Anita,

I am yet to find any posts of yours in other threads that I haven’t agreed with. The advice you’ve given to others has resonated with me. With other threads, it is clear for me to have an opinion, I guess because of my lack of involvement, I can think critically. But in my thread here, I find myself challenging your input, likely because I am heavily involved and cannot think critically. Logic would therefore dictate that it is my own inherent bias that is preventing me from moving forward, for the incite you give is surely consistent amongst all threads. That I can see, and is evident from your many posts on this forum. I apologise if you ever feel I am playing devil’s advocate. It is my own way of rationalising, and I find it helpful to counter the points you’ve made as it allows me to fully dissect the crux of the matter. Each time you’ve responded with helpful feedback and I can confidently speak for a number of lost souls on this site, we are lucky to have you here. Thank you.

My sister became closer with my father soon after mum passed away, she would have been 16, me 19. As soon as I finished university, I left for a year to go travelling the world. It turns out my sister felt very alone, and in this period she became much closer to our father, which is understandable to me. I do wonder if reconciling my relationship with Dad would help me heal. We were never close, partly because I always felt like he didn’t enjoy our company on the fortnights we shared growing up. I have never told him how I feel. Perhaps I will, I would like to know how things were between him and and Mum, especially as both myself and sister’s memory isn’t the greatest.

It may very well be that your sister hasn’t seen your mother as a Saint, not for a long, long time and so, she saw Reality better than you did, accepting it with some calm, and that does lead to better mental health.

She knew enough that she needed to move out from home. When she explained it to me in person during our heart-to-heart, she said that her wellbeing was at stake. So I think you’re right, she must have known and accepted that Mum was not a saint. I don’t think I could have ever moved out from home if it wasn’t for a natural excuse like university. I guess this is denial. I always felt like I had to protect mum’s image. I have never shared with anyone the frequency/intensity of the arguments we had growing up at home, until now.

-it makes sense to me: if a woman is cold, distant, may be seeing someone else and is not into-you, then you are safe from being stuck, or trapped with her. You do remember the arguments with your mother, you described here on your thread very distressing times with your mother. You don’t want that trapped experience again.

Bingo! I don’t know why I didn’t see this before. This explains why I get cold feet as soon as I sense they are into me, I don’t want to be trapped again.

I would like to explore my compulsion to “get them into me”. I really put a lot of effort in, and only to throw it all away as soon as I get it! I wonder if this drive, (obsession with wooing them to show me they like me) is somehow connected to Mum’s death also. It has been suggested to me in the past that I am attempting to replicate another relationship with my Mum. Which  of course is weird. I don’t even know what this actually means either. But it is odd how I work so hard to get shown they like me, to then just run away soon after. Always rushing in, have never gotten to know anyone. I call it “push/pull’ because it’s one extreme to another, and have barely got to know the person the meantime.

I am looking for a local counsellor to discuss things with. I aim to attend 1-2 times per week. You have shown me that my memories of childhood are hazy at best. I think it’s therefore a good place to start , but worry about how I am going to implement change in my life.  I am not going to ask a trivial question of how long this will take. But I would like to know what actions I can take that will maximise my chance of healing.  I want to resolve this, to enter into a relationship for the right reason and feel connected with my inner self.

Separately, I came across this video on Youtube. It is interesting and describes some of the symptoms I suffer. It led me to believe that my experience with women are nothing more than a “distraction” to help me avoid the fear/pain I am suffering.