Dear serenesunshine:

You are welcome. No, it doesn’t matter that you are two females, not to me. But it may have mattered to her (you wrote that her anxiety might have been partly as a result of homophobia). You wrote that you talked about many things but not about what scared her. People do avoid talking about fear, of course. It could have helped to talk about it, in small portions, gently.

She could have been afraid to be seen by you as she is, believing she is unlovable. Maybe she moved so fast in the relationship so that you don’t see her in the fast pace she was keeping (can’t see the details of a fast-moving object). Maybe she wanted to enjoy as much as possible of something she believed would end too soon.

Did she tell you that she needs No Contact with you while she attends therapy? It could have been a good idea to bring you along to her therapy session and continue the relationship- an invaluable opportunity for her, with your cooperation and the guidance of a competent therapist, to work on and heal her (emotional) injuries.

anita