Dear Anita,

First of all, I think you are quite amazing. If i see the amount of energy you put in helping and supporting others on this forum. I was just browsing around here and saw somebody who just started a thread about her current situation, and directed it towards you. I think that shows how compassionate you are and how it can influence people.

Thank you for thinking further with me. I don’t know why. I feel that you want to understand me more, or even want to help me understand things better and go deeper towards things. Or maybe you just like to try to understand others better? I have no idea, but i appreciate the fact that you are trying to understand me more.

In fact, i am scared of bees, even though i have never been stuck, but this to the side 😉

Yes i am very scared, but i think that i have also other feelings in me which are very big, but which i maybe still don’t allow enough, or bury them under the fear. Maybe i just find it hard to accept that that is what i am, a scared person. Or maybe the fear is ruining a lot of things…

I think that i am scared to be vulnerable. To be real. To be myself. To show myself as i am, and as what i feel to others.
I hitchhike a lot, and i travelled a little bit, and i would have no problem making conversations with strangers. In those travels, i would spend time in a group doing voluntary work, and in those groups i would be very quiet and unhappy, drained of energy. On my photos of those groups you could see me, with an unhappy face and as a very unhappy person. But when i was ‘on the road’, with people who i would never see again, then it is different. You can also see this on certain photos, where i look shining and happy and radiant. The same goes for school or work. In those situations i am usually anxious, withdrawn, insecure, and blocked.
So if i am in a situation where i will see people more often, something in me blocks. When it is a ‘one-moment’ situation, i will often chat away and be more extravert. I say these examples because i think it might make it more clear.

I think i am afraid to make connections with people, to allow people to come close, because i can’t believe it is true. If it seems true (which was the case with S), then there must be something wrong, so i get into the paranoid thinking and in the pushing away. I don’t deserved it.

When i was a child, it was hard to be real. My mother had a lot of problems, physical health problems as well as emotional problems. When i was in hospital, i saw once on a report that i described her as having borderline – not with those words but because of the way i described her. She didn’t have control over herself, had a lot of self-loathing and worked it out on me. She was very unpredictable and i was scared of her. she woud have big rage-outbursts, shouting and shaking me around. Maybe i was already sensitive as a child, but i was scared. And then at times she would regret and come to me ‘oh my little sprout, you love your mummy don’t you..’ I don’t know if these were the exact words but in that kind of attitude. With a kind of feeling the she needed my reassurance, that everything was ok. Now i realise, that was actually already a kind of helper role that i was taking on. When i was scared of her, and when she burst out in anger, out of proportion, then i was already taking on the responsibility to comfort her, and to tell her that everything was ok. While i was hurt, and scared, but who was there to comfort me, to give me the assurance that everything was ok?
There was never real affection, real safety.
My father was the safe person, the reliable person. I was not afraid of him. But there was also not really affection, or attention. When i was 18, my parents divorced, my mother took me with her but later the court decided that my father should raise me, which is what he had fought for and also what i wanted, because i was scared of my mother. My father did what he could, but he didn’t know how to give me affection. When i was an adult, he told me that he never gave me a hug, or never even put an arm around me, because he was afraid that people would think about child abuse. I remember there was never the time or the space to listen to me. I would come back from school or other acitivities and wanting to tell something, and he would act with ‘yes, yes..’ on a tone that said, i showed some attention but not wholewheartedly, and then ‘and now i want to watch tv’. Meals were always in silence. I never remember a genuine smile from either of them. I still find it hard to smile genuinely, and usually don’t manage it. Especially when i like somebody.

With my mother, later, as a teenager, i remember a lot of times where she would be complaining to me about how bad her life is, and what the point would be to keep living. So as a teenager i was trying to support my mother, listening to her, trying to show understanding, trying to encourage her. She would sometimes give signs in a very indirect way. I remember once, when i was spending the weekend with her, and in the morning would come downstairs and find a paper on the table ‘who to call in case Xx (her name) would die’, and then names and phone numbers in order of priority. This was further making me scared, because there was always a kind of thread (in my feeling) that it would be my fault, that ik would be responsible in case she died, i wouldn’t have done enough to help her.

