Dear Elias:

(the boldface are your words:) You expressed intense and negative feelings of frustration about two things: (1) that your love and erotic life has been so far minimal, and (2) social repercussions: societal negative judgment of you for failing to be either paired up, or experimenting sexually and having fun.

On one hand, you are touch and love starved, and you want so bad– to love and be loved back, but usually, when you meet men, including attractive men, you tend to relate to them platonically, and rarely does this perception of them shift over time from platonic to  romantic or erotic.

When men in real-life take real steps towards you, you tend to feel easily overwhelmed and want to maintain distance. But in fantasy, you don’t feel overwhelmed, and you don’t maintain distance: “I think I suffer from some degree of maladaptive daydreaming because I feel like I would rather fantasize about having sex or being in love, or even just watch a show about people having sex and being in love rather than engage in real life“.

In real-life, you feel very blocked to do what you do in fantasy: to touch and be touched, to love and be loved.

“Maybe I suffer from some kind of avoiding attachments where I feel most comfortable at arm length from people“- I agree, Elias: in real-life, you avoid that which you long for, that which you dare have only in fantasy, or by proxy of watching a TV show. I think that it’s fear that’s blocking you from real-life love relationship.

It may be fear of abandonment, as in: if you’ll be in a relationship, the man will leave you, and you’d be devastated. It may be fear of engulfment, as in: if you’ll be in relationship, the man will control and dominate you, he will mentally take over you, and you will lose the bit of independent-self that you now have.

These two fears may be rooted in your childhood where a parent abandoned you physically or emotionally, and/ or a parent was enmeshed with you, taken over you mentally and emotionally, not giving you the space to be.. you.

” I tend to see people all around me very platonically“- seeing people very platonically is self-protective: it protects you from either being abandoned or taken over.

“A part of me genuinely would love to share her life with someone else, to love and be loved back“- but another part of you is afraid.

“It’s like I am asexual on the outside but full of longings and needs inside“- I think that the term asexual is not helpful here: it is too broad (it means different things to different people) to explain what is specifically happening with you.

Some consider the term a sexual orientation. I don’t think that it is a sexual orientation in your case. I think that you are afraid of irl-love relationship.

“I notice I am more likely to feel real attraction to people who breadcrumbs me rather that people who take real steps towards me. I tend to feel easily overwhelmed and want to maintain distances“- it makes sense to me that you are less afraid of breadcrumbs than of a whole loaf of bread, meaning: you are less afraid of men who are not taking real steps towards you. No real steps toward you= no reason to run away (no immediate reason).

“But how does one change their own attachment style? I have done therapy in the past but was more like, talk and CBT therapy rather than attachment focused. I can’t say it didn’t help but for some things but unfortunately, for others it didn’t.“- attachment-focused therapy sounds just right for you:

From psychology today/ attachment based therapy: “An attachment-based approach to therapy looks at the connection between an infant’s early attachment experiences with primary caregivers, usually with parents, and the infant’s ability to develop normally and ultimately form healthy emotional and physical relationships as an adult”.

A bit about me: I grew up with a mother who controlled and dominated me on a regular basis, making my life all about her. She did not give me either the space, or the permission to be me. I felt guilty and too enmeshed to free myself from her mental domination. As a teenager, I daydreamed about romantic relationships a LOT, often from morning to night, but avoided such in real-life. There was a boy in high-school I fell in-love with for a couple of years maybe, fantasizing about having a love-relationship with him. One evening irl, following a youth-group meeting, he asked me to walk me home (just me and him), and I said.. No.

If you relate to what I shared, we can talk more about anything or everything, if you would like to.

anita

Dear Robi: too tired to read and reply this evening. Tomorrow!

anita

Dear Clara: I will read and reply this evening (morning here).

anita

Dear Robi: Good to get and read a bit of your message. I am just about to be away from the computer, will read and reply in about 20 hours from now.

anita

I wish us both: Jasmine and anita, a peaceful mind, self-confidence and inner strength today, and every day, one day at a time (and during particularly challenging days: one moment, one hour at a time).

anita

Dear Clara:

I realized yesterday that it was 6 days since you last posted and was going to submit a how-are-you inquiry post, but knew that I was going to be out for the rest of the day and wouldn’t be able to answer (at least not thoroughly) if you answered on the same day. Good to read from you today, a week following your last post!

“I am slowly adjusting to my pace. I begin to get used to being alone in the house… Yesterday she returned something and put it in the lobby of my building. I don’t know why but I cried immediately when I stepped foot in my flat… She still has something left in my flat“- I wish that she’d return all that belongs to you, and take all that belongs to her, all at once, so to no longer re-ignite your attachment to her. It isn’t fair to you!

“If she came back today, I think I would still want to be together… However, I also feel that I am moving on to find myself and to try to see other people and the world“- a moving on to the New while still attached to the Old: this is what healing from a breakup is about.

“I also got some photos of my family and my travel, and I hang them around the house. I feel this made the flat belongs to me a bit more.“- bit by bit: well done, Clara!

anita

Dear StrormMako:

I am glad that you finally talked to your boyfriend and that he made more of an effort to talk to you yesterday. I hope that your boyfriend will not be regularly traveling for work.

How are you feeling today?

“My boyfriend is traveling & I had surgery. I feel abandoned… I know he is so overwhelmed yet I feel so abandoned… I don’t have a very trustful or emotional connection with my mom, so he is so important to me“- I think that earlier in your life, you lost trust in your mother (to whom you were very much emotionally attached) because in some meaningful way, or ways, she abandoned you and betrayed your trust.

Fast forward, in your vulnerable state post-surgery, your boyfriend (to whom you are very emotionally attached) travels for work, and your past painful abandonment experience awakened in the present time.

“He’s my world… I miss him so much…  Am I playing the victim too much in my head here?… I feel guilty that I expected more from him when he is obviously very overwhelmed… I still feel guilty for feeling abandoned… Anxiety really does blur the whole picture“- (1) I think that much of your anxiety is about the awakened abandonment experience, (2) that feelings of guilt from your childhood also awakened, (3) perhaps your mother portrayed herself as a victim, and you don’t want to be like her in context of your relationship with your boyfriend..?

anita

Dear StormMako:

I will reply further later, maybe as late as tomorrow, but for now, in regard to: “I still feel guilty for feeling“- there is no real, or valid guilt in feeling anything. Whatever you feel now, or felt then, is not a matter of your choice. No Choice = No Guilt.

What we say and do is subject to choice, not what we feel.

“What is your advice for feeling guilty about something as silly as this situation?”- you did not say or do anything wrong. Rest in this fact, best you can.

(I used to feel guilty about anything and everything because my mother raised me on guilt, guilt-tripping me on a regular basis).

anita