Dear Daniel:

In order to understand your recent post I went back to your Sept 2019 thread because sometimes the present cannot be explained without looking at the past, often it is so because when we experience lonely and distressing childhoods, we keep re-experiencing that same emotional childhood experience as adults.

The quotes that follow are from your Sept 2019 thread.

The “isolation, loneliness, anxiety, fear and sadness” you referred to back in Sept,I figure was your childhood emotional experience.

“whatever I do and who ever I am with, it’s still the same because I always carry the burden of my thoughts”- whatever you do and whomever you are with as an adult, it is still the same childhood emotional experience, which is what your burden is about.

Here is some of that childhood emotional experience: “no one seems to understand me… My mom struggles to understand.. it’s hard for them to understand me. And I can’t help but feeling alone with my feelings.. My family don’t understand me”. You were referring here to the present time, back in Sept. But this was your experience as a child for years. Neither one of your parents attended to you and engage with you adequately, and neither one noticed that you were so very lonely being unattended to and unengaged with.

Now, back to your recent post Feb 2020:  “It often happens when I’m sad, tired, depressed.. my mind focuses on the pain, on myself and I can’t seem to be emotionally engaged with those you interact with.. every Saturday evening, I feel especially sad and lonely” – you are used to be sad as a child and alone with that sadness because no parent noticed or interacted with you regarding your sadness, asking you about it, then comforting you. Fast forward, you feel sad, you are so used to be alone with your sadness  that you don’t feel like interacting with others, it doesn’t appear like a possible way for you to feel better, because it wasn’t what happened for years of lonely childhood.

“I also noticed that .. when I interact with a girl who seems to like me in a way that is not reciprocated. I am used to being on the other side, the one who likes someone too much. I don’t know how to handle it when it’s the other way around. That’s why I act a bit cold in a way to tell the girl that I’m not as enthusiastic as she is when together”- as a child, you were the one who liked your mother too much, wanted more than anything that she pays attention to you and interact with you, but she didn’t. You are used to that role, the one wanting.

When a young woman seems interested in you- you are not used to that situation, it is as if you are now an older child, let’s say 10, after .. let’s say 7 years of little to no attention from her, one day she pays you lots of attention- it is like a shock and you don’t know how to handle it. You don’t run to her and exclaim: Mother, you are finally paying attention to me, this is wonderful!

Instead, you are startled, and think/ feel something: what is happening  here? I don’t know what to do  with this. This startled response and unfamiliarity leads to that cold behavior, if I understand correctly.

anita