Dear Girija:

Reading your latest post, I can see how heavy it feels to treat every situation as a test of your worth. When you say you feel like a building that might collapse if one thing goes wrong — that’s exactly what happens when a person grows up without enough emotional safety. You end up carrying the belief that you are the problem, and that every outcome reflects something broken in you.

But it doesn’t. Sometimes things simply don’t click, and it’s not a verdict on who you are.

You mentioned worrying you’re not smart enough, or that something will “catch up” to you. That fear didn’t start in adulthood — it started when you were called a nerd in a way that made you feel small instead of proud. You internalized the idea that you must constantly prove yourself.

What you’re considering now — deciding you’re not the problem and leaving situations that don’t feel right — is a healthy shift. It’s not giving up. It’s giving yourself permission to stop treating every moment as a test you must pass. You deserve to feel steady inside, not like you’re always one mistake away from collapse.

Please let me know if this post and the one before this one resonate 🙂

🌿 Anita

Dear Confused:

I hear how confusing it is for you that she can only see the moment you panicked and lied, and not all the care and love you showed her. The intensity of her reaction tells me she wasn’t just responding to what happened between you two — she was responding to something older, something that already lived inside her. When someone has been hurt before, even a small mistake can feel like a repeat of a much bigger wound. In that moment she couldn’t separate the past from the present, and she couldn’t see the version of you who was kind, supportive, and steady with her.

That doesn’t mean your care wasn’t real. You didn’t erase the good memories — she just couldn’t reach them while she was triggered. And that’s why this feels so sudden and so absolute to you.

I also remember how anxious she was about the trip. Sometimes when someone is already overwhelmed, even a small mistake becomes the thing they hold onto so they can step away from something that feels too big or too scary. It doesn’t mean the lie itself was huge — it means her fear was already strong, and this gave her a reason to cancel what she didn’t feel ready for.

You’re grieving something that mattered deeply, and you’re trying to make sense of a reaction that came from her own history, not from your worth. You can keep talking here. (I will be away from the computer for a while)

🌿 Anita

Hey Dear Confused 🙂

I hear how much tenderness you still feel for her, even after the anger and the hurt. You’re able to see both sides — the moments when she reacted from fear, and the moments when she showed care, softness, and generosity. It makes sense that your heart goes back to her, because you’re remembering the parts of her that felt warm and meaningful to you.

You’re describing someone who is deeply insecure and easily triggered, especially around the September incident. When a person already feels “not enough,” even small things can feel like threats, and they protect themselves by pulling away first. That doesn’t excuse the hurtful moments, but it does explain them. You’re also honest about your own turmoil — how you tried to stay gentle but were struggling inside too. It sounds like both of you were carrying wounds that made the relationship feel unstable.

I can see why you valued her kindness, her thoughtfulness, the way she cared about your well‑being and your family. Those things mattered to you. And I can also see why it was hard: her fear, your demons, the triggers on both sides. You’re holding a lot of complexity, and you’re trying to make sense of it without blaming her or yourself. That shows your sincerity.

If you want to keep talking about this, I’m here.

🌿 Anita

Dear Eva:

Thank you for sharing all of this. I can hear how much you’ve been carrying, and how exhausting and confusing this cycle has been for you. What you described — the sudden warmth, the hope it awakens, and then the abrupt shift back into coldness and blame — would shake anyone. It makes sense that you felt something open in you when he was attentive, and that it hurt so deeply when it disappeared the next day.

What stands out to me most is your clarity. You’re seeing the pattern as it is happening, not months later. You’re noticing the contrast between how you feel when he’s present and how you feel when he withdraws. You’re noticing how quickly your needs become “complaints” in his eyes, and how easily your affection becomes something he minimizes or criticizes. That awareness is yours. It comes from living this relationship day by day, and from knowing what it feels like in your own body.

