Dear Anita,

Thank you for your kind words, and for pointing out that I helped you to understand something. I can never imagine that anybody can learn anything thanks to me, so it is nice to hear that.

I feel a little bit better at the moment. I have a week off from work so that is nice to get some rest. I went to the sea to swim (cold! 🙂 ), and they were taking wedding photo’s on the beach with a little group of people, i was watching them having fun, and i found it hard to see the moments when they were taking photos of the bride + groom hugging or kissing each other, so off I went into crying again, and a bit later, i was walking towards the water and a woman came up to me to ask if I was ok. I answered her questions (if i have friends or anything) honestly, as a kind of exercise for myself, that I don’t have to hide from people, that i can be honest, and accept their care, i also told her honestly that i found it hard to watch the photoshoot. She sympathised, and i told her not to worry, everyone has it sometimes difficult in life. It was a nice exercise for me in getting real, not performing or not poking the fun with myself (i think it can be good to poke the fun with yourself sometimes, but i have done that way too much). Afterwards i was sitting with a group of people in the garden in the hostel, i just sat quietly and listened to their conversations, and at some moments i joined them, and asked questions and said something about myself, to a person that seemed very nice. Also, that, was a very good exercise, in making contact with someone that looked nice. That is what is bothering me so much, that i always pushed my colleague away and didn’t manage to let him come closer. I still miss him, and it is painful, and i’m still ruminating a lot, or hoping to see him or thinking: should i tell him this or that… I think it is natural, that it will need time to get away. I am telling myself that it is ok, that he was a lovely person who helped me along with some things in my life, and that now it is time to let go – but I think it will need to go gradually, along with having new, nice experiences. But, I am also starting to make tiny little steps to change that pattern, so that is really good. Today I was really happy, because I was sitting there, and aware that I wanted to practise being around people and allowing myself to be there, and I knew: this guy seems nice, I am asking him something (just very general, what work he does), showing interest in somebody, where I usually tend to think: no i don’t have the right to talk to nice people, i am not good enough for that. And then I also shared something from myself, that i want to quit my job and go to volunteer in a buddhist centre for a while. That was also a conscious exercise: I am good enough to take up some space and to say something, and to say that i am having difficulty with this kind of job. Maybe the next time I meet somebody so lovely I might actually be able to just relax and chat with him and create a nice contact with him, and have a bit of trust. Imagine.

So, thank you for sharing your insight about your mother. It reminds me of the song My Immortal by Evanescence, do you know that one? That still brings very strong emotions to me each time I hear it.
Still, when somebody, anybody, a stranger even, gets upset or in trouble or in a low mood, I feel responsible, I don’t think anymore, I react immediately, they have a problem so it is MY problem, I have to solve it. So yes, I recognise what you say.

The doctor told me today: parents do the best they can, they can’t help it, no parent is perfect, and, yes, I understand that, I told her that as well, I’ve spent the main part of my life to understand and excuse my mother. But, I told her, I think it is also time that I give myself some recognition, that I missed certain things in my life and that it has cause me some harm. I am slowly starting to do that, but very carefully, still very insecurely, but I am starting to look at myself as a person that also had/has certain needs who weren’t met. I have a long way to go to learn to see what it did to me and how is still influencing me, but i have started. I find it sometimes irritating when people say that I have to understand parents, that is all good and well, but who is there to understand me, to give me some space in here? Even though, it doesn’t matter how many people would tell me, or maybe do tell me, as long as i don’t accept it myself, i will not take in any of their words.

With this colleague, you said somebody who was nice to you and others, all the time.. I think that was the case, it was indeed very refreshing to experience this, and I am glad to have met somebody like that actually, somebody who gave me the feeling that I was noticed, that he was still nice when I was locked up in my moods, that he did a little bit of effort to get contact with me. I still think that he gave me a lot of signs that he liked me, and that i often was very distant, and i do feel bad about this. That is why i still have a longing to talk to him honestly, and to tell him how hard I find it to let somebody that i like come closer. But I think i will stop worrying or planning about this, and let the universe go its way, if we are supposed to see each other and talk or whatever, i guess it will happen. But, he wasn’t always nice and predictable, sometimes he was angry or avoiding me (which i interpreted as that he liked me). But it was nice to feel that somebody cared about me, that somebody treated me with warmth and humor, and tried, very carefully to come closer to me. And that i could gradually, over time, try to come closer to him. I feel bad about the suddenness that i stopped, just when we seemed to come a bit closer and to relax a bit more (not that we talked more, but the atmosphere, and both of us, were became so light the last days, and then suddenly i lift). I am afraid that i hurt him, and i am sad that i didn’t give myself the chance to stay a bit longer and to have a bit more of this contact, that i was slowly allowing to open up a little bit to somebody lovely. And I am sad about the way i left, telling him enthousiast about my new job, and not talking to him anymore (he didn’t either), which i couldn’t, i was too overwhelmed with sadness.
But, ok, things went as they went, i guess there is no point in looking back. Maybe we had experienced together what we needed, maybe i wasn’t ready to get even closer, maybe i needed to learn not to run away from people like that, whatever reason, this is the way it went, so this is ok, i guess. Like a previous group therapist always started with a little exercise, and one of them was having us walking around the room, repeating to ourselves: it is good as it is.
I guess I have been sad about it, and regretting it for so long now, and being superemotional about it. It is time to find the peace in myself back. I guess I have to let go of him and learn some lessons from this experience. Even though, inside in my heart I am crying and just want to keep clinging to him. That is making more days of my life miserable and that is actually the same thing that i regret having done with him: keeping myself away from happiness and nice experiences. Today i had a nice moment in the garden with some people, if i keep thinking about him, i will not enjoy these experiences, or even the opportunity of making new friends or whatever.
This experience with him was in the past, i can be grateful for it, i can keep feeling love for him, and i can send intentions into the world, to see him again, and have an open and honest chat with him. But apart from that, i have to focus on doing things and thoughts, that are positive for me, and helping me to live the way i want. He might actually have given me something that I missed with both my parents, especially with my mother, and probably it is normal that we go longin and attaching so much to people like that, because i never had that as a child. But, first of all, i can not make myself dependent on the warmth and predictablility of somebody else, I have to give that to myself. I hope that, if i learn (how do you learn that…) to love myself and treat myself with kindness and compassion, that i won’t get so attached to and desperate for somebody else anymore.
I assuming, seeing my emotional reaction, for so long, that it was attachment, and not love. That I am mabye not ready for love, that i need to love myself a bit more first and get a bit more grounded in that, and that this has pointed that out for me. So it is probably good for me, to have left now and starting to get this lesson.

Bweh, sorry for the long ranting again. I seem to think out loud while writing, and writing helps me to talk to myself and to get my thoughs more straight, so while writing and can convince myself a bit more. I am doing a lot of work, the past few days to reframe my thoughts.
I’ll post it anyway, you never know if it makes any sense 🙂

Oh yeah, what you wrote, about all your actions, or words or gestures, having a huge potential and dangerous effect on others. I think this is our ego, that has become very big out of fear. It is interesting, I assume that I have the same, because I am always so scared about what i do or say, saying sorry endless times, even when it was actually the other one who did something wrong. But on the other side, I think so lowly of myself, and i think that i am invisible, that i usually think that it doesn’t matter for anyone, what i do or say, that i don’t have any influence on anybody. so i tend to overdo my jokes, or say unmindful things, because i assume that people automatically see that i’m not a real person, that i’m at most a silly little child whose words don’t matter at all. So now I actually need to learn to say that i also have an influence on people and that i need to learn to be more mindful about what i say. That is a contradiction that i find interesting, maybe i will understand later.