Dear Anita

I’m so happy for you managing to heal your inner child after years of suffering. It made me hopeful as well!

Back to your questions:

1. You asked me if no one in my family knew how to check on me, well no, actually they didn’t and they don’t. I know that they love me but they are very emotionally immature at times, and come from emotionally immature background themselves. My own siblings are extremely emotionally constipated and have a hard time realising their own feelings, let alone mine.

And by the way yeah, some part of me feels like I have to join others in suffering. When I tell myself “i don’t care if they are in a bad mood, I’m having fun” I’m feeling selfish. And it happens a lot. Some part of me is like afraid that my friends or family will do some extreme action in pain, like suicide, if I don’t keep track on them. It’s extreme I now.

Dear Helcat:

I know that the most logical route at this point for me would be to actively dating, that so may include less organical options for getting to know people as dating apps, as you yourself have mentioned. I feel very blocked to do so, for some reasons. Maybe I suffer from some kind of avoiding attachments where I feel most comfortable at arm length from people. 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.

 
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Dear Helcat:

Maybe it’s a bit incorrect to talk about social “repercussions”. My own shame over being unable to get a partner has contributed to a lot of my social distancing from others, so there is a lot of my own doing as well playing here. However, 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 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.

I think I’m definitely capable to feel attractive but it’s very rare. Usually when I meet someone even attractive, I tend to relate to them platonically and it’s very rare that this perception may shift to romantic or erotic as time goes. Unfortunately, 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, so that may play a factor. So, I don’t like dating apps, it’s just not my thing and that doesn’t help either.