Dear Sammi:

Thank you for the very clear explanation above. I re-read most of your posts on this thread and then re-read your latest posts and I agree with you: there is no point in asserting yourself with him.

What I learned today, from re-reading your posts is the following. Let me know how close- or far- I am:

You were scared/ traumatized (injured) early in your life, starting maybe with the abuse you mentioned (“I went through other abuse when I was very young. I’d rather not bring it up, just because I don’t want to make anymore of a sob story out of myself than I already have”), continuing through your experiences with your father and the string of your mother’s ex boyfriends. Her current live in boyfriend has been in the picture since you were about 11. By 11 you were already significantly traumatized and therefore, suffering from significant anxiety.

Two things are true: your mother’s boyfriend is abusive AND it doesn’t take a lot to scare and distress you. Any excessive noise often scares you (“like more than one person talking at once, are extremely overwhelming to me, and make me panic a bit”) and perceived threats are magnified (ex. “at times I’ve stacked up a few full boxes in front of it, just in case” although he never made such entrance and “I would rather ease a rusty knife into my throat than leave my room while it’s just him and I alone”).

The following combination is what makes you so unusual, in my experience:

1. You are so afraid, yet you look so unafraid in the way you choose your hair and appearance to stand out (“I have a bit of an obsession with colorful, neon clothing, hair and makeup. I love turning heads when I go places”).

2. You are so afraid, yet you behave fearlessly with some others (“with people I know very well, like my friend, I get rowdy.. I kind of give off this pseudo arrogance, in that gear. I can see how this could be intimidating, from a bystander perspective”)

3. You are so afraid, describing your fearful feelings and fearful behaviors on this thread, while at the same time, in your very ongoing, sentence after sentence, page after page, post after post, total of more than a 100 total), in your back and forth communication with me and with other people communicating with you, you have been confident and assertive the whole time. No expressions of self doubt, no yo-yoing in your positions, no desperation for approval by any replier, nothing. No sign of fear and no sign of weakness.

I would like to understand #3. As is, I don’t understand it- how can it be…?

anita