Dear laeithia:

“I suppose the past has already happened, and there is nothing that can be undone”- in affect, the past keeps happening now, circulating in your brain- this is what your obsession is about, trying to resolve a past that is alive now.

The past cannot be undone but it can be resolved, only not via your obsession.

“I think is the openness of these men, the vulnerability and the neediness of their part for me that I crave… I idolized them as the perfect partners… Their flaws didn’t seem to matter, because I was so happy. I felt loved”- you relived your past childhood with these men (the past happening in the now for you, in those relationships). The openness, vulnerability and neediness you saw in them is your own, the child that you were and still are. You idolized them. You saw them as perfect- a child idolizes her parent. A child sees a parent as perfect.

“Their flaws didn’t matter”- a young child doesn’t see any flaws in a parent, the parent is perfect.

“However I would get jealous and insecure, and often ‘check’ if they were honest with me”- this is what you did as a child in regard to your mother and you keep doing it in the present when in a relationship, see, the past is alive in the now. You didn’t check to see  if your mother is angry with you by looking in social media, but you looked at her face, checking: is she angry with me now, does she hate me now?

“the more fulfilled I feel in a relationship, the more nervous/anxious I am that they might change their mind”- you relive the past, at any one time  your mother is kind to you, it feels good, but you are scared she will get angry at you at any time, that she will reject you when you are not expecting it… so you keep expecting it, checking, anxious.

“I am constantly angry with myself, and full of regrets”- this is you re-living your belief as a child, that you are at fault, that you caused your mother to be angry at you and to reject you.

I think that you yearn for love, the love you needed so desperately as a child and you are stuck in believing it was your fault that you didn’t experience it then.

At this point, it really doesn’t matter if you limit your contact with your mother, if you set boundaries or not. You are not living in the present, you are living in the past.

anita