Dear Laelithia:

I hope that by this time, or as soon as possible, you receive high- quality, professional psychotherapy that will last long enough. You never had that experience yet, and you need it.

For many hours, after my most recent post to you, I re-read and re-studied all your posts, to see if I can add anything of value to you. I trust that if you are receiving that quality therapy you need, and that if it was suggested to you that you avoid distractions to the therapy, such as returning to your thread (or if you believe this is best), that you respect that suggestion, and therefore you may not read this post, or stop reading it right now.

At this point, 18 days after your most recent post, there were developments, I am sure, regarding the pregnancy and relationship with B, and with your family, but I am sure things are not settled on all these fronts.  I want to expand on the following topics in this post: (1) your limerence experience, a term which you are familiar with, having written in Feb 19, 2019: “I did some research, and there is a psychologist that calls this obsessive overthinking of an ex ‘limerence’. I suppose I have this”, (2) your people pleasing and codependent behaviors, of which you are also aware (“my codependent tendencies”, March 10, 2021), and the anger that accompanies these tendencies, (3) the grass is greener on the other side mentality, and the motivation behind it

(1) Your limerence experience: you described it well (without the term) in May-June 2017 regarding a relationship that constituted spending only 13 days together over the span of one month, with a man who was “not very educated, has a decent job but doesn’t take it too seriously, does drugs for fun, etc.”, while you were “28, attractive, have a professional career, master’s education, financially secure”: “it was wonderful.. never felt so strongly for someone so quickly.. I was truly falling for this man.. so smitten… my perfect man.. intense infatuation.. so close, so attached and safe with him.. I’ve never felt so safe with someone… He told me he loved every part of me, that he felt that we were always meant to be… when we were together, I would trust him with my life… He told me.. that we would always be together.. it felt like pure love.. that I had never had before… I was completely myself with (him) and.. felt accepted and adored”-

– my note: what you described here is the emotional experience of a young child, a sort of The Garden of Eden (not “heaven” as I suggested in my March 13 post to you) experience: feeling intimately attached to the mother/ caretaker, completely safe in her arms, perfectly taken care of, trusting her completely. The young child does not yet perceive of rejection, betrayal, neglect, abuse, sickness and death.

Back to your May-June 2017 posts, describing the figurative exile from The Garden of Eden: the final and devastating departure from complete safety and trust, and the consequent calm and euphoria to =>  rejection, betrayal and danger, and the consequent anxiety and distress:

“I feel lost and confused… Nothing feels right anymore… deep disappointment that all the wonderful things he promised me are not going to come true.. shock.. such a drastic change so quickly.. a painful shock… I gave my heart, body, and soul to someone that is not real.. none of what I experienced from him was ‘real’… I still long for that person to come back… I want HIM, this perfect version of this man… he holds the key to that part of me, and it feels ‘wrong’ that things are no longer that way… the man of my dreams.. I would have done anything for him, that past version of him, and I believe he would have done anything for me… I wanted so desperately for what he said and promised me to be true, that even now when confronted with evidence that he was never going to stay forever, it’s difficult to let go of that dream… I see a picture of his face, and I’m transported back to all the wonderful emotions I felt with him, then horribly sadness and pain that it is no longer… He was so beautiful, this perfect man of mine, I feel inconsolable that he’s now gone… finally believing that it was possible for me to be loved.. and then just as quickly it was all gone… it all ‘disappears… I feel stuck… my fairytale dream/ fantasy turned into a dark and miserable nightmare that I wish to escape”-

-In your mind, this man was god (alike a perfect, all powerful, trustworthy, loving parent, in the mind and heart of a young child), in charge of The Garden of Eden. This god promised you eternal love and life in the garden, but pushed you out into Exile. It felt sudden, wrong and devastating, and you desperately wanted back to the Garden.

You wrote a note to the man in June 2017: “Dear J.. the way you attended to me made me feel so special, loved, and ultimately, yours. In the time since that went away, I’ve felt the opposite. Alone, unloved, discarded and unworthy. I keep dreaming (literally many nights) that the you I knew came back to me. This version of you is caring, attentive, loving, and most of all, mine.. He loved me, he was always there for me, always making sure I was okay. He thought I was special… That dream still brings a tear to my eye… My heart longs for that ‘love’ again, to feel special, to have so much hope for the future… I’ll never really understand why that dram will never happen, yet my mind longs to understand”-

– At one time, as a young child, you felt special and loved, cared for, attended to by a mother who loved you, who was always there for you, always making sure you were okay. And then, she rejected you, making you feel not-special, not-loved, not cared for, not attended to= that’s the Exile.

Let’s look at what you shared in Jan-Feb 2019 about your personal Exile childhood experience, “her” indicates your mother: “I felt Wrong as a child, a problem, a burden… it was more of a negative feeling I got from her, that I was causing her distress. She would often shake her head or sigh at me, while simultaneously being so cheerful and encouraging to my younger sister. .. told me I was more like the girls that bullied her in school.. I remember her and my dad being quite stressed with their business and making ends meet”, “my mother is extremely emotionally unavailable.. she has built a wall… she would simply shut down.. she would dismiss or ignore me.. I felt abandoned”, “I tried very hard in my younger years to rectify this with my mother by helping her with chores, caring for my siblings, anything I could do to make her happy. But after several years of realizing this wasn’t working, I became an extremely angry and sad teenager.. I still am that angry and sad girl”.

– Your Garden of Eden experience took place before your favored sister came along, before you were aware of your parents being stressed, before your mother shook her head and sighed at you, before you were angry and sad, before you knew of a wall between you and her, before she shut down the gate between you and The Garden. For many years, you tried to return to The Garden, by trying to make your mother (the one holding the key to The Garden) happy, so that she opens the door and lets you back in. But she didn’t and so, you finally gave up on opening that gate for you. Fast forward, this man, J, became the one holding the key to the gate back to The Garden.

Jan-Feb 2019, regarding your mother: “I don’t think I seek comfort in her company, advice or approval anymore. I think I stopped doing this when I was young… when we do speak, she has begun to apologize for the specific hurts she has caused me, but it doesn’t seem to matter in the sense that I don’t feel any  different whether she does or doesn’t apologize.. there is nothing that can be undone”- as a teenager and an adult, you no longer looked up to her as one holding the key: you no longer found comfort in her, she didn’t have that power anymore. You gave up on her and shifted your hopes and dreams to this man, J.

“I have a hole, a deep longing that never seems to go away. I feel I must be an easy target for men like him, who come on strongly for whatever reason, and am even more empty when the leave… I find myself absolutely crushed, that for the very first time in my 28 years of life, I finally felt satiated, that I had the love I always wanted, and just as quick as it came, it was gone… it’s the ‘virtual’ him I miss.. It’s the dream I miss”-

– the dream is that it is possible for a person to return to a mental/ emotional state of complete safety and trust, forever uninterrupted and eternal union with another person-  after having experienced danger and betrayal. Reality is, that we can never return to that state. The more betrayal experienced, the more rejection, the stronger the desire to return to that pre-betrayal time.

July 2017: “almost 2.5 months after and still I wake up every morning missing how things were… I am reminded of the emptiness I have always felt.. I miss him and his warmth”- you missed being a baby, a young child, satiated (not empty), in your mother’s arms, feeling her warmth.

I will continue this study later and post again.

anita