Anita

Thank you again for your reply and suggestions, it is always helpful.

Can you elaborate on “too intense to allow comfort”? “here you didn’t try to form an intimate attachment, it was already formed within the two weeks of dating her. And the attachment was intense, too intense to allow comfort.” Are you suggesting basically i was moving too fast? I’ve never had a close comfortable attachment to anyone so i’m not sure how to feel attached and comfortable.

It is difficult for me to accept how irrational i started to become this time around. This has become a pattern for me, i’m so desperate to feel loved that i will accept almost anything someone promises me, no matter how foolish. I think this is the part where self-hatred flares up for me. I’m disappointed in myself for being ignorant. I’m also disappointed that I still want to reach out to her after her telling me not to contact me, even after reading all this, having gone through all that pain, I still want her to love me. It tears me apart, i feel weak.

When i reached out to her initially i was feeling confident and worthy the more i feel like i need people the more my confidence plunges. Now i feel hopeless, it’s painful to think ill never have a healthy relationship with a woman, i don’t want to believe it, but that’s what the pain keeps saying to me.

Anita

Thank you for your reply.

I have been moved out of my sisters house since this August, and I am finally financially secure and fully independent again. I do have a roommate and she has been great to me and patient with my rollercoaster of emotion.

I was trying to be patient with this most recent woman tolerating her indecisiveness because I thought she was worth it. However her not knowing what she wanted was ultimately the problem. As I mentioned she was bisexual and the other date she went on was with a woman, she hadn’t been with a man except me in years. She brought this up multiple times as a source of internal conflict, feeling a rare emotional connection to me, but also still desiring women.

To your point of people living out their childhood experience as an adult, I see this all the time in my work as a therapist and my own experience with it is what makes me a good therapist myself, I have received countless compliments from people how they feel understood for the first time and like things are starting to make sense. I’m beginning to realize I’m far more emotionally mature than I thought. Of course I have a ways to go and wisdom to be found, but in general I have done the work that the vast majority of people don’t do. This scares me because I’m fearful I won’t ever find a secure attachment with anyone because so many people are so wounded and lost in the world, including myself. This leaves me with a very small pool of healthy adults to choose from.

Problem for me is that just because I’ve done the intrapsychic  work on myself, I still experience my childhood attachment pains when triggered like it was happening now. My answer thus far has been to show gratitude towards those wounded parts of my psyche for getting me this far, I see my inner critic as my inner child still screaming out for attention. So I try to listen to what he needs. Lately I’ve been struggling to identify how to help him. I know I need connection with other people and even though I have many friends I have few people I feel vulnerable with.

I wondered today why did I even post here? I think it’s because I feel safe sharing here with you above all, and I need to know someone values me enough to pay full attention. I believe that’s what I need more than anything is a safe non judgmental group of people to fill me up when I feel down. I need to be heard. Thank you for listening.

i think my ultimate question for myself is and will be do I keep reaching out for connection? Or do I just accept things the way they are and just be? I’m torn, reaching out has ended in pain, at least romantically speaking, it has worked out with other relationships though. I’m just scared to move forward right now and don’t know where to find strength.

Anita,

The difference between contract and working for an agency (non profit) is that I get to keep more of what I make, have more control over my schedule, and don’t have anyone to answer to besides my code of ethics of course. Ultimately it is easier to work for an agency and I have considered it quite a lot recently, but I know if I stick it through the hard times of essentially starting my own business then the payoff will be greater in the end. Basically if I were to do 10 therapy sessions a week I would be making the same amount of money in 1.5 days as some of my recently graduated classmates working 40hrs a week.

All this to say I need to start giving myself some credit for not taking the easy way out. My friend pointed this out to me yesterday when we’re having one of those “what the hell am I doing with my life” conversations. He reminded me of how hard I’ve been working since he knew me, he said “when I met you, you had no car, you were riding you’re bike in the freezing rain delivering sandwiches, then going to school after, you’re inspiring and have a strong work ethic.” I needed to hear that because I’m so deficit focused in my life it’s hard for me to acknowledge how hard I work. My fear is that if I start feeling proud of myself I’ll get lazy and stop accomplishing. Though even this mentality that I’m lazy is still yet another example of my childish thought process (I.e. accomplish more to make mom happy). I’m so humble I think it would be okay for me to feel proud of myself a little bit, I doubt my head will get too big, that’s just not in my character I believe.

I did talk to my mom a couple days ago because of my financial situation, ultimately we ended up talking about my childhood. She had a moment of understanding she told me when I gave her an example of how me and my sister took care of her as children through removing the responsibility of taking care of us. I explained to her I was taking care of her by taking care of myself (in unskillful ways of course, ie self harm, depression, compliance) she said in the past she struggled to understand what I meant but she said she finally understands, especially when I gave her an example of how my younger cousins do the same thing with their mom and she can see the emotional problems manifesting within them currently. While I’m glad we finally had a moment of understanding I’m still not veering from the path of mental independence from her and I told her that, for which she said she understands and she supports me in that decision. Probably the most productive conversation I’ve had with her in years.

on another topic I’ve been researching a lot on Buddhism and lust, romance, and sex. I have a lot of issues in this area I was so deprived of physical touch as a child that when I meet a woman it drives me literally insane. I’ve been intentionally celibate for a period of 9months when I was 24 because it was causing such a problem for me but I didn’t feel great about it then either. I’m not sure what the healthy balanced way forward is in this area I feel a lot of shame because I’ve only slept with 8 women and I’m 27 years old, and it’s not that I want to hit some arbitrary number, it’s more that I feel worthless or unworthy of affection. I’d like to think that’s not true I do get complimented frequently on my looks when I go out, but it seems like that’s all I’m good for, or at least that’s what I’ve reduced myself to.

