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anitaParticipantDear Liz:
You are very welcome. “I felt so seen when I read this“- you need to continue to be seen: to see deeper within you and to be seen by others.
“I have a lot of trauma, that I am healing from, so it definitely ties into that. I feel like my inner child is anxious and scared that something will go wrong.“- the child part of Liz has been (emotionally) injured and hurt. Sometimes she feels better, sometimes worse. When she feels better, she’s afraid something will go wrong, doesn’t she?
This is how I felt when I was feeling better, that something bad is about to happen. Because bad things did happen when I was feeling good, trusting and care free. I don’t remember ever feeling trusting and care-free, but I am sure at one point, early on, I did. And what a surprise, a shockingly unpleasant surprise, it was when something bad happened that I didn’t expect: someone I fully trusted turning against me, and viciously. So, I learned to expect bad things to happen so to not be shockingly surprised when they happen.
Back to you, re-reading your original post, good things have been happening in the last 10 months: “It is the most healthiest relationship I have ever been him and I love him very dearly. When we first got together, how he treated me was incredibly alien to me (all previous relationships were incredibly toxic and I never felt wanted, dealt with a lot of rejection)… I had never been treated so well before, and he now is honestly my home and my safe space“-
– good things indeed. But the child within (inner child) doesn’t trust good things to last. She is anxious and scared that something will go wrong. Thing is, the traumatized inner child does not know past from future or present. Everything is NOW. Children don’t have the sense of time that adults do. The adult part of you knows that the event happened in the past, but the child part of you does not distinguish past from present.
The event: “when me and my partner were in the early stages (10 days into our relationship). I was out, and incredibly intoxicated. A past person that I dated (it was never serious) was at the same place as me and he flirted, and I kind of reciprocated at the time. I also put my hand on his leg… He then gave me a lift back to my place, he dropped me off and I got out of the car“- one isolated event TEN MONTHS AGO, intoxicated flirting that culminated in you placing your hand on his leg.
Your emotional response ten months later: “I am deeply filled with regret, as I love my current partner so much. I will never ever ever do it again“- this is your inner child saying, begging perhaps: I am sorry, please forgive me, please don’t punish me! I will never, ever, ever do it again! Reads to me that she is afraid to be punished, once again, for something bad that she’s supposedly done.
“one (intrusive thought) has decided to latch on to a past mistake I made when me and my partner were in the early stages…“- your inner child is hyper alert to any possible mistakes she has made that will be followed by punishment. When you were a child, you were severely punished for small or non-mistakes?
I was, and I figured I’m a bad person for making such horrible mistakes that match the severity of the punishment. My OCD- brain kept scanning for mistakes I made, so to prepare for punishment= for bad things to happen.
“I don’t think telling him would help the situation, it may provide me relief by being honest, but I feel like it will only make him feel worse“- I agree.
“I just need some advice and guidance on how to let go. I know this was in the past and was in the early stages of our relationship. I also know I have grown into a different person now… I just would love to live in the moment and focus on the future of my relationship with him, instead of being filled with regret“- the adult part of you knows it was in the past, but whenever the inner child is obsessing, she is living in the traumatic past=present.
To let go of the obsessions, of the trouble within, your inner child needs more of this: “I felt so seen“: she needs to be seen more, to be seen and approved of, to be treated with empathy and patience, to not be punished again (by you or others). She needs you to take her side al the way. This is what worked for me, and what keeps working.
Please let me know what you think of what I wrote here.
anita
anitaParticipantDear birds of a feather: I will reply in a few hours.
anita
anitaParticipantDear Liz: I will be away from the computer for a few hours and reply when I am back.
anita
anitaParticipantYou are welcome, Adrianne and thank you!
anita
anitaParticipantYou are welcome, Adrianne, and please post again anytime you feel like posting. I’ll be glad to read from you and reply every time you post (when I am in front of the computer).
anita
anitaParticipantDear Adrianne:
We all make mistakes e v e r y d a y, with different levels of awareness. It takes courage to admit when we make a mistake, correct it if possible and make a mental note to not do/ say this or that in the future, in similar circumstances. No benefit in beating oneself up after you correct and/ or learn from the experience.
anita
anitaParticipantDear Adrianne:
“It might be that she pursued me. Or it might be more complex“- as I see it, a complex person (she) pursued another complex person (you). Few of us are simple.
