Dear canary,

I told my mom about the incident that happened in the 5th grade and my mom would let me stay at home. She did not know what to do but she allowed me to skip school for that reason.

This shows that your mother unfortunately didn’t know how to handle problems like this. She (or your father) should have gone to school and talked to the teacher, and also talked to you to soothe your anxiety. Parents are adults and one of their main roles is to emotionally regulate the child – to soothe and comfort the child, to reduce the child’s anxiety, because the child is unable to do that for themselves. It seems your parents didn’t have those skills and would rather let you to “regulate” yourself by avoiding uncomfortable situations. It seems you didn’t have a proper background, a proper safety net to fall on in stressful situations, and that’s why you likely developed anxiety.

When you were bullied in the 6th grade, did your parents know about that at all? And when you finally stood up for yourself and told that girl that she was rude (but then ran away crying) – did your parents know about it?

Hi Emy,

good to hear you didn’t have such an experience. When did you start sensing other people’s energy so intensely?

You asked what the goal is of this experience. Well, considering that you’re highly sensitive energy-wise and that it overwhelms you – not just with this man, but in general – I believe the goal might be to reduce that sensitivity, since it affects you badly. How do you feel about reducing your sensitivity, so that you can function normally? Would you want that or it would feel like a loss?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Tee.

Dear Candice88,

I am sorry you feel like a big loss happened in your life and that what happened is unfair.

I can imagine your stress and anxiety when you were in Japan, and S was out drinking every night (or often) with his female friends. It sort of gave the perfect setting for you thinking the worst – that he would cheat again, when drunk. You asked him to let you know when he comes home from those parties, but he never did. That caused you even more stress and anxiety, i.e. panic attacks.

It’s like he didn’t care about you, he didn’t have understanding for your concerns, on the contrary he behaved in a way that tortured you. And he told you it’s your fault and to pull yourself together.

Your only fault was that you tolerated it and stayed with him (perhaps your hopes got up when he mentioned engagement rings?). I guess his behavior was the same when you returned from Japan and came to live with him? It culminated in him breaking up with you just before he was to transfer to a different city for a new job. You needed to pack up and leave his place within 2 days, causing you great stress and financial losses.

Yes, this guy was an a**hole, and it’s good you’ve moved on. What’s not so good is that you’ve met with him again. Now you say he has matured and has more compassion. Has he apologized for treating you like he did – for partying with his female friends, and then accusing you of being paranoid? Has he realized what exactly he has done wrong?

He told me he still loves me too. How we are both on each other’s minds, how we are each other’s “big ex”, the relationship we always wanted to work out.

Well, he didn’t love you back then. His behavior wasn’t love. And I don’t think he wanted the relationship to work out, because he kept accusing you of being too sensitive, when in fact he was too insensitive. He made it all to be your fault. I wonder if he’s realized that now?

He said “it should be you with me”, and “I never thought I would see you again and NOT be with you”.

I am sorry but this doesn’t sound sincere to me. It’s like he is putting up a front of this mature, considerate guy and white-washing his past actions. Unless he actually apologized for his past behavior?

S has grown so much, seems like a much more emotionally intelligent and sensitive partner. But it’s unfair that I didn’t dodge the bullet – I got shot.

You did get shot, but you can recover. There are ways to treat PTSD. You don’t need to suffer for life, and you don’t need to suffer because of him, because I don’t think he’s so irreplaceable…

Dear Peace,

I am fine, thank you, just returned from holidays and feeling fine 🙂

i think for me YES i would go for it if i love the person and if the relationship feels right to me.

Good that you have that clarified with yourself! You’re fine with marrying soon, if the person is right. And this guy seems right for you, so the only problem is your family.

if i talk to them about him ,they might bring my study in between this proposal ,not because they want me to graduate before getting marry but because they won’t think this Guy is (caste – wise) compatible for me and they will ask me to complete my education because they have invested for my studies

Do you think they might prevent you from finishing your education (e.g. stop financing it) if you get married without their approval? What’s the worst that can happen if they don’t approve?

Dear canary,

thanks for sharing some more… When that situation happened in the 4th grade, when your class mate cut his finger and you got confused as to what to do – have you told your parents about it? If so, what was their reaction?

In the fifth grade, when you felt extremely anxious because the teacher would often pick you to answer questions (to help you come out of your shell) – have you talked about it with your parents? Did they know you were skipping school because of that?

