Dear miyoid,

good to hear from you again! I am glad you feel a bit more empowered to reject the advances of people whom you don’t like and choose those who you better resonate with:

When I’m able to reject, when I can understand whether or not I’m interested, this gives me a bit of power since normally I consider myself as someone who cannot choose. I realized again, that I can choose.

I am also glad you have broken up with your ex boyfriend and are seeing someone new, who seems promising:

And the reason why I let this flirt happen is that this boy actually started to give me some reasons to trust. … My gut is telling me that he’s very sincere.

Since I did admit I was feeling unsafe and bad, he tried to support me and tried to understand.

As for your crying, right after you’ve experienced a deeper connection and had a fruitful conversation with the new guy – I believe it’s your abandonment trauma re-activated again. When you start feeling a hope for connection, for a loving and nurturing relationship, the trauma of having been abandoned by the people love you love gets triggered. Your subconscious mind jumps immediately to the unfortunate outcome: I will be abandoned. And this makes you cry inconsolably.

I don’t think you’ve shared before that your mother actually left you after the divorce to go live with her brothers, while you stayed with your father. (You did say she abandoned you physically, but now you explained how it happened). Your father was narcissistic and didn’t really want to care for you, so he left you at his friends while he went to his hobbies. Which means he didn’t want to spend his free time with you, maybe even his weekends?

This is quite devastating for a child. First, your mother abandoned you, and then your father too. You were left at some strangers’ place, to play with their child, who wasn’t even your friend – I can imagine the terror of that. No wonder you started crying as soon as the first distraction had worn off – because the pain of having been abandoned was so big. Nobody wanted you, because these people of course didn’t want to deal with a crying child the whole day. So you felt not only abandoned, but also unwanted. Not just by your parents, but other people as well…. by everybody…. This I believe is the core wound of yours…

And this wound used to get triggered whenever your ex wanted to leave you, or you thought of leaving him. The pain of being alone was just so unbearable for you, that you’d rather stayed, even in a very unhealthy relationship.

In this new relationship, try to be aware of this dynamic and this wound which is telling you “I will be abandoned”. You feel unsafe because of the prospect of being abandoned. If you could soothe your inner child, telling her you won’t abandon her, perhaps you could reduce the anxiety you are feeling…