“it was more of a being ‘too much’ problem that scared them off. So perhaps I was the one who gave her attention and kind of ‘guy’ vibe as I was not a typical girlie-bestie for her, I guess?“- she was/ is too much needy, and yes, I think that you represented an atypical alternative to the men who rejected her.
“I am angry at myself that I got so close with her… Gosh, I feel like I cheated.“- you mean that by not discouraging her efforts to pursue you, you cheated on your boyfriend? But you weren’t aware, or adequately aware, at the time that she was pursuing you for some kind of a romantic/ sexual relationship.. ?
anita
September 11, 2024 at 11:19 am in reply to: He Left me after 7 years together for Conservative Parents.. Help me Please! #438035anitaParticipantDear Bhavana:
You are most welcome, and thank you for expressing your appreciation: it is kind of you to do so. And please do post again when you feel hopeless, and when you feel hopeful. Let us all focus on hope, whenever, wherever it is.
anita
anitaParticipantDear Clara:
“not sleeping too we… I can feel the sadness in my chest so I sat with it for a while. Tears flowed out. I think I miss her. OR may be I miss having someone by my side” (Sept 10, 2024, following the most recent breakup).
June 9, 2016, following a previous breakup (I am adding the boldface feature to the following quotes): “I have ups and downs though, and yesterday I missed her so much that I went to her home downstairs.. I have been checking her and my fd’s online status (it’s really silly seriously) on WhatsApp… I don’t understand why after so many things happened, I am not angry at her and still want her to be by my side“.
Aug 8, 2016: “I think this breakup has just stirred everything up, and this generalized depressive mood has been here for long. I am more concerned these days as I suspect myself of getting mild depression, because of the sleeplessness, low energy, losing interest in things etc.”- see the parallels between then and now?
Aug 9, 2016: “I have in general very poor recollection of my childhood… the reason why I remembered so little was because I have an unhappy childhood… There are times when I feel I need so much love from someone else. Guess deep down I don’t feel worthy of love… I was very alone when I was young“-
– Notice you wrote that you have (present tense) an unhappy childhood. Indeed, we keep re-living our childhood emotional experiences over and over again, as adults, until and if we achieve enough lasting healing and recovery from devastating, early-life, powerful childhood emotional injuries.
The breakup back in the summer of 2016 and the recent breakup of summer 2024, stirred everything up, everything, meaning: the devastating alone-ness, not having someone by your side, not having someone to love you.
Maybe this is an opportunity, following this recent breakup, to reach in to the child within you and invite her to tell you what happened back then, what hurt her so much, how did it feel to be so alone. Invite her to express herself, maybe here, on your thread. Type her words into the screen (or privately, into a journal), and be with her. Be on her side. Love her.
I never met her. But I have love for her nonetheless.
anita
anitaParticipantDear Adrianne:
The way I reply to your recent post (and previous post or posts) is to read one sentence and respond before reading the next sentence.
“I will start by saying I did tell her I was bisexual and had experience with girls in the past. I told her about one girl I used to date“- when you told her this, she probably started thinking (you know how quickly we humans think, some more than others, thought move so quickly through our brains.. so many of them) thoughts like: hmm, I wonder if she finds me attractive, I wonder if she will come on to me, I wonder how it’d feel to be with her, why am I looking at her body as if I am a lesbian, I am not! Or am I, just a bit, etc., and thoughts involve images and imaginations, as you know.