I’m sure you think it’s a bad idea, but I’m looking forward to being with my sister and her boyfriend, and my friends more than anything. I’m also looking forward to practicing detachment when I am around my mom. I’m just in a spot currently where I can’t afford to pay next months rent, and also need to be around people to some degree.

Well it has been an unsettling weekend for me though i feel grateful at the moment. I got way too drunk friday night and went out with my friends. Luckily they didnt let me go home with some random woman though i was pretty close. I paid for the drinking yesterday.

My sister and her boyfriend came to visit yesterday and we went to eat and hungout some. It was nice to be able to hangout with just my sister and her boyfriend without my mother present. I decided im going to move to hometown an hour away and commute to work once a week for the month of july and move back in august. I need to save money and be around old friends and family (cousins).

My friend (whose property i currently live on) girlfriends grandfather died yesterday. Me and my other friend were requested by her to come visit and hangout at thier house last night. I was happy to have been requested to witness her grief, that means alot to me, like were family. She told us stories of her grandfather who died in his late 90s and worked literally untill the day he died. It was moving how many people this man touched with his life and the intentional manner he lived with. He suffered a stroke but was still alert enough to communicate on his death bed by squeezing his grandaughters hand. She said he told him he could let go and he died seconds later.

What i learned from this story is that it is possible to live through the suffering of life bravely and without letting fear dictate your decision making. I had woke up yesterday morning hungover and told myself it had to stop, that i must make a decision if i want to live and quit running from my pain. The irony is that when we attempt to escape or become unconscious of our pain it increases, however if we move towards increasing our consciousness towards that pain that it how it’s resolved. I mentor a teenager in foster care, i have friends that need me, my clients need me, my family and younger cousins look up to me. I became angry with myself that i have been living as if facing my pain was not of the utmost importance.

It occurred to me how many celebrities have died at the exact age of 27. One of my favorite music producers died of an overdose last year at 27. I think this stage in my life is one where i must decide if im going to choose life or death. I have not been choosing life lately i’ve been regressing into childish mannerisms instead of choosing maturity. I’m hoping moving back home for a short period of time, removing some responsibility and being around old loving friends can help reinforce the choice that i’m committing to of choosing to live.

I’ve done inner child work mostly on my own writing letters. Nothing too in depth.

If I can ask for one more thing from you today Anita, just to get me through, im still at work and i find myself crying anytime im alone. I went through and deleted all the women i had in my phone but find myself particularly focused on a woman i went out with on tuesday night. I deleted her number due to lack of self control not to reach out to her because she did not respond yesterday. I keep trying to restore my contacts in my phone but her number wont come back. Probably for the best. I just need something right now to get me through to let me know even if she never responds i am still a worthy person. I dont feel it today. I know there is no magic cure but if you have any kind reasurring words i sure could use them. Thank you so much by the way! i feel overwhelmed with gratitude towards you and my friends at the moment for the love you all send me that i barely feel deserving of.

Not too abstract. Makes perfect sense. I’m feeling the stuckness of my inner child with my parents more than ever.

I managed an attachment that long very anxiously and with much ambivalence, also we never lived together, we were young co-dependents, and kept eachother at arms length, I was rarely vulnerable with her the way I am with friends now, it wasn’t a very close relationship. I was depressed and unavailable.

Since then I haven’t had anything that resembles a close romantic relationship, and I’m doubtful I ever will at this point. I’m far too anxious. So I either try to hard or not at all. It feels hopeless so  one night stands are my new thing and I hate it but need that occasional illusion of closeness to another human being to keep me going

Thank you for doing the digging on my old threads.

It is interesting to me how much my mentality has changed over the past couple years. My anger was misplaced on myself. I talked with an older friend yesterday who had a shockingly similar situation to that of mine as far as the struggle goes with keeping in contact with his parents or not. He too has gone through periods of confrontation, non contact, siblings not understanding, struggling with misplaced self hatred, yet trying to be compassionate at the same time. He is a very wise man whom I respect. He is still in contact with his parents though he says he expects nothing to change about them till the day they die, but he says he has allowed them a small space in his life once they began to understand and take responsibility for his childhood wounding. Not saying I’m ready to keep close contact, but it made me feel much less alone in this situation I’m facing.

Just to take the attention off of my parents for a bit, I have been struggling with a sense of meaninglessness about my life. I have my reasons not to die, but have been struggling to find purpose and reasons to live if that makes sense. I have been drinking way too much, and seeking consoling from random women over the past month or so.

I went to therapy yesterday which I can’t afford and my therapist saw me for free. He said he knows I will repay him either in the work I’m doing for the world or monetarily when I can. I told him I don’t come often because I feel guilty about him not getting paid well. He emphasized to me over and over that he and his family are financially fine, and he sees a few clients at reduced rates. He highlighted to me how difficult it is for me to accept love offered by others. Also that the suffering of my life wouldn’t necessarily end if I were dead. I would be passing it on to others and the world. My friend who I’m moving in with has offered to pay our deposit and first months rent because she loves me, I cried like a baby on the phone with her a couple days ago saying I don’t understand why or how she could love me. I feel deeply unlovable and it simply is not true. Viktor frankl says suffering ceases to be suffering the second it has meaning, I’ve been suffering unnecessarily for no reason at times. And my suffering does have meaning, I need to bear it no one else can bear it for me, I desperately want to be saved, but know I can only save myself. I’m still in a lot of pain today, but I’m more willing to bear it because I know I am loved, and it has meaning.