Dear Anita,

I haven’t responded in a few days but I’ve been reading this post repeatedly. Thank you very much for this. When I try to think about this in a logical way, not automatic way as I’m learned to, it makes very big sense. It’s the feeling I probably never had, or had for a very short period of time and I connect this with my father because after divorce my life became worse – which is very twisted because they divorced because of my father’s drinking problem, so that I would have a “normal and calm life”, turned out my mother’s and her partner’s behavior towards me, their being aggressive (not physically), her silent treatments and criticizing me, his constant bullying, one day after another, started my self harming problems. The year we moved out, exactly. Exactly the moment my father disappeared  I started picking on my face, as I was 12 years old to this moment when I finally realized I’m doing this in may last year. Sometimes it stopped for year, two or three and it returned when I met this man. Now I try to do this consciously, when I do. It’s easier to stop then. I cant say it’s fully under my control but I can say it’s not automatic like before and I’m not hurting myself in a serious way like I did sometimes, it’s like 10% of what I used to do in the past.  Also thanks to you here.