Dear Elisa:

You are welcome.

“I find that I want to escape 100% responsibility, and I wonder what stops me”- fear probably, fear is a powerful stopping power.

“I have this voice in my head ‘How dare you make any decision like that, who do you think you are?.. too emotional and sensitive'”- counter that voice with another voice: who are you???

That voice that tells you that you don’t have the ethical right, perhaps, to make decisions regarding your own body and your own life- that’s someone else’s voice, a voice you heard as a child, a voice that was absorbed into your brain. A parent or a sibling, someone in your childhood hurt you and then complained when you expressed the hurt they caused, accusing you of being too emotional and sensitive.

“I guess by taking 100% responsibility I would show myself that I do mater and that I am important”- the fear I mentioned earlier, the fear that probably is what has stopped you from taking that responsibility needs to be addressed before and as you start taking 100% responsibility.

* Can you detail for me what you mean by “taking 100% responsibility”?

“I am worthy of being treated with respect and that I am worthy of love”- treat yourself in ways that fit this statement even when you don’t feel that this statement is true.

“I can see the word confused a lot.. I was riddled by confusion for much of this relationship.. I am left sometimes confused in our interactions”- ask me anytime you need clarification, as in: what did you mean by what you wrote here .. or there.

“Yesterday he told me that I am a complex being and didn’t give me an explanation to what he meant”- if you asked him for an explanation and he refused to give it to you, then he was mean. It is mean to make a comment to another that may be negative- in a vague way. If he has a problem with you, he should tell you what it is specifically.

The reason I asked if you live in a commune as in a home for disabled people, and I meant mentally disabled/ mentally ill people is because of your own confusion and your description of your current boyfriend’s unstable, unpredictable, impulsive and unreasonable behaviors: “one moment he wanted to marry me and the next he thought I was the source of all his problems. One moment he was in love and then the other, he is angry.. When he is in that state he just wants to cut me out.. he would be very loving.. then the other half of the week he would suddenly become distant… He came into my room last night after he broke up with me and wanted to share intimacy.. He sounds so confused.. he feels overwhelmed by life and just wants to hide away”.

So,  I thought maybe he is mentally ill and/ or uses powerful drugs like methamphetamines. It is not mutually exclusive: for a person to be a Buddhist living in a commune and be mentally ill. Is your boyfriend mentally ill?

anita