Dear Mina:

I strongly believe that our mental health depends on our thinking being congruent with reality. The more you, Mina, perceive reality as it is, the healthier, mentally, you will be.

This is why I encourage seeing reality as-it-is.

Over time, in your threads, you’ve been engaging in a lot of thinking that is not congruent with reality. I call it “convenient thinking”- it makes you feel better at the moment, for a short time, but you end up distressed as before, or worse. The feel-good of such thinking doesn’t last long.

Your distress over this relationship has been ongoing for a long time. At times you feel better, soon enough (too soon), you are distressed again.

I believe that you are too scared to see this as-it-is. But seeing it as it is- that is your hope for well-being, for peace of mind.

Example of your convenient thinking: what you thought following his reply to your happy birthday wishing. You thought that in his reply there was way, way more than what was in it, I believe. That made you feel better, for a while.

You asked:
“What kind of questions that I should ask?”- How are you? What changes happened in your thinking since we last spoke? How do you feel about your new university? About the military service to come? About your parents’ pressure? About our past relationship? Do you ever regret ending it/ are you satisfied that the breakup was right for you?

“What kind of information that I should tell him?”- depending on his responses to the above questions (and any other questions you may have for him), you can choose what to share with him.

“How can I make him understand my intention and my thoughts when I do not want to tell him anything regarding my depression, my panic and anxiety disorders, basically anything that will burden him?”- I don’t know that such information will burden him. I don’t know (and neither do you!) the nature of his current state of mind, whether his focus has been not at all on you. Your concern to burden him may be… well, not an issue for him.

anita