“Now I feel horrified that I actually might have done something to make her feel like I was hitting on her“- it is probably probable (lol) that you too had thoughts about her, I wonder if she could think of me as attractive, and/ or I wonder how it’d feel to be with her, etc. It’s to easy to think, and it just happens that we think. We are not guilty for thinking this or that. Neither are we guilty for feeling this or that. It’s the nature of our brains.
Sometimes what we think and feel expresses itself in our facial expressions, tone of voice, a word here and there.. before we realize it.
“She did behave in.. girly, flirty manner. I think it’s just her way of being – I did see it couple of times when were in the office. But she did behave like that in my presence only“- reads like she was curious and part of her was trying to attract you and have a thing with you.
“She did invite me to a trip… she did talk about the trip many many times. With sleepover and with other friend, but later just two of us“- she was pursuing either an Experience with you, or a Relationship.
“There was one time I said okay we can go, but we never did. Later I proposed that we can go on a trip the three of us: me, my boyfriend and her, or some of her friend/sister or whatever, but she said no. She said she didn’t want to be a burden or interrupt my time with my boyfriend… Later she came back to the idea of trip only for us two“- she was pursuing you for a romantic/ sexual experience and/ or for a possible full-fledged relationship.
“To provide some more content for you Anita: at the beginning when we first met we did not talk that much… One time she told me: (paraphrased) I need to find a boyfriend to stop bothering you in the evenings/I feel like we talk a lot these days, more than we used to/ I will keep looking for a boyfriend to leave you alone“- people come up with categories of people, heterosexual and homosexual are two such categories, but most people fit in different places along a continuum of each defined category, open somewhat to new experiences (once thoughts and images alert a person to new possibilities).
Reads like she felt emotionally close to you. The brain does not have separate areas for closeness with a woman vs closeness with a man. There is a mix.
“She was clearly bragging that she had a boyfriend and showed me photos for me to see him, see how he looks like, that he is handsome etc. But I don’t think the purpose was that she wanted me to be attracted to him and think ‘wow that’s a handsome man’. Or was it?“- I don’t think so. I think that following unsuccessfully pursuing you for a long time, she felt rejected and angrily, wanted to show you that someone (handsome) finds her attractive even though you didn’t.
“I think she felt like a burden because there were times she was too much. And she told us that some people in the past used to tell her that she was too much. And sometimes she was. She used to text us long messages…“- she was needy, needy of emotional closeness.
“She wrote me several letters. First time that we were in the office she gave me gift – lots of stuff, she spend so much money on this and she attached a letter to it. It was nice but a bit .. well, too much“- she was pursuing you.
“Maybe I did something to make her feel that way. Maybe it was the dynamic between us that she was this girly, cutesy one and I am not a girly one, I am more.. gender neutral when it comes to clothes or behaving… She used to joke about pink color, painting her nails, glitter etc. I think she was trying to be cute very often“- she was trying to attract you.
“She did send me her photos too. I never commented on them since I did not know the point of sending them. There were photos of her in the car or before the work meetings, she was dressed up etc.“- I bet she felt rejected when you didn’t comment on the photos she sent you.
“She sent me valentine cards too… She sent LOTS of hearts. Lots of emotional letters, descriptions, confessions about how she likes me and values me“- I rest my case: she was pursuing you!
“Thank you Anita. I will learn (from) my mistakes. Now I know I don’t have to match someone’s affection or return the affection only because someone craves it. Especially when I am not interested in ‘that way’ and when I am in a relationship. Seems to me like I did something to make her feel like I was hitting on her. But I guess I will never know. It’s sad that it had to end but I think it really had to.“- you are welcome. Reads like indeed she craved your affection and that her craving did not know romantic/ sexual orientation boundaries, at least not when it came to you. She pursued you and you rejected her.
