Dear Christina:

“It makes me very sad that something so small has caused all this damage”- the peck on the ear was not what caused all this damage, the feelings you buried best you can were resurrected by that small event. These feelings were not gone, they were there all along and interfered with your life so far, only not in the overt ways of late.

“I’m hoping it will all go back to normal with time”- your eating, sleeping, yes, I hope so too, but if you attend quality therapy and heal, things in the future will be better than normal. Because, like I wrote above, that intense shame and self hate has been hurting you all along, only not in the forms of losing weight and sleep and so forth.

With adequate healing life will not be the same for you, it will be better.

You need therapy for at least a few months at this point, I am guessing, at least 30 sessions or so, hopefully less than six months of two sessions per week (again, I am guessing here). Let your boyfriend know that you believe or suspect that you identified that “something much deeper” that is causing your great distress and that you will need to work on it in therapy for a few months, maybe six months, and that you will let him know how therapy progresses.

While in therapy, during the coming few months, it is better- I believe- that you will not be in a gf-bf relationship with him, and instead be friends. It will simply be too uncomfortable for you otherwise.

anita