You’re not “the problem.” You’re someone who wants consistency, care, and basic emotional presence — and you’re noticing that the moments of warmth are brief, while the moments of dismissal and blame are long. You’re noticing how hope keeps pulling you back in, and how quickly that hope turns into hurt again. None of this means you’re asking for too much. It means you’re asking for the minimum, and you’re seeing clearly when it isn’t there.

I trust your ability to understand your own experience. You don’t need to rush into any decision or conclusion. You can keep noticing what feels true for you, at your own pace, in your own words. I’m here whenever you want to talk again. No pressure to respond until you feel ready.

🙂🌿 Anita

Dear Girija 🙂

Mis-attunement I suppose means not paying enough attention to what the other person is saying, not only to the words, but the feeling behind the words, and rushing to offer interpretations and solutions before really listening.

And so, I want to truly listen to you.

“I am afraid of life and carry a belief that there’s a fundamental incompetence in me that might mess my life up”-

I can see how this belief leads to fear.

“The way he looked at me like I was adorable and intriguing”- I can see how addictive this can be.

And when you’re in a “cage of fear”, I can see how he gave you a temporary break from that cage.

“Only person she (the coworker) has to take care of is herself”- meaning, you feel that you need to, or have to take care of your mother? Other family members?

If so, that certainly adds weight to everything, as in any possible “incompetence” on your part harms those you’re “supposed” to take care of.

Am I understanding what you’re saying?

Have you been taking your family’s dysfunction as if it was something that you are supposed to fix?

“Trusting I’m not the problem”- I so wish to understand this sentence better.

I wonder if you were burdened all along, growing up and onward, by a belief that you’re supposed to fix things that wete out of your control, things you didn’t cause, things no child ( of any age) can fix?

I am asking because I really want to understand ✨️

“I don’t want to be that afraid anymore”- if you were free to worry only about yourself, would you be less afraid?

🤔 Anita

Dear Samy:

Wow! I read through the first and last 2 pages of our communication back in 2022, which included me quoting from what you shared in 2019, and I am bamboozled (perhaps the right word to describe it, sounds like it) in regard to how mis- attuned my replies where.

And then, out of frustration that my (mis- attuned) replies were not helpful to you, I announced that I was withdrawing from your thread.

You were kind to me throughout my ongoing mis-attunement. Maybe because you’ve been used to not being seen, or heard or felt for so long 😔

The co-worker you shared about yesterday, he “was just reassuring, validating…Someone who finally saw me”-

Is it a wonder you emotionally attached to him, following him to different teams?

A person starving for validation, starving to be seen- since birth, literally (remember your mother told you that she doesn’t even remember seeing you fir the first time?)-

Is it a wonder that being seen, or the appearance of being seen, is so intoxicating..more than rating at work?

Anita

Hey Dear Confused:

The Greek guy.. well, he was born in New York. I suppose his parents were born in Greece. I’ll ask him next time where his family is from. He identifies as Greek Orthodox.

You wrote: “imagine me cursing at her? I would be done.”

But when she cursed at you, you were not done with her.

It makes me wonder if you kept yourself gentle and non‑reactive all this time so you wouldn’t upset her. That’s a heavy emotional position to hold.

For a long time, I thought of her as soft, fragile, wounded, gentle — because that’s how you described her. But her actual behavior toward you doesn’t match that picture. Calling you names like “narcissistic asshole” says something real about how she handles conflict, not about gentleness.

I’m not saying this to attack her. I’m saying it because you’re starting to see the difference between who she actually was with you, and the version of her you carried inside. And that difference matters for your healing.

Your sister said: “One day she’s gonna realize how hard she fumbled because u are a wonderful guy that u don’t meet often in life and u also don’t fit in interrogation rooms-like relationships.”-

Ditto — I agree that you’re a rare, wonderful guy, and you don’t deserve an interrogation‑room‑like relationship.

So, this was a pattern… the interrogations? And in between those, she was “caring, compassionate and considerate”? I’m trying to understand how those two very different behaviors fit together.

🌿 Anita