I still remember you, Emily=> Jasmine, thinking of you fondly.

anita

Dear Zenith:

No real threat= nothing to fear. No?

anita

Dear Zenith:

“I want to cut this off. I  want to stop asking them when we go out. I want go out and make new friends“- this is a good plan. As I suggested before, you can have your husband take your daughter to her house sometimes, you don’t have to go there yourself.

“But I am unable to move on as I am scared she would blame me if i move on. She already blamed me for not texting. I am scared she would blame if I stop asking her or texting her…I am here scared like a little kid worried about her feelings.“- and what if she blames you.. what damage can her blaming/ her feelings cause you in real-life, objective terms (beyond how you feel about it)?

anita

Dear Jakub:

You shared that you (29) were born and raised in Eastern Europe. There, you were abused by close family members, and your mother was- is an alcoholic, “Classic parent-child reversal situation… used to look for her around pubs as a kid, to beg she comes home“. You moved to a country that’s not part of E. Europe at 15, with your parents, did well in school, and finished law school, living independently at 22. In the last few years, you quit a job you were dissatisfied with, went back to school, and joined one of the biggest law firms in the world. A week from now, you will be moving to a house where you will be living alone for the first time in your life, with plenty of living- space you didn’t have before, something you are looking forward to.

Since you quit your job, etc.: “I have felt like a scared child. The same innate, overwhelming fear I had of my abuser as a child, I now experience almost constantly in life… each day is marked by an impending feeling of doom“- the challenges of quitting a job, going back to school and working in a very challenging environment awakened or intensified the fear you had as a child, fear of your abuser or abusers with whom you were stuck for too long.

“I haven’t failed at anything and yet each day is marked by an impending feeling of doom“- you had zero chances of success, as a child, to stop the abuse, to get your parents to protect you, and to take care of your mother (“parent- child reversal situation“), so that she will finally take care of you. You failed at tasks that are impossible for a child.

“My whole life I’ve felt like the thoughts in my brain are somehow naughty or wrong, like somehow there’s something innately evil within me and it makes me second guess everything…“- you took responsibility for the evil that was perpetrated against you, as children naturally do, believing that the abusers were not acting on their evil intents, but reacting to the evil or wrongness within you.

“I can’t put energy into a relationship. But I need to somehow figure out how to give myself a sense of security that will help me keep going through tough times in life (such as this job right now)… .. How do I stop feeling like an abused little child that I’m not anymore, how do I become able to put more energy into the difficult job I’m trying to succeed at, and how do I become comfortable with being single for so long that perversely I find someone good to be with?! Everything seems so convoluted.“-

– Simplify the Complicated, Clarify the Confusion, Re-label yourself Good. A sense of security requires that you believe that there is a good person, a good child within you, so that you will finally take his side and give the wrongness back to where it belongs: with the abusers.

I imagine that you made some bad choices as an adult and that you had and have thoughts and feelings that you disapprove of, thinking that these are evidence that you are a bad person and have been a bad person from the start. But such choices can be learned from and corrected, and.. perverse or convoluted  thoughts and feelings are reactions to abuse, or just.. normal thoughts and feelings that you view negatively.

There are no good or bad thoughts and feelings because we don’t choose them and they do not help or harm others. Only behaviors (words we communicate and acts we perform) can help or harm, and therefore, be good or bad.

I was abused too as a child. I felt Wrong and Bad as well, and I had to re-label myself Good by going back to my childhood, so to speak, and giving the Bad back to where it belongs. I would like to communicate with you for some time, if you would like that.

anita

Dear Zenith: I’ll be back to you Sun.

anita

Dear CutieJ:

You are welcome. Your 9-days visit with her has ended, I am glad you made it home safely.

Beginning of visit: “I came to her place today. She picked me up at the airport” (Oct 2),

Ending of visit: “I worked late at the company to distract myself, and got on the bus to go back home. It was long and scary rides, as I’ve never been on a bus in this city or at this time. After I got off the bus, I ran between cars and bushes to walk back home” (Oct 11).

You arrived to her place, her city by plane and returned to your place, your city by bus? Was it a very long bus ride?

Did the two of you break up, or are you still in a relationship?

anita

Dear Lauren:

(I will be boldfacing some of your words): “So last week I had this random thought that what if my bf isn’t the one for me. Which I remember at the time made me tummy DROP and I felt sick”- a random thought scared you so much. This is what OCD, as I know it from my personal experience, is about: being scared of.. of thoughts.

“the thought of losing him was so so scary”- again, it’s a thought that scares you so very much. There is no danger in a thought, a thought does not present danger to a person.

“I have identified it as hocd… I’m a proper Overthinker about everything…I’m just absolutely obsessed with him”- this is the problem: Overthinking (with a capital O, as you chose to put it), about everything.

“sooo yeh this thought happened and then my mind started wondering, what could break us up and the thought what if I don’t like men and I secretly fancy women… and ever since then my mind has been crazy spiral!!!”-

– thoughts happen to everyone, and lots of them happen much of the time, because it’s easy to think, and thoughts happens fast. Thinking that you secretly fancy women doesn’t make you of any particular sexual orientation, it simply makes you a person who thinks, and can think anything.

The thought I secretly fancy women doesn’t make you of any particular sexual orientation any more than the thought I am an elephant makes you an elephant.

“I got through that time and I was so happy the intrusive thoughts had stopped. But now I’m getting all the same scary thoughts whilst being with my bf which is so so scary“- the thoughts feel dangerous (the danger in your mind is losing your boyfriend), but they are not dangerous, similarly to the non-danger in this thought: what if I am attracted to another man?

“I think it’s part of OCD called false memory”- were you diagnosed with OCD, Lauren? If you were or you will be diagnosed by a doctor, there are treatments for OCD that may be available to you.

“I’m getting awful intrusive thoughts and images of girls being naked and I now don’t feel comfortable around girls and I absolutely hate hate hate the thoughts… I’m so scared of ruining the relationship when it’s all I’ve wanted. I just feel like I need someone to tell me doing stupid stuff like that as a kid is normal and other girls did it!”- if I told you what you want someone (anyone) to tell you, it will at best calm you for just a moment.

What you need is a different relationship with your thoughts: not to hate them, not to love them, not to get scared by them, but to see them as they truly are: temporary, fast, effortless, invisible, tiny mental activity that keeps happening in every human brain that works.

You are scared to ruin your 5-year relationship, afraid to lose the relationship.. or are you afraid to not lose it, that is, as in, to be stuck in it forevermore? Maybe the HOCD thoughts are about resolving the fear of staying in the relationship.

Fear Not Your Thoughts, Lauren.

anita