Dear Anita,

If I allow myself to use my thinking for a good cause, it is very powerful and that is how I make these solid and accurate connections.

As of right now, I don’t feel that I’m in competition with my step dad, but maybe my underlying unconscious brain believes this is so. I’m consciously securely attached/bonded to my mother and step father as of now, but there is the possibility that my unconscious brain is projecting my unresolved issues into my relationship with my girlfriend.

I can definitely understand the “control” factor in my everyday life. I realize now that those I’ve been closest to, including my best friend, I have wanted some sort of control because I wanted complete intimacy – to be their number one so to speak. This has occurred with my parents, my best friend, a previous girlfriend and now my current girlfriend; those I value most.

The thing about my mother is that she makes a really caring, helpful mother, but maybe at the time of discovering who I was and developing my independence/sexuality, I struggled to get the right intimacy I needed along with the troubles of my parents being divorced, lack of attention from my dad, cruel stepmother, etc.

What I find to be odd is that sometimes I crave this emotional intimacy from my girlfriend, and once I get it I feel reassured and satisfied – able to continue on with my day/week/etc. However, there are times where I don’t crave the emotional intimacy, and I feel independent and fine on my own. It’s almost as if the “child” synapses in my brain fire every now and then causing me to become emotionally unstable, looking for sexual ties to my girlfriend and being triggered easily. This strong desire to problem solve arises which leads to excessive thinking and results in a cycle of thinking which can be hard to get out of and with all the built up stress, leaves me weakened and emotionally crazy.

These different factors make sense for why I’m carrying out these odd reactions to perfectly normal situations in life. Whenever I’m emotionally unstable – craving intimacy, confused, worried about my girlfriend – I feel threatened and betrayed by thinking about my girlfriend’s sexual past, seeing her mentally as doing things in spite of me. I also look for clues as to what she has done in the past, with who, why she did it, etc. It’s truly a never ending cycle, but as you said, involves no “true” solution or destination.

Scott