Dear grounded/Anna:

I figured I will look for the answers to my questions in your own words so I re-read your posts in the 2017 thread and the current one. My purpose is to attempt to be a bit helpful to you. You didn’t share anything about your childhood but I can tell some things about your childhood by reading about your experience in romantic relationships with men.

This is my understanding: as a child you were very much alone a lot of the time, not connected to your parents. Sometimes they were there for you and you felt happy, safe, content. But most often they were not there for you and you were sad alone, scared alone, feeling strong emotions, alone. There were your parents perhaps feeding you, taking care of you physically, but they didn’t know how you felt, didn’t notice, didn’t ask you: Anna, you look so sad, ell me… Or Anna, it hurts when a friend doesn’t want to  play with you, doesn’t it. .Stuff like that, paying attention to how you feel. Without their attention and help you were scared by the intensity of your feelings, confused, not understanding why you feel the way you did, and you were so very sad to be so alone.

As a child you adjusted best you can to this emotional/ social isolation at home, played on your own and did a good job at being on your own: “I can be happy on my own… I am not afraid of being alone, actually I am very good at it.. I’m good at being in my own company and doing things on my own”.

As an adult, a woman, you are still okay being alone until you start dating a man you are interested in and who is interested in you. Then the old need to connect, to be together, to be seen and heard and understood, awakens with intensity: “when I let people in I let them in 100%”, a 100% because the unsatisfied need of childhood is so strong still.

When you experience a breakup, the feelings of isolation as a child awaken: “I was in a really deep low for a very long time, all I could do was cry… I am still waiting for him to come back… I am waiting for the happiness that he made me feel… I feel afraid to leave him behind and I’m not sure where to conquer those fears… I’m afraid to be without him… I’m afraid to lose him… living with this hope that he might come back is hard.. I’m afraid… How do I give up and let go of the idea of being together with him?.. it’s me wanting to hear from him, seeing him.. tell me that he wants to be with me”.

Taking out the sexual element of romantic relationships, your feelings within a relationship and following a breakup are the same as you had as a child. The intensity of your need for the man, the intensity of your fear of being separated from the man are the same intensity you felt then for your parent/s. Basically, like all of us, we keep re-living our childhood experiences in the context of our adult lives.

For you to be less anxious in the context of relationships and otherwise, to be able to choose better, to develop a healthy, loving relationship with a man, you will need to examine and process some of your childhood experience, to understand it, to.. sort of take the hand of the child that you were and tell her that she is no longer alone. Take her hand and ask her questions, gently, explain feelings to her, so that feelings make sense to her, teach her. This will lessen the intensity of her need for another and the intensity of her fear and despair regarding this breakup.

anita