Dear Ryan:

In your recent post, you shared that you are afraid to disappoint women, that you feel guilt and shame when you hurt or disappoint them.  As to the suggestion by TeaK that you may have suppressed your anger since you were a child, you answered that you kicked a wall in anger when you were 21, after a fight with your wife at the time, and that you’ve been in therapy for over 15 years, and that has “lessened the fire inside” you.

As to my suggestion/ question about your ongoing emotional experiencing which you described in the past as “flat”, and which I called “an emotional monotone”, an ongoing low-intensity distress, no significant ups or downs, you answered that you certainly felt acute distress and despair and still do, at times, being in a “dark spiral and cannot find a way to stop”, especially if you lack sleep and food.

You shared that joy is “a rare emotion.. nearly always no (joy)”. You do “feel the endorphins” when you go out for a hike or for a walk, but you “rarely find joy in it”. You have the ability, you say, to explore the world with all your senses, but for you, “there simply isn’t joy in it”.

There was a time when you did feel joy, I know it because you were so moved when your former girlfriend’s toddler felt and expressed joy when you came to visit him: “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!!'” (from your second thread, Sept 2020).

When you visited he ran around and screamed with joy!

Seeing, hearing, sensing his joy connected you to him, and through him- to your own, distanced, withdrawn, and rarely felt joy: “my practice at keeping my feelings and emotions at a distance… I have fleeting moments of happiness, but largely feel mirthless. It makes it hard to describe exactly what I’m feeling. Emotional withdrawal.. I just remain flat”, August 2, 2020.

You wrote about your connection to her son: “my connection with her sweet son certainly helped to  break my walls of disconnect and withdrawal“, August 3, 2020, “I truly love her son and my relationship with him likely caused me to stay with her longer than I should have”.

My closing thoughts for today with one more quote: at an early age, you withdrew, closing much of your emotions inside walls, then removed yourself from inside those walls and took residence outside of those walls. Her son gave you a glimpse into what’s inside those walls, the joy and desire!

Often in your threads, you inserted long messages that your former girlfriend sent you, and messages that your former coworker and love-interest sent you. I used to wonder why you did that, since this is the first time I came across this practice in these forums. I think that I understand it now: you were trying to get a glimpse at what’s happening inside those walls in those messages. It’s as if you were hearing the women tell you what they see and hear inside those walls.

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve struggled with accepting love and embracing it”, August 2, 2020- love was withdrawn from you when you were too young to remember, and as a result, you removed your need for love (and the joy at embracing love) from you and enclosed them within walls, stepping outside those walls.

When your former girlfriend’s son ran around with joy when seeing you, it was like a cement block in that wall crumbled and you could see, still standing outside,  your joy that resides inside the walls.

When a woman in your life shows up, wanting to embrace you (former girlfriend), even if a woman shows up that you want to embrace (former work colleague)- the embrace doesn’t happen, or couldn’t happen for more than a fleeting moment here and there, because you (your awareness) are residing outside the walls that enclose your need for love, as well as your joy at embracing love.

anita