Also, as a teenager, i felt a huge pressure from my mother, to act as if everything was ok between us. That we just got along well as mother and daughter. A lot of acting. Pretending. Acting in a fake way, with a fake kind of voice. I think this is what really messed me up, because things weren’t ok between us. She hadn’t been there for me and she had never given me the safety or love that every child needed. Maybe she couldn’t she had had problems with her mother and that had been the way for the previous generations. But then i had to put up this kind of play, which i did, probably because i felt this would be safer than to be honest and rebelling or not playing it. When i would be impolite (i was also a teenager, remember), she would give me comments that would be guilt-inducing. So i think that made me feeling not real, feeling that i had to put up a huge facade and faking, in order to be accepted (and is that not one of the basic needs, as a child?). Pushing myself further away.

As an adult (now less because i live abroad), my father would sometimes complain to me about his problems with the attitude of his girlfriends’ daughter, who is not very nice to him, even though he does a lot for her. And i would listen, trying to support him. Give him the emotional support that i kept longing for, to get from him. My father tries to support me a lot, on the practical level, and is always there for me when he can. When i was in hospitals and completely desperate and suicidal, he would try in his way, to give me hope, but really listening to me, he just can’t.

There was never a lot of physical violence. Anyway, i don’t think the bit of physical stuff messed me up.
But psychologically, probably a lot more than i still would like to admit to myself.
And these things are more invisable. People don’t notice easily what’s going on with this way of acting. Or, i don’t think they notice, even if they did, it is a lot more complicated and less open.

So, i think i have learned as a child, that there is no place for me. People are scary, i have to try really hard to please them and it is nearly impossible. People are cold and distant, so that is what i became towards other people. I became distant to them and i extremely respect other people’s space and the distance, because i am so scared to come closer. I don’t want to be distant and cold, and i long so hard to get closer to people, because i actually think that inside i have a lot of warmth as well. But i don’t know how to do it. I get scared for longer contacts than a few days. Scared of being judged, scared of being rejected and ignored. I get nerveus as soon as i am around people. I often act hyperactive, when i do try to say something it is usually not in a relaxed way, but very agitated, louder and nerveus. Of course, that is not nice for people to listen to. But i am so used to expecting that people will turn their back on me as soon as i open my mouth to say something, or that they wil start to laugh.

So, afraid of being ridiculed, i don’t know if it makes sense to you, reading my story. There was some ridiculing when i was little, but there was a lot more ignoring, the feeling that i didn’t exist, that i didn’t matter and that i was too much.
So i think now, the feeling and the fear that i have made myself look ridiculous by asking for more contact with S, I guess it is quite obvious, i have always learned that i am not allowed to be there, that i am in the way. So imagine, such a stupid little thing, asking such a lovely person to keep meeting up, because i like him. Why would he like me, of course he has a good laugh about my stupidity. That is my way of thinking, i know that is wrong, but that is the way of thinking a have always learned and actually still believe. Even though i have reasons to think that S actually also likes me, i find it hard to believe that, and i keep finding ways to not believe it, because that is a very scary thought.

You probably will not be surprised to read that i studied social work in college, and failed because i took it all way too serious. Even though my mentor at school said that she saw some great qualities in me to become a good social worker. And actually very glad that i don’t have to do that job, because i would probably have gone completely depressed after a few months.

And maybe it will not sound strange, when i say that i don’t know how to talk to people, about random stuff, in a relaxed way. Either very hyperactively. And that i tend to attract people who have problems and kind of use me as their personal counselor and are not very nice and respectful towards me – an experience that i had this year with a woman where i lived for 4 months, and then kicked me out like a piece of garbage with some agression, oops… it happened again..
I recently read about the Karpman triangle and that is totally me, the rescuer, and then becoming victim and then becoming angry and bitter, why this keeps happening…

OOf.. You asked me for some clarification. I don’t know if you wanted to know this much. I started writing, probably very happy with the attention of somebody, somebody who asks me ‘why are you scared’, and out of a feeling: maybe i will respond honestly for once, as a way of taking myself seriously enough.

It feels a bit strange to put this on the internet, but i think i will post it anyway, and trying to rely on the anonimity.