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For years now my mom and I have had a strained relationship due to her parenting methods while I was growing up. My mom was a screamer. On top of that, she was emotional and intellectually unavailable and did not play with me as child or talk to me about anything important during my development. These methods have left me with a lot of problems as an adult, such as social anxiety and some rather extreme introversion at times. Before FDR I never even identified these problems, I just assumed that was my intrinsic character. Through introspection and working on self knowledge on why I do the things I do, I was able to identify my issues and their root in my childhood. However, I also did discover that this parenting method provided me with huge benefits to my professional success and level of comfort today. Being alone as a child, I grew an extreme defense mechanism for survival, and particularly self-sufficient survival. Anything I have done in my whole life I have approached with the character of Howard Roark, nothing could stop me and me alone. My lone wolf self survival skills had me working all through university just because I never wanted to be in a position where money was a problem. Ever since I graduated university, money has never been an issue. Even now, I live below my means, with good savings because I have the emotional need to be prepared for anything that comes across, on my own. I am a professional civil engineer, well known and respected in my industry for my ability to solve problems and deliver complex projects. Every manager, boss, and now clients I have ever had has been blown away by what they viewed as my natural talent. Through self-knowledge I have discovered this natural talent initially came from a deep sub-conscious fear where failure was death, which I believe is a direct result of my mom’s parenting styles. I have grown a lot in the years, and I believe that I have been able to get rid of a lot of the fear, and am able to work for the sheer joy of what I do professionally (which I would recommend to anyone who wants an exciting diverse career). However, without the momentum that launched me from childhood I know that I wouldn’t have been able to compete and get to where I am in my career without the very powerful success or death false dichotomy planted deep into my subconscious. I am mentally average (at least for engineers), so there is no other reason why I should be so successful, professionally rising above all my peers. These are empirical facts. Until recently, I was not able to identify the beneficial consequences of my mom’s parenting methods. Through us trying to talk through these issues, I have never given her any credit for this, and have only talked about how bad it was for me as a child and how that impacted my early adulthood. It is strange to me that such a bad methodology could lead to such great results in certain realms. Given my new understanding of these facts, should I apologize to her for not stating the good? Obviously, there is still the bad, but I am wondering if I should take responsibility for not being aware of the empirically good results. If philosophy is about empiricism, it seems like that would be the correct, and consistent, thing to do. Thanks in advance for the feedback.

Hi. I want to write about my experience with bullying. And I would appreciate any feedback and advice. I was being continually teased by my brother. I dont know if this enter category of bullying. I was chased by him after house, he on various occasions was trying to break my door and enter my room, he do that when I was taking shower or was in toilet. I was never safe in my house. I know that he was acting out what my father was doing. My father few times was trying to break to my room drunk on the night. I was tryin to keep door closed with my mother, with whom I slept with in my room for long time. And I recently found out, when I listen to Sunday Call In Show about listener who harrased some other kids, that I bullied one kid with my "friend" at the time. Nothing big, but we chase him and make fun of him. He throw rocks at us, and we do it in revenge. We chase him after that. In fact, my friend do much of this, I was passive usualy, but not always. I enjoy this at the time and I find it sick now. I know that I have similar experience in school. I was trying to get close to brutal guys, and I get beaten few times by them. This boy was trying to get close to us maybe, and I act out my trauma. One time I push one boy on wall in school in preety brutal way. I was feeling disrespected in some way and I do that. I overreacted and I feel sory for that too. Now. I am thinking about writing to them both and make apology. They both come from sick houses, just as I was. I am afraid of doing so. I am afraid that they may mock me for that. By in the other way, I think that I fear taking responsibility and that pain I am afraid of Is my pain that I put on them. I will appriciate any feedback. If this will be ok to write to them on facebook?