I didn’t want to read and run ( plus my eyes are closing as nighttime here )  and I’m sure someone with much better advice will answer soon but don’t give up hope .

Keep at your academics such a worthwhile profession . And don’t despair about meeting somebody . Someone will happen at the right time . Forget about the ones who didn’t work out , it’s nice you wish then well . My sister didn’t meet her partner until 35

Hi Niv, As soon as I started reading your post it resonated with me. I haven’t had the exact experiences you have, but I do very much relate to the pain and feeling not good enough, that I don’t fit in. I have been through a hell of a lot and suffered a lot of pain in my life. I’m in my early 40s and have only just started doing deep inner work the past three months. I got to a similar point like you of having enough. I made the choice to look deep within and started writing whatever came out. As I looked within for answers to my pain instead of to other people, I discovered that I had constantly abandoned myself trying to fit in and be accepted and loved by other people. I was constantly giving all my power to other people, which left me with only enough to keep surviving, to just get through. I also realised that in this low state I was only attracting deeply damaged people who were very toxic in different ways. They mirrored how I felt about myself. People who were never going to really see me and treat me right. I realised I had no real strong boundries in how I let others treat me, and how I completely sold myself out to be accepted. This was destroying my soul, my very essence. What I started to do was be the kind of friend to myself that I was desperately looking for, give myself that love I desperately ached for others to give me, tell myself I was good enough. I used to hate hearing how it all starts with you, I now know that’s true. No one else can give me that love, they can only add to what’s already there. It’s painful and confronting to just stop and take some time to look deep within and face your pain, but I’ve found answers and clarity I never thought I would. I’m by no means healed, some days I’m just over it. But through this process I have become friends with myself, I’m feeling better and better about myself. The biggest thing I did was put up new stronger boundries when it comes to how I let others treat me, say no when I mean no, avoid toxic people who just take and take and never give back. I protect myself now, I count on myself and I am my number one priority. I give myself my own seal of approval. I felt that my story might resonate with you Niv. I’m not going to sugar coat anything and patronise you. I’m still going through this, I get incredibly lonely and overwhelmed and feel like giving up frequently. But the difference now is the hand that reaches out to pull me through is my own. Niv, you like all of us deserve to be loved and treated right. Try and be gentle and compassionate with yourself, give yourself a pat on the back, be your own friend and get to know you 🙂

Niv

my sister only had one partner and that was about age 32 maybe no one before then . That ended badly and then she met her husband about 35 . Be kind and gentle to yourself .

Dear Niv:

First I will retype your share (it helps me process information doing that), second will  be my understanding:

You are now a thirty year old woman who “struggles with major depression.. totally alone in life”.  You are attending graduate school and working. You had dreams of “being a successful person in academia” and have been interested in having a romantic relationship with a woman from academia, but you never had a romantic relationship.

Most of the time you feel that you are “just a loser and piece of s*&^ that no one wants, just like my parents didn’t want me either… no one ever is really interested in me”.

You grew up “in a toxic environment” with a mother who was/ is depressed and “emotionally absent in general”, a father who “never cared at all (and wasn’t present)”, and a “grandmother who’s BPD”. You wrote that you repressed all your feelings a lot of your life and that you were an angry child, that you were in on and off therapy since you were about 12, made a lot of progress. You have “unloaded so much crap!”, but still struggle because “what is left is still quite a lot”.

My understanding: what was and what is left that is “quite a lot” is your anger, an understandable, valid anger. It is anger that is keeping you alone. The rage of a girl left alone, unattended to, is not a mild force. It grows and festers and stays.

Let’s look at the two women you were interested in dating: ne had a boyfriend so you were okay with moving on, but the other, she was single and after you showed her interest, she “chose someone else”- that activated your anger. Because there you were interested in her, desiring her, and she could have attended  to you, reciprocated your interest because she was single, and yet she chose someone else.

“I would have given anything for her to be with me”- just like you would have given anything.. just like you did give everything you had to be with your mother. And yet, your mother at times at least, did she not, attend to someone else, while  leaving you there to yourself, alone.

It is only recently, late in my healing process, that I remembered how intensely, as a young child, I desired my mother’s attention, no desire is stronger than a desire of a girl for her mother. Like you, I believe, I got angry, very angry. This anger made relationships impossible for me too for the longest time. And it is this same anger that I felt a few moments ago, feeling it every day.

There are many women who had terrible childhoods and yet they have romantic relationships, but their fear/ anger dynamic is different than women who don’t manage to have a relationship. They may be more fearful than angry, perhaps. Maybe their anger is turned inward on a regular basis, while yours often enough turns outward, toward other people, and it shows, keeping them away.

What do you think/ feel?

anita