie of his peers'If that doesn’t lift up the spirits on shining wings, I don’t know what can.
When my daughter’s (then) boyfriend was on his second tour of duty in Iraq, she wrote every single day and sent parcels — as Fred’s family will do.
In the quietness of my own home, certain that he was ‘the one’ for Kitty, I sent up the fervent prayers which make my avowed agnosticism rather a joke.
The point is, I know that the effect of such letters, gifts and good wishes on the guys on the ground is far and above what we can possibly know.
As a journalist, Kitty went to Iraq and Afghanistan and saw this in action: the delight on the men’s faces when they got their mail.
Her husband was in Afghanistan last summer on a fact-finding mission, and saw it too. And each time Sally and her family write, the action of so doing will help them through the days.
This is such an obvious thing to say, but true. So you must all get busy and find consolation in action, in the certain knowledge that Fred is surrounded all the while by the camaraderie of his peers, which means so much to all the lads.
The bigger question is how any of us can cope with the tests life throws at us. At the core of most big problems is the idea of loss, including the end of a marriage, the sad dwindling of family love or of health, the sudden loss of a job, and so on. All of these have to be endured.
‘One day at a time’ is the only way forward. You have to tell yourself that sadness does pass. Yes, it does. You have to reassure yourself that you will not feel tomorrow as you do today, and hold that thought fast.
The universe turns and we turn with it.
Although most people are afraid of change, the good news, in this case, is that each movement of the days and the months brings closer the time when Fred and his regiment will come home, to be greeted by their ecstatic and proud families. Just you see how soon that reunion will come.
And finally... At heart, we're all the same
This letter came from M, and it raises an interesting point.
‘Can I just request that you print more letters from gay and lesbian readers, who are struggling with gay issues, alongside all the straight letters you print?
‘There is a marked lack of letters from gay people on your pages, and it is unfair. This is not a reaction to your not printing my letter: it is the truth.
‘I’ve read your column for six years and can count on one hand how many letters have been about relationships between gay partners or unrequited love or love struggles with straight partners…
‘I cannot relate to all the letters you print about marriage when I am gay and fancy a (supposedly) straight woman and need help navigating such a complex issue. This is just my opinion, but I suspect other gay readers will agree.’
TROUBLED? WRITE TO BELBel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week.
Write to: Bel Mooney, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT, or e-mail bel.mooney@dailymail.co.uk.
A pseudonym will be used if you wish.
Bel reads all letters, but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.
M’s first problem letter came just about a week earlier, so she’s in a hurry! In it she describes falling for a married woman who gives no sign of reciprocating.
So M asks: ‘Is my only choice to walk away because I risk being rejected if I admit my feelings for her?’
Given the little information I had, my answer would be ‘yes’ — since a heterosexual person who shows no signs whatsoever of flirting with a gay man or woman is surely going to reject any declaration?
Yes, walk away in order to protect yourself. But I’d also say that were both people heterosexual. Or both gay. You see?
‘Make it easy on yourself,’ as the song goes and run from a one-sided love affair. Hard though that may be.
Two things should be said. First, the number of letters from gay and lesbian people I’ve printed reflect the proportion I receive.
Second, I am not convinced that unrequited love felt by a gay person is all that different from the pangs of longing felt by a straight person.
And some of the marriage issues affect gay couples even if the letters are not from them.
I truly believe that most of the big issues raised in this column transcend mere sexuality.
