Dear anita,

thank you for your response. I am glad that you liked my reply to the other member (hopefully it also helped them a bit).

During the past year I learned a lot and understood some things better. My therapist helped me with understanding things a lot. This very black and white thinking, I also do it, even though I wanted to be a person with an open mind. My parents had kind of a black and white worldview.

So I thought, because I made mistakes, that it is prove that I am a bad or toxic person. And then I kind of gathered evidence against myself, asking myself: am I bad because of this? And it drove me completely crazy. I did not trust in myself. And if others (seemingly) gave me weird looks, it was further proof that I am bad or not trustworthy.

You are right, I am capable of being rational in my calm state. And it is good advice to wait when I am in a distressed state, until I become calm again.

I am still wondering, how did I get into this extreme place of distress for many months with the K/dormitory situation? I think the root of the problem was thinking that I had no value and because of that, trying to please others and overstepping my own boundaries so that I then felt uncomfortable. Gladly, I know myself better now. And next time I meet someone, I will do things at my own pace and set boundaries. I very much hope that I will be able to do that in real life!

However, I still feel sad about how things ended with K. He was not perfect, but I also played my part in it and surely I was not easy to deal with. I wish I could have handled it all more maturely. But I was going insane back then and maybe it was best to end contact, even if it was in a bad way. Only after getting away from this situation I was able to become calm again, become myself again. I hope that he is doing o.K.

About not getting into hurtful relationships again: the key to this is staying true to myself and being authentic. Not trying to please others! Having some boundaries and standards. I think I have become a bit better at it already. Now I think: if they don’t like me, they are simply not for me. Now I feel a little bit more relaxed about it. And I know exactly what I want in a relationship. The most important thing for me is to get to know someone slowly. With K and the man in the dormitory, I never fully understood who they were as a person. And that lead to a lot of confusion and pain. I was not able to evaluate the situation because of this.

Recently I have watched some youtube videos about setting boundaries and self respect by a youtuber called Breeny Lee.  Her speeches are very motivating and I agree with her on a lot of things. It has helped me.

And about respect: I have to respect myself first, which I didn’t in the past. but I think I am at a better path now.