Dear Ryan:

In your two threads, you shared some objective information about yourself, such as your age (44) and how many times you were married (2), but the information I am looking for is your subjective experience of life, not the objective data. It seems to me that you went through life almost randomly, things happened (ex. “I married my child’s mother when I was 20 because it seemed like the right thing to do. Joined the military and got divorced… moving back home.. enrolled in college.. joined the AmeriCorps.. “, etc.) , you chose this, you chose that, but all along inside, you felt the same way, “Treading water”, and you did not having much insight into why and how you kept feeling the same way, no matter where you happened to be, and what you happened to be doing.

“for my ex’s, my practice at keeping my feelings and emotions at a distance.. She has a young son.. we had subsequently formed a strong bond.. I remained in the mindset that I was leaving but she saw a future together and wanted me to see it…. She found a place.. expected me to join her, but I never did… She was lonely and miserable.. She arrived back home in Nov 2019 and I arrived here Jan 2020.. She..  finally started a relationship with someone in April… she seems happy, and her child is close to family again.. Other than a 30-minute walk at night, I rarely go out except for the grocery store. I am lonely… I miss her child terribly.. it’s a bit of jealousy and loneliness that makes me pine for her now… I miss how strongly she believed in me and how much she fought to push me to see myself in a better light“-

– this is the key sentence which my last post to you is about: she had an image of you and you are attracted to that image, an image of a man who is worthy of someone else’s time and great efforts, including moving to Wash DC so to pursue a long term relationship with you, as she told you: “A large part of the reason I moved out here was because I was trying to solidify my building a relationship with you. A long term one”.

More about her image of you, she told you: “Don’t downplay yourself. R… how amazing you are, what a light in my day/ life you are.. how damn near perfect you are… please don’t find it so hard to believe that someone could be so overwhelmingly fond of you… You are beyond words the best person that has walked into my life”- this is not the image you have of yourself, not one that anyone in your childhood reflected to you. But she did.

You shared that you suffer from concentration issues for much of our life, that you were diagnosed with dysthymia in the past, a diagnosis elevated to recurrent major depressive disorder, a depression that is invisible to the people around you. “largely (I) feel mirthless.. Emotional withdrawal.. negative feelings about myself (and others to an extent.. I just remain flat… my walls of disconnect and withdrawal.. my coldness… I’ve battled depression for as long as I can remember. Introversion and a lack of self-esteem as a child, combined with an emotionally neglectful mother.. I was never close with my parents”-

You grew up without love, without a parent or anyone being very fond of you. You wrote: “For as long as I can remember, I’ve struggled with accepting love and embracing it”- you were not shown love as a child, not enough love to leave an imprint in you, so…  nothing to embrace.

“Another issue is that my memories of my childhood are limited.. I cannot remember… My mother is often emotionally cool, so perhaps this plays a part in my issues?”- when childhood lacks love, we tend to not remember it. Notice: you asked if your mother being emotionally cool plays a part in your issues- this, to me, means that you have little insight into your childhood- a mother is most significant in her little boy’s life, and seems like you are not aware of this fact.

“I miss how strongly she believed in me and how much she fought to push me to see myself in a better light”- this is what you miss about your ex. She may have been the first woman in your life who strongly believed in you, who tried hard to be with you, and who wanted you to be okay inside.

She wrote to you: “You didn’t want to make the full commitment to me but you also struggle with this being just a friendship”- you were never interested in her long term (“I do not feel that I would be truly happy with her long-term.. I was not willing to make the commitment, as I never just thought thought that she was the one for me… I did not see a lifetime with her”), you are interested in her image of you and you want to keep that image alive.. I think you want to believe that this image is really you. And you are interested in her son.

You wrote about her son: “Nearly every time I’d visit.. when I would walk in the door of their place, he would run around and scream, ‘(My name) is here! Mommy, (my name) is here!!'”- you knew that his excitement seeing you was real, you knew he was truly happy to see you, that to him, you were a very important person, not the invisible boy you were as a child and onward.

You wrote about your ex: “I don’t think I wanted to partner with someone who dealt with unresolved issues”. She told you about one of those unresolved issues, her anger at her father. She wrote to you: “You don’t understand the level of anger that resides in me, Ry. I’ve tried not to let you see it… The rage makes me shake and I could honestly kill someone without a second thought until I’ve calmed down”.

I wonder about your anger, you expressed some anger at her, in your threads, but mildly so, nothing like her rage. But I wonder if there is rage within you that you repress so much that it leaves you flat and depressed. It seems to me that her sharing with you about her rage (while not raging at you or at her son) repelled you, as if the emotion of anger repels you, and you reject it in her as you reject it in you.

“I need to work on myself. There are things about me I need to get a handle on (depression, a sense of purpose, opening up to others, etc. before I pursue another relationship”-

– “a sense of purpose”, you wrote, living purposefully is different from what I suggested in the beginning of this post, that you went through life almost randomly. To live life purposefully, I think that you need more insight into your own childhood, and you need to connect with emotions you long buried, pushed down, including anger. Before you can open up to others, you need your awareness to be open to your emotions. You wrote early regarding your exes, that you’ve been “keeping my feelings and emotions at a distance” from them. But you have also been keeping your feelings and emotions at a distance from your own awareness.

Your feelings and emotions being kept away from your own awareness is keeping you flat (and depressed to one extent or another).

anita