Dear Elais:

You are welcome! And yes, I am doing much better, thank you.

“When it comes to family, I think that over the years I’ve taken the implicit role of the family balancer. Unfortunately, my siblings and parents in their own ways are a bit emotionally immature and can’t communicate in a constructive way so it ends up with a lot of grudges and hurt“- a balancer is a person or thing that balances: distributing weight over something unsteady so it remains in place, so it doesn’t collapse.

The Family Balancer = your Family Role: keeping the family steady, preventing the family from collapsing. This means that, as a child, you were not free to be a child. You had an adult job to do while being (objectively) a child. This is too heavy of a burden for a child.

“My own avoidant tendencies may stem from this too: fearing that I’ll end up as some unwilling emotional caretaker… . I’ve made explicit in the past to people around me that I don’t want to be their ‘therapist’ and I don’t want them to spill to me their own grievances about other people I know“- your role as a child (and onward): the family balancer, the emotional caretaker, the therapist, the collector of family’s spills (grudges and hurt).

“but then I feel selfish. Because no one around me knows how to check for others“- this means that within your family, no one knew/ no one knows how to check on you..?

“and I’m afraid that by continuously putting my own walls and boundaries I’ll leave some people alone in their own suffering“- your family role has been to join their suffering so that they don’t suffer alone..?

“Maybe this will give some context to my avoidant tendencies.“- I think so. I will now re-read your original post, the info in your most recent post considered (I will spontaneously share my thoughts, as I did in the above):

“Hello. I’m a young woman in my late 20s and perhaps a bit uncommonly, my love and erotic life has been so far minimal“- no wonder that a child who didn’t get to be a care-free child (a child who didn’t get to be and play like other children) turns out to be a woman who.. does not get to be a care-free woman (a woman who gets to play/ engage in an erotic/ relationship-life, like other women).

“This comes with its intense own intense and negative feelings of frustration“- intense frustration of the woman-Elais who doesn’t get to play, intense frustration of the child-Elais who didn’t get to play.

“Where I live, in the west, is almost expected that if you aren’t already paired up at least you’re experimenting sexually and having fun… Society still agrees that romance and relationships should be my main object of interest“-  society agrees that carefree playing should be a main interest of a child, but you didn’t get the opportunity to actualize this interest. You didn’t get to be a child. It is not fair to expect you to be a playful woman when you didn’t yet get to be a playful child!

“I see people from all walks of life loving and lusting and I never see it happen to me“- others are in the habit of playing: first as children, then as adults. But you (through no fault of your own) were not in the habit of playing then; you are not in the habit of playing now.

“Why something that comes to easy to others like breathing don’t come to me?“- humans (like other animals) are creatures of habits: it’s easy to do what we’re in the habit of doing. it is difficult to do what we’re not in the habit of doing.

“I recognize I am touch and love starved and I want it. I want it so bad, yet“- you want something that you are not in the habit of doing/ experiencing.

Your 2nd post: “My own shame over being unable to get a partner has contributed to a lot of my social distancing from others“- it’s not your fault at all that you have not been able to get a partner. If any person who now has a partner would have been born into your exact family, your exact circumstances, they too wouldn’t be able to get a partner as adults. If you explained this to others who are understanding and reasonable people, they wouldn’t shame you. Not at all.

“I always observe the world around me and see how you’re supposed to have been able to do x, y, z steps right by the time you are a certain age if you want to be considered a well adjusted adult. It’s a bit like ‘if you want to get this degree, you need to have finished this course and achieved this certificate first’. It feels a bit like this“- yes, it’s a lot like this: to be a playful woman (y), one has to be a playful child first (x). To be an adjusted adult (y), one has to be an adjusted child first (x).

“I tend to feel easily overwhelmed and want to maintain distances“- following decades-long adjustment to not playing, deadening the instinct to play, a moment of real-life playing feels like too much.

3rd post: “I definitely do feel touch and love starved sometimes“- a person who has been starving for food for too long, has very little tolerance for food. Starving people in concentration camps died when they finally got to eat. This is why a starving person should be re-introduced to food gradually: be given clear soup first (easier for the inactive, weak digestive system to tolerate), later: given solid food in small amounts, and so on.

So, starved for touch and love for too long, even a bit of touch and love in real-life is overwhelming. You’d need to be introduced to love and touch gradually, gently, patiently.

“I would rather fantasize about having sex or being in love… rather than engage in real life“- it’s not overwhelming in fantasy, similar to a starving person not getting sick or dying no matter how much food he/ she fantasizes about.

“None of my friends can relate to that so it feels very alienating“- I can very much relate. I am an older adult now, but it is only recently (and still ongoing) that I often feel and act like a happy, well-adjusted child (x). I am in the process of becoming a well adjusted, happy adult (y).

Before, my whole life, not having had the opportunity to be a care-free child, I didn’t feel like an adult. I felt like a very sad, deprived, ashamed and guilty, lonely child, and I acted in maladjusted ways. Now, I feel care-free at times, like a care-free child, what a feeling!!!

anita