I am asking you this because if you needed to deal with problems on your own (or you didn’t want to upset your parents with your problems), it can easily lead a child to develop anxiety because there’s no one to help them and emotionally regulate them…

Dear Felix,

Right now i’m trying to stop my internal saboteur from making this issue a new obsession to worry about.

Excellent that you’re observing yourself and realizing that your internal saboteur would want to make this a new issue to obsess about. It’s a new subject to “latch” onto, and he does it in an attempt to keep you in stuck in one place, not trying anything new, not doing physical exercise, just overthinking until you get exhausted and depressed.

Notice his intention and do something such as physical exercise, walk, jog, drawing or whatever that can help you stop this voice and do something productive.

I’ll write more later.

Dear canary,

you’re welcome. As I said, your needs are totally legitimate, including the need for empathy and understanding, but the truth is that if we have a childhood wound, where those needs weren’t met when they were supposed to – then no one will be able to give us enough, unless we first heal that wound. Or, they will be able to give us in the beginning, as he did, but then they’ll get tired and give up.

You say he accused you of being too sensitive and too emotional, but you don’t understand why:

He told me I was sensitive and emotional but in a bad way. I don’t understand what I was doing that made him feel that way,

The answer could be this:

I would get lots of anxiety and need reassurance that he loves me. He would try his best to reassure me and make me feel better.

I admit I was very codependent on him because I wouldn’t take care of myself sometimes (especially during the end of the relationship) and I wasn’t able to self-soothe my emotions. I relied on him for my happiness a looot. I think that’s why he reacted with resentment and is hostile and disrespectful…

So you relied only on him to take care of you and soothe you when you were upset, and you also needed him to reassure you often that he loves you. That’s all a big burden for a person. He was doing it for a while, but then got tired. It was too much for him to handle, specially when you would go through an episode:

I would listen when he’d talk about himself and vice versa, until I would be going through an episode.

he was showing me love and empathy during the beginning of my relationship, it wasn’t exactly what I needed but I would tell him what I needed and he would understand and change to support me, but as soon as my mental state deteriorates, he’s not able to be there for me.

I imagine that when you went through an episode, it was too much for him to handle, he didn’t know what to say or do. Perhaps his defense mechanism was to “check out”, to not be there for you in those critical moments.

His mistake was that he didn’t tell you you’re burdening him at the time when it was happening, but would use passive aggression instead (like not being available to talk, or talking about himself when you were very fragile and in need of support):

I made sure to never dump everything on him but he never told me at the moment that he couldn’t talk to me (he didn’t set a boundary). I didn’t know I was doing something wrong because he never told me about it at first.

You experienced it as a sudden change in his behavior: at first he was super caring and considerate, and suddenly he became cold and unresponsive. The reason could be simple: it was too much for him, but he never dared to say anything openly. He rather accepted (or appeared to have accepted) your characterization – that he lacks empathy and that he should change. But he said he can’t change, because he allegedly suffers from the antisocial personality disorder. Frankly, this might not even be true, perhaps he’s just told you this as an excuse, because he didn’t want to argue with you any more?

I didn’t realize how hurt he also was because of our relationship until he told me about it and it finally hit me that we had been both hurting each other without realizing even though we loved each other very much.

It’s possible that he too was hurt, because he wasn’t able to meet your expectations…  and wasn’t able to tell you openly how he feels about those expectations. His resentment grew over time, first it manifested as “checking out” (passive aggression), and now he’s showing it openly by being hostile and disrespectful.

I don’t understand why I still love him to this day and care for him. I don’t even know if he feels the same way, even if he doesn’t it never changes the fact that I still care and love him.

There may be many reasons why you love him and care for him. Maybe one is that you feel that deep down he isn’t selfish and inconsiderate, but just couldn’t give you what you wanted. You said he never wanted to hurt you on purpose, and that may be true…

All I really want is to move on with my life and keep the good memories locked away in my heart, it’s really difficult and right now I’m not sure what to do.

You’re right that you need to move on from focusing on him to focusing on yourself and dealing with your anxiety. That’s the only way you can have a healthy relationship in the future.

You say you have a good relationship with your parents, and that they are supportive of you seeking professional help. You also said you didn’t tell your parents when you were admitted to hospital for suicidal thoughts, and that your ex- boyfriend was the only person you talked to about those things. How come you didn’t want to confide in your parents? If you feel like it, please share some more…

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Tee.