From psychology today/ navigating the pathway of romantic rejection: “the experience of romantic rejection is complex and variable impacting mood, behavior, and cognitions… (rejection) can trigger anger… Lastly, over time rejection… can lead to severe depression and despair”-
– I don’t think she’s suffering from depression as a result of you rejecting her romantically, but I think that the rejection is the reason behind her changed mood, behavior and cognition that you described earlier (not texting you back, not joining group chats, etc.)
anita
anitaParticipantDear Liz:
You are welcome “he now is honestly my home and my safe space… I also have depression, anxiety and OCD, where I struggle with a lot of intrusive thoughts on a daily basis especially about my relationship… 10 days into our relationship… (an ex) flirted, and I kind of reciprocated at the time. I also put my hand on his leg… I am deeply filled with regret... My OCD makes things feel a lot more detrimental than what they actually are“-
– Your boyfriend is now your safe place, and that is wonderful, but I am guessing that like me, you didn’t grow up in a safe place, a safe home. As a result, you’ve suffered depression, anxiety and OCD, like me.
When you grow up scared on an ongoing basis (not all the time, but.. too often), the fear does things to the brain, it unsettles the brain, it makes it jittery. The jittery brain is looking for signs of the next danger. An example of what a child perceives as danger: parents yelling at each other, fighting.
When the child hears her parents talking, and then one of them gets a bit loud, the child’s brain hears.. not a bit loud, but a lot loud, and gets scared that a fight is about to occur. Next, the child either hides, or does something the child to prevent a fight. For example, the child will run to the louder parent and say I love you! Or something like that, so to distract and calm the louder parent and.. prevent a fight.
Fast forward, the scared, anxious child is now an adult (Liz) and has a wonderful boyfriend, but she feels that still, as always, something is wrong, and she is looking for signs of danger, signs that something bad is about to happen (a breakup, I am guessing), and the sign you found is the memory of you kind- of flirting back with a guy very early on in the relationship.
Objectively there is no danger in what happened (unless you tell your boyfriend and he responds unreasonably) and it’s a memory of nothing much, but subjectively it feels more detrimental than (it is). Just as in my example, when one parent’s voice gets a bit louder, in the anxious child’s brain, it sounds way louder than it is.
I remember that growing up, in moments when I noticed that I was feeling unusually good/ safe, I got alarmed, as in thinking: oh, oh, I forgot for a moment that something is wrong, that something bad is about to happen, and I am not prepared!
I would like to read if you relate to what I shared here and to what extent, before I continue.
anita
September 11, 2024 at 7:34 am in reply to: He Left me after 7 years together for Conservative Parents.. Help me Please! #438026anitaParticipantDear Bhavana:
“His parents had love marriage.. so he was always confident that he can talk to his parents and convince them“- if both his parents came from Christian families, their love marriage is of a different category than if they came from two different religions. If his parents are of a same religion love marriage, then your ex did not suspect at all that they may disapprove of a different religion love marriage?
“during that time of looking for matches for his elder brother.. they warned him also.. saying.. we won’t agree if she does not belong to our religion and community.. he tried to talk to them.. but they gave him hard time and stopped talking entirely.. and recently his mother had a severe illness“- the usual parental manipulation: silent treatment, guilt tripping, and maybe faking or exaggerating an illness.
“he was pretty sure he could convince them… His parents reaction was very unexpected to him“- I often read in the forums that (in arranged marriage societies) young men think that they can convince the parents on the issue, and I don’t know why they’d think that, or be sure of it, because the Power is with the Parents.
“Our assumptions are wrong.. I believe assuming things and going through relationship was our fault..“- yes, assuming things based on wishful thinking (not on evidence) is a problem. There is a saying, the heart wants what the heart wants. And now you have to give your heart time and attention so that it heals, so that it doesn’t hurt so much anymore.. little by little.
Please feel free to post any time you feel like posting. Maybe expressing yourself, here on this thread (or on a new thread you may want to start), and receiving supportive replies will help a bit.
anita
anitaParticipant5 months and a day.
anita
anitaParticipantI am proud of you too, Shandrea, I truly am!
anita
anitaParticipantThank you, Adrianne, tomorrow then!
anita
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