Dear Dafne,

If I was sad, I had to get over it & stop being so sensitive about it. My only coping mechanism was to shut down & find solace in my solitude.

I am sorry, Dafne, it is very hard when you have no one to confide in, no one to understand how you are feeling.

I stayed for too long. I felt frozen. I felt that there was no way out & that there is nothing better out there in this scarry world. And fear was my only companion.

You concluded those things based on your childhood experience: an abusive and neglectful father, and a mother who is pushing you to love him. No wonder world seemed like a scary place, because you didn’t have anyone to protect you and to understand you. You were lacking a basic sense of safety, which is one of our existential needs. Perhaps you didn’t lack physical safety as much as emotional  safety – to have someone to understand you and empathize with you and validate your feelings.

The same old fear comes back to me when I think that I ruined my chances with the man I’ve met at the church outing.

This fear would then be the fear of staying alone and left to struggle with your emotions alone, never be seen for who you are as a person, never be soothed that things will be okay and that someone has your back. It seems like both the need for physical and emotional safety, right? Which you are looking for in a man, in a romantic partner.

Those are all our basic childhood needs, which if we don’t have met, do cause us a great deal of fear and anxiety in our adult life. We believe we need a partner to meet those needs, when in fact we need ourselves and a good therapist to help us along the way.

Somehow I still keep thinking of what did go wrong and if not contacting him first, contributed to his decision?

You actually did contact him and sent him a video, if I remember well, but he never responded to that. So it wasn’t the lack of your initiative that made him pull away, but probably he wasn’t “feeling it” with you, which he felt with that other woman. It’s not about you not doing enough, you can be sure about that.

But I understand how the fear of staying alone is making you believe that you didn’t do enough, that if only you had written a few more messages, he would have shown interest in you. That’s not true – it’s your fear speaking. Fear of staying alone and not having those basic needs met.

Yes, Tee, most of my relatives passed away, and unfortunately, there is no one now to really listen.

This holiday felt quite lonely. I’m still taking care of my elderly and feel guilty leaving them. Talking to my mother seems pointless at this stage. It always ends up in some kind of argument and pointing all my past mistakes. I also realised that she feels quite comfortable with my current situation.

I am sorry, Dafne, that none of your living relatives can really understand and support you. I am not surprised your mother is unable to do that. She is in fact invalidating your feelings and forcing you to go against them – forcing you to be kind to your mean father. So don’t even aspect any kind of empathy from her.

And yeah, I can imagine it suits her to have you stay single and take care of her (if that’s what you are doing for her?). And who are the other elderly, that you need to take care of, if I may ask?

So it looks like I am on a good path to healing, I am aware and I know that I need to work on my self worth more. But at the same time I feel stuck again and can’t find an exit.

It’s great that you are aware that you need to work on your self-esteem. But what is also important is to be aware of those basic childhood emotional needs (the need to be seen, appreciated, your emotions validated, also the need to be seen as special and important), that you need to meet, at least to a certain extent, before you can actually have a healthy relationship.

Basically, you would need to meet the needs of your inner child. Perhaps till now, you have been identifying with your inner child – the part of you which is scared, feels helpless and needs others to save her. And you were looking for a partner, who would fulfill the role of the loving, caring parent – whom you didn’t have as a child.

But now, the goal would be to stop identifying with the inner child, but to strengthen the adult part of you, who isn’t so helpless but can actually do something to help yourself. The more you feel capable of changing your life, the more chance you have to be happy and even find a healthy partner in the future.

But the focus right now should not be on finding a partner, but on strengthening your adult self and soothing your inner child. In other words, on meeting some of your basic needs.

For example, if you feel that you are stuck in the caretaker role for others ( I’m still taking care of my elderly and feel guilty leaving them.), and that you are neglecting your own needs, the goal would be to start paying more attention to your own needs and reject some of those requests if they take a toll on you.

The goal would be to learn how to set boundaries and say “I can do this for you, but I won’t be able to do that.” Basically, learning to set boundaries, the same as you are learning in the relationship with your father.

Setting boundaries and respecting your own needs (both physical and emotional) is a way to become more anchored in the adult self, and less in the helpless child self.

So I would suggest learning about childhood emotional needs, and then trying to meet those needs, either by yourself, or with a help of a therapist. I can provide you with some resources (youtube videos and such) if you’d like to start learning about childhood emotional needs and how to meet them.

Dear Dafne, you have the capacity to help yourself, please know that. Start small, with tiny steps, and you won’t feel so paralyzed any more. It’s great that you are helping in the animal shelter – but that’s again helping others, focusing on others and their needs.

I think it would be super important to start focusing more on your own needs (e.g. to simply become more aware of them throughout the day) and how you can actually meet them – be it by simply taking a nice bath, or going for a refreshing walk, or doing something else that fills you with energy and inspiration.

Thank you for your kind words, and your empathy and encouragement on my healing journey. I wish you healing too, and want to ensure you that healing is indeed possible! <3